Who's This? Earth-12's answer to Infinity Inc.
The facts: A superhero parody feature appearing in Showcase #62, 63 and 65 (from May 1966), the Inferior Five got their own title a year later, lasting 10 issues (2 more all-reprint issues were published in '72). Merryman, Awkwardman, the Blimp, White Arrow, and Dumb Bunny (who was revealed to be Angel's sister in the 1991 Angel and the Ape mini-series) were the children of the Freedom Brigade, a Justice League parody on what was eventually dubbed Earth-12. They would then put in rare appearances - usually cameos - in DC's mainstream books, most notably in the aforementioned Angel and the Ape project, in Animal Man's take on Limbo, and in a JMS-penned issue of The Brave and the Bold (#35). An updated version of the team appeared in Bat-Mite in 2015. Villains United gave us Earth-3's equivalent, the Superior Five.
How you could have heard of them: Keith Giffen gave us an Inferior 5 mini-series that retroactively tied into Invasion! in 2019, the last two issues of which came out only digitally. Season 2 of Peacemaker actually features Dumb Bunny, though she is credited as "White Rabbit" - but that costume is unmistakable.
Example story: The Inferior 5 #10 (October 1968) "A Monster Rally!" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Win Mortimer and Tex Blaisdell
Look at that cover. A superhero parody comic can certainly bring in and make fun of "real" superheroes, even those that belong to the competition. It's hard to believe Spider-Man, Namor and the FF would actually star in a DC book though. Does the parody make it "fair use", or was there a lawsuit filed? After all, this is the last new issue of the series, with last couple reprinting earlier material years later. Did this KILL the Inferior Five? (Answer: No. Spidey and the FF had even appeared in earlier issues of the series. The parody characters were protected by entirely different names - Kookie Quartet (wait, shouldn't that be the Avengers?), Sub-Moron and Cobweb Kid - even if their looks are too close for legal comfort.) But they're not who I want to focus on today. Rather, let's meet the Five. There's an alien invasion brewing, but our heroes are somewhere else fighting a fireman's hose.
They're just flattening it to make it easier to roll up, not that anyone seems to have asked for that. Merryman, the team's leader, is disappointed: "3 hours to flatten a hose! I'm afraid our efficiency is slipping!" Is that true? Let the montage tell the story:
At this rate, people will start to call them the Inferior Five--oh wait. They embark on a self-improvement program that's sure to make them better heroes (and women cringe)...
But you see what we're working with here. A call goes out to all the super-heroes about the alien invasion, which the Five hear on their "Inferior-Wave Radio", but Superman hears it too (from Earth-1?) as do the Marvel Parody heroes. Do the Inferior Five have an Inferior-mobile? They sure do.
Well, of course, the other heroes are more competent at fighting aliens than our guys, but they can lend support. Like when Dumb Bunny sees that Sub-Moron needs water.
In a comic like this, he gets drunk rather than dry out and die, but same difference - the IF are more menace than help. They do get their lumps in eventually, when Mr. Manplastic covers the aliens like a tarp!
Due to friendly fire, all the Marvel heroes are soon down, the Five are surrounded, they start punching pretty effectively, and then the aliens pull an "evil eye" trick that paralyzes them. But don't worry, Superman arrives and saves the day. To the public's eye, their local heroes just STOOD there while Superman did all the work - no respect for the hypnotized. But they know they helped save the world, or at least, they're deluding themselves that they did. So where's the party?
THERE'S the party. And considering the Five were essentially cancelled just then, it's possible they were tarred and feathered out of continuity by, well, the pot would certainly be calling the kettle black there.
There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in this kind of strip. I don't dislike it, and I'd rather have the IF in the DCU (or DCM, at least) than not. They should do something with their parents, that'd be interesting. But even if modern comedy styling were brought to bear, their premise is SO broad, it's hard to imagine them being all that funny today. Already, they've walked back the overt "dumb blonde" trope for Bunny. I'm sure they were influential, though. Giffen's take on the Legion of Substitute-Heroes was a lot like this (and he used the Five in an issue of Ambush Bug, too). I think I'd kind of love a bumbling, well-meaning, Substitute Justice League in current continuity, even if no one else would.
Who's Next? A time loop victim.
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