Who's This? Earth-2's answer to the Inferior 5.
The facts: Created by Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway to be a companion book to All-Star Squadron (and indeed, premiering in issue 25 of that title, September 1983) and exploring the present-day Earth-2 (which had been left behind after the cancellation of the All-Star Comics revival of the late 70s) through the JSA's legacy, Infinity Inc. was an early Direct Sales-only book that ran from March 1984 through June 1988 (53 issues). Led by the Star-Spangled Kid, it starred the children (biological and not) of the Justice Society and some of their villains. After their series, they disbanded quietly and never really reformed. The name was used by other heroes, with no link to the original team.
How you could have heard of them: Several of the members have, of course, appeared elsewhere - Fury/Lyta in Sandman, Jade and Obsidian in JSA comics, etc.). There's a Stargirl TV two-parter titled "Infinity Inc.", serving as a backdoor pilot for and Infinity show, but it didn't lead anywhere. Face it, it's a weird name for a superhero group.
Example story: Infinity Inc. #12 (March 1985) "Press Conference!" by Roy & Dann Thomas, Don Newton, Joe Rubinstein, Tim Burgard and Tony DeZuniga
It's a year into Infinity Inc. and the team is due for a rest issue for character development reasons. Great! That should give us a nice cross-section of the characters (which each have their own entries anyway) and their interpersonal dynamics. The issue focuses on a press conference where the team will announce their existence, officially. Well, if these dang teenagers can get out of bed in time.
That lump in the bed is Fury, signalling that this isn't Code-Approved, kids! Heroes in a sexual relationship! Hector utters some light profanity! Slaps a butt and brags about banging all night! Does Wonder Mom know about this? Anyway, one quick change later (no shower, eww), they're off to Hollywood for the red-carpet event. Notably, despite not appearing in the Who's Who entry, both Power Girl and Huntress - like the Star-Spangled Kid, members of the 70s JSA - were originally Infinitors. It's not just the Kid wanting to have two beauties on his arms.
Choosing Hollywood at their base of operations, and obviously more media-savvy than their precursors - they involve the press, they sell merch - this is a team that's meant to tap into 80s youth culture - at least as Roy sees it - than the other youthquake examples out at the time. Everyone but Brainwave arrives on time, including the Silver Scarab and Fury, the latter obviously wanting to be seen as her own woman and not a hanger-on.
The world watches, including the JSA (parents) who show a mix of worry and pride. The mayor of Los Angeles is in attendance to welcome the city's first superhero team, and the Kid announced Infinity Inc. will move into the old Stellar Movie Studios, which he inherited. Next, he introduces the team's charter members, but Huntress and Power Girl take the moment to announce they won't be staying, as they see themselves as East Coast heroes and can't leave Gotham and Metropolis where they have taken Batman and Superman's places, respectively. (Did any readers at the time go "Well, THAT'S my jumping off point!"?) Huntress also lets slip that she's Batman's daughter, shocking the press, so I guess the Infinity Inc. announcement per se is going to get buried in the back pages of the paper.
Question time:
Hey are you nepo-babies, or NEPO nepo-babies? Are you already typecast even before your first role? (There's also one about whether Star-Spangled Kid is a good name for a 55-year-old.) Good thing Brainwave arrived in time to make the assembly laugh. The press conference is then interrupted by activists against having superheroes in Los Angeles (well, there is a precedent for mayhem there), although it might be a mistake to point at Nuklon's chest emblem as "proof" of danger. Al Pratt's godson is about to show us why.
He's big, he's atomic-powered, but he's endearing. That kind of shut the activists down. Yolanda Montez makes her first appearance as a reporter (she'll become the new Wildcat during the Crisis). Hard-hitting, she not, though. "Does that mohawk mean you're a 'punker'?" Sheesh. Her follow-up about Northwind's origins is better. Then the REAL question comes - although Roy makes it come from a disreputable source, the "Inquisitor", which surely evokes the "Enquirer" - and it's about Brainwave's father being a super-villain. Which causes Junior to psionically blast everyone in anger. And the Kid was about to send everyone home with a kind of Beatles's press conference feeling, too. I think someone needs a time-out in the ladies'.
On the back of this, Brainwave leaves the team (for a bit). That Inquisitor guy's follow-up is outing Hector Hall as the Silver Scarab and as Hawkman and Hawkgirl's son. So Hector unmasks (which unmasks his parents), announces his engagement to Fury, and this in turn provokes Nuklon to unmask, too!
I mean, you're this close to giving supervillains your mom's address here... Northwind loses the mask, too, but nobody cares. And then they're all giving their real names on TV. You'd think if there was one villain who wouldn't take advantage of this in an evil way, it would be Jade and Obsidian's secret bio-mom, Harlequin, but she shows up to mock the heroes, slap Jade upside the head with her mandolin, and provide a bit of action. She might have revealed who she was to them, but I guess there was already a LOT of news coming out of this presser already.
I wasn't an Infinity Inc. reader - no access to the Direct Market at the time - and coming into it while the Thomases are reshuffling the deck like this, I like the team more, at least until the end where they're clearly being irresponsible with their parents' secrets. I get that they're going for a public, even VERY public, team premise here, but secret identities are a thing for a REASON. I'm sure nothing bad happens because of this, right?
Who's Next? A movie studio.
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