Justifiers

JUSTIFIERS

Membership: None named

Base of Operations: Mobile

First Appearance: Forever People I #3 (June-July, 1971)

Powers: The Justifiers were infused with Anti-Life and wired with explosives that emitted omega rays and made them into suicide bombers. Some Justifiers wore “flight-shoes” and rode air-van shuttles that enabled them to hover and fly. Others were armed with heavy artillery, including the devastating Induction Rifle. The Justifiers wore helmets that bent their will to Darkseid’s whims, and they could justify anything for their loyalty to Darkseid, be it unfathomable cruelty, wanton destruction, or even the sacrifice of their own lives.

History: (Forever People I #3) - Darkseid sent Glorious Godfrey to Earth to win over the populace. Godfrey gave a rally extolling the virtues of anti-life as a protection from the fears of life and as a justification of executing anyone who threatened you. The audience tapped into their own secret dark desires to live out revenge fantasies, and to follow a commanding force. Godfrey presented anti-life as a gift from Darkseid and made his newfound followers into Justifiers, thoughtless automaton soldiers loyal to Darkseid and infused with anti-life, making them into suicide bombers. Godfrey sent legions of Justifiers to track down and destroy the Forever People, to round up citizens they deemed scapegoats, to burn books, and to enforce martial law. Godfrey prepared for his next performance, crowing that his Justifiers were mindless zombies in his thrall, when a Justifier alerted him that the Forever People were approaching. Godfrey was miffed that his Justifiers had failed him, but gave them another chance to dispose of the heroes. The Forever People switched places with Infinity Man, who disrupted the rally and destroyed the organ Godfrey used to hypnotize new candidates, but Darkseid appeared and used his omega beams to send Infinity Man back to his home space, returning the Forever People. Darkseid’s henchman Desaad subdued the Forever People, and the Justifiers took them to Desaad’s Camp of the Damned, where he was searching for a human mind that possessed the Anti-Life Equation. Godfrey told Darkseid that although he believed in the concept of Anti-Life, he thought it could only be induced in others through his type of brainwashing. Darkseid called him a precious, but shallow child, and assured him that Anti-Life existed.

(Forever People I #6, 7) - The Justifiers performed a security sweep around Godfrey’s tent and found the Forever People’s Super-Cycle. When they attempted to destroy it, it went into defensive mode and picked them off. Godfrey decided that this just wouldn’t do and assembled some new recruits, who volunteered to attack the Super-Cycle. One of the Justifiers asked Godfrey if his secret for making men ready to leap to their death was the Anti-Life creed or the Justifier uniform. Godfrey assured him that he just allowed the Justifiers to use the skills they’d been given at birth. The Forever People escaped Desaad’s prison-camp Happyland and destroyed it, freeing the multitude of prisoners within. As the police responded the Justifier guards flew off to rejoin Godfrey. Darkseid retaliated against the Forever People using his Omega Effect, sending them into a different time and space, sparing only Serifan. Serifan made his way back to Glorious Godfrey’s encampment to retrieve the Super-Cycle just as the Justifiers prepared to destroy it. After suffering serious losses the Justifiers used a heavy artillery Induction Rifle to collapse a mountain on the Super-Cycle. Glorious Godfrey appreciated the wreckage as a fitting tribute to Darkseid’s power, but decided it was time for him and the Justifiers to break tents and move elsewhere.

Comments: Created by Jack Kirby.