A couple responses:

"Every character, from Deadshot to Luthor to Parademon to Cheshire to Scandal to Doctor Psycho to freaking Catman, absolutely HAD to be not just a badass, but a Super Ultra Mega-Ellis-Level Too-Cool-For-School Jim Lee Pose-Striking Look-How-Badass-I-Am Badass who just got off the bus from two weeks of summertime Badass Fantasy Camp."

Okay, while that is a freaking hilarious line, it's not how I found the characters. Catman actually has to psyche himself up when he takes on all the Society baddies. Ragdoll proves to be a kid trying to live up to his daddy. Parademon is the ultimate abused child, a product of Granny Goodness' orphanage. (Which may explain the clown fixation.) Maybe I'm reading too much into it here, but I got the feeling that villainy, for these guys, was an extension of that posing that bullies and other young psychopaths do -- trying to make the world as scared of them as they are of it.

And then, in contrast, you have the genuinely vicious psychopaths, like the Crime Doctor, who really love their work. And the Society is scarier for having them on board.

"It’s a nice sentiment expressed well, but it feels like meta-commentary. Would Blake really say something like that? Why does he care if the Justice League “plays fair”? He never does."

Actually, this fit perfectly for me, and it was because of the characterization. Blake admired the heroes even more because he knew he could never equal them. And when they sunk to his level, I can see it being painful to him.

Of course, it works as a pretty nice meta-commentary, too...

So Gail making him cool again was nice.

Alan Grant wrote him as refusing to kill civilians and abiding by his word in Legends of the Dark Knight #7-9, and Dough Moench -- who'd previously written an out-of-continuity version of Tom Blake as a woman-hating serial murderer -- wrote the older version into a heroic scene in Blackgate: Isle of Men, one of the No Man's Land crossover specials.

Considering that his original motivation was simple boredom, and that he'd briefly considered superheroing as a lark before deciding that Batman had that sewn up and thus presented a challenge for the "villain" side of the role-play, his turn in VU wasn't entirely alien to the character.

Gail

Gage's Deadshot mini-series gave him a family, and thus a reason to care about life. I feel like the Deadshot we see in VU went a step further, and actually considered the morality of his actions (especially in regards to killing his friend's surrogate family). Although lacking a center of greater morality (e.g. he kills, he commits other crimes), Deadshot developed a center of personal morality.

If I misused "morality" when I meant "ethics," feel free to substitute as needed.

Ms. Simone was very consistent, IMO, with that characterization in Villains United.

I'm not sure I'd call the Secret Six "heroic" after VU either; they're just trying to survive at this point.

Gail

Wow, this is SO not true. There was NO thought of a Secret Six ongoing, and in fact, Dan was actively against it, because he felt, understandably, that we just made the villains all bad again, and SS could dilute that a little bit.

But as the series went on, response was great, and eventually, after the book was over, Dan graciously allowed the mini.

Oh, and GREAT ARTICLE, Greg. Obviously, I'm biased, but I really love the thoughtful approach of your stuff here, and I'm delighted you guys came over to CBR.

Best wishes,

Gail

And I also have a problem with just cramming that many iterations of the Posing Badass archetype into a book I'm supposed to take seriously. When everyone in the book communicates in a language of hissed threats and macho posturing, I get sick of listening to them very quickly.

In Christos Gage's recent mini, he wound up becoming a full fledged hero for a time to protect the little girl he didn't even know he had and her mother. But seeing that his enemies would always be coming after him, he faked his own death and made sure Green Arrow would pay attention a little more to the Star City neighborhood Zoe and her mother live in.

Sadly seconded. Her comics work has just never clicked for me, and I'm not sure why, and it's a shame.

Not so strange considering what he did in Identity Crisis.

I do believe, however, that you might be giving Gail Simone, as good a writer as she is, a little too much credit for this one. It appears to me that she did have a mandate from the higher-ups, specifically: "We want to launch a new Secret Six ongoing, so we need you to establish six villains as a 'team' in opposition to the Society, and turn them into people the audience can root for." Thus, the suddenly "heroic" Catman, Deadshot, et. al. Their abrupt "heroic" streak seems to simply be a calculated move on the part of Simone and the DC higher-ups to turn them into the stars of their own book, stars that the reader can get behind as "heroes."

This is not to say that the new Secret Six book is bad; I'm enjoying it, as well. I agree with you that Simone is a talented writer who has risen above the mandate given to her. I'm just saying that Villains United still has the same taint of editorial control and out-of-character portrayals (with regard to the Secret Six) as the other IC books; that taint is diluted, however, by the interesting concept and Simone's skillful writing.