Vicious Circle (comics)

Infobox comics organization
name=Vicious Circle


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caption=
publisher=Image Comics
debut="Savage Dragon Mini-Series" #1
creators=Erik Larsen
type=Criminal organization
business=
organisation=
organization=y
base= Mobile throughout Chicago
owners=Overlord
employees=Abner Cadaver
BrainiApe
Cyberface
Skullface
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cat=organized crime groups
subcat=
sortkey=PAGENAME|The Vicious Circle is a criminal organization of mutants, cyborgs, monsters, assassins, and magicians that serves as the primary opponents for the superheroes in Erik Larsen's comic-book titles. The group has a varying line-up, sometimes consisting of five-to-six members and sometimes having a staggeringly huge membership. Originally the Vicious Circle was led by the Overlord, an armored mastermind who ruled all of Chicago's underworld. Later, it would be ruled by the technology controlling Cyberface. Once the Savage Dragon started policing the streets of Chicago, the Vicious Circle began to falter and its members started winding up in prison, the hospital or just plain dead. The Vicious Circle remains a consistent thorn in the Savage Dragon's side, and frequently faces off with the SuperPatriot and others including Raphael of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For example, during issues 10 and 11 of the series run with Image, he took on the entire Vicious Circle himself in a bar fight.

The Circle desires to utterly control Chicago. Members have attacked the Dragon time and time again, willing to kill anyone who gets in their way. Occasionally, they use subtler methods. Using insiders, they have Dragon fired and replaced with a more buffonish superpowered hero, She-Dragon. However, this plan fails as She-Dragon is carefully trained by other police officers and becomes a credible threat.

The Circle is briefly part of the superhero/gang war that erupts in New York City, as mentioned in "Wildcats" #28.

Circle members are part of the heroic resistance when Martians attack Earth, though they try to claim power and territory once the Dragon kills all the aliens.

After the alien invasion, the Dragon shrunk much of their group with a Martian device, sucked them up in a vacuum cleaner and tossed them out the window. The shrunken members were then used to free other members from jail.

Presumably, the Vicious Circle, along with most of Earth, are dead after a cosmic entity named Universo attacks the planet. Some people of this Earth survived to travel to another, but it is not known whether any Circle members did.