The Green Team is a

fictional Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places Place may refer to: Geography * Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population ** Census-designated place, ...

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

team of rich-kid adventurers published by

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

. The team debuted in ''

1st Issue Special ''1st Issue Special'' was a comics anthology series from DC Comics, done in a similar style to their ''Showcase'' series. It was published from April 1975 to April 1976. The goal was to showcase a new possible first issue of an ongoing series eac ...

'' #2 (May 1975), and was created by

Joe Simon Joseph Henry Simon (October 11, 1913 – December 14, 2011) was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s–1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the ...

and

Jerry Grandenetti Charles J. "Jerry" Grandenetti (April 15, 1926 – February 19, 2010) was an American comic book artist and advertising art director, best known for his work with writer-artist Will Eisner on the celebrated comics feature "The Spirit", and for h ...

. In its initial appearance, the group was subtitled "Boy Millionaires". In 2010s comics, a revamped version of the group appeared in a series subtitled "Teen Trillionaires", thus adjusting for both

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...

and the declining popularity of boy adventurers.

Publication history

The Green Team's first adventure appears in ''

'' #2 ( cover-dated May 1975), an anthology comic. For many years, this would be their only conventionally published appearance. Not long after their debut, a regular ''Green Team'' series went into production, but the

DC Implosion The "DC Explosion" and "DC Implosion" were two events in 1978 – the first an official marketing campaign, the second a sardonic reference to it – in which DC Comics expanded their roster of publications, then abruptly cut it back. The DC Explos ...

prevented it from reaching store shelves. Two issues had been completed at the time the series was cancelled, and these saw publication of a sort in the first volume of '' Cancelled Comic Cavalcade'' (Fall 1978), a two-volume collection DC Comics printed on photocopiers to secure copyrights on the stack of unpublished material left over after the DC Implosion. In the first of the two unpublished adventures, the boys are pitted against giant lobsters and the Russian Navy. In the second, the Green Team faces a villain called the Paperhanger who has special wallpaper that grows plants and trees, and who is a dead ringer for

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. In subsequent decades, the Green Team appeared in one panel of ''

Animal Man Animal Man (Bernhard "Buddy" Baker) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. As a result of being in proximity to an exploding extraterrestrial spaceship, Buddy Baker acquires the ability to temporarily "borrow" t ...

'' #25 (July 1990), and a single page of '' Adventures of Superman'' #549 (Aug. 1997), in which the boys meet the

Newsboy Legion The Newsboy Legion is a teenage vigilante group in the DC Comics Universe. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, they appeared in their own self-titled feature which ran from ''Star-Spangled Comics'' #7 (April 1942) to #64 (January 1947). In 1970, ...

and

Dingbats of Danger Street The Dingbats of Danger Street are a fictional comic book gang of kids published by DC Comics. The Dingbats debuted in ''1st Issue Special'' #6 (September 1975) and were created by Jack Kirby. Publication history According to inker Mike Royer, ''T ...

, financing a youth center for the two street gangs. Writer

Karl Kesel Karl Kesel (born January 7, 1959, Victor, New York) is an American comics writer and inker whose works have primarily been under contract for DC Comics. He is a member of Periscope Studio and is best known for his collaborations with fellow artis ...

explained that he was a fan of the Newsboy Legion, and brought in the other two boy groups as a counterpoint to the Newsboys, since all three were created by Joe Simon and/or Jack Kirby. Cecil Sunbeam and Abdul Smith, two members of the Green Team, appear in '' Ambush Bug: Year None'' #1 (Sept. 2008). As part of

The New 52 The New 52 is the 2011 revamp and relaunch by DC Comics of its entire line of ongoing monthly superhero comic books. Following the conclusion of the " Flashpoint" crossover storyline, DC canceled all its existing titles and debuted 52 new serie ...

reboot of DC's continuity, the Green Team and its sister book ''

The Movement The Movement may refer to: Politics * The Movement (Iceland), a political party in Iceland * The Movement (Israel), a political party in Israel, led by Tzipi Livni * Civil rights movement, the African-American political movement * The Movemen ...

'' were re-established in 2013. Written by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, and drawn by Ig Guara, the first issue debuted in May 2013 and focused on teens who use their financial resources to purchase power in the DC Universe, including super powers. This run lasted 8 issues and concluded in January 2014.

Fictional character biographies

The only prerequisite for joining the Green Team is possession of at least

one million One million (1,000,000), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the au ...

dollars, primarily in cash. The boys pay fortunes to anyone who can offer them a worthy adventure. In their first story, they fund the "Great American Pleasure Machine", a sort of

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

ride that brings so much pleasure, it drives the villain of the piece insane. A text page in ''

'' #2 (May 1975) explains, their jumpsuit uniforms have many pockets for money, with special locks, and they carry ticker-tape wristwatches, a chain of keys that unlock any of their many labs and money vaults in far-flung lands, and a quarter-million dollars each.

Membership

Original

*Commodore Murphy - a boy shipping magnate. *J.P. Huston - a

Texan Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

oil tycoon. *Cecil Sunbeam - a

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

known as the "Starmaker". *Abdul Smith - an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

shoeshine boy who received half a million dollars due to a bug in his bank's computer. He shrewdly multiplied that stake, returned it to the bank, and had a million dollars left.

The New 52

*Commodore Murphy - the leader of the group, who is into electronics. He is also interested in superhero-related materials. He is affectionately referred to as "64" within the group, an

inside joke An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...

related to his trust fund; he will inherit 64 trillion dollars from his family when he turns twenty-one. *J.P. Houston - a Texan who comes from "old money". He is Latino and has a sister named Lucia Lynn (L.L.) who often spends time with the group. He has misgivings about Commodore's interest in "this superhero thing" and how it will affect the group. *Cecilia Sunbeam - a big-time actress. People whisper about her: "She's a celebrity, and she has all the problems that go with that". *Mohammad Qahtanii - a modern

prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

, and the youngest member of the Team.

References

External links

DCU Guide: The Green TeamGreen Team
at the Grand Comics Database
Green Team
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on August 29, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Green Team DC Comics titles DC Comics superheroes DC Comics teams Comics characters introduced in 1975 Characters created by Joe Simon