Cabal (comics)

The Cabal is a secret society of supervillains and antiheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A villainous counterpart to the Illuminati, the group was formed in the "Dark Reign" storyline shortly after the "Secret Invasion" event.

The Cabal first appeared in Secret Invasion #8 and was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu.

During a presentation shown by Bendis during the 2008 convention season, a picture was made public of a second Illuminati group consisting of villains and former villains. Presented in the same pose as the cover of Illuminati #1, this group was revealed to include Namor, Doctor Doom, Emma Frost, Loki, The Hood, and Norman Osborn. Namor is revealed to be affiliated with two different Illuminati groups simultaneously allied with both heroes and villains.

Uncanny X-Men writer Matt Fraction mentioned in an interview that the Uncanny X-Men annual in January would explain how Frost was invited into the team. Loki was revealed to have dealings with Doom in the pages of Thor, and Namor was shown to have formed an alliance with Doom at the end of his last limited series. Namor had previously been aligned with Doom in the 1970s series Super-Villain Team-Up. A past connection between Frost and Namor was presented in Uncanny X-Men Annual #2, where it was revealed that Frost and Namor shared a brief romance while attempting to recruit Namor into the Hellfire Club as the new White King.

The group, referred as the Cabal in certain interviews and in Marvel Spotlight: Dark Reign, first appeared at the ending of Secret Invasion #8 when Osborn greets the villains after gaining control of the Fifty State Initiative program.

The Cabal parallels the original Illuminati and Bendis has said "[t]he idea was, in the original pitch, that there was a secret group, a cabal, that got put together that was the mirror image of the Illuminati, with five or six characters who almost mirrored the other group."

The Cabal are gathered for the second time since their first meeting (after the banishment of Thor), projected upon a psychic plane by Emma Frost, who reminds them to set up psychic shields. Doctor Doom scoffs arrogantly that he has no need of such things, and Loki cautions him otherwise, as they are all of dubious trustworthiness. Loki seeks to use her own Avengers to weaken and break Osborn, a goal shared by Doom and Namor, and gathers all of them once more in her previous guise as the Scarlet Witch.

Namor and Doctor Doom are secretly working behind Osborn's back, aware that their plots against Osborn could erupt into a massive battle. Morgan le Fay desperately attempts to warn Osborn that Doom will betray him, but he ignores her. Loki had been preparing to place "cracks" in Osborn's mental armor to hasten his eventual fall from power, using the Mighty Avengers for such a purpose, and scheming to set the Mighty Avengers against his Dark Avengers.