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, primarily the Dragon.
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.
First conceived as "Bronzeman", a sort of criminal counterpart to Iron Man, Larsen later found he disliked the name and changed it to Overlord.
Overlord is a Chicago-based crime lord named Antonio Seghetti with extensive ties to the Mafia and the European pocket nation of Lieberheim.
Donning the armor, Saghetti dubs himself Overlord and recruits countless superhuman thugs into his criminal empire, calling the group the Vicious Circle.
[4] These stated goals suffer a setback after the Dragon, overcome by his previous persona of evil Emperor Kurr, kills many of the Circle's powered forced.
The mob had a healthy relationship with the small country of Lieberheim and it's ruthless dictator, Dread Knight, was given a prototype suit of armour to increase his influence of power, as well as constructing him a legion of android soldiers, the Dreadheads.
In this new role, the crime lord was forced to remain within his suit or face certain death from the freaks he has subdued and recruited into his new organisation, the Vicious Circle.
The villain was partially resurrected before the facility was destroyed, and CyberFace wandered back to Chicago and was manipulated by Octopus, planning to use him to conquer the Vicious Circle.
Due to the incomplete resurrection, CyberFace slowly began to degenerate and was saved from death by Abner Cadaver, who infused him with the life essences of some of the Undead.
This lifeforce was very unstable, and when CyberFace attempted to conquer Chicago in light of the Martian invasion, he was destroyed by a single punch from the Dragon.
Octopus, OpenFace and PowerHouse revived CyberFace in the gorilla body of BrainiApe, and he stole the OverLord armour from the government as part of a bid to reclaim the Vicious Circle, now under the leadership of Horde.
When the Cosmic Cops invaded Earth in 1994, they managed to decimate much of New York City and looked set to expand their precincts to contain much of the planet.
Three years later when the Martians launched their mammoth invasion of Earth and destroyed much of the planet, CyberFace again came to humanity's rescue, albeit to serve his own selfish gains.
CyberFace defeated these latest aggressors and added their technology to his growing cache of equipment was able to seize complete control of Earth and became the King of the World.
He carried out a failed assassination attempt which has earned him the unenviable position of being public enemy number one with a huge bounty on his head.
Over the next few years, Dragon proceeded to gather together a resistance movement that consisted of abandoned Vicious Circle members, the Underground Freaks and other freedom fighters.
Dragon led an assault upon the White House which prompted CyberFace to flee up to the starship of Vanguard's but was unable to hide from his arch-enemy.
This then allowed the hero to free Vanguard so that they can gas CyberFace, leaving him locked away in case his incredible abilities are needed to save the Earth in the future.
Horde is a fictional villain in the comic book series Savage Dragon where he, 50 issues, a secret antagonist, plotting events from behind the scenes.
Duplicated bodies of the worm covered Fon~Ti at the command of his old rival Abner Cadaver and used him to slowly take control of Chicago's super-powered criminal underworld.
First the homeless freak The Shrew; then veteran hero Superpatriot; The Dragon himself, causing him to go on a mindless rampage nearly destroying the city of Chicago; vigilante Mace and wannabe heroine She-Dragon; before taking control of criminal Cyberface.
The Vicious Circle under Horde's leadership cause enough problems to force The Dragon to return from Washington DC and deal with them himself in a final battle in the series' fiftieth issue.
During the battle at their headquarters and despite Horde using She-Dragon's power gloves, The Dragon is able to kill off the Wicked Worms covering Fon~Ti with a can of industrial insect killer.
CyberFace became a mindless pawn of Octopus and was entombed below the city of Chicago to prevent his discovery by the police that very much wanted him back to testify against OverLord.
CyberFace and Octopus were soon joined by PowerHouse and then Baby Boom and OpenFace in building up a rebellion against the rule of Horde over the Vicious Circle.
This attempt left both Horde and CyberFace dead, leaving PowerHouse, BrainiApe and OverLord II battling for sole leadership.
OpenFace and Octopus aided the miniaturised Dataman in analysing and reversing a shrinking gun for the smaller Vicious Circle members so that the criminal organisation could return to full capacity.
Octopus and OpenFace remained hidden for years and combined their efforts to draw the OverLord armour down from space where it was found by the Chicago Police Department.
The duo fell in line behind the new OverLord and worked as his chief scientists, creating a way to employ Dragon's blood to restore older Vicious Circle members to their former glory, albeit with a Dragon-ised appearance.