Created by writer E. Nelson Bridwell and artist Joe Orlando, the team premiered in the DC Comics title Showcase #62 (May-June 1966).

[2] In early appearances, the team encountered spoofs of Marvel Comics heroes, including the Man-Mountain and the Egg's Men.

Although the Inferior Five's original stories made frequent references to other prominent DC heroes, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!

in The Oz–Wonderland War #3 revealed their adventures to have occurred on "Earth-Twelve", which had its own doppelgangers of the JLA, the Teen Titans, etc., meaning that any such references were out of continuity in relation to the heroes of DC's primary Earth-One.

Members of the Justice League of America had cameos in the series, indicating that the Inferior Five now existed on the Post-Crisis Earth.

Steve Gerber proposed a Vertigo version of the Inferior Five as a send-up of the "dark 'n' gritty" comics of the period, but this was rejected.