DeSaad: the torturer and the armourer of Darkseid
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Everything you need to know about DeSaad, the New God who runs Darkseid’s laboratories. You will see where he comes from, why his name points to an 18th century writer and what he actually does on Apokolips. This article traces his creation by Jack Kirby in 1971, his origin revealed twenty years later, his two captures of Superman and his roles on screen. You will also see what should not be credited to him.
📋 Contents
- DeSaad: who is this New God in the service of Darkseid?
- Born in a Superman title: the Fourth World of Jack Kirby
- The origin of DeSaad: a child of New Genesis turned by Darkseid
- The method of the façade: from Happyland to the Dark Side Club
- Powers and means: what a New God knows how to do
- The armourer of Apokolips: laboratories, Parademons and weapons delivered
- Face to face with Superman: jailer twice, defeated once
- The conspirator: a right-hand man who betrays his master
- DeSaad in animation: from the Super Powers Team to Kite Man
- DeSaad in live action: Smallville, then the Snyder Cut
- FAQ — Frequently asked questions
- Conclusion
DeSaad: who is this New God in the service of Darkseid?
DeSaad is a New God. He has no civilian identity, no real name hidden behind an alias: DeSaad, and that is all. The sources spell him two ways, DeSaad or Desaad, and both spellings have been in circulation for more than fifty years. His side has a name, the Darkseid’s Elite, the inner circle of the master of Apokolips. The reference entries present him as the right-hand man of Darkseid and as his chief interrogator.
Three designations are attested for him: “Doctor Dezard”, “god of torture” and “Grand Director”, the list being attached to O.M.A.C. (vol. 4) #1-4. The word “armourer”, for its part, is not a DC designation; it sums up what he builds, the reference entries describing him as an inventor of weapons and devices.
The important point fits in one sentence: DeSaad is not a fighter. He equips, he locks up, he interrogates, he administers. Where a cold intelligence that came from space or a body riddled with kryptonite attack head-on, he works behind the scenes.
Key Facts
- Name: DeSaad, also spelled Desaad. No known civilian identity.
- First appearance: The Forever People #2, cover dated April-May 1971, story “Super War!”
- Creator: Jack Kirby on script and pencils, Vince Colletta on inks
- Species: New God, presented as born on New Genesis then gone over to the service of Apokolips
- Side: Darkseid’s Elite, the inner circle of Darkseid
- Family: Bernadeth, his younger sister, leader of the Female Furies
Born in a Superman title: the Fourth World of Jack Kirby
DeSaad was not imported into the universe of Superman: he was born in it. In October 1970, Jack Kirby launches his Fourth World saga in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133, the title devoted to the young photographer of the Daily Planet. The following issue shows Darkseid in a last-page cameo, on a screen, as the hidden boss of Morgan Edge, a character from the daily paper of Metropolis.
The three Fourth World series follow: New Gods #1 in March 1971, Mister Miracle #1 in April, then The Forever People. It is in this last title, in #2 cover dated April-May 1971, that DeSaad comes on stage, in a story entitled “Super War!”. The same issue introduces Mantis. Some entries also list him in New Gods #2, published in the same month, but one of them attaches a “to be verified” to the mention: the simultaneous double appearance is not established.
He stays present right to the end of the first cycle: Forever People #11, cover dated October-November 1972, is the last issue of the series. Kirby was not able to unroll his conclusion at the time; it would arrive in 1985 with The Hunger Dogs, designed to close the story of the New Gods on the uprising of Apokolips.
The origin of DeSaad: a child of New Genesis turned by Darkseid
For more than twenty years, DeSaad has no origin story. It arrives in 1993, in Eclipso #10, cover dated August 1993, in the course of a game of chess between Darkseid and Eclipso. There Darkseid explains how he got his hands on a young inhabitant of New Genesis, the planet across the way, the one of the New Gods who stayed on the right side.
The method is simple, and that is what makes it chilling. Darkseid makes the child believe that his cat has killed his bird and pushes him into punishing the animal. Then the bird reappears, very much alive: the punishment had no reason to exist. The child, driven mad with rage, kills the bird and leaves New Genesis to follow Darkseid.
This scene is the key to the character: DeSaad was not born cruel, he was manufactured. He is a victim turned into a torturer, and it is Darkseid himself who recounts the operation as a success. His name goes the same way, since it refers to the marquis de Sade. The nod stops there: in the fiction, DeSaad has no link at all with the 18th century writer. His assistant is called Justeen, another literary reference, but no source consulted dates her first appearance.
The method of the façade: from Happyland to the Dark Side Club
Forever People #4, cover dated August-September 1971 and entitled “The Kingdom of the Damned”, sets up the scenery that sums up his job: Happyland, an amusement park that is nothing but a façade. Out front, rides and laughter; behind, DeSaad and his installation. The detail does not need to be told: what counts is the principle, cruelty organised under cover of entertainment. Apokolips does not send an army, it opens an attraction.
It is also the episode where the opposite side takes back the advantage: the Mother Box of the Forever People escapes from Happyland and ends up in the hands of Sonny Sumo. DeSaad does not lose in combat, he loses because his façade has a leak.
Thirty-seven years later, the same method comes back in a business suit. DeSaad operates on Earth in human form, under the name of doctor Bud Fogel, and builds himself a respectability by publicly criticising the Everyman project of Lex Luthor. Under that cover, he traps Infinity, Inc. in the second series of the title, published in 2007-2008, then conditions the Infinitors for the tournament of the Dark Side Club in Terror Titans (2008-2009). Fogel is not another character: it really is him, under a borrowed face.
Powers and means: what a New God knows how to do
Like all the New Gods, DeSaad lives a very long time and takes what no human would take. Strength, endurance and reflexes sit well above the human scale. The entries credit him in addition with a mental side: telepathy, manipulation of emotions, creation of illusions. Energy absorption and teleportation are on the list as well.
On paper, that would make a serious adversary. In fact, the gap with the Man of Steel is such that he almost never attempts the direct confrontation. His file looks less like that of a bounty hunter who hits first than that of a military engineer: he prepares, he equips, he observes.
That is what makes him singular among the enemies of Superman. The threat does not come from his power, but from what he puts into the hands of others. An adversary like a living siphon is dangerous by nature; DeSaad is dangerous by function. Stripped of his laboratories, there would not be much left of him.
The armourer of Apokolips: laboratories, Parademons and weapons delivered
The two reference entries use the same formula about him: inventor of weapons and devices. That is where the word “armourer” in the title of this article comes from, which is an editorial summary and not an official designation at DC. What the stories show, on the other hand, is very concrete.
Justice League: War (2014) hands him the line that turns the captured species into Parademons: he does not fight, he supervises a factory. Justice League Action gives him command of ships equipped with Parademons and a Mother Box worn on the belt. In Young Justice, he delivers weapons of Apokolips to Intergang and acts as an ally of the Light. Every time, the same role: logistics.
That is why he is useful to the story. Darkseid is an idea, the idea of submission; without DeSaad, Apokolips stays an abstraction. With him, it has laboratories and suppliers. He is not a conqueror who turns up with his weapon-planet, and he does not claim to be.
| Character | His function alongside Darkseid |
|---|---|
| DeSaad | He equips, he detains, he interrogates. The laboratories are his. |
| Bernadeth | His younger sister, leader of the Female Furies, armed with a white-hot knife (Mister Miracle #6, February 1972). |
| Granny Goodness | She trains the recruits. The two coexist in Smallville season 10. |
| Steppenwolf | The military command. With DeSaad in Justice League vol. 2 #6 and in Zack Snyder’s film. |
| Kanto | The assassin. He accompanies DeSaad in “The Fatal Fare” (2017). |
| Kalibak | The son of Darkseid, the brute force. |
| Mantis | An energy parasite, who appeared in the same issue as DeSaad. |
Face to face with Superman: jailer twice, defeated once
DeSaad has held Superman prisoner on two occasions, five years apart. First in Justice League vol. 2 #6, cover dated April 2012, which closes the “Origin” arc of the New 52: on Apokolips, DeSaad and Steppenwolf are holding the Man of Steel. What the issue documents stops there: the two of them discuss the cloning of the prisoner’s DNA in order to manufacture a new race of Parademons.
Then in Justice League Action, the episode “The Fatal Fare” aired on 15 July 2017, this time on a moon. There Darkseid, DeSaad and Kanto use the virus lodged in their Mother Box to subdue Superman, and it is a manoeuvre by Space Cabbie, who brings in Hawkman and Swamp Thing, that turns the situation around. The databases diverge on the numbering of the episode, 28 for some and 31 for others; the date, for its part, is cross-checked.
The third meeting turns out otherwise: in Justice League: War (2014), it is Superman who kills DeSaad, once the conversion process into Parademons has reached him in his turn. The scene is of interest to anyone looking into the character’s refusal to kill, and it happens in an animated film, not in the continuity of the comics. Hand to hand, DeSaad never beats Superman: he holds him, he studies him, or he equips the opposite side.
The conspirator: a right-hand man who betrays his master
His real weakness is not physical. The reference profile says it without detour: he has conspired against his sovereign on several occasions. The animation takes that logic all the way, since in Justice League, the episode “Twilight, Part I” aired on 5 July 2003, Darkseid kills him for having criticised his offensive on the Anti-Life Equation — the only killing of DeSaad by his master that is clearly dated. You often read that Darkseid is supposed to have killed him and then brought him back an incalculable number of times with Omega Beams: no source consulted attaches that claim to a precise issue.
The years 2007-2009 keep him busy on two other fronts. In Countdown to Final Crisis, he captures Martin Stein and hijacks the Firestorm matrix; the Atomic Knight separates him from it and he flees. Then in Final Crisis (2008-2009), the event signed by Grant Morrison, he possesses Mary Marvel, which leads to the clash between her and the Kryptonian cousin of Superman. The exact issue is not established: two sources attest to it, but cite two different numbers.
He survives everything, including the big editorial reshuffles: he is among the antagonists of Justice League: The Darkseid War, the saga by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok published in 2015-2016, where the whole League is drawn into the war against the Anti-Monitor. There again, he is in the engine room.
DeSaad in animation: from the Super Powers Team to Kite Man
DeSaad has been on screen since 1985: René Auberjonois lends him his voice in The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (7 September to 26 October 1985, eight episodes), the last series of the Super Friends franchise. Twelve years later, he is at Darkseid’s side in Superman: The Animated Series: “Father’s Day”, fifteenth episode of the second season, aired on 3 October 1997, with Robert Morse — it is Kalibak, and not him, who goes down to face the Man of Steel. Auberjonois takes the role back in 2003 for “Twilight, Part I”. Then come Dee Bradley Baker in Young Justice, Jason J. Lewis in Justice League Action and Phil LaMarr in Kite Man: Hell Yeah! in 2024.
On the animated feature side, Bruce Thomas voices him in Justice League: War (2014), a version from a parallel universe appears without a line in Justice League: Gods and Monsters and James Arnold Taylor plays him in the Lego version. One detail counts for anyone following the thread of the DC animated series: his name is absent from the published voice cast of the 2020 animated adaptation centred on Darkseid, which is nevertheless the film where you would expect him most.
DeSaad in live action: Smallville, then the Snyder Cut
In live action, DeSaad appears first in the tenth and last season of Smallville (2010-2011), played by Steve Byers: one of the three emissaries who prepare the coming of Darkseid, along with Gordon Godfrey and Granny Goodness. The showcase episode is “Masquerade”, aired on 18 February 2011, where Chloe and Oliver investigate him; this version has psionic powers. The sources diverge on his first-appearance episode, and the complete cast of the series does not settle it.
His first appearance in cinema comes late measured against the list of the films of the Man of Steel: Peter Guinness plays him, voice and motion capture, in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, put online on 18 March 2021, as the executor of Darkseid’s will and the liaison agent with Steppenwolf. He had been filmed for the 2017 version and then taken out of the cut released in cinemas. For the rest of the DCU, no verified information is available: neither an announced presence, nor a confirmed absence.
FAQ — Frequently asked questions
Who is DeSaad in DC Comics?
He is a New God in the service of Darkseid, on Apokolips. His job is technical: he invents weapons and devices, runs the laboratories and guards the prisoners of value. The reference entries make him the right-hand man of Darkseid and his chief interrogator.
DeSaad or Desaad: which spelling should you write?
Both are in circulation: DeSaad in the English-language encyclopedias and the specialist press, Desaad in the DC databases and in the credits of Smallville. Neither of them is wrong.
What is the first appearance of DeSaad?
In The Forever People (vol. 1) #2, cover dated April-May 1971, a story entitled “Super War!”. The infobox of the English-language encyclopedia shortens this to May 1971, which is a bimonthly convention and not a contradiction. The same issue introduces Mantis.
Who created DeSaad?
Jack Kirby, on script and pencils, with Vince Colletta on inks. He belongs to the Fourth World, the saga launched in October 1970 in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133. You can therefore see him as a character born in the editorial galaxy of Superman, not as a borrowing.
Is DeSaad more powerful than Superman?
No, and the gap is not open to debate. He has the attributes of a New God, but he avoids the direct confrontation. In Justice League: War (2014), it is Superman who kills him. His dangerousness rests on what he builds, not on his strength.
DeSaad and Granny Goodness, is it the same role?
No, these are two distinct functions. Granny Goodness trains the recruits, between her orphanage and the forming of the Female Furies; DeSaad equips and detains. The two coexist in the last season of the series that tells the early years of Clark Kent.
Does DeSaad appear in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War?
No. His name does not figure in the published voice cast of this film released on 5 May 2020, whereas Darkseid is very much present in it. The confusion is easy since the title points to his planet. Aim instead for Justice League: War or Justice League Action.
Does the name of DeSaad come from the marquis de Sade?
Yes, it is an onomastic nod to the 18th century writer, and his assistant Justeen refers in the same way to a famous novel. But in the fiction, DeSaad has no link with him: he is a New God born on New Genesis.
Conclusion
DeSaad fits in one sentence: he is the technical hand of Darkseid. Born on New Genesis, turned by the one he goes on to serve, he never wins a duel against Superman, but he built him two prisons. You will rarely come across him on a cover, and yet it is thanks to him that Apokolips looks like a machine rather than a vague threat.
To carry on, the ranking of the adversaries of the Man of Steel puts DeSaad back in his place within the whole, and the portraits of the pest from the fifth dimension or of the enemy with the deadly scream show just how varied this gallery is.