The Key
Back to Villains Main > The Key
Real Identity: Unknown
Affiliation(s): Legion of Doom
Appearances: I am Legion, To Another Shore, Dead Reckoning, the Great Brain Robbery and Alive!
Skills: Escape artist, chemistry
Voiced By: Corey Burton
The Key was originally a chemist who worked for Metropolis' infamous Intergang. However, he also had an obsession with locks and puzzles. He soon developed a psycho-chemical in his quest to discover the mysteries of the human brain. Using himself as a guinea pig, he gained heightened cognizance by being able to access unused parts of his brain. He became a super villain calling himself the Key. The chemicals also gave the Key a loose grip on reality. Though a master escape artist, the Key is armed with a neural shock rifle and can control other people's minds with his psycho-chemicals.
The Key was given the task of extracting Lex Luthor from his latest prison escape a year after the Justice League stopped him and Brainiac from assimilating the Earth. The Key also integrates matter phasing technology into his devices. Common evidence of the technology is when the sub-molecular integrity of the matter is compromised. In this case, the technology artificially induces leptons into weak nuclear force interactions. As a result, the Key was able to reach through a solid brick wall and safely pull Luthor right through it in an instant.
All the different forces observed in nature are understood in terms of four basic interactions (1) strong nuclear interaction, (2) electromagnetic interaction, (3) weak nuclear interaction and (4) gravitational interaction. Leptons, meaning "light particles", are relatively small in mass (an electron weighs 9.11 x 10^(-31) kilograms). Leptons comprise of six particles; electrons, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tau and the tau neutrino (and each of their antiparticles).
The Key was later assigned to accompany Luthor to Blackhawk Island.