What Is Marvel’s Serpent Society: Origin & Members Explained

Captain America: New World Order has been in the spotlight for the last few days due to recently surfaced set photos in which WWE superstar Seth Rollins appears to be playing King Cobra. King Cobra was at one point the leader of Serpent Society, a notorious group of villains. This is not the first time that Serpent Society has been brought into focus in connection to the upcoming Captain America movie, as similar rumors circulated online in the past as well. Due to that, we decided to analyze this group in a bit more detail. Let’s see what exactly Serpent Society is in Marvel Comics. 

Serpent Society is an organization of snake-themed criminals and villains. The Society was established by Sidewinder and served as a spiritual organization to Serpent Squad. The Society was created to unite all snakes of the world under one roof and offer them better pay, benefits, and job security. The group found itself at the center of various scandals over the years and often clashed with Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and other notable superheroes. 

Now that we’ve covered in short what Serpent Society is, it’s time to explore it in a bit more detail. If you want to know more about the history of this peculiar organization, stay with us and keep reading!

Serpent Society was created by Seth Voelker, aka Sidewinder

Serpent Society was not exactly an original idea; Seth Voelker, better known as Sidewinder, simply expanded upon the existing idea of gathering all snake-themed criminals in the same coalition. Similar organizations existed in the past. All were named Serpent Squad. 

When Seth started recruiting notable snake villains, he offered them better job security, more money, health benefits, and labor rights similar to those that belonging to a union would provide, and thus Serpent Society was born, and to this day, it’s a successful criminal enterprise that prides itself on a high level of organization and quick execution of its job. 

The rise to the top wasn’t easy, however, as the Serpent Society changed its leaders several times and was caught up in major scandals. 

One of the first paying assignments for Serpent Society came from A.I.M., who hired them to deal with M.O.D.O.K. After eliminating M.O.D.O.K., Serpent Society established itself as one of the prime criminal organizations with reliable reputations. 

Serpent Society was in trouble following the Serpent War 

Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian) wanted to seize control of the Serpent Society and orchestrated a plot to mutate the citizens of Washington, D.C., by introducing a chemical into the water supply. Four of her snake-themed operatives caught Sidewinder’s attention, leading to their invitation to join the Society. 

With the aid of her allies, Viper successfully took over the Society’s headquarters and poisoned Sidewinder, but Diamondback managed to escape with him and sought help from Captain America. Meanwhile, some members of the Society supported Viper, imprisoning and poisoning those who resisted her. 

However, the Captain and his allies intervened, saving the captive members and defeating Viper. Even though Society was seemingly saved, Sidewinder decided to retire from the leader position since he was, most of all, disappointed and hurt by the fact that some of his teammates decided to support Viper. 

Cobra took over leadership of the Society as King Cobra after Sidewinder retired, and the group reorganized, incorporating former members of Viper’s team.  

Another Viper wanted to take over Serpent Society as well 

Viper (Jordan Dixon) assumed leadership of the Serpent Society and transformed it into “Serpent Solutions,” a company engaged in “grey-area” activities with major corporations. Utilizing resources from Hydra and A.I.M., they conducted genetic experiments initially in the cosmetic industry but aimed to expand into other sectors, including the military-industrial complex.

Their strategy involved being hired by famous companies to carry out suspicious tasks, then selling the results for major profits while protecting their employers from the consequences of the law. However, their operations were ultimately stopped by the new Captain America, Sam Wilson, with the help of King Cobra. After Serpent Solutions attempted to assassinate Captain America, the company’s general opinion changed, resulting in the public exposure and defeat of Serpent Solutions.

Serpent Society was once a target of an organized attack 

The Serpent Society and other animal-themed supervillains were captured by Taskmaster and Black Ant to serve as targets for wealthy participants controlling robotic drones in Central Park. All of this was organized by Kraven the Hunter. The most vicious among animal-themed villains were dubbed “the Savage Six.” They were eventually saved but were still captured along with other villains.

Who are the members of the Serpent Society

We’ve already mentioned former leaders of the Society, among who is founder Sidewinder and King Cobra. The current leader of the Society is Viper (Dixon, not Sarkissian). 

Current members of Society are as follows: Anaconda, Asp, Black Mamba, Black Racer, Boomslang, Bushmaster, Coachwhip, Cobra (Vorhee’s nephew Piet not Klaus, a different version), Copperhead, Cottonmouth, Eel, Fer-de-Lance, Princess Python, Puff Adder, Rattler, Rock Python, Sidewinder (Bryan), and Viper. Notable former members are Constrictor, Deat Adder, Diamondback (who used to date Captain America), and Slither. 

How is Captain America connected to Serpent Society? 

Captain America thwarted many attempts of the Serpent Society to take over the world or to bring harm to the general public. Also, many of the members served as Cap’s villains, although they were known to join forces in some instances, for example, when King Cobra needed help to defeat Viper after Serpent Solutions was founded. 

Captain America also briefly dated Diamondback, one of the former members of the Serpent Society. After this was found out, she was almost executed.