Posts tagged Hourman

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T.O. Morrow Kills The Justice League — Today!

Apr 28th

Posted by Darren in Comics

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Good question T.O. Morrow, but let us not count our chickens before they have hatched, eh?

Lets remember that last issue T.O. Morrow basically pwned the Justice Society of America and left them all for dead and then discovered that in order to succeed in his evil plans he had to eliminate the Justice League as well.  All caught up now?  Good.  Lets go.

So the Justice League is having a meeting in their Mountain Cave headquarters and the entire membership is there:  Superman, Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Snapper Carr, and the Atom.   Down below the main meeting room is the Souvenir Room where we see five of the Leaguers significant others waiting to surprise their lovers:  Steve Trevor, Jean Loring, Hawkgirl, Midge (Snapper Carr’s Girlfriend), and Mera.  During the meeting the five lovers burst into the room and plant the “kiss of death” on their targets:  Wonder Woman, the Atom, Hawkman, Snapper Carr, and Aquaman.  The Justice Leaguers attacked fall to the ground lifeless and their lovers turn into dust.

It is at this point that the Justice League receives a challenge to go fight some beasts that are coming to the planet now.    In typical More >

jla64

The Stormy Return of the Red Tornado

Apr 8th

Posted by Darren in Crisis

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Another Crisis opens on Earth-2 as the Justice Society are conducting a meeting where they are bemoaning the fact that there is no criminal activity requiring their attention at this current moment, which of course jinxes the JSAers as Hourman’s new “Crimecaster” promises to forecast where the next criminal activity will turn up the JSA are interrupted by a thunderous boom as the Red Tornado makes an appearance.

Red Tornado claims he wants his membership back, but wait, Doctor Fate conjures up an image of the real Red Tornado, Ma Hunkel and that image and the new visitor to the JSA Headquarters do not match up.  Well, then the new Red Tornado informs the JSAers all about their personal lives, and how could that happen if there was not some intimate knowledge of their activities?  The JSA unmask the Red Tornado and discover that there is no face under the mask.  But before that mystery can be solved the Crimecaster has completed its calculations and the JSA take off to fight these soon to be performed crimes.

The Red Tornado joins the JSA and the group comes across a group of androids that are stealing a museum and they have no faces, just like Red Tornado.  While the JSA attempt More >

jla56

The Negative Crisis on Earths One And Two

Mar 25th

Posted by Darren in Comics

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Roll Call:  JLA:  Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow

Roll Call:  JSA:  Hawkman, Wildcat, Mister Terrific, Hourman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Johnny Thunder & Thunderbolt

VS.

How Chu, Gem Girl, Money Master and Smashing Sportsman

 

The JSA and JLA have assembled after the Negative Universe’s race of Black Spheres invaded the Positive Universe and four of their number possessed normal human beings turning them evil and imbuing them with super powers.  The heroes were defeated on Earth-Two and summoned the JLAers to assist only to discover that they had the same problem on Earth-One.

Together the heroes cobble a plan together to find the rest of the Black Spheres and to absorb the energy into the strongest of them to see if that helps them become less vulnerable to the powers of the villains.  After absorbing the energy though the heroes become evil and Hourman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern turn on their comrades in the midst of their missions.   During each of these encounters the heroes discover beings imbued with negative energy are vulnerable to water, Chinese wisteria, wood, and laughter of all things.

Once the villains are overcome by their individual vulnerabilities the heroes make very quick work of them and the Negative Energy beings are expelled from More >

jla55

The Super-Crisis That Struck Earth-Two

Mar 17th

Posted by Darren in Crisis

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Before I get into this issue, lets talk a little bit about that Robin outfit.  Wow, its just.. bad, isn’t it?    Anyways, to the action at hand.

Roll Call:  JLA:  Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and Superman   JSA:  Hawkman, Hourman, Johnny Thunder & Thunderbolt, Mister Terrific, Robin, Wildcat, and Wonder Woman.

 

It is a fairly normal day on Earth-Two when these black spheres begin to fall from the sky and four of them manage to touch human beings and be absorbed by the humans.  These individuals then begin to act out of character and become evil.  A Chinese man becomes a marauding bandit known as How Chu.  A simple office worker becomes Gem Girl, obsessed with stealing precious jewels.  A former baseball star sidelined by arthritis becomes insanely jealous of those able to play the sport and begins busting up a stadium in the midst of a game.  A British businessman decides to take drastic shortcuts to profit by robbing banks directly of their cash.

The scene switches to the Justice Society of America’s headquarters where we see the JSA induct Robin into their ranks as a full fledged member.  This introduces a very important concept in the DCU, that of Legacy.

Legacy.  def 2  - More >

JLA22

Crisis On Earth-Two

Jan 10th

Posted by Darren in Comics

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At the end of the last issue the Justice League and Justice Society both finally meet up and decide to trade worlds in order to defeat their home turf villains who had also traded worlds.

Doctor Fate sent the Justice Leaguers to Earth-Two and the Justice Society stayed on Earth-One, while the Green Lanterns both went off together to find each team’s Flash, both of whom were missing.

Hourman and the Atom run off and appear to tackle the Fiddler, who quickly attacks the pair by animating the taxidermy samples in the mammal hall.  Hourman manages to set off a beep that interferes with the sonic resonance of the Fiddler’s fiddle and the two heroes give him the old “high-low” maneuver.

The Icicle meets his match as he attempts to encase Doctor Fate in a wall of ice, but the Doctor’s magic is too strong and it looks like it is going to be lights out for Icicle when he hits a wall.

Hawkman and Black Canary meet the Wizard outside and the Wizard commands Hawkman’s wings to take off, taking Hawkman into outer space, while the Wizard animates a bunch of rocks into fighting the Black Canary.  The Canary has a trick of her own More >

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Crisis On Earth-One

Jan 6th

Posted by Darren in Comics

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As is the tradition it’s time for the ROLL CALL:

Justice League of America – Atom, Aquaman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, J’onn J’onzz(Martian Manhunter), Superman, and Wonder Woman

Justice Society of America – Atom, Black Canary, Doctor Fate, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Hourman

versus

The Crime Champions – Chronos, Doctor Alchemy, and Felix Faust of Earth One and on Earth-Two Fiddler, Icicle, and Wizard

Firmly set at the bang up beginning of the Silver Age of Comics, this comic is the one that started the “Crisis” stories that would involve these two teams teaming up and fighting the good fight against common threats, more importantly it also gave us a few more ideas about what the idea of the multiverse means.

We had seen the two Flashes meet, and in the interim other team ups occurred, including the two Green Lanterns and the two Atoms, etc.., but this is the time when we get a bit more information on the status quo of Earth-Two.

The only Justice Leaguer who is missing from this story is Snapper Carr, who is away at college while the JLA are meeting due to challenges being issued to them by Chronos, Doctor Alchemy, and Felix Faust.

Lets just take a moment and remember the good More >

jla220

The True Origin of the Black Canary

Jun 1st

Posted by Darren in Comics

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In the history of the Justice League of America, since issue #21, the JLA has teamed up with the JSA for a team-up which would usually involve a “Crisis” (there’s that word again) and that Crisis would frequently involve one world’s issues bleeding into another.

However, DC also has a practical problem, one that plagues them today as well.  Characters from the Golden Age of Heroism are still wandering around in your 1984 comics as if they are still 40 years old.  Even if the original Flash or Green Lantern was 18 when they started their careers as heroes earlier in 1941, that would mean that they were born in 1923.  It is now 1984.  These characters are now 61 years old and still are functioning as heroes, which is fine on Earth-Two.

They had another problem too, only Wonder Woman was a popular female character and due to story reasons she has exited the Justice League.  The League had become a “boys only” club, and there were no good female candidates to take Wonder Woman’s place who did not already duplicate other characters like Supergirl or Batgirl.

There was this ONE character though from the 1940s, the Black Canary, a beautiful judo expert who might fit in More >

JSA

Justice Society of America – Roll Call II

Mar 11th

Posted by Darren in Comics

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Here we go continuing our look at the JSA.

Carter Hall, same name as our Silver Age version is NOT a Thanagarian, but rather the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh named Khufu. Khufu and his bride Chay-ara were murdered back in ancient Egyptian days and cursed so that they would live life after life after life. Doomed to find each other and fall in love all over again, however at some point when their love was at its zenith, they would each be murdered again to be reincarnated once again and the cycle repeats itself. In this time Carter and Shiera Hall married and had children and carried on crime fighting careers as Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

Gee, that’s funny. You would think if there is a Golden Age version of Hawkgirl, there would be a Silver Age one..? There is a Silver Age version, we’ll get to her shortly.

Hourman is Rex Tyler and he is a renowned chemist and has invented a drug called Miraclo. Miraclo will give Rex increased strength, speed, and stamina for.. (wait for it).. one hour. Eventually, Rex develops a dependency upon Miraclo and he becomes one of the first comic characters with a drug dependency issue, though not the More >

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Justice Society of America – Roll Call I

Mar 10th

Posted by Darren in Comics

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Now, we’re here on Earth-Two and the counterpart to the JLA is the JSA. Not only the counterpart, but also the predecessor of the JLA. Back when I started collecting comics characters used to be numbered by order in which they appeared, so the original Green Lantern was Green Lantern I but he was from Earth-2. I am not going to do that here.

If any hard core comic book fans are reading this, I probably just moved to the heretic column. Oh well, I’ve been called an abomination before, and it will happen again, so bring it.

What I am going to do is typically use the character’s name and their real name to distinguish which character that we are talking about.

For the five heroes that kept being published from the Golden Age through to the Silver Age…

  • Superman
  • Batman
  • Wonder Woman
  • Aquaman
  • Green Arrow

Only three of them joined the JSA. Wonder Woman was the secretary and Superman and Batman were honorary members. Neither Aquaman nor Green Arrow joined the JSA. Additionally between the Golden Age to the Silver Age no significant changes were made in the character regarding name, origin, powers, m.o., etc.., While some of these may have evolved over time there was not a distinct change that occurred More >