Posted by darren in Comics
It is time to address the first story that leads DC Comics to the inevitable Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline which truly does change everything for the DC characters.
Barry Allen is late meeting Iris West (soon to be Iris Allen) which is a fairly standard way to start a Flash comic in this era. Iris is at a benefit concert for orphans and the magician she has hired has failed to show up (wouldn’t it be interesting if that was supposed to be Flash’s foe Abra Kadabra?). Seeing the problem, Barry excuses himself lamely and then comes back as The Flash to entertain the kids with some speed tricks.
While the Flash is climbing a suspended rope he starts to spin so fast that when he stops he finds himself no longer on a stage but in the middle of a field. As Flash runs towards the nearest city, he sees it is a city known as Keystone City. If this is Keystone City, Flash knows exactly who to go to for assistance. The Flash.
But, he is the Flash. Right?
Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth-Two
Well, yes and no. As we have established in the past, the DC Universe is made up of More >
Posted by darren in Comics
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 >
Heading back to Earth-Two for our next set of heroes, but as is the case in most of these situations we have to take 2 steps back to take a step forward and these steps back include two new members of the All-Star Squadron we haven’t discussed previously.
Say hello to Will Everett, Amazing-Man. Will was an Olympic athlete who competed in Berlin and showed up the Third Reich. His athletic fame faded quickly once he returned to still segregated America. Will wound up taking menial jobs and was working as a janitor when he was caught in an explosion that gave him his ability to touch matter and absorb the properties of that material. He would touch cement and become living cement, touch a wedding ring and he becomes gold, touch a tire and he gains the properties of galvanized rubber and so on.
When the All-Star Squadron confronts Will, he is working as a henchman for a villain called the Ultra-Humanite. Eventually, Will’s better nature took over and he betrayed the Ultra-Humanite and joined the All-Star Squadron.
Will becomes our first African-American hero in terms of history so much that future tales would show that Will would go on and become a strong supporter of the More >
It’s an ordinary day for the JLA and the JSA in 1982 as each group preps to enjoy their annual get together which is typically set for Thanksgiving. When you know nothing has gone wrong yet, that other shoe is about to fall.
The other shoe is time travel. So far we’ve dealt with stories that are fairly lineal with only the Legion of Super-Heroes going to Smallville to pick up Superboy and go to the 30th Century and back. Consider those your training wheel for time travel that I am now forced to take off the bike to see if you can keep your bike out of the ditch.
As our heroes (Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman, Superman, and Zatanna) await their guests the Justice Society of America, the Justice Society on Earth-Two (Doctor Fate, Green Lantern, Huntress, Power Girl, and Starman) enter the Transmatter Cube which transports people from one Earth to another. Unfortunately deviltry is afoot! Instead of the JSA, the Crime Syndicate appears and makes quick work of the JLA. The Crime Syndicate then leave the JLA’s satellite for Earth-One to start to take over this planet, and they do not seem to fond of a gentleman named Per Degaton.
The JSA members meanwhile have materialized in 1982, but not More >
Posted by darren in Comics
When you think about it, when you have one set of characters that mimic your main set of characters you can take that group that is not the main group and take risks with them. The characters can grow, evolve, even die without an impact to merchandising. At least in 1982 to think that one day they would kill off a character as main as Batman was impossible. But a copy of Batman on another earth? Well, that could be entirely plausible as we will see.
Tonight we examine the “new kids” of the JSA at least as of 1982.
Yes, Robin, but the Robin of Earth-Two. Dick Grayson has grown up, become a lawyer, district attorney, and ambassador to the United Nations. Having grown up in Batman’s shadow all his life, Dick needed to get out from underneath the shadow of the Bat. Eventually he would wear a costume combining both his Robin colors and the Batman’s motif. He also went by “the Ex-Boy Wonder” to further distance himself as a man, not a boy.
Batman of Earth-One, Robin of Earth-Two, and that is the original Batwoman, Kathy Kane in this issue of Brave and the Bold.
Sylvester Pemberton picks up the mantle of Starman More >
Okay, we’ve eased into the idea of alternate earths correct?
Previously there was Earth-One, the earth where all our characters exist and…
Earth-Prime, the earth where all of us gentle readers live in a non-super powered world.
Well HANG ON FOLKS! We’re about to blow that idea up to the ceiling.
Just take a look at this cover.
Here are the keys I would like to point out:
- The 20th Annual team-up of the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America.
- Guest starring the All-Star Squadron
- And who are those quasi familiar villains coming out of that cube?
All good questions… now, just park it for a second.
The Justice Society is the precursor of the Justice League. Originally published back in the 1940s primarily for kids and to be shipped overseas for the boys far from home. The Justice Society fought all sorts of Nazi saboteurs and their own super-criminals.
In the 40s most heroes veered on the “pulp” style of masked mystery men. The only main DC characters published at the time who did not appear in the JSA were those with their own adventures like Superman and Batman as those characters were “too busy” in their own books.
After the world had vanquished the Axis threat, superheroes waned in popularity More >
