Posted by darren in Comics
As the Justice League remains helpless on Earth-Three the JSA begin to plot how they will repel the Crime Syndicate’s invasion of Earth-Two, when the Earth-Three villains transport into the JSA headquarters via the globe Doctor Fate used to view where the JLA are being held captive.
Remembering the JLA’s warning to the JSA that they should not let the Crime Synidcate touch them and say their magic word of “Volthoom!” the JSAers are forced to find ways to defeat the villains in unique ways.
Johnny Quick uses his speed on Hawkman to get the winged wonder to get back down to Earth. As Hawkman resists, he decides to instead fly full force and knock Johnny Quick out with a massive punch. Unable to say the word, Hawkman believes he has won this battle.
Doctor Fate defeats Power Ring with the animals of the zodiac while Dr. Mid-Nite uses his blackout bombs and a bit of brain power to finish his battle with Owlman.
Black Canary is able to use one of her “freeze pellets” in her cameo (yeah cuz its really got room for a whole bunch of crime fighting equipment up in there), and put that down Superwoman’s throat, causing her vocal cords to “freeze up” so Superwoman cannot say “Volthoom!” Black More >
Posted by darren in Comics
It is that time again when the Justice League of America title is home to another earth-shattering Crisis tale.
This time the tale introduces another Earth and another group of analogues to our mainstay characters.
Earth-One
Earth-Two
Earth-Three
Superman
Superman
Ultraman
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman
Superwoman
Batman
Batman
Owlman
Flash
Flash
Johnny Quick
Green Lantern
Green Lantern
Power Ring
Before we get into the meet of the story, let us make sure we understand a few things.
Analogues are those characters that are duplicates of another character in another Earth or Dimension. They share enough traits that they may seem identical or similar to another character.
Superman of Earth-1 and Earth-2 are both depowered by Kryptonite while Ultraman of Earth-3 is powered up when he is exposed to Kryptonite.
Wonder Woman of Earth-1 and Earth-2 are both wielders of amazing amazonian strength, so is Superwoman, but her name has changed. In addition Superwoman carries a lasso with powers completely different than Wonder Woman’s.
Batman of Earth-1 and Earth-2 are both very similar, as is Owlman. The main difference is the symbol that each chose in order to don their costumed persona, instead of a bat flying through a window, it was an owl.
Flash of Earth-1 and Earth-2 have similar powers but dissimilar costumes. Johnny Quick of Earth-3 has a costume similar More >
Posted by darren in Comics
There is perhaps no word more evocative of the DC Universe experience than “Crisis”.
Crisis as defined by Dictionary.com is as follows
cri·sis
[krahy-sis] noun, plural -ses [-seez] adjective, noun
1. a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, especially for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.
2. a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic,political, or
international affairs, leading to a decisive change.
3. a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person’slife.
4. Medicine/Medical .
a. the point in the course of a serious disease at which a decisive change occurs, leading either to recovery or todeath.
b. the change itself.
5.the point in a play or story at which hostile elements are most tensely opposed to each other.
In the DC Universe, the word Crisis is reserved for a specific type of story that is going to change the status quo. As with serialized fiction, like soap operas, literary series or movie franchises, it is sometimes rare that anything will happen of significance to the main characters. This is especially true of comic book characters. While actors on soap operas may leave and be replaced by another actor, or tv.movie franchises replacing their leads like with James Bond or Doctor Who, with comics the characters have a look and they never seem to change.
Sure for a lark, you may see a new costume on a character, or the character might move to a new city or a new focus for the series may occur, but these usually come and go with a change in writer, artist, or editor on the book in question.
The Crisis stories start off rather tame and then go off into more intense tales as they move forward.
The great majority of the Crisis stories comes from 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 >
Posted by darren in Comics
We wrap up our JSA Golden Age roll call with six new members, though some seem like we have seen them before. Let’s also keep in mind the JSA had Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman on its rolls, however Supes and Bats were reservists and WW served as the secretary. Since there are no changes in those three characters, they aren’t going to receive separate entries here. The only difference in them at this point is the era that they are active which begins in the late 1930s onward. With that said, here we go.
Dr. Charles McNider is an accomplished surgeon which is amazing since he’s blind. Well, he wasn’t blind when he learned how to be a doctor, he was working on a gunshot victim when one of those wily ubiquitos mobsters lobbed a grenade in, killing the victim and permanently blinding Charles. One evening an owl crashed into Charles’ window at home (just like what happened to Bruce Wayne, isn’t it?) Charles discovered that while he was fairly blind in the light he could see perfectly in darkness. Charles’ “sidekick” is the owl Hooty, making him one of the few heroes to have an animal as a crime fighting partner. More >
Posted by darren in Comics
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 >
Posted by darren in Comics
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 >
