After learning the untold story of how the Justice Society of America came to be, we are treated in the very next issue of All-Star Comics to a dust up between classic team and the "Super Squad". That name had been dropped a few issues before but nonetheless there was a distinct feeling that the JSofA was new and shiny despite some vintage villainy still to confront.
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Al Milgrom and Jack Abel
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One of those baddies was the Psycho-Pirate who first took control of Green Lantern. The team made up of Power Girl, Star-Spangled Kid, Dr.Fate, Flash, Wildcat, and Hawkman face off against their former ally.
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Al Milgrom and Jack Abel
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Meanwhile the police commissioner of Gotham City, a man named Bruce Wayne, seems to think the Society itself is a menace to the city and tries to use his authority to bring them to heel. We'd seen Wayne behind the scenes growing suspicious of the activities of the team and he called up former Society members to confront the threat. But when Power Girl is wounded the team battles back until we learn that Wayne himself was under the sway of the Pirate.
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| Al Milgrom and Jack Abel |
In the next issue we formally meet The Huntress as she joins up with a diminished JSofA alongside Power Girl and the Star-Spangled Kid with Wildcat alone holding the fort for the veterans. A new menace in Gotham called Strike Force gives the JSofA all it can handle and ends up kidnapping the Kid. (More coming on the origin stories of both The Huntress and Power Girl in an upcoming post.)
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Joe Staton and Dick Giordano
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The JSofA battles furiously and renders the ultimate defeat of the Strike Force, but the issue also results in the resignation of Star-Spangled Kid when secrets about the enemy strike close to his own home.
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Joe Staton and Dick Giordano
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In the next story an old enemy The Thorn returns and Wildcat falls in battle, near death. With members Dr.Fate and Hawkman absent dealing with a mysterious enemy who will reveal itself later, the Justice Society members are hard-pressed to defeat the Thorn and her ally the Sportsmaster.
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Joe Staton and Joe Giella
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It's furious battle as the original Huntress enters the fray to pick a bone with the new heroic incarnation. With the Sportsmaster, the Thorn and her the team needs all its resolve to win the day, though Wildcat lives, it's a closer deal than any of the membership likes.
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Joe Staton and Dick Giordano
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The
All-Star Comics run comes to an end when the shadowy threat which Dr.Fate and Hawkman have been confronting reveals itself. In peculiar twist which calls into harness nearly the full membership of the team (minus the retired Batman, the injured Wildcat, and the inscrutable Spectre) the team find that fighting against a magical foe across the globe is not the best tactic and they can only save the world by refusing to fight the good fight. In support of the greater good, they have to allow small evils to unfold. It's an ironic ending for a team so long dedicated to doing good.
But the battles of this new Justice Society incarnation are not over yet. While
All-Star Comics have been cancelled again, the team will live to fight another day in the pages of the venerable
Adventure Comics. During the heyday of DC's Dollar Comics reading them was a ton of fun. Lots of characters and features which might've been consigned to limbo were instead given a berth in the pages of either
Adventure Comics or
World's Finest or some other title and despite the then startling price, the package was chock full of entertainment.
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| Jim Aparo |
It was in the pages of
Adventure Comics that the Justice Society found its home as stories originally produced for the cancelled
All-Star Comics were presented, divided into two parts across two issues. In the first of these we are confronted with arguably the most emotional story in the run when Bruce Wayne, formerly Batman is challenged by an obscure villain from his past.
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| Jim Aparo |
In the second installment Bruce Wayne becomes Batman one more time and gives his life to protect the Gotham City he'd long served so ferociously. The JSofA and his ward Robin and his daughter the Huntress are rocked by the sacrifice.
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| Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez |
In the very next issue we learn some of the secrets behind the baddie who killed Batman and the Justice Society realizes the threat was even greater than they expected. With the magical aid of Dr.Fate the team puts down the magician Frederic Vaux who serve the gods of Chaos. By the end of the battle, reality itself is transformed in some very interesting ways.
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| Jim Aparo |
With the next issue the JSofA loses its front cover status but the story told is a emotional one featuring Wildcat, the one veteran member who'd been in most all the issues. He confronts his age, his regrets and makes some changes in his life. It's a small story that tugs at the heart, and which resonates even more now with me as I find myself closer to Ted Grant's age these days.
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| Jim Aparo |
The penultimate Justice Society story is literally on the clock as the team divides to chase down a deadly poison which will in a few hours release its deadly toxins across Gotham City.
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| Jim Aparo |
The final story in the
Adventure Comics run is one of the most famous in which we learn in a flashback story told by Huntress to Power Girl about why the Justice Society of America disappeared for so many years during the 1950's. An enemy in service of the organized crime of Earth-2 attempts to kill the Society but falls short. But his own mysterious origins prove problematic when the team is confronted with a crisis of conscience and voluntarily leave the stage. One of the best stories of the Bronze Age!
This great run is over but there's much more to come.
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