Classic Crisis #24 - That Special Quality Of Freedom!

The general template of the Justice League and Justice Society crossovers had been set. The two teams would meet and the added value from year to year would be new heroes. This time the heroes of Earths One and Two would meet the Quality heroes on Earth-X. DC had control of these heroes since they had bought out Quality Comics some many years before. Len Wein had wanted the name to be Earth-Swastika, but editor Julie Schwartz kiboshed that idea for obvious reasons.

The story really began with the previous two issues of Justice League in which both Elongated Man and Red Tornado were inducted into the League. The Tornado had survived the end of the last JLofA-JSofA adventure and been stranded on Earth-1 where he was found by his creator T.O.Morrow who promptly gave the android hero a new face and tried to use him to destroy the League which had welcomed the android hero into their ranks. Morrow's plan failed, but the Red Tornado now had the distinction along with Black Canary of being a member of both the League and the Society.

"Crisis On Earth-X" was written by Len Wein and drawn by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano. The comic featured another outstanding Nick Cardy cover. The action begins with both the Justice League and the Justice Society trying to synchonize two transporter devices with which they hope to be able travel between the Earths at any time of the year. Despite Red Tornado's pleading to be allowed to return to his Earth, the League sends Green Arrow, Elongated Man, and Batman into the machine. Likewise the Society sends Sandman, Dr.Fate, and Superman into their device. But Red Tornado stows away in the device causing the transporters to malfunction and the seven heroes to vanish. They end up on another Earth entirely, one that seems to have Nazis in control. They battle the Nazis who have super-scientific devices and are saved from defeat by the intervention of Uncle Sam, the Human Bomb, Phantom Lady, the Ray, the Black Condor, and Doll Man. Uncle Sam reveals that on this Earth World War II lasted far longer due to the untimely death of the President, and that eventually the Nazis won taking control of the globe. They maintain power with mind control devices to which Uncle Sam and his freedom fighters are immune. Dr.Fate uses his magic to detect the locations of the hidden mind control devices and the heroes divide into teams and Uncle Sam sends the teams away to destroy the devices. Red Tornado is left behind. Batman, Dr.Fate, Ray, and Human Bomb are sent to Paris where the mind control device seems to be in the Eiffel Tower. The quartet battle their way to the top and find the machine which is sentient and defends itself with specially constructed foes for each of the heroes. The heroes prevail but then are taken over directly by the machine. They are able to destroy the machine though by combining their powers and relying on their reflexes. Meanwhile the heroes of Earths One and Two search for their disappeared comrades.

 

"Thirteen Against the Earth!" under another great Cardy cover is again by the Wein, Dillin and Giordano team. Uncle Sam breaks the fourth wall and brings the reader up to date on the events of the last issue. Superman, Doll Man, Green Arrow, and Phantom Lady arrive in Japan, the former Axis power which was also defeated by the Nazis, to find the second mind-control machine. It is hidden in plain sight and Superman detects it and reveals it. The machine threatens to destroy Japan if the heroes attack it, but Superman is undeterred landing a ferocious punch. Immediately Japan suffers a massive earthquake and Superman flies off to alleviate the problem. Meanwhile the other heroes work together to get Doll Man inside the machine where he disables it. Elongated Man, Sandman, Black Condor, and Uncle Sam arrive at Mount Rushmore where Hitler's face has been added to the monument. The heroes fight their way to another machine only to discover that it's an illusion. They deduce the machine must be inside the Hitler head and Uncle Sam aided by Elongated Man delivers a massive punch to Hitler's stony ediface destroying the machine. The heroes are them reassembled but discover that the mind control has not diminished despite the destruction of the three machines. In fact the heroes of Earths One and Two are taken over by the mind control and attack the heroes of Earth-X. Red Tornado detects the source of the mind control and follows the trail into orbit where he finds a huge Nazi satellite "manned" by an android Hitler. It turns out the Nazis had actually been defeated by their own mind control machines some years before and that the machines have ruled Earth-X since. Red Tornado attacks and succeeds in causing the satellite to fall out of orbit and crash into the ocean. He rescues a bit of equipment the machines used to communicate and the heroes are able to contact Earths One and Two to arrange rescue. The leave Earth-X free of its oppressors and they leave behind some truly quality freedom fighters.

The Freedom Fighters proved to be pretty popular and even got their own series several years later. It was a quirky series and brought the heroes to Earth-1 and made them fugitives, an attempt I guess to recreate their underground guerrilla warrior role from the crossover. I enjoyed it, but after a few years the series was cancelled. This crossover itself is one of my absolute faves. The artwork by Dillin and Giordano is outstanding, with Giordano giving Dillin's storytelling some real drama. In the years before internet and archives and whatnot, getting to see these vintage heroes was an awesome treat. While I adore the modern era with access to old comics easy to get hold of, part of me yearns for those sweet days when such glimpses were exceedingly precious because they were so rare. 

As I said the template for the crossovers had been reinvented a bit by Len Wein, but the next installment is something very different indeed. 

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The Golden Age Of DC Comics!

DC Comics in the Golden Age was the behemoth of the comic book landscape. They had three of the biggest icons in the industry in their mitts with plenty more hits to tally alongside the likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 

Only Their early history is a fascinating tale of a World War I military man named Major Malcom Wheeler-Nicholson  who started up a little comic book firm to drop into the marketplace the first "comic book" with new material designed just for that purpose. To that point comic strip reprints had served the purpose but the while the books were larger they were as the titled suggest "New Fun Comics". 

This oversized coffee-table extravaganza begins with an interview with Joe Kubert, the final interview the great artist gave before his passing. He reflects on his long tenure at DC which began in the Golden Age when he was just a teenager. His reflections are interesting and lack the rosy nostalgia which often comes with these kinds of things. 

Paul Levitz offers up a dandy essay which details how National Comics formed an alliance with American Publications helmed by Max Gaines and how under the auspices of Harry Donenfeld who had first become Wheeler-Nicholson's partner and then forced him out of the company. This was the basis for what became DC Comics eventually named presumably for the first comic dedicated to a single theme Detective Comics. The company of course went on to have a tremendous impact when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sold them a hero named Superman. This was followed by Bob Kane's Batman and eventually William Marston's Wonder Woman. There were many other heroes and even more heroines in this Golden Age which eventually saw the decline of superheroes and the rise of other genres in comic focused on things such as war, romance and funny animals. Levitz's essay cover the ground but does so with verve and with some opinion about matters. 

The rest of this very large book is made up of images -- covers, interior pages, original art, etc. There are sections covering Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman as well as the Justice Society of America and the many heroes associated with it. Artists such as Sheldon Mayer and Will Eisner are selected for focus. And since in years beyond the Golden Age, DC would acquire the properties of Fawcett, Quality and EC Comics, there are sections on those as well in this sprawling overview. Think of it like a laptop museum visit with each image given its place and some context. And like a museum it's a fun book just to wander around in. 

Here are some more of the Golden Age covers showcased in this tome. 

Next time it's the Silver Age. 

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Invasion - Secret No More!

Invasion was a 1988 DC Comics crossover event masterminded by Keith Giffen and scripted by Marvel alumnus Bill Mantlo. It's a three-part tale with numerous crossover titles involved, none of which are included in this volume which only gathers the core trilogy. The parts are oversized eighty pages of pure story in each detailing the planning, execution and aftermath of an all-out alien invasion of our dear planet Earth. This is still the unified post-Crisis Earth. 

The strongest of the installments is the first titled The Alien Alliance which shows the Dominators, a frightening race of aliens who care only for their schemes and are careful to use others to do their extensive dirty work. Their wicked bulbous yellow heads and the maw laced with fangs remined me of the vintage Martians who attacked the planet Earth some decades before this effort in the bubblegum cards from the Topps outfit. The story is plotted by Giffen and he also does the breakdowns for each issue. Mantlo steps up to add the words and in the first issue up and coming artist Todd McFarlane brings his muscular style to effort. He is inked by several talents such as P. Craig Russell, Joe Rubinstein, and Al Gordon. It's nifty tale of mild intrigue as the Dominators bring together a host of awful alien races such as the warlike Khund, Citadelians, Psions, Gil' Dishpan and Okarrans as well as more familiar races such Thanagarians, Durlans and Daxamites. All of these aliens want the Earth neutralized because of its rather odd habit of giving birth to superhumans who will not unlikely find reason to interfere with the schemes of these space folk. The Dominators are after the very secret which makes humans become super and to that end they are not remotely hesitant to kill as many human beings as necessary to discover that secret. The story in fact opens with the slaughter of forty-four humans. That six human beings (including Snapper Carr) survive is a shock to the Dominators since they expected at most one to do so.  By the end of the issue the assembled forces have invaded Earth and utterly taken over Australia. The stage is set for an all-out war as the assembled nations of the planet reject the demand that all superheroes be turned over to the Domnators. 

In the second issue dubbed Battleground Earth we see the war from the human perspective more often as the assembled heroes of Earth attempt to turn back the alien armada. We get reports of how the battles have gone in the connected comic stories and find that places like the Arctic Ocean and Cuba have been major beachheads in the conflict. All the while humans have been captured and experimented upon and the result is not what the Dominators hoped as the discovery of the "Metagene" shows just how potentially powerful the Earth folk can be. And with every battle they seem to become more committed to the fight even as heroes die. The turning point in the war comes when the Daxamites learn that they have enormous power on Earth, or at least near it. They ultimately learn they have a weakness but they don't know what it is and Superman saves the contingent who came with the alien as observers. The Daxamites then send for their fleet to fight alongside the people and heroes of Earth. The enemies are repelled with great costs, but then a little regarded Dominator of a lower caste makes a discovery about the Metagene and his findings bring defeat for the heroes out of the success of repelling the invasion. Todd McFalane does half the penciling in this issue with Giffen taking over to complete it. The same guys are dipping into the inkpots. 

In the third and final installment called World Without Heroes we learn that secret about the Metagene. That secret is the ability to turn the powers of superheroes against themselves. With a wave of energy the lone Dominator weaks havoc on Earth as superheroes become uncontrollable as do their powers and then they begin to weaken and die. Not all heroes of course, only those with some innate kinship to the activation of the Metagene, so folks like Batman, Blue Beetle, Robotman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and Superman among others are unaffected. But many heroes are afflicted and some die. Ultimately a solution is of course discovered and the world of heroes is saved, at least in part. This finale is a bit of a weird one and actually is a bit unimpressive. The war built nicely in the opening chapter and was waged with furor in the second. But this installment goes another way and seems oddly disconnected. But the artwork is sterling as Bart Sears stepped in to take the penciling reins with the help of inkers like Dick Giordano, Joe Rubenstein, and Pablo Marcos.

 

This is a fairly decent yarn and features some of DC's forgotten heroes from the late 80's such as the fifty Starman and Manhunter (Mark Shaw - the one created by Kirby in 1st Issue Special). Nice to see Adam Strange get some page time in the early stages of the event as well. It was nifty to see the old Charlton heroes getting so much play with all of them appearing save Thunderbolt and Judomaster. Of course the latter was away in WWII and the former I guess was lost to DC for a time. There was a real push to make Captain Atom and Blue Beetle important parts of the DCU and its evidenced in this series. Even Nightshade gets some tasty panels to herself and Peacemaker shows up and he doesn't seem all that crazy yet. This isn't a great story, but it's darn fun one to read. 

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Captain Carrot And The Final Ark!

Captain Carrot and the Final Ark is Scott Shaw's attempt to revive the animal heroes he co-created with Roy Thomas many years before. His artwork is the highlight of this small collection and the main reason to get a copy. 

The little three-part story is an offshoot of the sprawling Countdown to Final Crisis series that ran for fifty issues (plus tie-ins) in 2007 and 2008. It was yet one more attempt by DC to try and make some sense of the universe which had been tampered with so many times before. This time the main architect was supposed to be Grant Morrison but things changed and altered and as it turned out little of Countdown lasted very long if at all. This is an old story at this point but there are spoilers ahead nonetheless. 

In the debut issue we are treated to an update on the doings of the Zoo Crew and learn that Alley-Cat-Abra had betrayed the team and in fact was accused of killing member Little Cheese. Little Cheese's spot on the roster is taken by American Eagle, a zealous patriot. The story opens in "Sandy Eggo, Califurnia" where the Crew are attending a comic convention. Shaw is in his element here and the in-jokes are fast and furious. They end up fighting an enemy dubbed "Salamandroid" who very strong and can emit fire. There is plenty of hijinks and dark plots but that all comes to a stop when the Crew are confronted with a larger and stronger Frogzilla. 

In the second installment the Crew spend most of their time battling Frogzilla with the help of  Alley-Cat-Abra who appears magically and explains it was her evil twin who did the crimes she was accused of. The Crew take back into the fold as they defeat Frogzill and head down into the depths of the ocean to confront the real enemy Starro the Conqueror. Also revealed is the nastiness of Rash Al Paca, who had been plotting with the corrupt President Beneduck Arnold. 

But it's too late to end the global warming which has caused waters to rise to massive flood levels and the animals of the planet are forced to enter Boa's Ark to save themselves. With the help of Justa' Lotta Animals from Earth C Minus the Zoo Crew fend off Starro and take the Ark into space where they encounter The New Dogs. But that is only a brief encounter and soon enough the Ark has landed on the main DCU Earth and the Crew as well as all the other talking animals have reverted to normal critters as you and I might find. The JLA is around to help and Zatanna takes the former Rodney Rabbit as part of her act. 

This is a hoot. Apparently Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew do get back to some sense of normalcy (by their standards) as two them appear later in Final Crisis. It's all very confusing, but the story itself as drawn by Scott Shaw is pretty funny at times. 

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Classic Crisis #23 - The Seven Soldiers Of Victory!

The tenth Justice League and Justice Society crossover coincided with the hundredth issue of the JLofA and something special was offered. For starters, the story ran three issues instead of the usual two and for another vintage super-team from DC's Golden Age past was revived -- The Seven Soldiers of Victory. A new scribe would also take over on the series, and Len Wein's stint on the JLofA might just be my favorite period of the team ever.

"The Unknown Soldier of Victory!" written by Len Wein, and drawn by the team of Dick Dillin and Joe Giella begins not in the JLofA satellite, but in their old Secret Sanctuary where Aquaman, Black Canary, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Hawkman gather for what is planned to be their hundredth meeting, and a celebration is planned. The Atom shows up and other heroes are shown either on their way or pining that they cannot attend. Flash, Elongated Man, and Metamorpho head to the party, while Martian Manhunter (helping his people rebuild) and Snapper Carr (still guilty for betraying the League) ponder what keeps them from being there, as does Adam Strange who is stranded on Rann. Zatanna shows up and Batman brings Diana Prince, the former Wonder Woman and the cake is about to be cut when all the heroes vanish. They reappear on Earth-2 where the Justice Society is sitting quite glum. Starman, Sandman, Dr.Fate, Wildcat, Johnny Thunder, Dr.Mid-Nite, Hourman, Wonder Woman, and Red Tornado are assembled and quickly Dr.Fate reveals he's summoned the Earth-1 heroes to help the Society battle the threat of a vast cosmic hand which is poised to crush Earth-2. Then a vision of the grave of the Unknown Soldier of Victory appears. Fate, Zatanna, and Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt join forces to summon a mystic being named Oracle who is able to explain the nature of the threat they face. The Seven Soldiers of Victory (Crimson Avenger and Wing, Green Arrow and Speedy, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripsey, Shining Knight, and The Vigilante are forgotten Earth-2 heroes who battled the cosmic threat of the Nebula-Man. One of their number sacrificed himself to end that threat and the others disappeared into the mists of time. Only they know how to defeat the current threat, so Oracle assists the heroes to go back into time and find the forgotten Soldiers. The twenty-two assembled heroes divide into seven teams of three while Diana Prince stays behind. Oracle tells the heroes of the Soldiers' first great battle against a villain named The Hand and then sends the teams back into time. Dr.Fate, The Atom, and Elongated Man find themselves in Mexico during the time of the Aztecs. Crimson Avenger appears but seems to be considered a god by the Aztecs and he's possessed of great powers with which he knocks out the trio come to rescue him. When they recover they are captives but quickly free themselves and battle the Aztecs and the Avenger until a fragment of the Nebula-Man is found and sent into orbit freeing Crimson Avenger of its malevolent influence. Himself once again, he welcomes the heroes and then in a mist they are summoned back by Oracle. The story closes with the villain revealing himself, a madman named "The Iron Hand".

 

"The Hand that Shook the World" is again by the Wein, Dillin, Giella team. The tale begins with the arrival of Earth-2's Green Lantern, Robin, and Mr.Terrific who encounter Diana Prince who brings them up to date. The scene shifts to Superman, Sandman, and Metamorpho who find themselves in the camp of Ghengis Khan and his army which is being led by a mysterious sword-wielding man on a flying horse. They realize this must be the Shining Knight who is under the influence of Khan's court magician. The trio stand off against Khan's army with Superman unable to defeat the Knight because of magic. Metamorpho and Sandman combine forces to send giant shells into the army which put them all to sleep. They then free Knight of Khan's influence and are called away by Oracle, but not before Sandman in a classic move pins a note on Khan's chest. Back in JSofA headquarters Green Lantern, Robin, and Mr.Terrific leave Diana Prince behind and decide to head to the Himalayas to find out about the fallen Soldier. Next we see Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Dr.Mid-Nite in England during the time of Robin Hood. They come under attack by the Merry Men, but quickly explain things and then the trio attacks King John's castle to rescue Robin Hood. They discover Green Arrow instead who has taken Robin's place while he recovers from wounds. After the rescue the heroes vanish as Oracle acts. Cut to the Iron Hand who reveals that he was not killed in the first adventure of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, but merely lost his hand which has been replaced by an iron one, hence his new name. He is the one who launched the threat of Nebula-Man and he is the one who now uses that power to threaten Earth-2. In ancient Egypt Batman, Starman, and Hourman find Stripsey working to build the pyramids. Their rescue is foiled when Starman's Cosmic Rod is captured, but they quickly escape their pyramid jail thanks to the quick thinking of Batman and use the Rod's influence to find their way free. They join forces with the captured Stripsey to free him and Oracle calls them back. Finally we see Diana Prince approached from behind by a threatening Iron Hand.

"And One of Us Must Die!" is again written by Wein and Dillin is again the penciler but Dick Giordano joins up as inker. The story beings with Oracle reprising the situation. The scene shifts to the North American plains where Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Johnny Thunder find themselves near an Indian camp. They are overcome and captured joining The Vigilante as a captive of the Native American tribe. But they escape, free the Vigilante and defeat the Indians and are saved from stampeding bison thanks to the tardy but still timely arrival of Thunderbolt who had been trying to locate them through the centuries. The heroes are then called back by Oracle. We shift to pre-historic times as Green Lantern, Wildcat, and Aquaman find Star-Spangled Kid hold up in a cave fending off a tribe of hostile Cro-Magnons who quickly encounter Wildcat's fists. He's come down with the flu and doesn't want to create historical havoc by infecting the Cro-Magnons. He is saved from a flash flood by Aquaman and then by Green Lantern who had been sidelined by yellow fog. Oracle calls them back. The Flash, Zatanna, and Red Tornado are in the Mediterranean and find Speedy on an island but he's been transformed into a centaur. It seems a sorceress named Circe has him under control. Circe changes the Flash into a snail-man, Zatanna into a hummingbird-girl, and Red Tornado into a walrus-android. But Zatanna is able to undo the spell and free them all. The break Circe's wand, freeing all her captives then they are called back by Oracle. The story then cuts back to the Justice Society headquarters with all the heroes assembled plus the rescued Seven Soldiers the trio from the Himalayas return to report that the fallen soldier is Crimson Avenger's partner Wing. Then the Iron Hand attacks threatening Diana Prince who promptly karate chops off his metal paw and judo flips onto his face. The heroes then use the knowledge of the Seven Soldiers to rebuild the device that first defeated the Nebula-Man and are about to decide who should deliver this deadly weapon when they realize Red Tornado is missing and has taken the device to save the world but at the cost of his own existence. The story ends with the assembled heroes saluting the valor of Wing and Red Tornado.This was a true epic in a time in comics when such extended stories were relatively rarities. The sheer number of heroes advertised was a worthy accomplishment in and of itself. Seeing so many superheroes in one comic made this a must-buy for me at the time. The Nick Cardy covers for all three issues of the series are outstanding. I'd been an on and off again DC fan over the years. I'd been mostly attracted by Marvel's offerings with a few dabs of DC then and again when I could find a way to buy them. But with this storyline I became a confirmed Justice League fan and read the series with very few small breaks right up to the Crisis on Infinite Earths. So this story was a bit of a game-changer for me and my approach to comics.

The Seven Soldiers of Victory were a lot of fun too. After several years of offbeat JLofA-JSofA crossovers this one revived the tradition and idea that this was a series of discovery with new heroes and world being added each year. It became once again an event to anticipate. What heroes would be revived? What Earth would be visited? I remember well being all too eager to see each year's offerings. With this centennial storyline, the crossovers became a big deal for yours truly, a very big deal indeed.

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The OZ-Wonderland War Trilogy!

I cannot say that I'm a particular fan of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass or Frank L. Baum's The Wizard of OZ. I've read them and I have a friend who was intoxicated by Carrol's work and loved the oddity and wordplay. I don't think I've seen the Disney adaptation all the way through.  As for The Wizard of OZ, like many in my generation the annual appearance of the MGM film on TV was a big event. Myself I never much cottoned to the utter strangeness, though I've warmed to such things over the decades. Whatever I think, these two works have become infused into the very cell structure of modern society and so it's not so much of a shock when others want to play with the wacky toys that Carrol and Baum invented. Such an instance is DC's The OZ-Wonderland Trilogy which features Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew. 

This trilogy, which in point of fact is a six-issue series compressed into three extra-sized issues has the Zoo Crew swept up by the Cheshire Cat and sent to a strange world in which both OZ and Wonderland exist and both are under threat by the Nome King who has used magical power over the famous Flying Monkeys to seized control of both territories and has transformed some of the most famous characters into other objects. It becomes the mission of the Zoo Crew to partner with various denizens of both OZ and Wonderland and seek out these transformed entities and rescue them In short order they do and bring the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, and Nick Chopper the Tin Woodsman, among other back to themselves and they promptly join the battle. 

There are characters such as Hoppy the Marvel Bunny and others who show up in this wild and twisty yarn as well. It's zany and runs at a brisk pace, but that said despite some really luscious artwork by Carol Lay that at times does a remarkable job evoking the classic art from the two original sources, the story is a hodge-podge that lacks any real sense of drama. Perhaps it's the curse of funny animal heroes that we know all along that real danger will not seek them  out, but in this one more than most rarely is there any sense at all of potential harm despite being chock full of so-called threats. E. Nelson Bridwell and Joey Cavalieri wrote this bombastic affair and Roy Thomas is credited with inspiring it, but with even all these veteran cooks, the meal falls flat despite some outstanding ingredients. 

 You can find this tale tucked into the back of the one and only Showcase Presents Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew volume. 

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Classic Crisis #22 - A Space Boy And His Dog!

Mike Friedrich is writing the Justice League in 1971 and his single offering in the crossover series is a most peculiar one indeed.

"Earth--The Monster Maker!" was written by Friedrich and drawn by the regular team of Dick Dillin and Joe Giella. The cover is by Neal Adams. The story begins with the scene on the cover, Batman appearing with the form of a seemingly dead Flash. The scene shifts to some outer space kids named S-Kyr and E-Nes who are joy-riding in some sort of space ship when S-Kyr's little brother A-Rym and his symbiote "Dog" named Teppy get sucked into separate dimensions, A-Rym to Earth-2 and Teppy to Earth-1. But the two of them need to be together to live and they have just under thirty-eight hours. On Earth-2 Green Lantern encounters A-Rym and gets beaten up and his power ring is stolen. The JSofA (Superman, Flash, Atom, Hawkman, Lantern and Robin) investigate. On Earth-1 Flash is put in a recovery tube and Superman, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Atom investigate his attack near Hudson University where they find Robin who joins them. Soon the two teams communicate and switch some personnel. On Earth-1 A-Rym is confronted by the two Hawkmen, two Robins and Green Lantern. Robin of Earth-1 confronts A-Rym and is injured and he and he is whisked off to recover with his Earth-2 counterpart to care for him. A-Rym promptly defeats the remaining heroes and leaves. On Earth-2 the two Superman, the two Atoms, and Flash confront Teppy who knocks out the Superman, but they recovers and the speedster team isolate him in a giant hole. Flash and Superman of Earth-2 head back to their home Earth where A-Rym has been discovered in Slaughter Swamp by its most infamous resident Solomon Grundy. The Hawks, Green Lantern, Flash and Superman face off against Grundy who is protecting his new friend and the story ends with Grundy threatening to kill them all.

 

"Solomon Grundy The One and Only" is again written by Friedrich with more sleek artwork by the Dillin and Giella team. Adams is again on the cover art. The battle with Grundy picks up with the heroes finally leaving the scene with their wounded. Meanwhile the two Robins are conferring, sharing tales of being patronized by their comrades. The Earth-1 Robin dons a new uniform designed by some Earth-2 artist named "Neal Adams" and the two head off to rejoin the fight. On the JLofA satellite Iris West shows up to relieve Black Canary who has been caring for the injured Flash. On Earth-2 the injured Flash and Superman are resting while the Green Lanterns plot a counterattack. GL of Earth-1 shares his ring power with the GL of Earth-2 and they along with the Hawkmen head back to battle A-Rym again. The Robins show up and rescue Green Lantern's ring. Robin battles a weakened A-Rym then shows him some compassion which the lost space boy responds to. The Lanterns meanwhile battle Solomon Grundy and combining their wills imprison him effectively. The assembled heroes then glean the true nature of A-Rym and Teppy and rush to get them together before the both die. The happy pair reunite and their improved lifeforce provides a beacon for their comrades to come and rescue them. The space boy and his dog head home safe and sound at last. The heroes then assess the outcome and the Hawkmen apologize to the Robins for patronizing them and the story ends with the Robin of Earth-1 wondering if he'll keep the new look.

I bought the first part of this adventure off the stands when I was young, but it would be many years before I was able to find the second half. The story is a wacky one, showing off Friedrich's tendency to offer up heavy-handed themes. This crossover too really seems to emphasize having the dopplegangers team up. The Hawkmen stay together throughout the story and while the Atom says it's "scientificaly" prudent the two Earths switch players when obviously it's just arbitrary. The heroes switch back and forth between Earths pretty willy-nilly and that makes for tough sledding when trying to keep track of the players. I love Dick Dillin's designs for the aliens though. Dillin's aliens are often not that colorful, just guys with horns and spouts on their heads most of the time, but A-Rym and Teppy are drawn almost in a bigfoot style and that adds a real dissonance to the danger they are in. The use of the Robins is strange too, as the idea of a split between the generations is explored. The Hawkmen take the roles of insenstive grumps in contrast to the Robins who are just youngsters trying to be understood. The trouble is that Robin of Earth-2 seems too old for that. I do like the Neal Adams costume for Robin. This outfit though will not get much traction until many years later when Robin of Earth-2 adopts a version of it when he joins the Super Squad variation of the JSofA.

The next crossover will be the tenth and it's a classic. Be here. 

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