Welcome to our re-read of the first and greatest superhero team in comics ... and quite a bit more!
My plan is to re-read and discuss the Golden Age Justice Society of America, which ran from All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940) to All-Star Comics #57 (February-March 1951), and is currently being reprinted in DC's "DC Finest" line.
But, as ever, I am consumed by context. What events brought us to All-Star Comics #3? What characters did editor Sheldon Mayer and writer Gardner Fox have available from which to choose? What else was competing in the superhero space? To achieve that context, I plan to start the discussion at the publisher's beginning, when Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson launched National Allied Publications Inc. in 1935. That was the first step toward the Justice Society — and to DC Comics as we know it today.
So before we even get to the JSA, I'll re-read and open for discussion all the solo stories starring JSA members, mostly from DC's Archives and Famous First Edition series. Which is actually quite a lot! (Although not as much as I'd prefer. I want it ALL!) I'll be writing about non-JSA superheroes created by National, Detective Comics Inc. and All-American Comics Inc. too, like Crimson Avenger and Doctor Occult. I'll also be tipping my hat to some non-powered characters, principally those who managed to appear outside their parent title, like Slam Bradley and Hop Harrigan. That means no re-read for the likes of "Bart Regan, Spy" and "Speed Saunders." Sorry, fellas, but I had to draw the line somewhere — before I found myself doing a deep dive into the history of Ginger Snap.
But I will be re-reading reprints, or availing myself of online information where reprints don't exist, of 14 of the 17 Golden Age characters who launched or appeared in All-Star Comics #3-57. Those characters include:
- The Atom: All-American Comics #19-46, 48-61, 70-72; All-Star Comics #3-26, 28-35, 37-57; Big All-American Comic Book; Flash Comics #80, 82-85, 87 89-95, 97-100, 102-104; Comic Cavalcade #22-23, 28; Sensation Comics #86.
- Black Canary: All-Star Comics #38-57; Comic Cavalcade #25; Flash Comics #86-88, 90-104.
- Doctor Fate: All-Star Comics #3-12, 14-21; More Fun Comics #55-98.
- Doctor Mid-Nite: All-American Comics #25-102; All-Star Comics #6 (text story), 8-57.
- The Flash: All-Flash #1-32; All-Star Comics #1-7, 10, 24-57; Big All-American Comic Book; Comic Cavalcade #1-29; Flash Comics #1-104, Flash Comics miniature (Wheaties)
- Green Lantern: All-American Comics #16-102; All-Flash #14; All-Star Comics #2-8, 10, 24-57; Big All-American Comic Book; Comic Cavalcade #1-29; Green Lantern #1-38.
- Hawkman: All-Star Comics #1-57, Big All-American Comic Book, Flash Comics #1-104, Flash Comics miniature (Wheaties).
- Hourman: Adventure Comics #48-83, All-Star Comics #1-7, New York World's Fair Comics [#2].
- Johnny Thunder: All-Star Comics #2-4, 6-35, 37-39; Big All-American Comic Book; Flash Comics #1-91; New York World's Fair Comics [#2]; World's Best Comics #1; World's Fair Comics #2-3; Flash Comics miniature (Wheaties).
- Mister Terrific: All-Star Comics #24, Big All-American Comic Book, Sensation Comics #1-63.
- Sandman: Adventure Comics #40-102, All-Star Comics #1-21, Boy Commandos #1, Detective Comics #76, New York World's Fair Comics [#1-2], World's Finest Comics #3-7.
- The Spectre: All-Star Comics #1-23, More Fun Comics #52-101, a single panel in More Fun Comics #51.
- Starman: Adventure Comics #61-102, All-Star Comics #8-23.
- Wildcat: All-Star Comics #24, 27; Big All-American Comic Book; Comic Cavalcade #1-2; Sensation Comics #1-90.
The obvious exceptions here are Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. Superman and Batman, called "honorary members" in the text, appeared twice in All-Star Comics, but I don't plan to re-read all their adventures from 1938 to 1951. They are peripheral at best to the Golden Age JSA, and would overwhelm the discussion through sheer volume. This problem extends to Wonder Woman as well, who appears in four titles in the Golden Age (Sensation Comics, Wonder Woman, Comic Cavalcade, All-Star Comics). I'll re-read and report on her JSA adventures, but like Batman and Superman, I'll just note her solo stories in passing with a summary that I'll grab somewhere online. That will keep the discussion abreast of any major developments, like new supervillains, in Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman stories.
Here are their appearances that are concurrent with All-Star's run:
- Batman: All-Star Comics # 7 (cameo), 36; Batman #1-63 (February-March 1951); Batman 3-D #1; Detective Comics #1-169 (March 1951); New York World’s Fair Comics [#2]; World’s Best Comics #1, World’s Fair Comics #2-50 (February-March 1951).
- Superman: Action Comics #1-154 (March 1951); All-Star Comics #7 (cameo), 36; New York World’s Fair [#1-2]; Superman #1-69 (March-April 1951); Superman 3-D #1; Superman at the Gilbert Hall of Science; Superman Miniature; World’s Best Comics #1; World’s Fair Comics #2-50 (February-March 1951).
- Wonder Woman: All-Star Comics #8, 11-22, 24-57; Big All-American Comic Book; Comic Cavalcade #1-29; Sensation Comics #1-102; Wonder Woman #1-46 (March-April 1951).
Fortunately, Jeff of Earth-J is already doing a re-read of the Golden Age Superman. Jeff isn't doing a re-read of all Batman books, but he is compiling "The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told," by which he means "all of them." Recently he's begun re-reading other major Bat-villains, which he discusses in Batman vs. Penguin, Riddler — Prince of Puzzles, The Crimes of Two-Face and Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale.
I should note that my methodology changed over time, as realities required. For instance, I initially lumped books together by monthly cover date, but complications ensued for books without them, like quarterlies and one-shots. As the number of quarterlies and their importance increased, I ended up going by on-sale dates as the primary organizational tool. (Which aren't available for all books, but that's a lesser devil than chronologically misplacing Batman or All-Star Comics). Initially I only included mention of others strips in anthology books if they were of some importance, like Slam Bradley, but eventually I started including all of them. Here and there I would try to improve the format. And so forth. In some imaginary "someday" I'll go back through and make them all consistent.
I've tried to be comprehensive, relying on a variety of sources, from online to reprints to "companion" books. A tip of the cowl to a Luke Blanchard post in what amounts to an outline for this discussion. But I'm sure I've left out tons, especially stories I don't have or can't find, which may be at hand in your collection. I hope folks will do re-reads of stories I've left out, as well as comment on what I've written. So let's hear what I've missed Legionnaires — and what you think!
Replies
In this story, Irene is a "confidential secretary," although to whom is not said.
These days they prefer to be called "sex workers." :)
Irene was confused when Alan actually asked her to do some typing.
And when she found out that she was a beard!
Obviously, Alan Scott did not consult his enlistment with any of the JSAers as they were hemming and hawing over who would or wouldn't try to talk them out of it!
Since they didn't know Superman and Batman's secret identities, they couldn't badger Clark Kent (and yes, I know the story!) and Bruce Wayne to enlist.
I have no knowledge about Jay Garrick enlisted or if he had a deferral. I'm guessing his research made him exempt. Probably that went for Rex Tyler too.
I wonder if Dick Grayson being his youthful ward could have allowed Bruce not to be drafted?
That reminded about the "controversy" over John Wayne's deferral as he had, I believe, three children at the time. The gist was that the Duke should have enlisted but chose not to. Personally I think that Wayne did more good for the war effort by staying in Hollywood, making movies than, say, flying a plane!
APRIL 21, 1942
June-July 1942, All-American Publications Inc., 68 pages
Cover by Sheldon Moldoff. Moldoff is Hawkman's artist in Flash Comics, and Hawkman is the lead and only figure. Vignettes of the other characters appear, all by their other artists. Dr. Fate is by Howard Sherman, Johnny Thunder by E. E. Hibbard, Dr. Mid-Nite by Stan Aschmeier, Spectre by Bernard Baily, Wonder Woman by H.G. Peter, Starman by Jack Burnley, Atom by Ben Flinton and Sandman by Cliff Young. Note that Wonder Woman suddenly appears on an All-Star Comics cover as if she's a member, in both vignette and blurb, with no hint of that in the previous issue or any disclaimers. (That will come.)
JSA Roll Call: The Atom, Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, Sandman, Spectre, Starman.
Guest Star in a National Emergency: Wonder Woman.
Calendar Watch: Dec. 9, 1941 (per All-Star Squadron #5).
"The Justice Society Joins the War on Japan"
Introduction
By Gardner Fox and E.E. Hibbard (3 pages)
Splash Page: A huge block of text (vaguely reminding me of the scroll at the beginning of Star Wars), tells us about Pearl Harbor. The Justice Society, we are told "explodes with righteous indignation." All eight members appear in the Roll Call and in vignettes. Wonder Woman also appears in a vignette, and is explained in the Roll Call as "guest star in a national emergency."
Pages 2-3: The eight members gather, and tell each other they've all decided to enlist as civilians in the Army, except for Johnny Thunder, who plans to enlist in the Navy, and The Spectre, who isn't joining anything. "As a ghost I can't enlist,"The Afterlife Ace says. And later, "I'll just keep working on the home front — there's plenty to do."
Takeaway: This strikes me as odd, because Jim Corrigan's mortal body was resurrected in More Fun Comics #75 (January 1942), a move I had assumed was done specifically to give the Wraith of Wrath a secret identity. Jim Corrigan is now alive enough that he's entertaining the thought of marrying Clarice Winston. So, theoretically, he's alive enough that he could enlist. And he could use his powers to fake his way through any physical examination, if need be.
So why didn't The Spectre join the military? I suspect it's for the same reasons Superman didn't.
We all know the story about how Clark Kent failed his physical by accidentally reading an eye chart in the next room with his X-ray vision. Ha ha! But we also know that if Clark really wanted to enlist, he could have. "I'm sorry, doctor, I was just kidding. Let me read that chart again." And then pass any other test that came his way, using super-powers or not.
And so could The Spectre. To explain why they didn't, I considered real-world reasons that begat comic book reasons.
In the real world, the JSAers had to volunteer, or they would look like draft-dodgers. Several of them were, as far as the public was concerned, healthy young playboys who were just lounging about on their piles of money. They had to join, or look unheroic and unpatriotic. Also, there was a deliberate propaganda effort at the time, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of War Information.
"Comics brought superheroes into the war effort when the United States finally entered the war," Cord Scott wrote (according to Wikipedia) in Comics and Conflict: War and Patriotically Themed Comics in American Cultural History From World War II Through the Iraq War. "Many writers joined the War Writers Board (WWB), which was established to promote government policy as well as discourage profiteering. While a private organization, the WWB quickly joined forces with the United States Office of War Information. Headed by Elmer Davis, the OWI focused on coordinating all media for the war effort. The comic book creators cooperated with the prevailing attitude of supporting the war."
But the superheroes couldn't go overseas. If they did, they would be rendered impotent, unable to do anything. Because whatever they did do would run counter to historic events, which would look silly. (See: The bulk of All-Star Comics #11.) Worse, it would trivialize the sacrifices and heroics of real military personnel.
Which is why Superman, and then The Spectre, and then everybody else, managed to stay home. "The creators, the publishers, and the United States government were all in complete agreement," Google's Gemini says. "The real war belonged to the real soldiers, and the comic book gods had to stay home to respect those sacrifices."
Since they couldn't go to war, comic book writers had to find a way to keep them out and not look like cowards.
In answer, Gardner Fox created the Justice Battalion at the end of All-Star Comics #11 (which we'll get to soon). This special unit took the JSA members out of standard deployment tracks and chains of command and made them answerable to the military high command in Washington, D.C. From that point on it was up to the War Department to decide where the JSA would go, and amazingly, the War Department always decided they should go somewhere in the United States. It wasn't the JSA's fault they didn't go overseas! It was those gosh-darn bureaucrats in Washington!
In modern times, that arrangement has been buttressed by even better reasons. DC Special #29 introduced the "Spear of Destiny," which kept superheroes out of Europe. Then All-Star Squadron #4 introduced the "Holy Grail," which kept superheroes out of the Eastern Pacific. All-Star Squadron #20 (which we'll get to soon) featured a story that convinced Green Lantern to stay out of combat altogether. Retroactively and in-story, we can assume the War Department was aware of the Spear/Grail problem, to explain why it always gave the JSA domestic assignments. After all, they don't want Hitler to order his Übermensch to level London, or for Tojo to order Spectre to sink the U.S. Pacific Fleet. And that kept decision-making out of the hands of the superheroes, so they couldn't be called shirkers.
More tomorrow — but not from All-Star Comics #11!
A huge block of text (vaguely reminding me of the scroll at the beginning of Star Wars)...
I see what you mean. I was going to say it's more likely reminiscent of the scroll at the beginning of the Buck Rogers serials (upon which Stars Wars is based), but then I read it. You mean the tone moreso than the scroll itself, don't you?
The enlisting of the Justice Society members made more sense because without their costumes, weapons and special equipment, five of them are normal guys (mostly). The Spectre was not alive, Doctor Fate should have been a cipher and Johnny Thunder would have failed a basic IQ test!
Still, Doctor Mid-Nite was commissioned, he didn't enlist. He was automatically an officer in the Medical Corps, not in a combat unit.
Starman also had a problem since Ted Knight joining the army Air Force destroyed his cover as a sickly playboy! How did he explain that to Doris Lee?
And could Johnny Thunder have been exempt from service because of Peachy Pet?
And I checked! The minimum height requirement during WWII was five feet tall so the Atom was good to go!
And only Doctor Mid-Nite had an essential job! Amateur archeologist, criminologist and astronomer don't count!
Did Dr. McNider have an essential job? After he was blinded, he left his medical practice to become a true crime writer. Dr. Mid-Nite performed a number of surgeries in blackout conditions, but I don't think he practiced medicine again as Charles until the Silver Age. Of course, there a lot of Dr. Mid-Nite solo stories I haven't read, so I could be wrong.
There's a lot I haven't read, either, although I plan to do as we proceed through the Golden Age. But the only stories that matter for this discussion are those that happened before All-Star Comics #11. And as you say, Dave, he was retired from the medical world and was just writing crime stories.
He was essential, in a way, in how he joins the Army. They had built McNider up as a super-doctor of sorts, with various characters in various storie exhorting, "Only Dr. McNider could do XXX ... but now he's blind!" That pattern was repeated here when a U.S. Army doctor working on an undescribed "serum" on an unnamed Pacific base is killed in a Japanese air raid, and his dying words were that only Dr. McNider could finish his work. Before you can say the words "isn't that convenient" McNider received a special commission as a captain in the U.S. Medical Corps and was sent to that Pacific island (along with Myra to be his eyes). He's one of only two JSA members who get commissioned in December 1941 (the other being Ted Knight, at least according to Roy Thomas).
This is coming up in All-Star Comics #11 (part 2), once we plow through a few more All-Star Squadrons.
Works for me. We should take a moment to reflect on Dr. McNider, who is legally blind, being allowed to enlist, while poor Clark Kent couldn't because of a failed eye test. Oh, and to bookend Clark, since Roy Thomas made Dr. Daka canonical on Earth 2, wouldn't it follow that the movie serial's explanation, that Bruce Wayne was deferred because his activities as Batman were considered essential, might also be canon? Along with the original JSAers freely sharing their secret identities with each other right out the gate, there was reason to believe that J. Edgar Hoover, and presumably others in the government knew at least some of these same secrets, although this was generally more discreet than the inter-team over sharing. After all, when the government reassigned Hawkman to the Justice Battalion, Airman Carter Hall was not listed as AWOL...
Yesterday we covered Pages 1-3 of All-Star Comics #11. But before we get to Page 4, there's a lot of housekeeping to do. Because Roy Thomas has shoehorned in a ton of retcons!
OCTOBER 6, 1981
January 1982, DC Comics Inc., 36 pages
Cover by Rich Buckler
“Never Step on a Feathered Serpent!”
By Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway (27 pages)
Title Watch: Maybe inspired by "Never Step on a Scorpion!" from Amazing Spider-Man #29 (October 1965). Stan Lee wrote on the splash page ""Never Step on a Scorpion! Or ... You Think It's Easy to Dream Up Titles Like This?" Roy Thomas would have been 24 years old, and was likely already working at Marvel Comics, when that issue came out.
Calendar Watch: Dec. 9, 1941.
JSA Roll Call: Atom, Dr. Fate. Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern (flashback), Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, Sandman, Starman, Spectre.
All-Star Squadron Roll Call: Firebrand (in flashback), Firebrand II (first appearance), Hawkgirl (as Shiera Sanders), Shining Knight, Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Robotman
All-Star Squadron jumps back into the chat by literally re-creating the first three pages of All-Star Comics #11. It’s not a word-for-word re-creation, and lasts four pages, but the gist is covered. (Johnny Thunder’s Navy joke is repeated. It’s still not funny.) Once again, Spectre says he can’t enlist (to Dr. Fate, not the group entire, as in 1942). I don’t have any questions this time, because Thomas is simply following (convenient) precedent.
One big change: Thomas has Hawkman officially gavel the JSA out of existence on Page 3. “I hereby declare the Justice Society of America disbanded — for the duration!” That doesn't happen explicitly in All-Star Comics #11. It's implied, I guess, by everybody joining the service and leaving the dead guy alone in the meeting rooms. Which is too sad for words. But the JSA is rebranded by the end of the issue as the Justice Battalion.
So disbanding is an All-Star Squadron invention, unless it's mentioned somewhere else and i just missed it. And Squadron mentions that there is no more JSA pretty frequently. Perhaps it's to explain why an All-Star Squadron is necessary at all.
We meet Nazi Gen. Saukel in Mexico, who is attempting to manipulate a costumed man who says he’s the reincarnation of Quetzacoatal (or Kukulcan), the feathered serpent god of Mesoamerican mythology. He has a monolog about the first story in Green Lantern #4 (Summer 1942), which wouldn't come out for two months after All-Star Comics #11. I placed that story on Page 171, so it's already "happened" in our re-read.
Robotman and Johnny Quick stop an attack on the Statue of Liberty, which doesn’t concern us. They convene with our JSA trio and Shining Knight at Danette Reilly’s apartment, where the vulcanologist is convalescing after her ordeal in Hawaii. (Charles McNider is her doctor.) She wakes up and discovers her brother’s Firebrand costume in the closet, and thinks, “from the look of these clothes — I didn’t know my brother as well as I thought I did.”
Also, Danette discovers she has fire-based super-powers, and adopts a version of her brother’s costume. One change is that she wears a one-piece bathing suit top under the see-through shirt. (This is a Comics Code book, after all. Can you imagine if she didn't, though? Talk about cross-genre!)
Anyway, the whole gang flies commercial to the Yucatan, where Carter mentions Shiera’s inheritance — an event which happened in an issue of All-Star Comics. I haven’t seen evidence of it translating to Flash Comics, but I assume I will, since Gardner Fox writes both All-Star Comics and the Hawkman strip, and Roy Thomas says it did in one of the Companions.
Hawkman and Shining Knight trip an electrical booby trap but survive, thanks to magic armor and Ninth Metal. I mention it here because of the Ninth Metal reference. I approve of anything that upgrades the Hawks to more than flying targets.
Fun Facts
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