All-Star Comics #63
Nov.-Dec. 1976
Cover art by: Rich Buckler & Wally Wood
Story: The Death of Dr. Fate
Writer: Paul Levitz
Pencils: Keith Giffen
Inks: Wally Wood
This is pretty much the definition of an average comic book. From the story to the art. Almost all the drama is sucked out of somehow.
Yes, Dr. Fate does die as shown on the cover, but he not only is back to life by the end he is also the one who defeats the big baddie, Zanadu. Wildcat while under the thrall of the Fiddler believes he has killed Hawkman, but of course he didn't. Superman announces his retirement, but then asks them to take Power Girl in his place.
The most interesting part was all of the doubt Dr. Midnight shows, as both a doctor and a hero. Speaking of Midnight, it was weird when he, Star-Spangled Kid, and Hourman were trying to save Dr. Fate, and the Kid thought Midnight would be able more useful in the medical proceeding wearing his superhero garb.
Also, when the Injustice Society are planning their next attack at the end, they target Hourman as the weakest link. What about Hawkman, Hawkgirl, or Wildcat?
The art was just really stiff looking, and blocky. Pass on this one.
Replies
That's just a few issues before I started reading the series. I remember as a kid being really enthralled with the retired JSAers fighting the new guys (in issue 68 and 69). Those issues made me a JSA fan for life, showing how different they could be (and act) from their Earth-1 counterparts.
When I finally read this issue a few years ago, I can't say I was very impressed, either.
I'm surprised and a bit shocked to hear that you guys didn't like that art. Usually Wally Wood is treated with nearly the same reverence as Kirby and Ditko.
This was the only time that Solomon Grundy was part of the Injustice Society.
Superman didn't really retire anyway.
Hourman came out of semi-retirement so he wasn't at his best, thus he was the "weak link".
...Rather with Philip about the Woody one:-( .
Still , mebbe he wasn't (As an inker , 'member - mebbe Buckler's Kirby swipes collection was in packaging that month ? He he he . Oh , you *****.) at his best that month ~ I had the 2?? TPBs of Wood on the JSA from a few years back , was this in it ?
To an extent , " stiff " WAS what Wally Wood's art WAS.........
I tend to love Wally Wood art. His EC stuff is mind-blowing -- to the point where the EC volume is one few IDW Artist Editions I've ever tried to justify the price of owning.
There are some nice moments in his All-Star run, but it doesn't hold a candle to his best work. And in this case, it's just Wood inking Keith Giffen, a newcomer who hadn't found his voice yet. (I'm a big fan of both: Seeing them work together both in their prime would be mind-blowing to me.)
For 70s All-Star, though, I think I prefer Staton. In my recollection, at least, his work has more confidence and heart.
You won't find a much bigger Wally Wood fan around here than me (I'll take Wood over Ditko or Kirby any day of the week). But if the work stinks, it stinks and I'll say so. Here you have one creator at the end of his career and another at the beginning, and it just didn't mesh well.
Also, I believe this is the time during Giffen's first go-around with DC in which he himself said years later he would have fired him. He was producing sloppy work and missing deadlines.
I've read a fair amount of the 70s All-star book and enjoyed, just not this one.
Oh yeah another thing that bothered me is the cover text. Too much there and I guess we have 2 teams here? Although there is never anything to differentiate between the them in story.
There was a retrospective on the 70s JSA revival in Amazing Heroes #3. As I recall, when title was revived its initial writer, Gerry Conway, intended that it should have a youth vs age theme, with Robin, Power Girl and Star-Spangled Kid representing youth. In the opening issue (last image) there's a bit where Wildcat is complaining about Power Girl's help and she tells him he should "pretend you're part of a new team -- a strike force -- composed of the JSA and we three "new" heroes -- Robin, Star-Spangled Kid, and me -- -- you know, a Super-Squad!"
My recollection is what stood behind this was a desire to give the team a new name. I don't recall whether that was so it would seem fresh, to draw attention to the presence of the new characters, or to avoid confusion with the JLA. Roy Thomas suggested "All-Star Squad", but this was rejected because of its initialism, so the title went with "Super-Squad".
I don't know if the name was otherwise used in the stories. It was used on the splash pages of the earlier issues. Also, on the covers up to #65, after which it was dropped in favour of a "Justice Society of America" logo. The "of America" part of this was very small, and that part of the name was dropped from the logos of the final issues (the last issue had a different one). My guess is that was to avoid confusion with the JLA.
I was sorely disappointed in the revived All-Star Comics title. I had enjoyed the Silver-Age glimpses into the current lives of the Justice Society members. Not just from the Justice League/Society team-ups in JLA, but also from the occasional adventures of the Flash and the Green Lantern and the Atom in the parent titles of their Earth-One counterparts.
And the dam really burst in 1965, when DC brought us the Doctor Fate/Hourman pairings in Showcase and teamed Starman and the Black Canary in The Brave and the Bold.
But the revived All-Star Comics was not even close to the quality of those Silver-Age Earth-Two adventures, and I really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, it was 1970's DC.
The big thrust of "young versus old" is a shopworn trope that never rang true with me, even when I was young. "Young" only succeeds in fiction, where youthful initiative and modern thinking can be contrived to beat out the "stodgy", "outdated" approach of the oldsters. In real life, I knew, it's hard to trump experience. (There's a reason why the Navy has no twenty-three-year-old admirals.)
And even allowing for the young-versus-old trope, All-Star Comics executed it poorly. For one thing, Robin had no place standing with the youngsters. If the long-time JSAers were in their mid-sixties, then Robin would have been in his early to mid-forties. Younger than his fellow members, yes, but a good twenty years older than the Star-Spangled Kid (in terms of physical age) and Power Girl.
Speaking of Power Girl, she turned me off the instant she appeared, despite her fetching rendition by Wally I'll-keep-making-them-bigger-until-they-tell-me-to-stop Wood. My objection to P.G. was the same as it was to the way the Green Arrow was being handled over in JLA; no team of professionals would tolerate such a contentious, insulting personality, no matter what talents he---or in P.G.'s case, she---brought to the table. They're just too disruptive.
Yet, just as with the JLA and the Emerald Archer, the veteran JSAers just smiled and welcomed Power Girl to the fold, regardless of what a genuine pain in the ass she was. And her on-going conflict with Wildcat was as contrived as G.A's feud with Hawkman, and only enabled by writing the Feline Fury as a dull-witted Neanderthal.
And then there were the continuity mistakes. Wildcat had become a dis-dese-and-dat palooka, rather than the educated and skilled man Ted Grant had been shown to be. (To Paul Levitz's credit, he did make an effort to explain the change and reverse it later on in the series.) And then there was the business of the Earth-Two Superman possessing only the power levels of the 1938 incarnation of the Man of Steel (e.g., no power of flight, just one-eighth-of-a-mile leaps), even though the E-2 Superman, in his three previous JLA/JSA appearances, had been shown to possess all of the powers of his Earth-One counterpart (slightly, perhaps, weakened by age).
This was a case of Gerry Conway having a Neat Idea and he wasn't going to let a little thing like continuity keep him from using it.
The Star-Spangled Kid was a nothing character who was inserted simply to bolster the "young" side of the "young versus old" conflict. And to justify his presence, Conway fabricated this notion that Ted Knight, temporarily h'ors de combat due to a broken leg, gave the Kid his cosmic rod (even though no previous relationship between the Kid and Knight had been established and there was no apparent reason for Knight to turn over his most precious invention to a virtual stranger).
My thinking at the time was, if a member of the Justice Society was going to wield the cosmic rod, I'd rather it be Starman, rather than some kid who got pushed out of his original series by his own sister, for crying out loud.
After Conway left and Levitz took over the scripting, the title got better, but only marginally. While for me, comics tended to get worse the farther they got from the Silver Age, interestingly enough, it was the 1992 Justice Society of America title, by Len Strazewski and Mike Parobeck, that depicted the team the way I always wanted to see it done. Unfortunately, it was woefully short lived.
It's a shame that after all the trouble they went thru in order to bring the Seven Soldiers of Victory back to Earth-2, all we really got to show for it was a really whiny Star-Spangled Kid in the JSA with a hand-me-down weapon. The Shining Knight was really the only SSVer that would have actually brought something of his own to the party, but even he is a bit redundant to the Earth-2 Hawkman (fighting the evils of the present with the weapons of the past, etc.) I keep thinking that if the Earth-2 Speedy had the ability to transform into a centaur at will, thanks to his encounter with Circe, he may have had potential as a hero called "Sagittarius", but the more I think about it, the less it seems to work.
Since I have a little knowledge about Starman's Silver and Bronze Age appearances, I can say that DC didn't go out of their way to show Ted Knight in the best light. From his Brave & Bold apex, he was usually easily defeated as seen in Justice League of America #73, 83 and 101. The last one even had the Earth-One Batman know more about the Cosmic Rod than its creator.
With a new Starman being introduced in 1st Issue Special #12 (Ma'76), they had Ted Knight break his leg in All Star Comics #58 (F'76) and give the Cosmic Rod to the Star Spangled Kid. When the Kid was revived, he was described as a genius, albeit one without any fashion sense.
As for the relationship between Ted and Slyvester, Figs always talks about the "moments between panels" so I can well imagine Ted deciding to mentor a younger Star-character.