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.
Speaking of drawing lines, I won't be re-reading Superman and Batman. They are peripheral at best to the Golden Age JSA, and would overwhelm the discussion through sheer volume. The volume issue extends to Wonder Woman as well (Sensation Comics, Wonder Woman, Comic Cavalcade), but she was a major player in the JSA, so I haven't decided yet if I'll include her solo stories. (And I have quite a bit of time to decide, since the bulk of DC"s Golden Age Archives books consist of material published before Sensation Comics #1.) Fortunately, Jeff of Earth-J is already doing a re-read of the Golden Age Superman.
I should note that I'm comparing ship dates on books that don't have months assigned to covers, like quarterlies and specials, to ship dates on monthlies to figure out where those books should be placed. All-Star Comics #3, for example, is dated "Winter" on the cover, but the on-sale date places it with books with December 1940 cover dates, so that's where I put it..
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 some of Luke Blanchard's posts in what amounts to almost an outline for this discussion. But I'm sure I've left out tons, especially reprints that I don't have or can't find, which may be at hand in your collection. I hope folks will do re-reads of reprints 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!
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I'm not casting anything. I'm just trying to describe an article about the creation of the Silver Age Atom written by Roy Thomas in a magazine edited by Roy Thomas and giving the facts as he told it. He himself wrote that Gil Kane did not go along with his recollections. With these things happening over sixty years ago, it's hard to say what exactly happened.
And my saying that the other people involved were still alive when said article was written was meant to defend him.
JANUARY 1940
'FLASH COMICS' #1
The Flash
Real name: Jay Garrick
Created by: Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert
Debut story: Untitled by Fox and Lampert (15 pages)
Where I read it: The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965)
Significance: JSA member
This story seemed a bit disjointed to me, jumping from Jay Garrick's origin to the big football game to his graduation to his new job to foiling some foreign spies. The Flash's origin (inhaling "hard water" fumes) and the MacGuffin (the "atomic bombarder") make use of scientific terms familiar to readers of the time, but without any science to back them up. And for an origin story, it's pretty unclear when or where Garrick starts calling himself "The Flash" and when or where he gets the uniform. Both just spontaneously appear.
Maybe Fox just hadn't gotten his sea legs yet — he studied to be a lawyer, and practiced for a few years — or maybe he wasn't too worried yet about story logic and continuity. Roy Thomas reported in the Foreword to Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives that Fox once wrote him, "Anything worked in the comics in those dear, departed days!"
For the record, Jay Garrick is a student at Midwestern University, and becomes an assistant professor at Coleman University after graduation. His mentor at Midwestern is named Professor Hughes who, in The New Golden Age: Special Edition #1 (2023), is revealed to have staged the accidents that gave Jay and Judy Garrick (The Boom) their super-speed. (We'll see if that holds up any better than Mopee.)
The girl Jay's sweet on, Joan Williams, is disdainful at first because Garrick's a "scrub" on the football team, and I guess you have to be a big athlete to get her attention because, you know, girls are icky and shallow. (If you're 10.) After getting super-speed, Flash wins the big game all by himself, which is apparently enough for Joan to deign to date him. Anyway, after Joan graduates she says she plans to help her father, U.S. Army Major Williams, with his "atomic bombarder" project, which is how the story lurches into the foreign-spies angle. (They style themselves "The Faultless Four" for some reason.)
Joan is fully aware that Jay is The Flash, and these stories don't seem concerned overmuch with Jay's secret identity. He uses his powers rather openly in this story, winning the big football game and playing tennis with himself in public.
I've always liked Jay Garrick. He seems like such an cheerful, level-headed, normal guy, utterly devoid of grim-n-gritty angst. He's also in my core JSA "trinity," along with Green Lantern and Wonder Woman.
Flash Facts:
Golden Age appearances: 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).
Current status: He may not be the Fastest Man Alive any more, but he's probably still in the Top 10. He's currently active in JSA (third series).
Real name: Carter Hall
Created by: Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville
Debut story: Untiltled by Fox and Neville (12 pages)
Where I read it: Famous First Edition #F-8 (August-September 1975)
Significance: JSA member
"Beginning the tale of a phantom of the night, the Hawkman, who from time immemorial has fought the cause of justice against the force of evil."
Bang from the start is the suggestion that Hawkman (or some variant) has been around a very long time. I don't think they made much use of that idea in the Golden Age (outside of Khufu/Carter), but in modern times they have retconned all kinds of DC characters as reincarnations, from Silent Knight (Sir Brian Kent) to the Western character Nighthawk (Hannibal Hawkes). If there's any mention of that in these Archives, I'll highlight it.
As this story begins, Carter Hall ("wealthy collector of weapons and research scientist") touches an ancient Egyptian knife and has a vision of Prince Khufu in ancient Egypt, who was in love with Princess Shiera (changed to the more Egyptian-sounding Chay-Ara in the modern era). Both were murdered with a "Ninth Metal" knife by Hath-Set, priest of Anubis, and now all three endlessly reincarnate. Hall realizes he is Khufu reincarnated and meets a woman named Shiera, who, he realizes, is a reincarnation of the original. (After hearing his story, she believes it, too, because she's had dreams of Egypt.) The current Hath-Set, Anton Hastor, is running high voltage through subway rails for some reason, and kidnaps Shiera as well. Hawkman kills him dead with a crossbow.
Egyptomania was a thing in those days, and this character is steeped in it. I rather like it; it gives the character a reason for evocative visuals like the hawk motif and ancient weapons. Hawkman is pretty brutal here, killing Hastor outright. In this case, reincarnation is on the table. But it won't be the last bad guy Hawkman kills. Of course, lots of Golden Age heroes killed their opponents, even Batman, at least until the pulp influence receded.
The story gets its mythology mixed up, with references to the "hawk-god Anubis," who was jackal-headed. However, subtextually they get it right, as Horus is a hawk-headed god who avenges the murder of his father Osiris by defeating Set in combat, and taking the throne of the sky. Hawkman vs. Hath-Set is, in my head canon, Horus (god of sky and battle) vs. Set (god of storms, chaos, the desert).
It doesn't look like Fox and editor Shelly Mayer really thought this concept through very far, but if you squint it works. Anubis can be factored into the reincarnation angle, as he's the god of the afterlife and protector of the dead.
I'm a little confused about Hawkman's wings. In the Silver Age, Katar Hol's wings were feathered, but only used for navigation. The Nth metal, which gave him the power to defy gravity, was in his harness. But in the Golden Age, it's a little murkier. In this first issue, when he is attacked with electricity, Hawkman says he has "no vulernable metal" on his body and "my cloak of the web of the Nth metal is non-conducting." The web of the cloak of the what? He might mean his wings, which look metallic, but he brings a spare "cloack of Ninth metal" to protect Shiera, and it doesn't look like wings at all. So I'm confused already, and it won't take long for Fox to confuse me further.
Fun Facts:
Golden Age appearances: All-Star Comics #1-57, Big All-American Comic Book, Flash Comics #1-104, Flash Comics miniature (Wheaties).
Current status: Alive and well, and appearing in JSA (third series). Shiera Sanders is dead, but reincarnated as Kendra Saunders, the current Hawkgirl, who also appears in JSA.
Real name: John L. Thunder
Created by: John Wentworth and Stan Aschmeier
Debut story: Untitled by Wentworth and Aschmeier (10 pages)
Where I read it: Famous First Edition #F-8 (August-September 1975)
Significance: JSA member
Johnny Thunder was born at 7 a.m. on the seventh day of the week on 7/7/1917, the seventh son of a seventh son, which made him a target for a cult from "Badhnisia." They kidnapped him as a baby and performed a ceremony on him to grant great power. But neighboring country "Agolea" invaded, so Johnny was whisked away. He wandered away from his kidnappers, while they were on the run. He grew up in the U.S., unaware of his power.
Most comics fans are familiar with that power, which takes the form of a pink genie with lightning for hair who answers to "Cei-U" ("say you") and takes Johnny's commands so literally as to be comical. But in this story, Johnny's power manifests early without any magic words at all. Later in the story he does say "Say you," and the genie manifests as a pink cloud. This will evolve until the genie — eventually Johnny calls him "Thunderbolt" — looks and acts like what we'd expect.
In his Foreword to The JSA All Stars Archives Vol. 1, Roy Thomas describes Johnny as a comedy sidekick for the JSA in an era when comedy sidekicks weren't unusual.
Fun Facts:
Golden Age appearances: 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).
Current status: Johnny Thunder died but was resurrected and merged with the Thunderbolt in JSA #37 (August 2002) to become a being with the memories of both, called "Johnny Thunderbolt." It's both a portmanteau of their names and a nod to his feature's original title. He is stored in a pen and answers to his successor, Jakeem Thunder. Johnny appeared in Doomsday Clock as a resident of a retirement home with dementia, which seemed to add little to the story. In the third act, someone reminded him that he's fifth-dimensional now, and he zipped away.
First appearance: Flash Comics #1
Real name: Rodney Elwood Gaynor
Created by: John Wentworth and George Storm
Debut story: Untitled by Wentworth and Storm (10 pages)
Where I read it: Famous First Edition #F-8 (August-September 1975)
Significance: An early DC superhero
We learn the legend of Don Fernando Suarez, who defended the poor of Segundo ("second" in Spanish) against the rancheros 100 years ago in Old Mexico. He wore the guise of "El Castigo" (Spanish for "The Punishment," as in the English "castigation," but incorrectly translated here as "The Whip"), and was very, very Zorro-like. Fast forward to the present, and bored playboy (is there any other kind?) Rodney Gaynor is passing through Segundo, which is now part of the American Southwest. The local elite are still abusing the poor, and the sheriff is in on it. Only the local padre and Marissa Dillon, the newspaper editor's beautiful daughter (is there any other kind?), fight back. Gaynor takes a shine to the daughter, and when the locals try to lynch a worker to intimidate the others, Gaynor shows up as a new El Castigo and puts a stop to it. The daughter isn't fooled for an instant about who's behind the mask.
This is one of the few Whip stories I've ever read. I don't know if my heart swells at justice being served to the greedy rich, or if I'm appalled by El Castigo's pidgen Spanish accent or the Latin American peasant stereotypes. You have to take this one with a big grain of 1930s salt.
I do like the love interest catching on right away. She could teach Lois Lane and Vicki Vale a thing or two.
Fun Facts:
Golden Age Appearances: Big All-American Comic Book; Flash Comics #1-6, 8-31, 33-47, 53, 55; Sensation Comics #43, Flash Comics miniature (Wheaties).
Current status: Dead, If Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory #0 (April 2005) is still in continuity, Gaynor died quietly at home of old age. In the same series Gaynor's grand-daughter picked up the legacy, and was immediately killed.
Clff Cornwall, a federal agent, also debuts in Flash Comics #1.
The anthology titles are getting better. Until now, each of them have had only one interesting character each, if that. Now Flash Comics debuts with not one but two headliners: Flash and Hawkman.
FLASH: I'm not sure where I first read Flash's debut, but it was either the treasury edition of The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer. It depends on when the TE was released. I got the Feiffer book for my tenth birthday.
HAWKMAN: My thoughts on "The Hawkman" can be found on the "HAWKMEN" thread, a discussion I never took as far as I had at first intended. If you follow that link and read the discussion, you will find another link, this one to "What's the Deal with Hawkman and Hawkgirl?," an article so in-depth it took the wind right out of my discussion's sails.
"How many of the JSA's cases could have been resolved in minutes if Johnny Thunder wasn't a moron?"
Johnny Thunder has no business in the JSA. He doesn't even know how his powers work! He's not featured on the cover of All Star #3 and gets only a text feature inside. Furthermore, he wasn't even invited to the first meeting. Like the Red Tornado, he crashed the party, but unlike Ma Hunkle, he didn't have the good sense or common courtesy to stay away after that. To be perfectly honest, I found it difficult to take the JSA seriously as anything other than a team of second stringers precisely because they allowed Johnny Thunder to be a member. Superman and Batman were too big to participate, and as soon as Green Lantern and Flash graduated to their own titles they were demoted to "honorary" status (or rather they were promoted out of the JSA, thus reinforcing the team's second string status).
Johnny Thunder's own feature was poorly written, poorly drawn, and just plain not funny. Worse than that, though, it was condescending and insulting. "OOOPS! Cei-U, which sounds in English like 'say you' -- Did you hear Johnny say thjose magic Badhnisian words? They give him a terriffic power for one hour to do whatever he wants! He doesn't know what it is that gives him this power -- so let's watch what happens! Look for the thunderbolt when he makes a wish!" Ugh. Gag me with a thunderbolt. I get it already. No need to beat me over the head with it. I was only ten years old when I read it for the first time and I was insulted. He and Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite should all get together for a nice little game of Russian roulette.
SHELDON MOLDOFF: The Hawkman story in Flash Comics #1 is drawn by Denis Neville, but the one in The Great Comic Book Heroes is by Sheldon Moldoff. Every time I read a Sheldon Moldoff story I find more swipes than I did the last time I read it. The last time I worked my way through All Star Comics, for example, I was struck by how many panels were swiped from Hal Foster. As I page through them this time, I am find just as many swiped from Alex Raymond (because I have since read more Flash Gordon than I had then). The images below are taken from "Sheldon Moldoff's Hawkman and the Art of the Swipe."
The anthology titles are getting better. Until now, each of them have had only one interesting character each, if that. Now Flash Comics debuts with not one but two headliners: Flash and Hawkman.
Marvel Mystery Comics launched with two headliners in 1939 (Human Torch and Sub-Mariner) and other publishers will do the same in 1940 (depending on your definition of headliner). Tomorrow I mention Pep Comics #1 and Daring Mystery Comics #1, which are also January 1940 books with multiple superheroes. It’s just the beginning of the Spandex flood.
I'm not sure where I first read Flash's debut, but it was either the treasury edition or The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer. It depends on when the TE was released. I got the Feiffer book for my tenth birthday.
That was my introduction to many of these Golden Age stories, too.
My thoughts on "The Hawkman" can be found on the "HAWKMEN" thread, a discussion I never took as far as I had at first intended. If you follow that link and read the discussion, you will find another link, this one to "What's the Deal with Hawkman and Hawkgirl?," an article so in-depth it took the wind right out of my discussion's sails.
I’m glad you found it though!
To be perfectly honest, I found it difficult to take the JSA seriously as anything other than a team of second stringers precisely because they allowed Johnny Thunder to be a member. Superman and Batman were too big to participate, and as soon as Green Lantern and Flash graduated to their own titles they were demoted to "honorary" status (or rather they were promoted out of the JSA, thus reinforcing the team's second-string status).
That is a take I’d never thought of before. It did sort of look like Flash and Green Lantern were suddenly too good for the JSA! That’s definitely in the category of “unintended consequences,” but there in subtext. Fortunately, their return and Wonder Woman will redeem the team’s status somewhat.
Johnny Thunder's own feature was poorly written, poorly drawn, and just plain not funny.
No argument. Although, it didn’t stand out as particularly bad for the times. I’d argue it was on par with other humor strips in the Golden Age, which I largely find unreadable.
I was only ten years old when I read [Johnny Thunder] for the first time and I was insulted. He and Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite should all get together for a nice little game of Russian roulette.
That’s what they call a party in the fifth dimension!
The last time I worked my way through All Star Comics, for example, I was struck by how many panels were swiped from Hal Foster.
I’m glad you said that, because in the Foreword to the Hawkman Archives Moldoff said he was a big Alex Raymond fan, but as I (re-)read early Hawkman I am finding more “Prince Valiant” swipes than “Flash Gordon” swipes. I was beginning to wonder about my comics literacy skills!
I was beginning to wonder about my comics literacy skills!
It's honestly a toss-up; it just depends on what you're familiar with and what you're looking for. The splash panel Moldoff uses for the Hawkman story in All Star #3, for example, is a Foster swipe (from the same image I'm using to lead off my Prince Valiant discussion), although all the images I posted on the previous page are Raymond swipes.
It’s just the beginning of the Spandex flood.
Except that Spandex wasn't invented until 1958.
It's a palindrome.
Let me just speak up and say I'm a fan of Johnny Thunder and the Punchy Guys being included in the JSA. I agree that the punchy guys are seriously outclassed, and I also agree that Johnny is often more of a hindrance than a help. And yet I really love the JSA ethos that includes all of them.
It's a philosphy that everyone has a part to play, whether they're a powerhouse like the Spectre or Green Lantern, a mid-powered hero like Hourman, or unpowered crimefighters like the Atom and Sandman. Even someone who's a giant screwup is welcome to pitch in, because his heart is in the right place.
The JSA is pretty much the Dad Band of superhero teams. You've got some really good musicians there, plus a bunch of decent strummers, and one guy who they hand a tambourine or cowbell to and he goes wild. But by the end, everyone is singing along on the chorus.
Sure. The JSA were like Marvel's "Defenders." If you couldn't make the "A" team (Avengers), the "B" team would take you. National/American didn't have an "A" team (which would have consisted of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash to start), so the JSA was the "A" team by default. DC would eventually get their "A" team in 1960, by taking the current versions of the JSA's "honorary" members and adding Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter.
I'm of the feeling that "wacky" or "comedy" characters are acceptable if there's a reason for them to be there. You know, "Joe's a clown, but, by God, no one knows engines like he does! The Atmosphere-O-Jet would be a wreck without him!"
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