Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities All-Star Squadron... a series review.

I've always thought that Plas, like Captain Marvel, is a character who just doesn't integrate well into the shared universe concept.

^ I agree with that. And I'd add the New Gods to that list too.

All-Star Squadron Issue #2 With amazing cover art from legendary artist Joe Kubert!

Well, lets just start, shall we? First thing is that cover. Kubert has done so many covers over just my lifetime, 43 years, that you can easily miss just how great individual covers can be in that deep deep sea. And this one scales the heights... literally. Set high above the Pacific ocean, the All-Stars are seen busily dismantling a Japanese Zero in mid-air. Brave, since only Hawkman can fly, with a sort-of assist by Johnny Quick. And folks, that sets the stage for Issue 2.

The interior splash page is the emergence of the Brand Spankin' New ASS... ya'know, even after all this time, I still love that joke, from the White House. Someone in the crowd shouts out that its the Justice Society, and someone else, a cynic, says that they are imposters for the real heros. Plas demonstrates that they aren't, and the waiting crowd starts singing with "Oh say can you see...". This was the day after Pearl Harbor. People weren't so jaded as to not show their love and solidarity for country back then, and the horrific attack had emotions high.

Plas and Crane decide to team up and carry the non-speedster/flyers to get to the air port faster. Of course, this being the A.S.S., they immediately run across home grown hoods robbing an armoured car. The battle is short, sweet, and gives us another quick shot at just what the base powers of the members are. Then, its a quick trip to the airport. All this in less than six pages.
Pages 7 through 10 give us an encapsulated set of personal origins of our hero's. 4 pages for 7 heros and we are across the country with Libby catching a broadcast stating that enemy Zero's were sighted off the coast of San Fran.

Quick as a wink, we have an UNDERSEA AIRCRAFT CARRIER LAUNCHING MORE ZEROS headed for the Western US coast, and rising out of the depths, the Rising Sun flag on the carrier of Per Degaton, miniscule maniacle maniac. One page of Degaton taunting Sir Justin and Danette Reilly, and we get a brief history lesson on the esoterically idiosyncratic Per Degaton. It last from page 13 to 19. Lots of interwoven history involving his first two appearances in JSA history.

Pages 19 and 20 have the intrepid and stunningly lovely redhead Danette Reilly using Degaton's narcisisstic tendencies against him, when, as his attention is diverted to ordering and lecturing his lackeys (Grundy, Wotan, and Prof. Zodiac) to smash Wotans magical manicles against Sir Justin's magical sword, which broke the spell and freed her. Then, with a rather stupid verbal key from Wotan, frees SJ, who then, as wel last see, stands at bay, sword at the ready for round two with Grundy.

Next, we see our intrepid heros back in action as they bail out over the Pacific to fight Sky Pirate leading a band of Japanese pilots plucked from time and hypnotized into following him as they attempt to attack San Fran. Carter sets the plane to crash in the bay and he and Johnny begin their assault on the other planes as Robot man rips off an engine and uses the prop driven engine to hitch a ride to Sky Pirates personal plane.

All the time this is happening, we get yet another hero in the mix as, on land in the city, a certain bombshell brunette known as Phantom Lady joins the fray. The ground forces of the All-Star Squad engage looters as Robotman extracts the last of the info needed from Sky Pirate before he goes "pop" back into the time stream.

And finally, on page 26 we see Carter rescue Robotman with Johnny landing as well, all while viewed by our own diabolical Dastard, Degaton on his viewer. He pressed the remote destruction button for the Island that the rest of the JSA are on while vowing that they are now all dead.

Whew.

But wait, there's more.

We also get a full page fact file on Per Degaton, placing his story in the correct context of JSA history so that we, the fans, know how things fit together.

There is also a full page essay "The Secret Wartime History Of The Justice Society Of America."

This post is very long as it is, but if folks would like, I'll scan it and put it here so that others can read or print a copy to peruse. *As long as it isn't considered a violation of any rule.

Folks, that a lot for just $.60, even back in October, '81. Between an excellent jam packed well, written issue, and the gorgeous art of Buckler and Ordway, this issue was an example of tremendous quality and value for money. I can't say enough. Honestly, this has been more of a summary than a review of the issue, but there's so much that I'll give my observations in another post.

That these issues haven't been TPBed is a SIN.

That I sold off my full run a few years back is so STUPID. (shoulda just sold the post-Crisis issues..!)

I agree Lash. This book should be textbook as to how to get in, tell the story, and get on. Yes, there was a little bit of coincidence to the story, things just seemed to line up easily, but I put that down to a master storyteller that makes it seem effortless rather than a writer taking the easy way and having things fall in line for the story.

The weaving of all the components of the story was what made it work. In less skillful hands, it would have seemed hacknied. What works for flow would have seemed silly, and instead of a beautiful weaving of many different parts of a story would have seemed like unconnected nonsense.

A good portion of the story was villain backgrown for Degaton, and if you weren't reading it comprehensively, you might have wondered why someone like Wotan was working for Degaton instead of the other way around. And yet, inside the story it works so well. Buckler's art was great and Jerry just made it shine beautifully.

And so much was taking place inside the stories. roy would take a couple of panels to set up subplots that worked, while many other writers of this day and age would make the setup an entire issue in some cases.

The breakneck pace combined with that old style pulp feel just satisfies the readers thirst for motion and action. It's the definition of what makes comics work. So many stories these days play out like tv dramas. there is a formula to the hour long drama that isn't ever veered from, and its translated, unfortunately into comics, so that there's very little genuine excitement or surprise.

God I wish someone at DC was smart enough to ask Roy to come back into the fold and show these new age slow paced fill writers how to do it. Lots of them pad a story for the tpbs, and this might show them that they don't have to pad and drag to fill. Roy and the team just jam so much stuff into the comic that its breathtaking in it's own way.

Sorry you got rid of those great books. I'd suggest hitting some back bins for this great ride.

I'm considering it strongly. At least for all the pre-Crisis issues.

And that seems to be the real demarcation point for the book. I quit a few issues before it actually ended because of what crisis did to the book. It seemed like every change or save Roy tried to make, if I'm remembering correctly, was taken away or squashed by the crisis or editorial at the time. So much was lost that the uniqueness of the book was lost. And thats a real shame. Roy could come back and do a great book and I would be there in a heartbeat.

My gosh, Roy and Steve Sadowski and I would be there in a heartbeat.

I'll try to have the next three issues this weekend, including the conclusion to the first arc. Been a busy week workwise.

I finished the series off thanks to quarter bins. Although I bought Young All Stars off the shelf.

I'd love it if they gave Roy the current Earth 2 world to play with...therefore making any changes he did make sense.

So issue #3 is the finally of this first opening arc, and it starts with Per Degaton using his view screens to catch us up on what has taken place and to give us an overview of his goals.

The first real action we see is Sir Justin and Danette Reilly facing off against Grundy, Wotan, and Prof. Zodiac. They manage to hold the bad guys off long enough to make it to the top of the underwater aircraft carrier where Sir J. uses his enchanted blade to cut open the outer skin of the craft and escape. They have no choice, and have to hope that they are not to far below the surface or they will drown. Grundy freaks out, Wotan seals the opening, and our intrepid adventurers make it to the surface, barely, to find that Justin's flying horse has been following them and then rescues them. They fly off only to have Zodiac and Wotan emerge in Zodiac's propeller-less plane and follow.

Grundy confronts Degaton because he hasn't been given the okay to kill Alan Scott. This gives Degaton a moment to remember where he lifted his time tossed crew. He's interrupted by Grundy who show members of the All-Stars skysailing in on a sailing ship formed by Plas's body. They spot the shadow of the underwater Aircraft and plas becomes a Giant hollow drill bit that drops and bores his way into the ship. They emerge in front of Grundy and Degaton. Phantom Lady, Libby, Doc, and Atom then get down to business, with Degaton beating a hasty retreat.

At this point we get a scene shift that takes us back to Carter, Johnny, and Bob Crane. They see more planes coming in and as Hawkman takes to the skies with a BFM, Crane throws Johnny at the planes, and then uses some handy cannon balls from an old memorial to start bombing the planes.

Then we shift to Sir J. and Danette back on the island, which apparantly has followed the underwater Aircraft carrier. Winged Victory has crashed, exhausted, and the two enter the underground caverns, to find the kidnapped members of the JSA unconscious and held in stasis by Wotan's spells. Justin tries to use his sword to break the magic, but it doesn't work. Zodiacs ship drops into the open volcano top to land in the cave and Justin and Danette fight a running battle against them. Wotan tags Justin, but Justin flings his blade and it strikes a vial in Zodiacs hand. Justin collapses and Danette flees across a rock bridge, only to be hit by Wotan. She falls into the lava surrounded by wotans spell.

And its at this point that the island starts to go boom. Wotan and Zodiac fade out returning to their true place in time as the volcano blows. Degaton is watching on his view screne, monologue-ing, when he sees a Giant Sized Spectre rising out of the Volcano. Spectre puts the brakes on, the gang is alive and revived, and Degaton follows the pattern and bugs out back into the timestream, forgetting all he's done except for thinking its all a dream.

Meanwhile, Atom, just the normal Atom, not the atomic punch Atom, is kicking lackey butt, only to be grabbed by Grundy and flung like a dwarf. But, before he can go splat against a steel bulkhead, hawkman wings in and cushions the blow. Meanwhile, Johnny and Bob Crane join in on the fun taking on time tossed bad guys. Bob then takes on Grundy and get in a couple of good licks before Grundy too fades out, only to show up on the moon, like he had once before. Degaton's final cowardly betrayl.

As the carrier too starts to fade away, the group make for the surface. They make it and pile onto a plastic man raft special, only to have Hawkman find the JSA winging its way towards them.

They link up, Spectre deposits everyone on the golden gate bridge, and broadcasts an address from Ms. Roosevelt to the nation. We get a rousing cheer and the official formation of ... The All-Star Squadron.

And last but not least, we get a Final Page Super-Villain Fact File on Grundy, Zodiak, Wotan, and Sky Pirate.

A few of the things line up very coincidentally, like Carter, Johnny, and Bob showing up on the carrier when they do, but it just works. I don't need everything laid out and spoonfed, I just enjoy a slam bang ride, and this story did just that. A story that would be dragged out for 2 tpb's this day and age was done in 3 1/2 issues, very enjoyable, great art and a thrill a minute ride that leaves you wanting more.

I couldn't be happier re-reading these old issues. Honestly, some of todays art, while having better paper and art-aid like computer coloring,etc.. could take a lesson. The story is laid out, the art flows and tells the story in combination with the writing, and it makes for a great, fun read.

All-Star Squadron Issue #4

And here we have the famous reason why the Superhero big guns of DC couldn't invade Japan or Germany during WWII and stop the war. This is the big explanation issue.

It starts out with a great splash page of the heros of the A.S.S. flying to Pearl Harbor, HI. Its a beautiful shot I have to say. There's a lot of explanation of who's gone (Phantom Lady and Plas) and a lot of characters meeting for the first time. Some of it sets up missing Hawkgirl storyline in the future.

It's five pages of meet and greet, expostion, and great little character moments. And it leads into them arriving at Pearl and seeing the horror and devastion of the attack. Unfortunately, they don't get a moments rest as their appearance leads the fighting men on the ground to think its another attack. Back then, Superman wasn't so invulnerable, his toughness was generally measured as a having skin tough enough to resist a shell going off against it... and we get this. And then we are treated to him catching a couple of them in his bare hands.

Eventually, the guys make a landing and the team decides on an attack on the fleet that did this to the base. However, some stay on base to help protect the homefront.

A quick interlude of several pages gives us Danette finding Slugger Dunn and her brother, Rod, with Sir Justin beside her. It's a painful moment for her, to be sure.

Then we get to chapter three, which has the members of A.S.S. that want in on the attack flying out towards Wake Island. It's good to note that the artistic touches remain constant and fit. Dr. Fate still has his half-helmet (my personal favorite version) and Supermans original symbol, the earth-2 version.

Two pages later we get the Dragon King, the guy that orchestrated the Magic Line of defense for the Japanese empire. There's a quick history of the comic book history of Hitler seeking powerful magical instruments across the world (based on real events, if historians are correct.) It's these items that develop the line of defense.

We find out the way it works is the items emit a powerful force that turns the will of the heros to that of the Axis powers. The more powerful members succumb first, their powers causing greater influence to be had on them.

The non flying members land on an island, deposited by GL to be attacked by Japanese soldiers. The crew takes them out, but Bob Crane, Robotman is damaged in the process.

By know, Hawkman and the others have figured out whats happening, and he uses himself as bait to bring the "big guns" out from the sphere of influence. They figure out that they cannot enter the sphere or revert to control by the axis powers.

And thus, we are shown the reason why the team can never cross that line while the magical Items still work.

It's a shame that the series didn't last long enough to show us how it was that the items no longer worked after the war. I suspect that there could be a really great, fun story in that explanation.

And on the last page, we get the letters. This was back before DC cancelled the letters pages that they have only in the last couple of months reinstated. Things looked very good for the team and the book at this point. It was a solid hit, as anyone collecting and reading back then could tell you.

We also have the setup for whats to come with Carter seeking Sheira in Mexico.

Roy and company manage to weave in historical facts and fictional actions of a fictional group so well that its seemless.

If you don't have these books, I heartily recommend finding them and enjoying.

Sorry I haven't posted more, folks, been a crazy few weeks. I'll try to have more this weekend.

Hows the format working? Like the cover pics? Don't like? Want to see more things specifically?

thanks for the feedback.

profh0011:

I disagree. The chaos did not come from the event itself, but from the editorial hacking afterward. Following the Crisis, the triumverate of Secret Origins, History of the DCU and Who's Who Updates should have been enough to keep things straight, writers and editors should have been made to adhere to that as if it were a DCU Bible. All it would have taken was a little coordination. It seemed to work great for about 5 years or so.

Instead, the morons-that-were decided, for no reason I can figure, to eliminate the Pocket Universe and Superboy from Legion and Superman continuity, and to mess up the Hawkman timeline by changing Hawkworld from a "Year One" to a contemporary event. And despite heroic efforts by Roy Thomas (to resolve old Golden Age stories without Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman involvement), the TMK team (to work the Valor retcon into Legion continuity by way of the Mordruverse story) and John Ostrander (giving Carter Hall a Thanagarian connection and introducing Fel Andar as the interim Hawkman), it continued to be a mess.

Suddenly, DC's editors went nuts with the notion that characters could and should be re-imagined without regard to prior stories. So Man of Steel turned into Birthright turned into Superman: Secret Origin. The Doom Patrol has been inexplicably resurrected just because John Byrne wanted to play with the original team. Characters who have died on panel re-appear with no one to tell the artist or writer, "Hey, this guy is dead."

And ultimately, the only answer they could come up with was Superboy-Prime punching reality out of whack.

Gaah. Sorry folks. Crazy couple of weeks. I'll be back on it as soon as possible. I have every intention of doing as many reviews as I have books.

Will work on this some more. Sorry for all the delays.

No one realized it at the time but CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS was a horrible mistake DC is fortunate to have surived.

I never agreed with the 'reasons stated' for it. I loved the multiverse divisions. The JSA was so very unique to me. Loved it better than earth one to be honest. I liked the team ups with all the other groups from the different earths. The attempt to meld everything just to make the editors jobs easier led to far too many problems.

I always thought that the multiple Earths concept better lent itself better to team-ups anyway...crossing those dimensions could easily have entailed crossing the time barrier on that Earth as well, leading to easy explanations for some of the more out there ideas.

The JSA and the Freedom Fighters both suffered terribly from the effects of Crisis, and I don't think Captain Marvel has ever recovered from being on the same Earth as Superman.

His appearances have been as a joke 'captain whitebread' character, worthy of derision and mocking, in a bad Justice League run, and then depowered and sidelined.

Black Adam sure has benefitted from moving over to a single Earth, 'though... Compared to Bizarro, Zod, Ultra-Man, Superboy Prime, etc, etc. Black Adam has really taken the annoyingly over-used 'bad guy with Superman's powers' to a new level.

But they could have done that with dimensional travel, and not had to mash all the worlds together to do this.

I remember reading the heck out of issue #3 at the time. Probably my most re-read comic at the time that wasn't Legion or Swamp Thing.

For April:

Showcase Presents: All-Star Squadron Vol. 1

Bah... Showcase.

Though I suppose in BW I could just pretend it was wartime newsreel footage.

Hmm... would rather see it in the same format as the recent Infinity hardcover, but I'll take it!

I'll take any reprints of All-Star Squadron; my originals are in a closet in my parent's house 3,000 miles away.

I was privileged to meet Roy this year at SDCC and get his autograph on the Infinity Inc. HC. We chatted a bit and I mentioned how far up the totem pole of my favorites A.S.S. was back in the day (right alongside New Teen Titans, just behind LSH). He pointed out that the Infinity book is the first of his DC work that's been reprinted. I'm glad that DC is further rectifying that with this Showcase volume and the forthcoming second volume of Infinity.

I'd rather see it in color. I may try to re-collect the first couple years of A-SS instead, if the issues aren't too pricey...

Sure wish I'd just sold off the post-crisis issues instead of the whole run back then...

This is one of the next major books that I am going to get bound. This YAS and II.