JSA TPB: Ghost Stories

This trade paperback collects JSA #82-87

This is an old but not unwelcome story device: Building a story around the origin story of a villain. The best-known example is probably Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke."

This time it's the origin story of the Golden Age Hawkman villain The Gentleman Ghost. OK, I'm game, to the best of my knowledge he's never had an origin story, but there's an inherent flaw in giving this particular character an origin story. His whole gimmick wasn't him being a ghost, invisible except for a top hat and a monocle, his gimmick was it was never established if he actually were a ghost, or just a human criminal who was a really good illusionist. Each of his stories would end with Hawkman and Hawgirl scratching their heads; there was enough evidence left behind to go either way.

In this story longtime JSA writer Paul Levitz settles it for once and for all (spoiler): He's a ghost. On one hand it expands on his backstory, on the other hand, it ruins the whole character!

I had a couple other niggling problems, the Gentleman Ghost was a Hawkman villain, yet Hawkman isn't in this story. And after it's determined he is a genuine ghost, someone mentions they should really get the Spectre, and that's just brushed off. You know who else would be helpful? Dr. Fate!

So it starts with Power Girl having returned to the JSA HQ from her "Infinite Crisis" encounter with the Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane with Lois' secret journal. Ma Hunkle reads it to her because it's written in the long forgotten secret code of shorthand (this is a good touch).  Levitz goes back to his own "How Joe McCarthy broke up the JSA" story where we see the Earth 2 Batman and Superman having encounters with the Gentleman Ghost while the JSA is in retirement. Now Earth 2 retroactively doesn't exist at this point, and there never was a Golden Age Superman and Batman, and it shouldn't even be happening. When Ma Hunkle brings up the fact that DC can't follow the rules of its own reboots, PG gets all condescending and tells her in effect, "You're old and confused, stop asking so many questions about DC's inability to stick to the rules of a reboot," and it's like she's speaking directly to me.

(also, for some reason, one of Green Lantern's eyes is green. I missed when this started, and it's never explained here. Also, in this particular reboot, Jade is dead but that really didn't bother me because no DC character stays dead long.)

The story then moves to the present day where the JSA members are being haunted by the ghosts of their own personal lives, in which we learn Alan Scott once accidentally killed a guy. So that's cool. The Gentleman Ghost shows up, attacks again and again then disappears.

Everything comes to a head at London Tower where we get two armies of ghosts and the JSA in battle.

If you look past my small complaints it's a lot of fun, with some great art by George Perez, Rags Morales and Jerry Ordway. Luke Ross draws the Gentleman Ghost old-time flashback sequences and it's like reading Classics Illustrated, and I mean that in a good way.

RIP: Carmine Infantino

Another childhood idol gone. I saw him at a comic convention in Philly. He was signing his book. Why in the world did I not pick up the book and get him to sign mine?

Oh well.

He had an interesting career. He drew for DC in the '40s, '50s, '60s, mostly the golden age Flash and various JSA members, then the silver age Flash and Batman. By the '70s, DC made him publisher. He wasn't drawing as much, but I enjoyed his reprints in the 100 Page Super Spectaculars.

In the mid-70s DC gave him the boot and replaced him with some woman in her 20s with no comic book or artistic experience at all. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Anyway, imagine my surprise later on when I instantly recognized his work on the cover of Nova, a Marvel book. Holy cow!  He also did the interiors and that was pretty much the only Marvel book I bought regularly. Then of course there was Star Wars and Spider-Woman.



Then the big surprise. He went back to DC for the Flash. Once again, for a comic geek like myself, this was nirvana. I spent hours comparing his '60s and '80s art. The style looser, but still dynamic. Characters seemed to jump off the page.

Pick up Justice League of America #200 for a real treat. Golden Age greats Infantino, Joe Kubert and Gil Kane return to draw the Flash, Elongated Man, Hawkman, Green Lantern and the Atom.

Comic Review: Earth 2 No. 1

I've been asking DC for years to unchain the JSA from World War II and they've done it. Bless you DC. Now they no longer have to age while the rest of the DCU stayed the same age.

We have cameos by the young Alan Scott, Al Pratt and Jay (and Joan) Garrick, but the JSA isn't even in this issue, it's just laying groundwork for the future. The whole book features the Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman from this new Earth 2, and it's a little reminiscent in how the Earth 3 characters kicked off Crisis on Infinite Earths. I don't want to spoil it but if you read Crisis you'll see what I"m talking about.

It's a great twist that Batman Superman and Wonder Woman are the old guard and the JSA will be the new kids. This will probably preclude an Infinity Inc. return, but it might be worth it.

The future Power Girl and the Huntress hang around long enough to get blasted into Earth 1 in World's Finest No. 1 (a review on that tomorrow).

I'm a JSA purist and even though this is a total reboot, I was very happy with what they're doing here. The love of the characters and legend is there.

Great story by James Robinson, great art by Nicola Scott.

Review JSA Monument Point TPB

In theory the best reason to buy a trade paperback collection of several issues of a comic book would be that you’d get a complete story arc (beginning, middle, end) without the fear of jumping in the middle of a confusing arc.

Ahh theories, so cute.

The Monument Point TPB starts with a nine-page backstory of the members of the Justice League and how they were inspired by the JSA. As you keep reading further in the book you’ll realize this has nothing to do with anything.

Nothing.

Anything.

Actually they’re winding down an umpteenth JSA series, so they want to remind us that you couldn’t have a JLA if it weren’t for the JSA. This is only partially true. In actual comics history, Flash was the only JLA member who was inspired by the the Golden Age Flash. So it’s all retroactive continuity that Batman was inspired by Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern inspired by The GA Green Lantern, etc.

The George Perez art in this chapter is of course extraordinary. He’s like Kubert, Infantino and Kane in that decades in the business just make him better.

Then we cut to Degaton being thwarted again and again by his own doppleganger, unlike most of everything else in this book, this will count for something later on.

(Great splash page by Freddie Williams III)

Things go to shit quickly with the umpteenth retelling of the JSA-meets-Joseph McCarthy-and-goes-into-retirement story with truly shitty art by comics legend Howard Chaykin. All the jaws are so perfectly square you’d think the JSA was filled with Jay Leno impersonators. And there’s a closeup of Black Canary that makes her look like that weird lady who had 100 plastic surgeries and doesn’t look human anymore.

OK, once again winding up things by touching on the past. The concept of the government putting superheores out of business would be stolen later by “The Incredibles.” 

Then...the story starts. The Flash is mayor of Monument Point, disaster strikes, Dr. Fate comes crashing to the ground after, it is explained, heading off to another dimension with Lightning. Umm, this probably happened in a previous trade paperback, so this would be a screw-you to casual readers.

Meanwhile, Degaton is wreaking havoc in the JSA HQ, OK, I like JSA beating up villains. I’m not sure why Green Lantern is dressed as a giant lantern, but OK, I can overlook that. It is a cool fight sequence, with Degaton using his temporal powers to age Wildcat, de-age Hourman, and summon dinosaurs. Cool! 

After he’s defeated we go to the JSA looking over the body of Lightning in some kind of coma/death, in a chamber. What happened to her, once again, who knows? And when did Blue Devil join the JSA, and who is the chick in the white robe? They spent two pages telling me who Superman is, yet they just throw in the white robe lady person and I’m supposed to know who she is.

This has happened before, I miss an issue of JSA and they add ten members. Stop it! 

Let’s institute what we’ll call The Power Girl Rule. Think back to 1976, Power Girl was the JSA’s first new member who was created specifically to join the JSA. She had never existed before in solo stories like everyone else in the JSA. And think about it: She was the Earth 2 Supergirl, who wanted her own identity separate from her cousin. A bit of a “woman’s libber,” the body of a healthy 16 year old girl. And this is important: Her superpowers were limited to those of Superman in Action Comics number 1: Leap tall buildings in a single bound, more powerful than a locomotive and faster than a speeding bullet.

She was not indestructible, she could not move planets, no heat/x-ray vision, and don’t even mention super ventriloquism.

This character had a lot of potential. 35 years later, I’m still waiting. 

Things went off the rails pretty quickly. Her costume changed from issue to issue. (peek-a-boo window came and went), she didn’t get an actual origin story for three years!, and then she got a new origin story every five years, and the limited super powers went out the window pretty quickly and she was soon moving planets.

This has been the story of every character created for the JSA since then. They start out good, then a new writer comes along and everything goes into the toilet, and the character is just part of this grand rotation of new members who ultimately don’t add anything. (Red Beetle? Blue Devil? Starboy?!! Nuklon, the character who looks like Nuklon who I have no idea who he is? Star Girl who started out as a teen, but is now all womanly, the Red Tornado girl, on and on.

So here’s the Power Girl Rule, no more new characters until you can complete a story arc with the old ones.

OK, so Lightning, who’s now a woman (when did this happen?) saves herself through her own will power. Oh, that seemed easy. Meanwhile Mayor Flash is having heated discussions with his cabinet because nothing’s more thrilling in comics than seeing men and women in suits discuss civic planning.

Also, Kent Nelson has a big mystic symbol burned onto his face, and whenever someone asks about it, he brushes it off as if he woke up at a frat party with “Loser” written on his forehead with permanent marker and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

I am not a fan of Tom Derenick, his super heroes look good, but his charcoal pencil style with civilians just look creepy. And the facial features never seem proportionate to each other.

The covers by Mario Alberti are amazing though. Good stuff.

After all this, we get to the real story, a big giant ancient city under Monument Point. It’s so spooky and mysterious, the JSA calls in the Challengers of the Unknown to help explore. 

Holy crap, as I’ve mentioned before, the JSA now has about 100 members they don’t know what to do with. Stop inviting guests!

Jerry Ordway jumps in now, another one like Perez, great in the ‘80s, even better now.

Johnny Quick unleashes an ancient Kirby-esque destructo-monster, and once again, as long as the JSA is beating up bad guys, I’m happy.

Everything is put right by GL who gives his life to save the world.

And this is probably the first time a comic book company killed one of its characters. Oh wait they do this monthly. And there’s no dramatic tension because the character always comes back to life. Always.

Oh and Mister Terrific inexplicably loses his intelligence, but it’s OK, he inexplicably gets it all back again.

So they wrap up loose ends, and at its heart there’s a good story, but there’s so much other crap going on. It’s so heartbreaking. I got hooked on the JSA with Justice League 22, and ever since then I’ve seen DC treat it with neglect.

Here’s another complaint about modern comics which will make me sound like an old fogey. Mike Sekowsky drew the JLA for eight straight years, then Dick Dillin took over and drew every page for every issue for 12 years. Today, an artist draws about five pages of a book and says, “Wow I’m beat, can someone else finish this book?” So we get these jarring shifts in style. 

Dick Dillin was only as good as his inkers, but, he had stamina.

Am I asking so much, a beginning, middle and end, with characters I’m familiar with?

Classics of Western Literature Part 2

I guess I was in fourth or fifth grade, and a classmate of mine was giving away comic books (I suspect this was on orders of his mom wanting to get rid of old comics in the house because at the time, this book was ten years old). And he gave me this! Can you imagine? I'm sure there are young members of royalty who've been given more valuable gifts, but, not the magnitude of this. Think about it: One of the first comic books I ever read represented the culmination of the previous 25 years of DC Comics and the template for what was to come for the next 50 years!
Any gift anyone has ever given me since then has had an awful hard time topping this.