Welcome back to the Society Pages, a column that looks back at the ‘modern’ history of the Justice Society of America. The main thrust of this column is to look at “JSA” and “Justice Society of America,” two ongoing series, written for most of their runs by Geoff Johns.
After a detour into “Hawkman,” we are back with a stunning run of “JSA” issues.
Written by Geoff Johns and David S. GoyerCover by Rags Morales
Penciled by Patrick Gleason, Leonard Kirk, Sal Velluto, and Don Kramer
Inked by Christian Alamay, Keith Champagne, Bob Almond, and Wade Von Grawbadger
Colored by John Kalisz and Hi-Fi Design
Color Separated by Heroic Age
Lettered by Ken Lopez, Bill Oakley, and Jared K. FletcherThe JSA is separated as the heroes handle cases in different eras, with several of them battling the immortal villain Vandal Savage in ancient Egypt.
An insane Alan Scott and the evil wizard Mordru plunge the world into darkness, civil war, and chaos and the Crimson Avenger wrecks havoc on all those she perceives to be sinners.
Over this year and a half’s worth of stories, “JSA” makes time to spotlight just about every character in its massive roster, as well as bring in guests from multiple eras of DC’s history. This book, obviously, is all about family and tradition, and Geoff Johns and David Goyer play with that theme all over these issues.
“JSA” #39 is a Power Girl focused story, about her super stalker, Da Bomb. This is a slight, though fun, story that gives us our first ‘real’ Power Girl story in the pages of the book. #40 tells two connected stories featuring Dr. Mid-Nite and Captain Marvel/Stargirl each dealing with a villain calling themselves the Shadower. The grandson is holding a school hostage, and will kill the children if the grandfather’s pancreatic cancer surgery, performed by Mid-Nite, isn’t successful. This is the start of the Billy Batson/Courtney Whitmore friendship, and Johns and Goyer build it nicely over the next year or so.
There are two major arcs that populate these stories, and the first is a series of time travel adventures with Mister Terrific, Captain Marvel, and Hawkgirl. After Black Barax attacks from the future, the aforementioned trio get sent back in time to the Golden Age, where they encounter the original Mister Terrific, Terry Sloane. Sloane pulls off a dangerous gambit, by introducing the idea of a grandfather paradox, and putting a gun to his head, to get Black Barax to depart. Sloane’s claim that he’s a direct descendent turns out to be a calculated risk, but one that works.
Their time machine malfunctions, and sends them back into ancient Egypt, where we get a book I’d like to see more of: “JSA BC.” The three time travelers team up with Prince Khufu (Hawkman), Chay-Ara (Hawkgirl in a prior life), Nabu (the magic entity who inhabits Dr. Fate’s helmet), and Teth-Adam (Black Adam). They fight Mordru and an ancient Egyptian Metamorpho, and figure out that the only way to get home is to be put into a trance by Nabu in three sarcophagi where, if all goes well, they will be awoken by the JSA almost instantaneously.
This is a nice bit of storytelling, as it requires the team to not just trust Black Adam of the past, where he was a much more heroic figure, but also trust the current Black Adam to actually wake them up. It goes well, and it gives Billy a little different of an opinion about Adam, knowing now about the tragedies that befell him in the past.
This arc, more than anything, establishes that the values of the Justice Society are not specific to these individuals, but that the ideas of heroism and sacrifice, even when perverted or adapted to a specific time period, are a universal trait. Or, at the very least, should be a universal trait, but we see how infrequently it succeeds perfectly.
The majority of these issues are drawn by Leonard Kirk, who continues to do just extraordinary work here. Guest appearances by Patrick Gleason and Sal Velluto are equally strong, but like Rags Morales did early on, Kirk has established himself as the artist of this period of JSA stories. He manages to bring a lot of disparate elements to the forefront, whether it is Courtney’s youth, Jay’s old fashioned politeness, or Black Adam’s smug disposition, and does so without pulling any one character out of the mix, visually.
Continued belowBefore the second arc, we see both Atom Smasher and Black Adam leave the team, frustrated that there is no longterm solution for the villains the JSA takes down. They both want to use lethal force when ‘necessary,’ and the JSA flatly denies it. Throughout the next few issues, we see them slowly assembling a new team which, seemingly, will not have the same mercy as the JSA. I’m excited to see where this goes.
The second major arc is ‘Princes of Darkness,’ where Mordru and Obsidian, along with a boost from Eclipso, manage to plunge the Earth into darkness and nearly destroy in the process. They corrupt Sand, adding his powers to the mix, and are literally pulling the Earth apart when the moon is knocked out of alignment. This sees Johns do one of his favorite things, which is to bring in a slew of characters from other books. We get the reserves (S.T.R.I.P.E., Black Canary), the Freedom Fighters (replete with my favorite C-lister, Damage), and a few characters with ties to the various team members (Jade, the Shade).
This arc sees a lot of loose ends tied up, as well as a number of new stories teased. There’s a lot of Dr. Fate stuff, with Hector learning that his wife is not coming back, as well as learning that the woman he thought was his wife was actually Dawn Grainger, aka Dove, hidden by Mordru. This is revealed after Hector returns from Gemworld – like I said, there’s a lot of guest spots from various DC characters, and we haven’t even talked about Cave Carson yet! There is also the continuation of the romance between Billy and Courtney, which adds a nice bit of heart to the issues.
But the two biggest consequences of this arc are the restoration of Alan Scott to the Green Lantern mantle/Obsidian’s rehabilitation, and the loss of Sand, who seemingly sacrificed himself to save the Earth. We get a clue, via the aforementioned Cave Carson, that there is some sort of seismic pulse sending out, in Morse Code, the letters J, S, and A. I doubt this is the last we see of Sand.
It should be noted, however, that David S. Goyer departs the book after the ‘Princes of Darkness’ arc, where he goes on to be an important part of the DC Extended Universe. Try not to hold that against him, as his comic work has often been far, far better than his film work.
This run of issues wraps up with a couple of really nice holiday issues, but before that a short arc illustrated by Don Kramer, that re-introduce the new Crimson Avenger, last seen in the Ultra Humanite arc. These issues see her going after Wildcat for his setting up of an ‘innocent man.’ This is your pretty standard ‘there’s no such thing as black and white in life’ story, but it is effective for what it is. This arc does establish that Ted is a metahuman of sorts, as he has nine lives, much like a cat. It is a pretty silly idea, and it isn’t Johns’s finest hour as a storyteller.
The final two issue are, respectively, Thanksgiving and Christmas issues. Both are beautiful for their own reasons, with the Thanksgiving issue being a JSA/JLA Thanksgiving, and the Christmas issue being a way of bringing in the original Red Tornado, Ma Hunkel, into the fold as the new curator of the JSA Museum. This, again, is classic Johns, with making the tent even bigger under the JSA banner.
Next time: more “Hawkman!”
