Retro Review: All-Star Squadron #1-30 By Thomas, Buckler, Ordway & Others For DC Comics

All-Star Squadron #1-30, Annual #1-2 (September 1981 – February 1984)

Written by Roy Thomas (#1-30, Annual #1-2), Gerry Conway (#8-9)

Plot Consultation by Gerry Conway (#14-15)

Penciled by Rich Buckler (#1-5), Adrian Gonzales (#6-18, Annual #1), Don Heck (#8-9), Jerry Ordway (#19-26, 29, Annual #2), Rick Hoberg (#23), Richard Howell (#27-28, 30), Mike Machlan (#30)

Inked/Embellished by Jerry Ordway (#1-12, 14-15, 19-20, Annual #1-2), Mike DeCarlo (#13), Rick Hoberg (#16-18), Mike Machlan (#21-26, 30), Richard Howell (#27), Larry Houston (#27), Gerald Forton (#28), Rick Magyar (#29), Sam De La Rosa (#30)

Coloured by Carl Gafford (#1-17, 22, Annual #1), Gene D’Angelo (#18-21, 23-26, 28-30, Annual #2), Adrienne Roy (#27)

Spoilers (from thirty-nine to forty-two years ago)

As a kid, I loved the notion that superheroes were products of the Second World War. It was during this war that superheroes exploded onto the scene, and there was a huge boom in characters appearing in short-lived and obscure titles from a wide variety of publishers. In the Silver Age, these war characters were revisited, revised, and often revamped. In the Bronze Age, we got a rise in books that looked back at comics history and worked to unify continuity. At Marvel, Roy Thomas wrote the Invaders, a series that featured Captain America, Namor, and the original Human Torch, among others, as they fought in the war effort. This was a series I loved collecting in cheap bins as a kid.

Once I started reading DC books in the post-Crisis era, I was drawn to their Second World War characters. I thought the idea of the Justice Society of America was an intriguing one, and then I learned about All-Star Squadron, the book that gathered heroes in even larger numbers than the Society did, and chronicled their adventures during the war (although, in the DC telling, Hitler’s use of the Spear of Destiny kept them Stateside). I was happy to see that this book was also written by Roy Thomas, and I proceeded to get as many of these comics as I could (although I did have to track a few down in my efforts to read them again for this column).

Now, DC is not like Marvel. In the pre-Crisis DC multiverse, the characters that were created in the 40s all lived on Earth-2, which was DC’s way of having Superman and Batman fight alongside the JSA, while also existing on Earth-1 with the JLA. But then, in typical DC fashion, we also needed the JSA and the All-Stars to meet with the JLA with regularity. Eventually, as it all got too confusing, the Crisis on Infinite Earths came along to smooth out the continuity issues, making this book convoluted and contradictory.

What I remember from this book is that I loved characters like Liberty Belle, Firebrand, Johnny Quick, and the Tarantula. I thought it was cool that the cast of this book was more fluid than the Defenders, and that the team used the location of the World’s Fair as their base.

Roy Thomas’s writing can sometimes be a little slow, and I don’t remember the art in this book to ever have stood out (although there are some amazing Joe Kubert covers), but I also remember always really enjoying this book. I have reservations about the Young All-Stars, the post-Crisis relaunch title that I don’t think was very good, but I’m excited to dig back into these stories and see how the war was portrayed, and how Thomas balanced his interest in continuity with his devotion to the characters.

Let’s see how this has stood up!

Let’s track who turned up in the title:

The All-Star Squadron

Hawkman (Carter Hall; #1-6, 9-13, 16, 19-21, 23, 25, 27-28, 30)
Plastic Man (Eel O’Brian; #1-4, 7)
Dr. Mid-Nite (Charles McNider; #1-6, 10, 19-21, 25, 27-28, 30)
The Atom (Al Pratt; #1-13, 19-28, 30, Annual #1-2)
Robotman (Paul Dennis, fka Bob Crane; #1-26, Annual #2)
Johnny Quick (Johnny Chambers; #1-24, 26-27, Annual #2)
Liberty Belle (Libby Lawrence; #1-27, 30, Annual #2)
Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight; #2-4, 25-27, Annual #2)
Johnny Thunder (#4-6, 19-21, 25, 27-28, 30)
Thunderbolt (#4, 21, 28, 30)
Shining Knight (Sir Justin; #4-13, 29)
Sandman (Wesley Dodds; #4-5, 18-21, 25, 27-28, 30)
Spectre (Jim Corrigan; #4-5, 20, 27-28, 30)
Starman (Ted Knight; #4-5, 10, 15, 19-21, 25, 27-28, 30)
Flash (Jay Garrick; #4, 20, 26-27, Annual #1-2)
Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson #4-5, 19-21, 23-24, 27-28, 30)
Wonder Woman (Diana Prince; #4, 16-17, 19-21, 25, 27-28, 30, Annual #1)
Superman (Clark Kent; #4, 20-27, Annual #2)
Green Lantern (Alan Scott; #4,15, 20-27, Annual #1-2)
Robin (Dick Grayson; #4, 20, 24-27, Annual #2)
Batman (Bruce Wayne; #4, 20, 24-27, Annual #2)
Firebrand (Danette Reilly; #5-27, Annual #2)
Hawkgirl (Shiera Sanders; #6-13)
Commander Steel (Hank Heywood; #9-27, Annual #2)
Tarantula (Jonathan Law; #18-22, 24-27, Annual #2)
Guardian (Jim Harper; #25-27, Annual #1-2)
Wildcat (Ted Grant; #26, Annual #1-2)

Villains

King Bee (#1)
Solomon Grundy (#1-3)
Professor Zodiak (#1-3)
Wotan (#1-3)
Per Degaton (#1-3, 14-15)
Sky Pirate (#1-2)
The Dragon King (#4)
General Saukel (Nazi; #5-6)
Feathered Serpent (#5-6)
Baron Blitzkrieg (#6-9)
Major Zwerg (#6-9)
Black Assassin (#8)
Kung (#8)
Adolf Hitler (#9, 11)
Heinrich Himmler (#9)
Akhet the Star-Smasher (#10-11)
Dr. Anton Hastor (#11-12)
Sam Slattery (#13, 17)
Ultraman (Crime Syndicate, Earth-3; #14-15)
Johnny Quick (Crime Syndicate, Earth-3; #14)
Owlman (Crime Syndicate, Earth-3; #14)
Power Ring (Crime Syndicate, Earth-3; #14-15)
Superwoman (Crime Syndicate, Earth-3; #14-15)
Nuclear, the Magnetic Marauder (Percy Playboy; #14, 16)
The Brain Wave (Henry A. King; #17, 19-20, 26, Annual #2)
Thor (Fairytales Fenton; #18)
Kulak (#20, 27-28)
Lex Luthor (#20)
Joker (#20)
Cyclotron (Terry Curtis; #21-26, Annual #2)
The Sub-Men (#21-24, Annual #2)
Deathbolt (Jake Simmons; #21-26, Annual #2)
The Ultra-Humanite (#21-26, Annual #2)
Amazing-Man (Will Everett; #23-24)
The Mist (#26, Annual #2)
Vulcan, Son of Fire (#26, Annual #2)
Psycho-Pirate (#26, Annual #2)
Rag Doll (#26, Annual #2)
Monocle (#26, Annual #2)
Dr. Doome (#29)
Nero (#29)
Attila the Hun (#29)
Napoleon Bonaparte (#29)
Genghis Khan (#29)
Alexander the Great (#29)
Black Dragon Society (#30)

Guest Stars

The Shining Knight (Sir Justin; #1-3)
Firebrand (Rod Reilly; #1, 4, 13)
Sandman (Wesley Dodds, Justice Society of America; #2-3)
Starman (Justice Society of America; #2-3)
Dr. Fate (Justice Society of America; #2-3)
Spectre (Justice Society of America; #2-3)
Johnny Thunder (Justice Society of America; #2-3)
Thunderbolt (Justice Society of America; #2)
Green Lantern (Alan Scott, Justice Society of America; #2-3)
The Flash (Jay Garrick, Justice Society of America; #2-3)
Superman (#3)
Robin (#3)
Wonder Woman (#3)
Batman (#3)
Steel (Hank Heywood; #8)
Fidel Castro (#14)
Nikita Khrushchev (#14)
John F. Kennedy (#14)
Hawkman (Katar Hol, Justice League of America, Earth-1; #14-15)
Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond, Justice League of America, Earth-1; #14-15)
Aquaman (Justice League of America, Earth-1; #14-15)
Superman (Clark Kent, Justice League of America, Earth-1; #14-15)
Zatanna (Justice League of America, Earth-1; #14-15)
Huntress (Helena Wayne, Justice Society of America; #15)
Power Girl (Karen Starr, Justice Society of America; #15)
Bud Abbott (#24)
Lou Costello (#24)
Clark Gable (#24)
Brainwave Jr. (Infinity Inc.; #24-26, Annual #2)
Secretary of War Stimson (#25)
General Marshall (#25)
General Brody (#25, 27)
Amazing-Man (Will Everett; #25-27, Annual #2)
The Newsboy Legion (#25-26)
Silver Scarab (Infinity Inc.; #25-26, Annual #2)
Nuklon (Infinity Inc.; #25-26, Annual #2)
Fury (Infinity Inc.; #25-26, Annual #2)
Northwind (Infinity Inc.; #25-26, Annual #2)
Jade (Infinity Inc.; #25-26, Annual #2)
Obsidian (Infinity Inc.; #25-26, Annual #2)
General Douglas MacArthur (#28)
Sargon the Sorcerer (John Sergeant; #28)
Green Arrow (Oliver Queen, Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Speedy (Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Crimson Avenger (Lee Travis, Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Stripesy (Pat Dugan, Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton, Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Vigilante (Greg Sanders, Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Billy Gunn (Vigilante’s assistant; #29)
Wing (Crimson Avenger’s valet, Seven Soldiers of Victory; #29)
Odysseus (#29)
Agamemnon (#29)
Guardians of the Galaxy (usually called the Guardians of the Universe, Oa, Earth-1; Annual #1)
Vice President Henry Wallace (Annual #2)

Supporting Characters

Harry Hopkins (#1, 7, 11, 30, Annual #2)
Danette Reilly (#1-4)
Ed Simmons (FBI; #1)
Slugger Dunn (#1, 4-5)
Tubby Watts (#1, 17, 24, 26, Annual #1)
J. Edgar Hoover (Director of the FBI; #1)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (President of the USA; #1, 7, 9-12, 15, 30, Annual #2)
Tom Revere (#1)
Henry Knight (Senator; #2, 25)
Professor Zee (#2-3, 14)
Eleanor Roosevelt (#3)
Shiera Sanders (#5)
Manuel Avila Camacho (President of Mexico; #6)
Winston Churchill (Prime Minister of England; #7-13, 29)
Chuck Grayson (#13, 17, 24, Annual #2)
Joan Carter (#13, 17)
Captain Steve Trevor (#16)
Etta Candy (#16)
Joye Playboy (#16)
Dian Belmont (#18)
Elektro the Robot (#19, 21-24)
Doiby Dickles (#20)
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (Mayor of New York; #21)
Inza Cramer (#23, 28)
Olga (Tarantula’s housekeeper; #24-25)
Terri Curtis (#27-28, Annual #2)
Major McNichols (Justice Society liaison officer; #30)
Morrie Fushido (#30)
Joe Morgan (trainer; Annual #1)

Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:

My intention to look at the complete run of All-Star Squadron is immediately foiled by the fact that the series had a preview insert in Justice League of America #193, which I think I might own, but which I’m not exhuming from my longboxes, since it was recapped through this issue. We are on Earth-2, and it’s early December, 1941. Hawkman is flying into New York, having come in a rush from Washington DC, thinking that something is wrong. He flies through an open window into the apartment where the Justice Society of America holds its meetings. He’s immediately grabbed around the ankle by a snake-like substance, and clobbers it. It turns out it’s Plastic Man, who he has never met before. Plastic Man tells him that he’s an FBI agent, and he’s there under orders of the President, who has been trying to call the JSA all night. Hawkman is surprised that his friend Wesley Dobbs, who owns the apartment, isn’t around, and Plastic Man deduces that he’s a member of the JSA. They turn on the radio and learn that in Los Angeles, the villain Solomon Grundy has kidnapped Green Lantern, the Flash, and Wonder Woman. In Gotham, a villain named Professor Zodiak took Batman, Robin, and Superman. In Massachusetts, another villain dragged away Dr. Fate and the Spectre. Starman, Johnny Thunder, his Thunderbolt, and Sandman were seen investigating a flying Spanish galleon in New York when they disappeared. Hawkman shares with Plas that he, Dr. Mid-Nite, and the Atom fought and defeated a villain who disappeared on them. As he disappeared, this villain named Monster said the word ‘Degaton’. Hawkman wants to go to DC to see the President, so he starts to fly with Plas on his back. As they fly, he shares that the woman in his life is off on a field trip. They are attacked by King Bee and his drones, flying men with insect themed costumes. Hawkman drops Plastic Man to fight them, and as he knocks out a drone, it disappears. He catches King Bee, who says something about not wanting to be defeated again, even though the two men just met. King Bee explodes, and Hawkman is knocked out. Plastic Man catches him and makes himself into a parachute, but they hit the ground hard. In the White House, Harry Hopkins foreshadows that tomorrow is December 7, 1941. In the air over the Hawaiian Islands, the Shining Knight flies on Winged Victory, his horse. We learn from his annoying approximation of Shakespearian speech that he and the horse were frozen in ice for a millennia and a half and have recently woken up and fought alongside the Law’s Legionnaires. He notices an island with a smoldering volcano and flies down to investigate a camp he spots from the air. He meets Danette Reilly, a volcanologist who explains that the island just appeared days before. She says her brother was with her, but he was called back to Pearl Harbor and the navy. As the volcano tremors, they both can tell that something is unnatural about it. Sir Justin swings his sword against the rock, and reveals a man-made cave in the volcano. They investigate, and find Solomon Grundy and Professor Zodiak, who manage to take them down. Soon, they wake up and find they are prisoners of Per Degaton, the ‘master of worlds and time’, and his assembled villains, which include Wotan and Sky Pirate. Degaton explains that he is from the future, coming from 1947 to conquer the world. At Pearl Harbor, Danette’s brother Rod, who we learn is the costumed adventurer Firebrand, is in a jeep with his friend Slugger Dunn, on their way to report to duty. A fleet of Japanese fighters come out of the sunrise and start bombing the naval base. Slugger is hurt, and when Rod turns back to help him, they are both shot by a fighter, and the attack continues. In Washington, Dr. Mid-Nite and the Atom are at a football game and notice the number of military brass being called away by the announcer. They decide to investigate and run into Ed Simmons, an FBI agent that Mid-Nite knows. Ed calls J. Edgar Hoover and learns about the attack. Ed tells the heroes that the President wants to see them. The Atom struggles to open a metal door, so a guy in a suit offers to help. Mid-Nite says he was watching as they fought Monster the night before, and the guy reveals himself to be Robotman, a man of metal with a human brain. He knocks down the door and puts the two heroes on his shoulders and starts running towards the White House. Outside the White House, the reporter Johnny Chambers literally runs into the reporter Libby Lawrence. They posture and flirt a little, and we learn that Libby has been through hell, having been in Poland, Holland, and France during the early days of the war, where she lost her father. They see Robotman arrive as well as Hawkman, but are turned away from the White House. They both disappear, leaving Johnny’s friend Tubby behind. Johnny says the magic words that turn him into Johnny Quick, while Libby changes into her Liberty Belle outfit. They rush up to Atom and introduce themselves. The more established heroes don’t want to include them, but Johnny, establishing himself as this book’s Hawkeye, argues and they agree. They all go meet with President Roosevelt, who lets them know what’s happened at Pearl Harbor, and tells them he has a mission for them. He wants them to gather all the costumed heroes of America in one team, an All-Star Squadron, working directly for him. He shares that America is going to be fighting the Nazis soon. He also says that Plastic Man will be their FBI liaison. He wants them to head to the West Coast in case the Japanese attack the mainland, and speculates that there might be a connection to the disappearance of so many Justice Society members. Liberty Belle calls Philadelphia, where a man calling himself Tom Revere rings the Liberty Bell, which powers her up. The heroes move out. Later, off the coast of San Francisco, we see that Per Degaton has a huge underwater aircraft carrier that starts launching jet fighters made to look Japanese at the city. For some reason, Degaton has Shining Knight and Danette in his control room (but there is no sign of the kidnapped JSA), and he explains to them that he’s going to attack the mainland, already knowing what’s happened in Pearl Harbor, so he can conquer time and the whole planet.
The text page at the back of the first issue talks about how Roy Thomas came to put together this series, not long after the cancellation of the All-Star Comics series that featured the modern adventures of the JSA, and mentions that Jerry Ordway is a newcomer in this book – I don’t know why I thought he was working long before the 80s.
The new All-Star Squadron exits the White House and is immediately mistaken for the JSA by some people on the street. The crowd cheers them on, worked up as they are by the news about Pearl Harbor, and then after they leave, the crowd and the soldiers guarding the White House start singing the national anthem. Robotman carries Plastic Man, who carries everyone who can’t run or fly, and as they rush through DC, they find some gangster types pulling off a heist and shooting at some cops. The heroes dive in, which gives them the chance to show each other their abilities. Soon, they’re all in a bomber being flown by Hawkman and Liberty Belle, heading for the west coast. As they fly, they agree to talk about themselves. Hawkman takes off his mask and reveals that he’s Carter Hall, giving a recap of his origin (reincarnated Egyptian prince who developed anti-gravity metal to fight his reincarnated enemy). This honest leads to Liberty Belle revealing her origin (wanted to fight Nazi spies to honor her dead father and was inspired by the Liberty Bell, which she wears a piece of, which now gives her an adrenaline spike when it rings). Plastic Man goes next (criminal dosed with acid, nurtured back to health by monks, now rubbery and working for the FBI). Robotman reveals that he was shot by criminals, so his assistant put his living brain in the robot body he invented. Atom reveals that he’s just a short athlete. Johnny Quick reveals that he learned a magic mathematical formula that gives him super speed (although he says after the initial burst, it’s all momentum). Dr. Mid-Nite was blinded by an explosion set off by thugs, but realized later, in a call-back to Batman’s origin, that he could see in the dark when an owl flew through his window, so he developed his blackout bombs and his dark glasses. Story time over, the team hears that there are enemy planes approaching San Francisco, and aim their plane that way. We see these planes, which are still being launched from Per Degaton’s underwater aircraft carrier. Inside, he still has Justin and Danielle with him, captured by metal cuffs and a magic aura. Degaton joins his men, and talks about how he wants to take over things. He explains that the Justice Society rescued some scientists from ‘Axis spies’, and then the scientists took them out to dinner. They explained that they could see into the future with a new device, and learned that in the 25th century, mankind developed bomb-defense beams. The JSA decided to go get the formula for this device (which seems odd, because devices have plans, but whatever). Degaton was the disrespected assistant of one of the scientists. He recaps the events the Society faced in the future (this is an actual story from the 1940s that Thomas is honoring) as they got the components of the formula. They returned to the present and were able to help the scientists construct the force-beam. Degaton sabotaged it so it wouldn’t work, and then watched Professor Zee make a device that would allow trips to the past. Degaton shot him and went to Alexander the Great’s era with tanks and criminal soldiers. This made changes to his present, so he returned with his army, but was stopped by the JSA, which negated these events. Only Degaton remembered what happened. He kept working for Zee, and killed him, taking his time machine to explore the future (he couldn’t go further than the end of the 20th century), and learned about Earth-2. He brought some of his criminal friends back from 1947 with him, with the intention of getting to Hitler and helping maintain a stalemate for his own purposes. He says that there is a time storm between 1939 and 1941, so he couldn’t come back any further. Now he plans to get America to attack Japan before they get involved in the European war, so he can carve out his own empire. He tells Justin and Danielle that the imprisoned Justice Society are in the volcano in Hawai’i. Danielle moves her bonds over Justin’s sword, and manages to free herself. She cuts Justin free and gives him the enchanted sword. Solomon Grundy moves to attack him. Sky Pirate leads Degaton’s planes towards a naval base in San Francisco, then they all split into two groups to start strafing the city. The city doesn’t have air raid sirens, but they run their fire truck sirens and encourage everyone to turn off their lights. Sandra Knight, daughter of Senator Henry Knight, slips away from her father and puts on her Phantom Lady outfit. She helps a lady break a neon sign that is still on, and heads off to see how else she can help. Sky Pirate comes across the bomber with the All-Stars in it. They ditch the plane, and Robotman uses one of the propellers to get himself to Sky Pirate’s plane. Hawkmwan and Johnny Quick engage the other planes, while the other heroes move around the city, stopping armed looters. Phantom Girl meets up with them, and Dr. Mid-Nite welcomes her help. Robotman pulls apart Sky Pirate’s plane, while Johnny Quick and Hawkman fight the others. Hawkman realizes the pilots are hypnotized Japanese men. Hawkman catches Robotman when Sky Pirate’s jet crashes. Degaton is not happy to see some costumed heroes getting involved, so he presses a button to blow up the volcano with the rest of the JSA in it.

In the text piece in issue two, Roy Thomas writes about how his stories will honor what was published about the Justice Society before, and positions this story as taking place between All-Star Comics #10 and 11, when the JSA disbanded to go join the war effort.
Degaton is not happy to see that Hawkman has found some other costumed heroes to mess with his plans, and then he sees that Mid-Nite and the others are working to protect San Francisco, and he gets even more annoyed. He recaps his plans, and again presses the button to detonate his volcanic island, where the JSA and some other heroes are captive. Next he uses his video screen to check on how his underlings are managing their fight with the Shining Knight. Justin’s sword is able to turn away Wotan’s magics, and he and Danette climb higher in the sub, pursued by Solomon Grundy. Justin assumes they are close to the surface, so he cuts into the hull of the sub, letting in the water and giving them space to escape. They make their way to the surface, and realize that Winged Victory, Justin’s horse, has been following them. They head towards the volcanic island, hoping to rescue the Justice Society. Wotan and Professor Zodiak quit working for Degaton, and pursue the winged horse in Zodiak’s alchemically-powered plane. Degaton can see that his plans are starting to fall apart, and he’s not happy to see Solomon Grundy threaten him too. Degaton thinks about how he grabbed his criminal allies from different points in the future where they’d lost to the heroes, hoping revenge could motivate them. Grundy notices that Plastic Man is bringing some of the All-Stars (Liberty Belle, Phantom Lady, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Atom). They spot Degaton’s sub from the air, so Plas turns into a drilling torpedo, and breaks into the sub. The heroes start to fight Grundy and Degaton’s men while Degaton runs. There’s a general fight made more difficult by the fact that the bad guys have infrared goggles, negating Mid-Nite and Phantom Lady’s advantages. Degaton’s remaining zeroes approach the town of Monterey, pursued by Hawkman, who starts to trash them. Johnny Quick and Robotman arrive in town as well, and Robotman tosses Johnny at a plane, which he dismantles. Robotman finds some old cannonballs in a park, and starts tossing them at the other fighters. Shining Knight and Danette arrive at the volcanic island, which has been moving eastward. Winged Victory is tired and needs rest, so they enter the caverns on foot. They find Superman and the others, but for some reason, Justin’s sword can’t remove their mystical bonds. Wotan and Zodiak arrive, and Justin is able to parry Wotan’s magical bolt. Danette runs to hide, and Wotan gets a lucky shot in on Justin. As he falls, he throws his sword, which causes Zodiak to drop his test tube of his solvent. They see Danette run across a rock bridge, and Wotan blasts her, dropping into a pool of lava (I’m not sure where the lava would come from in a floating island). The volcano starts to blow up, and the two villains teleport back to their time. Degaton watches on a monitor as the volcano erupts, but is dismayed to see the Spectre emerge from the volcano at a gigantic size (the solvent fell on him and destroyed the magic that held him prisoner. The Justice Society (and their friends) are all fine, and we see that Justin has recovered, and is holding Danette, who is still glowing with Wotan’s magic. Degaton realizes he has no choice but to give up and return to 1947, even though he won’t remember what happened here. He goes back to work for Professor Zee. The All-Stars finish up with Degaton’s men, but Grundy grabs the Atom and tosses him across the room. Hawkman, Johnny Quick, and Robotman all arrive just in time for Hawkman to catch Atom before they both hit a wall. They finish the fight, with Robotman taking swings on Grundy, before he teleports back to his time, and finds himself stuck on the moon, a final bit of revenge from Degaton. The heroes realize that the sub and everyone Degaton brought with it is disappearing, leaving them all in the deep water. They swim to the surface and get in the rubber raft Plas has made with his body. Hawkman flies off to look for a rescue boat, and returns almost immediately with the Justice Society and the others. Spectre picks them all up and takes them to the Golden Gate Bridge. Hawkman lets them know that the President has recruited them to form the All-Star Squadron, and Superman makes a joke about how that abbreviates. Danette is okay. They all find their memories of their plight fading, but they know about Pearl Harbor now. Spectre shows them a radio broadcast made by Eleanor Roosevelt, which mentions the All-Stars, and they all yell out, “Remember Pearl Harbour!”
Issue four opens not long after the end of issue three, and the heroes that were assembled in San Francisco, for the most part, are flying towards Pearl Harbor (Green Lantern and Spectre are conveying the ones who can’t fly on their own. Robotman is on Dr. Fate’s back, and Wonder Woman is in her invisible jet. We see that Danette Reilly is still with the Shining Knight on Winged Victory. As they fly, they talk to each other, and we learn a bunch of things, first of which is that everyone is now a part of the All-Star Squadron. Justin comments on how Danette is healthy after whatever happened in the volcano, which they can’t remember. Dr. Fate has recently lost a lot of his power, along with his traditional helmet (he wears the half-helmet now). We learn that Plastic Man had to return to DC, and that Phantom Lady went with him. Johnny Thunder wants Wonder Woman to join the JSA, but she’s happy being an All-Star. Hawkman is worried about his fiancee, Shiera Sanders, who is in Mexico on an archeological dig. Johnny Quick is excited to meet the Flash. Atom feels inadequate among so many powerful people, but so does Robotman. Liberty Belle wonders how she gets an adrenaline rush from the ringing of the Liberty Bell. Superman reflects on how he’s inspired all of these heroes. As they approach Pearl Harbor, they are stunned by the destruction they find. The soldiers think they are planes and start firing on them. Superman takes a direct hit and tries to cover for the others. The Thunderbolt does some skywriting to get them to stop shelling, and the heroes land on the beach. They are taken to the general who says he could use their help. They figure they can track down the Japanese aircraft carriers that launched the attack, but Hawkman worries that they aren’t officially at war with Japan yet. Liberty Belle calls for a vote, and everyone agrees with her. They divide into two teams, leaving some heroes to defend the base in case the enemy returns, and Superman leads a squad away. Justin and Danette search for her brother, and find Slugger Dunn in the hospital. He leads them to Rod, who is in a coma, and Danette weeps. It’s worth noting that Justin feels that she is warm to the touch. Superman’s squad (Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Spectre, Green Lantern, Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Robotman, Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, Wonder Woman, and Johnny Thunder) are not able to find the Japanese aircraft carriers they’re looking for. GL recommends they head to Wake Island, which is halfway between Hawai’i and Japan, and is also supposed to be under attack. There’s a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment, including some words that are slurs. On another small island between the heroes and Wake, there is a hidden Japanese bunker. A man called The Dragon King arrives and sets up a dynamo. He explains that Japan has the Holy Grail, and that it is going to help protect Japan, just as Hitler’s possessing the Spear of Destiny is going to protect Germany. The idea is that Hitler and Premier Tojo will conduct a ritual at the same time and that will make the two countries impregnable to attacks from superheroes. Dragon King knows that magic-sensitive heroes are on their way, so he gets his dynamo working, and it sends waves of energy towards them. Some of the heroes feel the energy as a light shock, while others who are more magical in nature start acting strangely. Green Lantern turns on the non-flying heroes he’s carrying, and Dr. Fate attacks Hawkman. The Lantern puts the heroes down on the island, where they are attacked by Japanese soldiers. Superman feels conflicted, like he can’t decide which side he’s on, while Liberty Belle realizes that she can throw wood through GL’s forceshield, freeing her friends. There’s a lot of fighting on the ground with the Japanese. Johnny Thunder falls under the wave’s sway, and the Thunderbolt can’t disobey him. Dragon King feels good about how this is working, and watches as Wonder Woman flies after Thunderbolt. Fate pursues Hawkman outside of the range of the energy field, and immediately regains his senses. This gives Hawkman an idea. Robotman breaks into the shack that holds Dragon King’s bunker, and ends up wrecking much of his equipment, even though it costs him an arm. Hawkman gets Green Lantern to gather up the unaffected heroes and chase him. Spectre, Superman, Johnny Thunder, and all the rest also chase him, until they’re outside the field’s effects. They figure out that they can’t go any further east from where they are, or they’ll risk falling under the effects of the mind control ray (this is a convenient way to keep Superman from ending the war in a day). Dragon King leaves in a submarine, and explains to his subordinates that they don’t have the power to extend the energy field to cover America. Hawkman is more convinced than ever that he has to get to the Yucatan to check on Shiera, and wants to ‘drop a bombshell’ on the combined JSA and All-Star Squadron.

Hawkman calls together the Justice Society (Dr. Mid-Nite, Starman, Atom, Johnny Thunder, Spectre, Sandman, and Dr. Fate) to tell them that he’s planning on enlisting in the army in his civilian identity. He’s surprised by how happy his teammates are, and thinks that they don’t value his leadership, until they explain that they are going to do the same thing (although Johnny Thunder wants to join the Navy). The team officially disbands for the duration of the war, and they head out (no one seems concerned about the fact that some of them just had their minds controlled when they tried to go overseas). Spectre shares with Dr. Fate that he isn’t going to join up because his civilian identity, Jim Corrigan, is actually dead. As well, the Spectre doesn’t feel like making new friends, so doesn’t want to join the All-Stars. Outside, Hawkman explains that before joining up, he wants to go to Mexico to check on his fiancee Shiera; Atom and Mid-Nite offer to come with him. First, they want to go check on Danette. In an ancient temple in the Yucatan, Nazi General Saukel speaks with the Feathered Serpent, the would-be ruler of Mexico. He acknowledges that America has gone to war with Japan, and that Germany was supposed to launch an attack on the Eastern Seaboard at the same time, or the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but this was stopped by Green Lantern. Saukel wants to use the Yucatan as a base to launch attacks on America, but the Feathered Serpent makes it clear that when he conquers Mexico, the Nazis will follow his lead. He explains that he’s going to gain power by sacrificing Shiera Sanders. In New York, Johnny Quick and Robotman run through the streets, discussing their frustration at having to stay Stateside as the President wishes. They learn of two saboteurs threatening to blow up the Statue of Liberty and race to Liberty Island. Johnny runs up the side of the statue and knocks out one of the bundsmen. He disables their bombs, but the other Nazi has a grenade. Johnny tosses it from the torch, but when it explodes in the air, it weakens the unstable arm of the statue. Robotman rushes inside and holds the arm together until Johnny can get the terrorists out and help him repair the statue. Finished, they decide to go to Danette’s apartment to see how she is. They join Liberty Belle in the elevator, and then meet up with Shining Knight, Mid-Nite, Atom, and Hawkman in the apartment, which actually belongs to Rod, Danette’s brother. She’s sleeping and suffering from a fever. Hawkman fills the others in about his plans, and Danette wakes up. She remembers that Slugger gave her a key to take to her brother’s place, and she figures out it’s for a Roman bust. It opens a secret closet. Outside, the All-Stars smell smoke, and opening the door to the bedroom, find Danette in a costume, surrounded by flames. She passes out, and the others put out the flames. As she recovers, she explains that while in the closet she learned that her brother was the costumed hero Firebrand. She tried on a variation of his costume, using the bathing suit she leaves in his apartment, and then started setting things on fire with her mind. Hawkman plans to leave with his two friends, and the others insist on coming with him, even Danette. They take a chartered plane to Merida, Mexico (even taking Winged Victory on the plane), and head to the hotel where Shiera was staying. Carter is surprised she’s checked out, and then outside the hotel, spots some guy wearing her scarf. The guy runs, but turns a corner and finds the whole Squadron, in costume, waiting for him. He explains that he got the scarf from a ‘gringa’, and Carter offers to pay him to take him to her. Hawkman and the Knight fly off with the guy, leaving the others behind. A kid comes up and tells them he knows where the American woman is, and leads them into a Nazi trap. They fight the Nazis, and when one comes out with a flamethrower, Danette, now calling herself Firebrand, takes him out. Atom intends to interrogate the Nazis. Carter and Justin arrive at the temple in the jungle, but are zapped by a hidden electric net which kills their Mexican guide. They are brought before the Feathered Serpent, who intends to sacrifice Shiera in front of them.
Rich Buckler departed with issue five, and Adrian Gonzales came onboard with issue six. The Feathered Serpent talks a lot while preparing to sacrifice Shiera in front of Hawkman and Shining Knight. He explains how he was born in Mexico and educated abroad before returning to work as an archeologist. He discovered the ‘lost pyramid of Kukulkan’, and somehow knew how to get inside it. He found treasures hidden by Moctezuma, and put on the sacred clothing of the feathered serpent-god, which allowed him to read the ancient writing in the temple. He was able to speak all of the Indigenous languages in the area, and commanded the pure-blooded Indigenous people with him to kill anyone with Spanish blood in their group, which they did. The German General is impatient waiting for the Feathered Serpent to carry out his sacrifice, and they argue, which gives Sir Justin more time to wear away at the ropes around his wrists. Feathered Serpent talks about how he needs to kill an outsider so he can lead all pure-blooded people in Mexico to rise up against anyone with mixed blood (the word mestizo gets tossed around, and tbh, I’m not sure if that’s offensive now or not). Shiera kicks the guy, and Hawkman and Shining Knight jump into action, having freed themselves. Shining Knight knocks the General onto the altar where Shiera was, and the Feathered Serpent decides that any foreigner will do, and kills him. The men keep fighting, but are now joined by Hawkgirl. The Feathered Serpent flies into the air (I guess he can fly now that he’s powered up), and the three heroes give pursuit, with Carter using the time to fill Shiera in on what’s happened. In Mexico City, an ancient pyramid rises out of the ground, and anyone who is pure-blooded Indigenous (it doesn’t matter what their identity is, Mayan, Aztec, Toltec) falls under a trance and starts climbing the pyramid’s steps. Anyone who tries to stop them gets shot down by a bunch of men dressed in traditional clothes. A pair of Germans watch the chaos and approve of it. Some of the All-Star Squadron ( Firebrand, Atom, Mid-Nite, and Johnny Quick) gets involved, trying to protect people and figure out what’s going on. The Germans get nervous and return to their embassy. Firebrand shows some skill at being a superhero, and participates in the fight. At the Mexican National Palace, the President, Manuel Avila Camacho, sits with a pair of people. The Feathered Serpent leads some gunmen towards the palace, shooting their way in. They confront the President, and fire at him, but we learn that the people with him are Robotman (in a rubber mask) and Liberty Belle. Libby rings the bell in the Palace, which gives her an adrenaline boost. She and Robotman fight the gunmen, and Robotman thinks about the fact that he’s taken on a new alter ego, Paul Dennis, which seems pretty out of place. Liberty Belle stops the Feathered Serpent from killing the President, and ends up tossing him out a window. He falls to the ground, and we see that he was wearing an exo-skeleton that gave him his powers. Robotman thinks everything is over but Liberty Belle points out that the Feathered Serpent is flying past them – the guy they just fought was a decoy or something. At the German embassy, the ambassador talks about the Nazi plan to take Mexico from the Feathered Serpent once he is victorious. The Serpent hears them as he flies in through a window, and starts to argue with them, demanding his sovereignty. That’s when the Hawks and Shining Knight arrive and attack the Germans and the Serpent. He flies off, heading to the pyramid where he finds the other All-Stars. He grabs Firebrand and lifts her into the air. The Hawks can see what’s happening from the embassy, where it looks like President Camacho is with them, but that must be a mistake. Firebrand sets the Feathered Serpent’s clothes on fire, knowing that she’s going to fall. She’s caught by the Shining Knight and Winged Victory, while the Hawks grab the Serpent. They bring him to the pyramid, where the pure-blooded Indigenous people are waking up from their trances. The Feathered Serpent is revealed to be a German with blonde hair; he decided he could take over the country and pretended to be Indigenous. The All-Stars gather around him, and Robotman lets them know that Germany and Italy have declared war on the US. The Feathered Serpent pulls a bomb out of his skirt and presses its trigger, which has a three second delay. Johnny grabs it and passes it to Robotman who tosses it in the air so that its explosion doesn’t hurt them. Hawkman turns to Atom and Mid-Nite, reminding them they need to go sign up, which is news to Shiera, who is glad that her Hawkgirl mask hides that she’s crying. President Camacho praises the All-Star Squadron. Later, on the coast, the German costumed villain Baron Blitzkrieg (he’s like a Nazi Doctor Doom, dressed in yellow armor festooned with swastikas) talks to his very tiny assistant about how the Nazi leaders in Berlin wouldn’t listen to him, but now he’s headed by U-boat to the States to carry on with his goals.

As a newsboy yells about the disbanding of the JSA to join the armed forces, Private Al Pratt bumps into a rude tall man in a trenchcoat, walking with a very small man. These two enter an alleyway and then heil to Hitler, and a wall opens, leading Baron Blitzkrieg and his little companion Zwerg into a Bund base. The man there shows the Baron a doctored newsreel, which portrays Winston Churchill coming to America and exploding when he shakes hands with President Roosevelt. Zwerg points out inaccuracies in the film, but they reason that since what the film shows is planned to happen, it won’t much matter. They reference another Bund or Nazi operative who is keeping to the shadows, and we see that the Baron is behind all sorts of plans. Al, now in his Atom outfit, enters the White House through a window, where FDR is sitting reading Life. They talk for a bit, and we learn that Atom saved the President about a year before from a Valkyrie, and that not long after, the President suggested the founding of the Justice Society. They talk about how the JSA has signed up, and we learn that Al is in the tank corps, that Hawkman is in the Army Air Force, that Sandman is training on anti-aircraft cannon, that Dr. Fate is training to be a parachute trooper, that Doctor Mid-Nite is in the Medical Corps, that Starman is also in flight training, that Johnny Thunder is in the Navy, and that Spectre is operating on American soil. He mentions that Green Lantern has enlisted too. Roosevelt surprises him by going into the next room, where the core members of the All-Star Squadron (Hawkgirl, Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Robotman, Firebrand, and Shining Knight) are waiting for him. They have some small talk before Roosevelt reveals that Churchill is on his way to Virginia on a Destroyer, and that he’s worried there will be an attack on it. The team heads out. Sir Justin, Liberty Belle, and Hawkgirl fly over the ocean, watching for U-boats while Johnny and Firebrand patrol the coast. Robotman and Atom stand watch in thickening fog at the docks. The air contingent sees the Destroyer and heads for shore. As the ship approaches the docks, there is an explosion in its side. Atom and Robotman jump on board to help out, and are immediately assumed to be attackers. Once it’s cleared up, they pitch in. Robotman spies the escaping U-boat that fired on the Destroyer. The airborne All-Stars see the U-boat submerging, and after Robotman tosses them a cable, Belle dives into the water and ties it to the sub. On shore, Robotman starts pulling it in. Inside the Destroyer, Baron Blitzkrieg (I guess he got in through the hole in the hull) brings the Churchill robot he’s developed to meet the real thing. When the U-boat is dragged ashore, the Nazis pour out and attack, but Atom has ordered all the British and American soldiers away. Instead, the Nazis fight the All-Stars. The robot Churchill gets in a car, while Blitzkrieg, Zwerg, and the real Churchill slip away. Robot Churchill arrives at the Washington Airport where he is greeted by FDR. Liberty Belle had Johnny Quick bring them there, and she notices that something is odd about Churchill. Johnny rushes to stop him from talking to FDR, but is too late, and the robot explodes. They realize that Plastic Man had taken over for the President, and survived the explosion. Back in Virginia, the Baron and Zwerg drive a car out of the naval base, but are stopped by Robotman, who holds up the back bumper. Blitzkrieg attacks him with surprising strength. Firebrand and Atom rush into the fight, and after tossing Al, the Baron grabs Churchill and flies off (I guess he abandons Zwerg, who disappears). Hawkgirl and Shining Knight chase Blitzkrieg, who decides it’s best to try another plan. He drops Churchill (Shiera catches him) and blasts Justin with eye beams before escaping. Soon, the real Churchill is taken to the real Roosevelt, and they meet under the watchful eyes of the All-Stars. A couple of days later, the heroes are on hand for the tree-lighting ceremony at the White House, where Churchill gives a speech about how they’ll all struggle to win the war (the text is from the actual speech Churchill gave at this actual event).
It’s about a week later, and Churchill has moved on to Canada, where he is addressing Parliament, flanked by Shining Knight and Liberty Belle. An assassin dressed all in indigo and blue, with a belt covered with swastikas, starts firing a type of laser gun at Churchill. The two All-Stars spring into action, as do some Canadian soldiers, one of whom gets killed. The assassin shoots Sir Justin, but can’t hit Belle. She gets close enough to punch him, but he wraps her in a flag and aims for Churchill again. This time, he’s stopped by a new costumed figure, dressed in red, white, and blue. He calls the assassin Black Assassin, and hits him, then crushes his gun in his hand. The assassin triggers a bomb on his belt, and the newcomer jumps on top of him, catching the full force of the blast and saving everyone else. They are surprised to see this guy wasn’t blown apart. Churchill says that his name is Steel and that he’s saved him once before. Steel doesn’t appear hurt, because of his steel-mesh costume, but he is fighting to stay conscious. He gives Churchill a book and passes out. Churchill finishes his speech. Liberty Belle calls Washington to try to learn about Steel, and Atom says he’ll look into it. The President tells them to return to DC with Steel. Soon, they are all on a train with the unconscious Steel and Churchill. Churchill’s been reading Steel’s diary, and asks Belle to read it to them. Whenever she reads from it, we actually see some re-inked pages from the unpublished issue of Steel’s own series, by Gerry Conway and Don Heck. We learn that Hank Heywood was injured trying to stop some Germans blowing up an army camp in Poland, and became the willing subject of experiments by his girlfriend’s father. He had a bio-retardant put into his body so his damaged limbs and organs could be replaced by steel ones, and he had micro-motors placed throughout his joints. Belle reads a later entry that shows Steel in London stopping the Black Assassin and some spies from attacking Churchill two years earlier. The Black Assassin escaped, but Churchill invited him to join him. We learn that two weeks earlier, the doctor that experimented on Hank was hurt, but was kept alive by the same bio-retardant. He made Hank choose between his girlfriend and becoming a hero, and Hank had to walk away. Churchill talked to Steel about his belief that Germany was going to attack Finland, so he wanted Steel to kidnap Hitler for him. The bomber he and some British operatives took was blown out of the sky, and Steel had to stop the two fighters that shot it down so his companions could safely open their parachutes. The journal entry ends with Steel about to land behind enemy lines. We learn that Baron Blitzkrieg is tracking the train that Churchill is on, and is about to use the backup plan he’s had in place all along. The train is now in the US, heading towards DC. A large eagle lands on it, and then turns into a Japanese man named Kung, a shapeshifting assassin. He turns into a tiger and rips into the roof of the train, having used his psychic abilities to put everyone on the train to sleep. Hawkgirl is watching though, and she hits Kung with her mace. We see that Firebrand is flying a biplane carrying two more All-Stars. Kung, turning back into an eagle, claws at Shiera’s face, knocking her off the train. Luckily Johnny Quick is there to catch her. Robotman confronts Kung on the train’s roof, and he turns into a rhino. They fight, but when Kung turns into a giant praying mantis, and then shrinks, he causes Robotman to fall off the train too. Firebrand watches as Johnny and Hawkgirl rush to catch up to the train. Kung drops into Churchill’s car, and for some reason the Prime Minister is the only one awake. Kung grabs him in a chokehold, but is himself grabbed around the neck by the barely conscious Steel. Kung changes shape to escape, and everyone wakes up. Steel still can’t speak, but they thank him for his help. They suspect that Baron Blitzkrieg is behind this attack, but we learn that’s not the case at all. The Baron, however, does still have his backup plan in action, which he monologues to Zwerg about – Steel is his special agent, and he wants him to kill both Churchill and Roosevelt.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and the core members of the Squadron are joining Roosevelt and Churchill at the White House for a private party, where they toast the newly renamed Commander Steel, the year 1942, and to their loved ones. Sir Justin praises Churchill, Atom worries that someone might overhear if they talk about him enlisting, and Hawkgirl anticipates receiving a phone call from Hawkman at midnight. Atom asks Steel to finish the story they read in his journal, and soon we’re back in the unpublished issue of Steel by Conway and Heck. Having landed in Poland, Steel and his companions moved through the terrain, heading to a camp that Hitler was expected to attend. They were caught by a large number of Nazis, led by the camp commander, who called himself The Butcher. The regular people were killed, and Steel was captured. He came to in the camp, stripped to his boxers and disoriented. He realized just what the Nazis were doing as he spoke to some of the Jewish prisoners (this now suggests that Roosevelt and Churchill knew about the concentration camps at the beginning of 1943, and I’m not sure how historically accurate that is) and sprang into action, jumping a fence, grabbing a guard’s gun, and running ot the fake hospital where some of his companions might have been. He was hit by a jeep, and when he woke up, the Butcher and his doctors were examining him, learning about his alterations. Steel learned that Hitler was coming within an hour, and then broke free again, grabbing a bottle of acid on his way out through a window. A bullet grazed his skull and knocked him down. One of the prisoners picked up the acid bottle, and when The Butcher approached with guards, he threw it into his face before being killed. Hitler came, but Steel doesn’t know what happened after that, having no other memories until he was in Ottawa and saved Churchill. Everyone prepares for midnight, indulging in private thoughts. Elsewhere, we learn that Baron Blitzkrieg has been listening in to the conversation through the device we saw earlier. The Baron begins to narrate his story to his little friend Zwerg. We realize that The Butcher is the Baron, and that the doctors were able to fix his eyesight after the acid attack, but weren’t able to fix his face (so basically, the Dr. Doom origin in a way). He was also given lots of experimental drugs to have the ability to fully control his body for short periods of time, making him strong or able to fly. He doesn’t explain why he thought a yellow and magenta suit of armor made sense, but he adopted the guise of Baron Blitzkrieg, and made plans. During this whole time, they held Steel prisoner for two years. They brainwashed him, wiped some of his memories, and planted a command to kill Churchill and Roosevelt upon hearing a code phrase. The Baron had the Black Assassin take Steel with him to Ottawa so he could defeat him, and while the Barons plans were almost ruined by Kung, he feels he salvaged things. The phone rings, and it’s Hawkman calling from a telephone pole in California. He and Shiera talk briefly before the “phone company” cuts in and asks to speak to Steel. He takes the call and Liberty Belle realizes something is wrong first, asking Johnny to rush Roosevelt and Churchill out of the room. Steel pursues, and punches Johnny. Firebrand surrounds the two leaders with flames, and the others try to stop Steel. He gets into a fight with Robotman, and appears to be getting stronger, like someone is sending power to him. We learn that Baron Blitzkrieg is funneling his own power through the tracer he put in Steel, but when Firebrand tosses some flame into Steel’s face, it triggers the Baron’s memories of the acid attack, and he loses control of Steel. Steel comes back to his senses, and soon everyone is hanging out together again. The two world leaders are happy with the All-Stars, while Robotman offers to check out Steel’s devices. The Baron, however, is being cradled by Zwerg (I can’t be the only person who reads something into their relationship here), who promises to help him recover and smash his enemies.
Hawkman is flying above the Bay, thinking about his new career in the Army Air Force. He came to see a flight of bombers on their way to Hawai’i, and wonders if Ted Knight (Starman) might be on one of them. He is piloting one, and thinking about his career as Starman. A flying object shaped like an eye appears in the sky, bathing one plane in light that causes its engines to fail. Hawkman knows he can’t help, but Ted realizes that by changing into his Starman gear, he can try to help using his gravity rod. He makes an excuse to his copilot, and jumps out of the plane. While he uses his rod to slow the plane’s descent, Hawkman greets him. The plane recovers once it’s out of range of the flying eye. Carter approaches it, and sees a man come falling out of it. He catches him, as Starman joins him. They are hit by the same light, which neutralizes Carter’s ninth metal, and shorts out the gravity rod. They fall for a while, and then recover. Ted returns to his plane, while Carter realizes that the man he’s carrying is dead. In Washington, Johnny Quick, Shining Knight, and Hawkgirl notice some strange doings at the Washington Monument, and Johnny ends up fighting three German saboteurs who want to blow it up. Shiera and Justin help end things. On an island in the Pacific, Dr. Charles McNider is working in the dark when he hears planes approaching. He heads outside in his Doctor Mid-Nite outfit as a group of Japanese fighters engage with the American planes. The flying eye appears and disables two planes, and then the rest of the Japanese fighters. Mid-Nite punches out one of the pilots when he lands with a parachute. The eye disappears. In Washington, Atom and Liberty Belle accompany President Roosevelt to Winston Churchill’s room, and find him wearing only a towel. The two leaders talk about calling their alliance the ‘united nations’. On the Crimean peninsula, German tanks battle against Russian ones. The flying eye appears in the sky and blasts a German panzer that opens fire on it, then flies away. In a hospital in Washington, Robotman finishes examining Steel, while Firebrand watches. We learn that the device Baron Blitzkrieg used to control him is gone. As the heroes leave, both Robotman and Steel collapse as their mechanical parts stop working. They recover quickly, and see the flying eye approaching the Capitol. They rush over, and meet with their friends outside the White House. The flying eye hovers over the giant Christmas tree on the lawn while the President and Prime Minister watch out a window. The eye burns the tree, and then a large figure begins to appear in the light it casts. Johnny tries to attack it, but is slapped away. Firebrand shoots flame at it, to no effect. The figure finishes materializing, and we see a tall pink-skinned alien who introduces himself as Akhet. He says he’s from another planet, and is there to claim Earth for the Binary Brotherhood.
The letters page to issue ten has a special note explaining how a Japanese-American reader has educated them on how a word they were using for the Japanese is a slur, and they claim they stopped using it with issue five, and won’t use it again. Except that word appears on page fifteen, so…

The All-Stars debate whether or not they should take down Akhet, as do Roosevelt and Churchill in the White House. Akhet talks about how he could have destroyed the White House but instead wants to explain that his people, the Binary Brotherhood, have been watching the Earth, and want every nation to surrender to Akhet so he can rule. He gives them one day to decide, threatening to annihilate any country that doesn’t join him. Johnny Quick decides to attack, with Hawkgirl, Robotman, and Steel at his side, and they are instantly taken down. The others move in, and when Atom and Liberty Belle see that Akhet is rising on a beam of light, taking Hawkgirl and Steel with him, they grab his legs, bringing him back to the ground. He throws Hawkgirl and Steel into his levitating beam, ignores Firebrand’s flames, and then lifts up Atom and Robotman, ascending with them. Shining Knight is ineffective, and the soldiers who try to shoot at him have their rifles explode when he gestures at them. Once back in his flying eye ship, Akhet flies away. The American fighter planes that attack are destroyed (although the pilots all parachute away in time). The eye is flown all over the world. In Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair bunker, the Führer is disappointed by how his advance in Russia has slowed. He steps outside for air and sees the flying eye approaching. Akhet appears to give Hitler the same message he gave Roosevelt and Churchill, and in a montage, continues to address Josef Stalin, Chiang Kai-Shek, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo. Later, the remaining All-Stars sit around a table with Roosevelt, Churchill, and a general, and learn that the army wants to evacuate Washington. The All-Stars want to fight, and Liberty Belle shares a suspicion that all is not as it seems with the tall alien. Harry Hopkins tells them that someone is approaching in the air, and the All-Stars head outside to see that Hawkman’s arrived from the west coast. He also thinks something is strange with Akhet, and tells them about his fight and how he caught that man the issue before. He says that the guy had an alchemists’ symbol on his collar, which is what Akhet had on his flag. Hawkman knew the guy, a bio-chemist who’d gone missing almost ten years before. Shiera and Al wake up inside the flying eye, and search for a way out of the room they’re in. Shiera remembers that she has a glass dagger in her wings, and explains to Al how she was in Carter’s place, looking at his collection of various Hawkman masks (I’d forgotten to mention that she changed her look a couple issues back, replacing the double-beaked look with the mask we usually associate with her). She relays a joke about the yellow cloth mask she’d made Carter, who’d said that if he ever wore that mask, he’d be ready to retire (it’s the one he wore when the JSA famously quit at the start of the McCarthy era). Anyway, Shiera looked at the dagger, fell into a bit of a trance, and hid it in her wings. Al uses it to get them out of the room they’re in, and into another. The rest of the All-Stars go to the home of a physio-mathematician in Pennsylvania. The man who owns the home, Elwood P. Napier, has been missing (Johnny searched the FBI archives). Hawkman breaks in and they find a lot of photos of Napier with other scientists, and Hawkman recognizes someone else. At that moment, all of the pictures start to burn, and Carter thinks he knows what’s going on. Al and Shiera find Akhet, and learn he knows Shiera’s name. They attack, and he falls down instantly. They realize he’s just a mannequin, and head into another chamber, where they find Robotman, Steel, and more than a dozen others standing unconscious in glass tubes. Shiera recognizes many of them as scientists. They turn and see Dr. Hastor, Hawkman’s first enemy, standing there.
Hawkman and the squad he was with return from Napier’s home, and along the way, Carter narrates his story. He explains how when he received the glass dagger that Shiera had last issue, it caused him to remember his life in Ancient Egypt as the blonde Prince Khufu (this gives off strong Hollywood vibes), and how he and the Shiera of that time, who was named Shiera, were killed by Hath-Set. Taking in this information, Carter wandered around the city and saw a bunch of people running from the subway, saying it was on fire. Investigating, he ran into Shiera, who he immediately recognized. She told him that she’s had the same dream that he envisioned, and Carter realized something had been guiding him, given that he’d made his Hawkman mask and ninth metal rig recently. He put it all on and figured out how to fly, then followed his instincts, which took him to the home of Dr. Anton Hastor, who was behind the attack on the subway for some reason. Carter stopped him, but Hastor figured out who he was (Hastor is the resurrection of Hath-Set), so he snatched Shiera and prepared to sacrifice her (this happens to her a lot in this title – three times so far!). Carter shot him with his crossbow, and believed him dead. Now Carter thinks he’s still alive and behind the flying eye situation. The All-Stars rush to the military base where Roosevelt and Churchill are sheltering, marveling at how built up the military has become. On the flying eye, Shiera and Atom learn that Hastor wants to take over the Earth. They are not able to get close enough to attack him because he now has mental powers he didn’t have before. Shiera tries to free Robotman and Steel, but can’t manage, even with the glass dagger. Hastor tosses Al into Shiera, and then narrates his story. We learn that he’d been contacted years ago by Napier, who had developed a way to predict the future. He predicted the stock market crash and the rise of Hitler, but Hastor rejected his ideas. As time went on, he saw that Napier was right, but decided to make his own play to rule the world with his electro-magnetic devices. This led to his run-in with Hawkman, but he didn’t die like Hawkman thought. Instead, he tried to track down Napier, eventually finding him and the dozens of scientists that had gone missing from many countries in a quiet valley. Napier and his brain trust were building the flying eye and the android of Akhet. Napier explained to Hastor that the cerebro-capsules in the eye would allow the scientists inside them to power the ship mentally or something. Hastor made some secret changes so when the ship launched, he was able to slip out of his chamber and take control of it. He explains that one of the scientists got out, so he tossed him into the San Francisco Bay. The eye approaches the military base and starts trashing the anti-aircraft guns around it. Shiera and Al try to spring into action, while a hot air balloon lands on the ship, delivering the rest of the All-Stars except for Shining Knight, who stayed with the President and Churchill. Hastor lets them into the control chamber, but none of the heroes can touch him because of his force shield. Hastor keeps raining destruction on the base, and Shiera comments about the knife she brought. This gives Carter an idea, and by holding it, he brings forth Khufu’s astral spirit, which in turn draws Hath-Set’s out of Hastor. The two spirits start to fight. Shiera joins in the fight by also holding the knife, and this causes Hastor to lose control of the ship. It looks like it’s going to crash into the building holding the president, but Liberty Belle speaks to Robotman through his glass tube, and manages to reach him. He helps the eye to land safely, and when the hatch opens, we see the All-Star Squadron leading Hastor out, joined by the scientists. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Sir Justin join them all, and some generic but inspiring things get said.

Issue thirteen is used to take the temperature of the team, and while for us the series is moving into its second year, for the characters, it’s been about a month since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hawkman is chairing the first official meeting of the All-Star Squadron, held in the Smithsonian. Carter mentions that he’s there only temporarily, as he has to get back to San Francisco and his army posting. They discuss adding to the team, listing the members of the JSA that didn’t sign up (including Batman, Spectre, Superman, Flash, and Wonder Woman in their discussion). Shining Knight says he’s spoken to the rest of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and they’d be willing to help out as needed. Other heroes are mentioned, and Steel is surprised by how many heroes there are now. Liberty Belle talks about how committed she is to the cause of protecting the country from saboteurs and the like. They vote on a permanent chairperson, and Liberty Belle is chosen, surprising only her. Sir Justin informs them that he’s going to be returning to England with Churchill. Soon, Belle, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Johnny Quick, and Firebrand are in a cargo plane headed for San Francisco. As they talk, Danette reveals some pretty dark opinions of all Japanese people because of what happened to her brother, using a slur that we haven’t seen yet in this book. The others admonish her, and the rest of the flight is quiet and tense. The Hawks leave the plane once they reach SF, and make out in the air a little before heading to a house that Shiera owns for a day together before Carter returns to service. Johnny and the others talk about love, and we learn that things were starting up between Danette and Sir Justin, but now he’s gone. Liberty Belle reminds her that their war is against Japan’s leadership, not its people. Steel is in New York, and he goes to check in on his friend Gilbert Giles. He’s surprised to find that his ex-fiancee still lives in Giles’s apartment. He learns that Giles died a year ago, calling out Steel’s name, and Gloria blames Steel without understanding what happened. We learn that she’s married, and that her new husband is shipping out. Hank decides to not reveal who he is, and instead tells her that he’s dead and leaves. Robotman runs towards the warehouse he used to work in in Queens, and sees weird energy everywhere. He breaks in and finds Joan Carter, his ex-girlfriend, and Chuck Grayson, the man who put his brain in his body, unconscious on the floor. He smashes the equipment that is sparking everywhere, and Chuck recovers. Robotman is determined to let the world believe that Bob Crane is dead, and when there’s a knock on the door, he puts on his rubber mask and hands, and answers it as Paul Dennis. In a one-page retelling of an old issue of Star-Spangled Comics, he confronts a lawyer’s lackey and tosses him out. Sir Justin is on a plane with Winston Churchill, heading for England, and they talk until they realize the city is being bombed and Justin takes Winged Victory out to attack the German bombers. There’s a cameo by a pilot named John Cecil Kelly Rogers, but I don’t know the significance of that. Johnny Quick carries Firebrand and Liberty Belle to the second floor of a military hospital in SF, where they see dozens of men wounded at Pearl Harbor. They are taken to a private room where Rod Reilly is recovering. He figures out that Danette is the new Firebrand, and we learn that Slugger Dunn is fully recovered. When Danette starts on her anti-Japanese rhetoric again, Rod explains that an American-born Japanese man saved him and Slugger at Pearl Harbor, and she has an immediate change of heart. Belle lectures her on the Nisei, the 2nd gen Americans of Japanese descent, and Rod makes her promise that the Squadron will be a force for good. Before leaving, the three heroes perform some tricks for the patients of the hospital. In Washington, Atom hurries to change into his military uniform and meet his girlfriend Mary James. She’s not happy that he’s signed up, and they say their goodbyes in front of the statue of Jefferson in his new memorial.
DC had a long-running tradition of yearly meet-ups between the Justice Society of America, of Earth-2, and the Justice League of America, of Earth-1. In 1982, the decision was made to loop the successful All-Star Squadron into the mix, in a five-part crossover with the Justice League of America book, called Crisis on Earth-Prime. The first chapter was in JLA #207, by Gerry Conway and Don Heck. The JSA of 1982 (Green Lantern, Dr. Fate, Starman, Power Girl, and Huntress) prepared to cross over to Earth-1 to see the JLA (Aquaman, Hawkman, Firestorm, Superman, and Zatanna), but when they fired up their transmatter cube, they were ‘tugged sideways’. Instead, the Crime Syndicate (Superwoman, Power Ring, Owlman, Ultraman, and Johnny Quick) turns up and attacks the JLA. They mention being double-crossed by Per Degaton, defeat the League, and take off in an experimental shuttle they find on the JLA satellite. The JSA find themselves in the limbo prison that the Crime Syndicate were trapped in by the JSA and JLA in an earlier encounter. They manage to get free and find themselves on Earth-Prime, but it’s badly damaged as a nuclear war has been fought there. The heroes get attacked by some plants, and Green Lantern figures out that the damage was caused by Per Degaton. The JLA recover and decide they need to go to Earth-2 to check on their friends. When they go through the transmatter cube they find themselves in the JSA headquarters, but it’s been trashed and abandoned for over forty years. Going on the street, they find New York decorated with statues and flags referring to Degaton, and get attacked by a security team for dressing like traitors. The Justice League retreats to the JSA headquarters, and Superman uses his time travel powers to return them to 1942, before there were any problems. They aren’t there for long before the door to the JSA headquarters opens and the All-Star Squadron (Liberty Belle, Commander Steel, Johnny Quick, Firebrand, and Robotman) enter.
In the second chapter of the Crisis on Earth-Prime, we open with a dream of Per Degaton’s. He imagines the All-Stars and some loosely associated heroes saluting him before fighting one another in gladiatorial combat for his pleasure. Professor Zee shows up and manages to turn everyone against Degaton, at which point he wakes up. Somehow the dream has restored his memories of his earlier defeat at the start of this run. He rushes to Professor Zee’s lab where the older man is finishing his time machine. Degaton shoots him, making sure he’s dead, and then changes into his fascist outfit and takes the time machine to 1982. As it moves, he feels it pull to the side. He emerges from a New York alleyway to buy a newspaper so he can figure out what the future has to offer him. He goes off on the newsstand agent, who makes it clear to him that the only heroes on the planet are in comic books. Degaton realizes he’s on a parallel Earth (Earth-Prime, hence the name of the crossover). He takes the time machine back into the time stream, and discovers a time storm. He also finds the green bubble that contains the Crime Syndicate and pierces it. He offers to help the Syndicate if they help him. They tell him how they ended up there, and agree to go with him. He takes them to 1962 on another parallel Earth, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We get a little discourse on what happened, and Degaton has the Syndicate steal the Russian ICBMs stationed in Cuba. He heads back through time, dragging the missiles behind his time machine. When the Syndicate decide to turn on him, and take over the time machine, they immediately disappear due to a failsafe he set up (this is what leads them to their meeting with the JLA in chapter one). On Earth-2, in this book’s regular continuity, Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, and Firebrand arrive at the building where the JSA meet for their team meeting. They see a villain in armor, calling himself Nuclear the Magnetic Marauder (seriously) across the street, stealing steel from a construction site. Johnny moves to stop him, just as Robotman and Commander Steel arrive. There’s a fight, and Nuclear manages to escape. The heroes continue to the meeting room, where they find the Justice League of America in a mirror image of the end of the last chapter.

Part Three of Crisis on Earth-Prime is in Justice League of America #208. After an initial confrontation, Superman realizes that the All-Stars are not enemies of the League, and they talk, filling each other in on things. They get called to the White House, where President Roosevelt shows them a projection TV that was sent to them. Per Degaton broadcasts his demands over it, telling them that he has nuclear weapons and is going to demonstrate their power so the leaders of Earth will surrender to him. The JLA worry that they can’t change the future they’ve already seen, but agree to try. On Earth-Prime, in 1982, the Justice Society explores the nuclear wasteland they’ve found, discovering a single life reading. Green Lantern’s ring leads them to a tunnel full of mutated people that attack them. After taking them out, they follow the ring to an old blind man, who is not mutated. Dr. Fate reads his memories and transfers them to a TV screen where we learn what became of the Cuban Missile Crisis on this world, after Per Degaton stole all the nukes the Russians had in Cuba. With each side thinking the other was lying, Kennedy launched a nuclear attack, and the world was devastated. Dr. Fate knows that Per Degaton is behind all this. On Earth-2, in 1942, the All-Stars and JLA are on a British vessel waiting for Degaton’s nuclear demonstration. A missile explodes, and the teams work to protect the boat and themselves from its shockwave. A time bubble appears in the blast zone, carrying the JSA (no explanation is given as to how they got there), but the heroes save their unconscious friends from falling into the sea. Degaton watches all this from his own jet, high above, and decides that his plan is going to work – that the world’s leaders will acquiesce to him, and then he’ll punish the All-Star Squadron for defying his earlier plans.
Part four of Crisis on Earth-Prime opens with Per Degaton watching from his spy plane as the 1940s All-Star Squadron meet with the Justice Society and Justice League from 1982 on a British vessel in the ocean. Firestorm recaps the previous chapters, then Dr. Fate and Green Lantern explain how the JSA combined their abilities to track Degaton to Earth-2, arriving as the nuclear missile exploded. They were able to protect themselves. They all tell the same story to President Roosevelt, and as they are talking, Degaton makes another announcement on the TV he sent, explaining that he’s hidden more missiles around the world, and is giving the world’s leaders five hours to surrender to him or be destroyed. Roosevelt wants the heroes to stop him, but admits that if they aren’t able to, he’s going to surrender. Superman, Robotman, and Fate head into space to destroy Degaton’s satellite. As they tear it apart, Robotman opens a lead box, exposing Superman to Kryptonite. That’s when Ultraman arrives and attacks. As Superman floats away unconscious, he defeats Dr. Fate, then rips off Robotman’s arm and sends him falling towards the Earth. Superman recovers and knocks out Ultraman, while Fate destroys the Kryptonite, and Superman recovers Robotman before he burns up in the atmosphere. Liberty Belle, Aquaman, and Starman explore the Pacific (I guess the thing that keeps magic-based heroes out of Japanese waters doesn’t affect Belle’s abilities). On an island, they track down a missile bunker, and take out Degaton’s men (I’m not sure where he’s getting men from). Superwoman is there, and after knocking out Starman, she explains that the Crime Syndicate are working with Degaton again, but only until they can betray him. They fight, but Aquaman, who didn’t join them on the island, has directed some whales to rip the island apart, destroying the facility. The heroes have Superwoman wrapped in her own lasso, and they take her prisoner. Hawkman, Johnny Quick, and Huntress explore the US midwest looking for missiles. The two future heroes have agreed to say nothing of the future to Johnny, but he does learn that Hawkman is an alien. They realize that some grain silos must be hiding the missiles they’re looking for, but Power Ring attacks before they can get to them. In their brief fight, Power Ring sets off one of the missiles. Hawkman carries Johnny up to it, and he dismantles it in the air. He then takes apart the rest while Huntress guards Power Ring. Degaton is not happy to see that his plans are falling apart, and rants about how if he doesn’t end up conquering Earth-2, he will destroy all the Earths.

Crisis on Earth-Prime ends in Justice League of America #209. The nine heroes who’ve completed their missions return to the White House to debrief President Roosevelt, but they wonder where the remaining three nuclear missiles might be. Firestorm, Power Girl, and Commander Steel have arrived in Geneva, where they believe Degaton has hidden more missiles. They are attacked by his men, and get into a fight with them. Power Girl figures the missiles must be in the clock tower, where she is attacked by the Johnny Quick of Earth-3. There’s some chaos, and when Quick knocks out one of Degaton’s men, he hits the launch button by mistake. Each of the heroes manages to dismantle one of the three missiles, and they somehow make it back to the White House in minutes to be praised. Superman’s deduced the location of Degaton’s secret base (but not how he managed to get so many of these facilities made, or recruited so many goons). Firebrand, Green Lantern, and Zatanna have gone to see Professor Zee, to warn him what Degaton will do one day. They help him finish his ‘time ray’ and use it to travel to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis (presumably they’ve gone to Earth-Prime too). Shortly after they arrive, so do the Crime Syndicate. On Earth-2 in 1942, Superman leads the heroes to the future site of the Pentagon. They dig into the Earth, and enter Degaton’s main base, and make short work of his soldiers. Robotman catches Degaton, and we see that Owlman is watching all this from the shadows. Huntress catches him and knocks him out. The heroes in 1962 attack the Crime Syndicate as they emerge from their time bubble, and beat them back. Degaton is confused by their presence, and Zatanna cuts off his oxygen, making him pass out. With the changes to the timeline corrected, Degaton and the Syndicate disappear, as do the three heroes. Likewise, in 1942, Degaton, his men, and all the heroes also disappear. The All-Star Squadron enters the JSA’s headquarters to have their meeting. Degaton is back to working for Professor Zee. The Crime Syndicate are back in their prison in the timestream. The JSA go to meet up with the JLA, and no one remembers any of the things that have happened.
The first All-Star Annual came out during the Crisis on Earth-Prime, but might be set just before it, although that doesn’t really matter. Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Flash are performing at a circus as a war bonds event, but their act is interrupted by the arrival of a glowing ball of light. In it are Atom, Wildcat, and an unknown hero we recognize as Guardian. These three men attack the All-Stars, matching their speed and strength. Green Lantern has the idea of blinding them with his ring, and they seem to come to their senses. The six depart on the Lantern’s magic carpet construct to talk about things. The Guardian refuses to identify himself, but to help figure things out, the others start to talk about themselves (on the condition that GL will magically erase any memories they have of each other’s identities). Wildcat shares his origin (boxer, false accusation, vigilante), and the others are surprised, being fans of Grant’s. He shares that that night, he was beating up on some stick-up man when a glowing ball sucked him in, and that’s his last memory. Atom tells his origin (small guy, met a trainer who helped him, became a hero), and shares that he was on a train, shipping out with his unit, when he slipped into a boxcar to be alone with his thoughts, and got sucked into a glowing ball. Guardian decides to share about his childhood in Suicide Slum, and how a guy literally pulled him out of poverty to train him to be an Olympic athlete. He saw his childhood friend gunned down and quit sports to become a beat cop. He got beaten up that night by some hoods, and figured the way to deal with it was to rob a costume store, create the Guardian identity, and get revenge. That’s when he got pulled into his own glowing ball of light. Flash notices that all three heroes were trained by someone else, and Green Lantern used his ring to learn that they all had the same trainer – Joe Morgan, who also called himself Nat Milligan when training Harper. They figure that he’s bitter they all turned their backs on him, so they split up to look for him. Flash and Guardian head to his apartment, and find a glowing cyan-coloured version of him. They knock him out and he changes. Wonder Woman and Atom go to his uncle’s farmhouse, where they find another iteration of Joe, glowing a more cobalt colour. They take him down, and he changes too. GL and Wildcat return to an old gym looking for him, and find a yellow version of the guy appearing in the ring between two boxers. They knock him out, and all the groups bring their Joe Morgans to Madison Square Gardens. There, the Joes combine into a single big Joe who fights them, claiming his name is Evil. Once he realizes who he really is, he turns human again, in a single body, and the glowing sphere pulls away from him. Joe explains how he was bitter, and the sphere found him and held onto his hand. Three more spheres split away, becoming the three versions we saw. Joe dies, and GL sends the sphere deep into space. In an odd prologue, we learn that the Guardians of the Universe (here called the Guardians of the Galaxy) on the Oa of the Earth-1 universe once expelled all the evil in their hearts into a single sphere, and sent it to the Earth-2 universe, where they also sent their collective magic.

Now that we’re back to the regular title, issue sixteen opens with the core All-Stars leaving their fight with Nuclear to go to the JSA’s meeting room, where they are surprised to find Wonder Woman waiting for them. She collapses asking for their help, and when she comes to, she talks about having to stop Nuclear. She thinks the heroes won’t help her, and tries to rush off on her own. They follow, and almost have to fight her to get her to calm down and explain what’s going on. She shares that after she left the other All-Stars (in the Annual), she boarded a boat in her civilian guise, heading off to serve in the Naval Nurses. Her beloved, Captain Steve Trevor was on the same ship, which was departing New York for the Panama Canal, and then service in the Pacific. As they passed a hillside, Nuclear used his magnetic powers to aim the destroyer at some cliffs. Diana Prince changed into her Wonder Woman outfit and called on her robotic invisible plane (Golden Age Wonder Woman was weird) to go confront Nuclear. She used her lasso to try to pull the destroyer away from the cliffs, and then rescued Steve when he fell into the water. Nuclear used his power to drag Steve towards him, hitting his head against the cliffs at his feet. Nuclear’s powers kept Wonder Woman, who has metal wrist bands, from fighting him. He slammed her against some rocks and then put Steve into a submarine which emerged from the waters. Wonder Woman called her robot plane to get her and came to the JSA meeting room. The All-Stars tell her about their run-in with Nuclear, and they all pile into the plane to head to the scene of the attack on the destroyer. In an aside, we see that Carter Hall has passed his final flight test and is headed to Coast Command. He calls Shiera, and we learn she’s joined the Nurse Corps. Wonder Woman and the others find a single home in the area around Nuclear’s attack, and knock at the door. The woman who answers, Joye Playboy (seriously) doesn’t know anything, but tells them that her brother Percy has a lab downstairs. Liberty Belle knows of him, and he explains that he changed the family name from Plazchek to Playboy out of spite. He refuses to show them his lab. While they’re talking, Robotman scales the cliffs, and falling, finds his way into a cave that leads to the underground lab. He spies a submarine and the unconscious Steve Trevor, as well as a number of generators. While he’s untying Trevor, Nuclear appears and sticks him to a generator using magnetism. Trevor tries to help but falls into the water again. The others hear the noises coming from the lab and rush down. They start to fight Nuclear, who is very effective against them. Joye comes into the lab, not recognizing him as Percy. Nuclear says he killed Percy, then rips open the floor, revealing a large section of flame. Firebrand uses the flames to free Robotman and Steel, who join with Wonder Woman to trash the generators powering Nuclear’s suit. Steve emerges from the water, finds his pistol, and shoots Nuclear in the leg. He falls into the flames. Wonder Woman tries using her lasso to pull Nuclear out, but can’t find him. Joye is very upset that she won’t know for sure how her brother died.
Wonder Woman drops the usual cast of All-Stars off in Queens, at Robotman’s lab. As they enter, he mentions Slattery, the lawyer that is working against him. Inside the lab, they find Chuck Grayson and his ex, Joan Carter. Joan thanks him for helping her back in issue thirteen, but their conversation is interrupted by policemen calling from outside. They are there to take Robotman into custody for Slattery. The lead cop explains that Slattery claims that Robotman is the property of Robert Crane (his actual identity). Johnny Quick and Firebrand try to knock the guns out of the cops’ hands, but Liberty Belle has them stand down. Robotman agrees to go into custody, and gets chained up and taken away. Johnny gets into an argument with Liberty Belle about this, and storms off. We see that public opinion is split on this issue, and that Slattery is paying off a witness to claim that he saw Robotman kicking a crippled newsboy; Slattery’s long-term plan is to be able to manufacture more Robotmen for profit. Locked up in jail, Robotman puts on his Paul Dennis disguise, which was stashed in his chest, and walks out of the jail. He goes to see his lawyer, who is with Liberty Belle, Firebrand, and Commander Steel. They talk about their court strategy. We see Libby Lawrence talk about his case on the radio, and Johnny, who is hanging out in a bar with Tubby, get into a short brawl with a tough guy who doesn’t like Robotman. On the day of the court case, Robotman is taken into the courtroom (which someone oddly refers to as rickety), and he’s shown kindness by Joan, who finds him familiar. During the trial, the All-Stars testify on his behalf, and written testimony from Superman and other heroes is entered into evidence, but it’s all rejected since everyone is hiding their identities. Two panels seem out of sequence, as they call Chuck to the stand but Joan testifies. Chuck explains how he and Bob worked on their greatest project (which involved both the robot body and test tubes for some reason). Joan came by and slapped Bob for missing a date. After she left, some tough guys came to steal their project, and shot Bob. When they saw the robot body, they left empty handed, and Chuck transferred Bob’s body into the robot. As he finished, police arrived and arrested Chuck for killing Bob. Two days later, Robotman woke up, trashed the lab in a rage, and then hunted down the men who shot him. Joan reacts to the testimony by rushing up to hug Robotman. He addresses the court, talking about the good things he can provide society, and as he talks, Johnny sneaks away. Soon after, the courthouse starts shaking and collapsing. Steel is knocked out, so Robotman has no choice but to rip off his chains and hold up a large part of the building so everyone can escape. Slattery suffers a heart attack, and Robotman ends up carrying him to a hospital. When he returns to the courthouse, he’s greeted like a hero. The judge (who is back behind his bench, and everything looks fine) renders his verdict that Robotman is human. Johnny rejoins the team and we see that Liberty Belle has figured out that he helped make Robotman look good in the collapse by knocking out Steel. As they leave to get something to eat, a bald man calling himself Dr. Henry King asks for a favor, but Belle brushes him off. It turns out this man is the villain Brainwave, who wants to get revenge on the All-Stars, but wants to go after the Justice Society first.

As issue eighteen begins, the All-Star Squadron has had a week off, but Liberty Belle has called them all to the JSA’s meeting room with little warning. Johnny Quick rushes through the streets, and thinks he sees Sandman arriving ahead of him. A radio reporter asks him about the rumor that all of the JSA has been kicked out of the army, but he then notices that the person he thought was Sandman is falling. He creates an updraft, and the figure jumps through a second-floor window. On a neighbouring rooftop, we see the silhouette of a big guy. Johnny takes off on the radio reporter, and then doubles back to attend the meeting. When he joins Firebrand, Belle, Steel, and Robotman, he realizes that it wasn’t Sandman he saw entering, but someone wearing a very similar costume. This is the Tarantula, another mystery man that Belle summoned because she’s received word that the enlisted members of the JSA, and Wonder Woman, have all gone missing. The team is waiting for the President to call them with news of the JSA, so Tarantula decides to tell his story. He reveals that he’s Jonathan Law, a mystery writer, who started to research for a book about costumed heroes. He interviewed Dian Belmont (this immediately has me wanting to reread Matt Wagner’s excellent Sandman Mystery Theater series), who showed him a drawing of the costume she designed for Sandman to wear. They talked, and Law fell for her, but also figured that she was Sandman’s girlfriend. A few nights later, Dian heard about a fire caused by sabotage at the Manhattan Pier, and since Wesley Dodds was away, put on his Sandman suit and gas mask to go investigate. She was seen by the German spies who caused the fire, and they shot at her, causing her to crash Dodds’s roadster. Tarantula showed up, wearing Dian’s costume design, and started to fight the Germans. He used his webgun to catch one, and while he was talking to him, another German prepared to shoot him. That’s when Sandman swung into the fight, wearing the costume Dian had made for him. The two men worked together to take out the rest of the saboteurs, then rushed to the crashed car, retrieving Dian’s dead body. A few nights later, they met again at Dian’s grave, and Dodds gave Law permission to keep wearing the costume that Dian designed. Across the street, the big guy we saw before reveals himself to be the Earth-2 version of Thor, there to get revenge on Sandman. He bashes his way through the roof of the Justice Society building and attacks Tarantula. Tarantula is confused by the old school English Thor is using, as the team tries to take him out. His hammer, which is round for some reason, has some kind of energy abilities. The fight trashes the meeting room and surrounding units. Tarantula maneuvers him into punching through a wall and hitting the building’s wiring, which knocks him out. With Thor lying insensate in front of them, they talk about how Thor fought Sandman once before. He’s a hood and a professor of metallurgy named ‘Fairytales’ Fenton, but they feel like he’s been upgraded somehow. Firebrand tells them that he’s still alive. Their conversation is interrupted by the radio reporter down on the street, telling them that the President has called him since the JSA’s phone was destroyed. He tells them that the light on top of the Trylon at the site of the World’s Fair has been blinking in morse code, calling the All-Stars. They head out, although Johnny worries that they might not be a match for someone who has taken down the Justice Society.
Jerry Ordway debuted as penciler and inker with issue nineteen, and his art is so nice. The six active members of the All-Star Squadron arrive at the World’s Fair, which has been closed for more than a year now. Johnny Quick checks out the Trylon, a 610 foot tall obelisk that has been sending a morse code signal, but finds it deserted. The team breaks into the Perisphere, where they are attacked by Elektro the Robot, a former display item. Once they’ve taken the robot down, it reveals that it was a test for them. The lights come on, revealing that the unconscious Justice Society (Johnny Thunder, Sandman, Hawkman, Starman, Atom, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Doctor Fate) and Wonder Woman are attached to a machine that crackles with energy. An image of a large brain appears and talks to the All-Stars, identifying itself as The Brain Wave. The brain explains that the villain is really in his home in Manhattan, and that he’s brought them there to witness his power. The team confers, and asks what Brain Wave wants. He explains that he’s pumping dream images into his captives’ heads, and shares the images with them. Hawkman fights Japanese Zeroes in the Pacific. Brain Wave explains that he’s flooding the heroes’ heads with images of violence so he can use it against them. Wonder Woman believes she fights in the Philippines, and in turn, we see how all of the JSA are helping American troops win the war. Johnny tries to attack the machine the JSA are in, but can’t get through the force field. Brain Wave then explains that he’s giving all of the heroes the same image – in Washington, the top brass are arguing over which of them are most helpful, until Johnny Thunder suggests that the military have the team work together. The Thunderbolt brings them all there, and they are made into the Justice Battalion of America. We see them sent to invade Japan. Robotman and Steel are not able to disrupt the machine together. We see that in his vision, the Justice Battalion, which has been joined by the Spectre, doesn’t fare that well in the invasion, with Starman being the first to fall. Soon, most of the heroes are dead, with only Hawkman and Spectre remaining. The Spectre grabs Hawkman and crushes him. Brain Wave explains that now the heroes have lost their will to live, and once one of them dies in reality, they all will. He laughs because he knows the All-Stars cannot save them.

After a recap, Liberty Belle asks Brain Wave’s floating brain image how the All-Stars are supposed to help their friends, and why he’s doing this. He explains that he’s got the JSA on the brink of death just to show the world how powerful he is. The six All-Stars decide to dive in together, entering the floating brain and finding themselves in the shared mindscape Brain Wave created. In a Japanese city, they soon find themselves under attack by troops, tanks, and fighter jets. They try to refrain from the bloodlust that the JSA felt, but soon start getting taken out. Within a couple of pages, only Liberty Belle is still alive, and she’s dying. Brain Wave feels superior, and has the new six heroes added to his collection, despite his machinery having been clearly shown as not big enough last issue. Brain Wave talks to himself, narrating his history, which was all shown in Golden Age comics. As a boy, Brain Wave learned he could create images from his mind, and perfected this in college. He wanted to learn to control people though, and used Dr. Elba to take control of Johnny Thunder, which brought together the JSA and Doctor Mid-Nite, who saved the day. After this, Brain Wave spoke to all of the Justice Society members, although not trusting his ability to influence Spectre, he used his powers to send him away. He implanted a command into each of them, and later, when he met Wonder Woman, did the same thing. When he was ready, he summoned them all to the Perisphere, and then lured the All-Stars, whom he’d tried to implant with the same commands at the end of Robotman’s trial. He wonders about the other members of the JSA, and we see that Spectre is in another realm fighting Kulak. Superman is facing Lex Luthor, who has drained his powers and grown in size. Batman is busy rescuing Robin from the Joker. Flash is traveling in time. Alan Scott is peeling potatoes in the army, although he’s able to get his sergeant, Doiby Dinkies, to do it for him. He hears about the All-Stars and the morse code method over the radio, and decides to go help them. He changes into Green Lantern, and charges his ring before flying off. Brain Wave puts an amplifying helmet on and prepares to make sure the heroes all die. Green Lantern arrives and sees all the All-Stars. He enters the mental simulation and learns that everyone has died. He lashes out at the Japanese soldiers that attack him, getting more and more angry, until he lashes out so strongly that he devastates the whole country, and causes feedback that destroys Brain Wave’s equipment. He realizes that it’s going to take him months to recover his powers. Green Lantern is still in the simulation, dealing with the guilt he feels for having killed so many. He prepares to use his ring to kill himself, but starts to hear the voices of some of the All-Stars, telling him if he does that, he’ll kill them all. He returns to the real world, and all the All-Stars wake up. Green Lantern collapses, and Wonder Woman and Mid-Nite tend to him. He keeps repeating the poem that Oppenheimer famously said after Hiroshima, while Wonder Woman tries to comfort him.
Superman arrives at the World’s Fairgrounds and joins the All-Stars. He explains that he was busy fighting Luthor, and that he retrieved the Powerstone from him. Hawkman shares that the War Department had asked that the Justice Society gather in Washington to talk about the same battalion idea Brain Wave came up with. Johnny Thunder suggests that Wonder Woman could be their secretary, and Atom and Dr. Fate call him out for it, but she actually agrees. Liberty Belle mentions Thor’s hammer, and Hawkman wonders if it’s one he lost before. Doctor Mid-Nite clears Green Lantern medically. Hawkman, Firebrand, Fate, and Atom fly off to go get the hammer from the trashed JSA meeting room in Manhattan, while the Thunderbolt picks up the other JSAers, including Wonder Woman, to take them to Washington. Superman and Belle talk about how the All-Stars don’t have a meeting place yet, and Johnny Quick suggests they use the Perisphere. Belle likes the idea, and is sure she can convince the city to let them have it. Superman talks about how he just built himself a Secret Citadel, and asks Belle and Green Lantern to come look at it. They leave. Quick, Tarantula, Robotman, and Steel head into the Perisphere, and talk about fixing it up. They also think they should turn Elektro into their robot butler. When Hawkman’s crew arrives at the old meeting spot, they find the building in flames. Mayor LaGuardia is on the scene, and he watches as the heroes spring into action, saving some kids and bringing down the building. They start to search for the mallet, but as Atom finds it, he’s attacked by a guy named Cyclotron, who is accompanied by some green creatures (and is wearing the costume we know Atom will end up wearing one day). He threatens to kill Atom unless they give him the hammer, so Hawkman makes the trade. Cyclotron tosses Atom at them, and so Fate attacks him. Cyclotron saps Fate’s powers, while the green creatures attack the others. Cyclotron blasts an unstable wall, and a police officer has to push the Mayor out of the way. Dr. Fate tries to shield them both, but the officer is crushed to death. Cyclotron is upset by this death, but blames it on the heroes for not just letting him have his way. While some of the green guys attack, Cyclotron blasts at Fate, who seems to be able to withstand his energy. Finally, Fate collapses, and Cyclotron makes a break for a hole in the ground, leaving the green things to continue the fight. Soon they are all apprehended, and Hawkman, Atom, and Fate head off for the meeting in Washington, leaving Firebrand behind because she’s not in the Society. She decides to go see Fairytales Fenton, who we know as Thor. Superman shows Belle and GL around his big base, but after he puts the Powerstone down, there is an earthquake. A number of the same green guys bust into the place. Liberty Belle goes to grab the Powerstone after it falls, but she’s blasted by a villain calling himself Deathbolt. He has a forcefield that can withstand both Superman and the Green Lantern, and when Belle goes to grab the Powerstone again, a woman gets ahold of it instead. Superman recognizes the woman’s eyes – it’s the Ultra-Humanite in a new body. Superman tells the others that he (the Ultra-Humanite uses he/him pronouns) could become the most dangerous criminal in history.

Ultra and Deathbolt are able to keep Superman, Green Lantern, and Liberty Belle at bay with their powers, eventually knocking them all to the ground. The Ultra-Humanite narrates his story, about how he was a criminal who died from a disease he created, but had his brain put into the body of the actress Dolores Winters, whom he’d arranged to have kidnapped (there are so many brain swaps in this series). As Winters, he abducted a physicist named Terry Curtis, making him help to blow up a building. Superman intervened in that, and Curtis turned on the Ultra-Humanite, tossing him into a volcano. Ultra explains that he’d hidden a ‘mechanical mole’ vehicle in the volcano, and used it to dig under the Earth where he found the green Sub-Men, who he got to follow him because all of their women are dead (seriously). Back at the Perisphere, Robotman and Commander Steel work at fixing up Elektro, while Johnny Quick chats with Tarantula, and they kind of get into a little squabble. Johnny leaves and runs through traffic. He decides to try out flying, and learns how to kind of fly using his speed powers. Firebrand leaves the hospital, where the Sub-Men have all died, and runs into Johnny. They chat about things, and Danette collapses from exhaustion. Johnny carries her back to her penthouse apartment, and they agree to take naps, separately. Johnny wakes up in an armchair to the sound of tapping on the glass – Cyclotron is floating outside, looking for Danette. He breaks in and attacks Johnny, hitting Firebrand with a bit of debris. He takes off her mask and realizes who she is. He kisses her (it’s clear that he knows her well) and flies off. Johnny comes to and goes for help. At Superman’s Citadel, Ultra continues explaining things. He says that the Sub-Men worshiped him, and he used the time they bought him to develop a way of teleporting his ‘mechano-mole’, but it would only take him to different volcanoes (as teleporters would). In Arizona, he saw a bi-plane being chased by a police bi-plane get hit by lightning, and he retrieved the escaped criminal pilot. He experimented on him, and gave him powers, turning him into Deathbolt. Superman and Libby realize that Deathbolt is a wanted murderer. This is when Cyclotron arrives with the hammer and Firebrand. The Ultra-Humanite recognizes Danette, admitting he’d thought about kidnapping her for her body. Danette comes to and learns that Cyclotron is really Terry Curtis, whom she once dated. Ultra keeps him from telling his story, and he says he’ll only give him the hammer if he promises to not hurt Danette (which he could have ensured by not bringing her). Terry has no choice but to do what Ultra wants, now giving him two of the three talismans he’s looking for. We learn that the hammer that Hawkman used to use belonged to an ‘elder race’ that left Earth long ago, and that its power is what unhinged Fairytales Fenton. As they talk, Johnny Quick, Robotman, and Steel jump from an airplane and crash into the Citadel. They attack the villains, who can’t work well together. Ultra knocks Robotman down a crevasse that’s opened, and then pulls him back up, figuring he can move his brain into Robotman’s body. Ultra grabs Superman and Firebrand, and pulls them into the crevasse, and is followed by Deathbolt and Cyclotron. GL and Belle are joined by Steel and Johnny, and don’t know what they should do to rescue their friends and stop Ultra from using the power that the Powerstone and hammer are giving him. As the villains move through their tunnels, Ultra tells Deathbolt that the next talisman he needs is Doctor Fate’s helmet.
Green Lantern brings Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, and Commander Steel back to the Perisphere. They are worried about their captured friends, but are also pretty wiped. Liberty Belle wants them to split up to try to learn where Ultra went, and Johnny gets annoyed that she won’t stay with him, and then decides he can use his civilian identity to get the information he wants. Libby learns that Johnny and Tarantula had argued over her before, and wonders where Tarantula went. GL and Libby leave, and Steel sticks around to work on Elektro, since he doesn’t have a civilian life anymore. The story turns back a few hours to Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and Atom, who are flying to Washington. They get in the way of an airplane, and then Fate has to rescue it. Fate gets a bad feeling about the Spectre, and decides he needs to return to his Tower instead of going to the JSA’s meeting with the President. Atom asks to go with him, and as they fly (with Fate carrying him), Fate retells his origin. His father had found the tomb of the wizard Nabu, and while it killed him, the restored Nabu trained young Kent Nelson, giving him the powers of flight, strength, and invulnerability. On Earth-2, Nabu claimed to be an ancient energy being from the planet Cilia, and then gave Fate his helmet, and all the powers that came with it. Fate soon learned that wearing the helmet caused him to be possessed by Nabu, so after a Justice Society adventure that is still a secret, he returned to his entrance-less Tower and rejected the helmet, promising his girlfriend, Inza Cramer, that he’d never wear it again. This is why he is now wearing the half-helmet. They arrive at the Tower, and Fate’s touch allows Atom to pass through the walls with him. They find Inza injured, explaining that someone else is in the Tower. They discover a Black man wearing a superhero costume, holding the helmet. He asks Fate to let him out of the Tower, and Atom jumps at him. The intruder can turn into rock by touching the walls, and he fights back. We learn that he can turn into whatever he touches, and the fight continues for a while. When Inza enters the room, she distracts Fate, so the intruder can take them both down. He’s about to use his power on the helmet when Atom grabs him, making him turn human again. Atom slams him into the wall, knocking him out. Atom recognizes him as Olympic athlete Will Everett. Fate has Atom put Everett’s hand on the Orb of Nabu; when he does this, he starts to narrate his origin (and we learn his name is Amazing-Man). Everett grew up poor in the south, and his parents had to move after he slugged their landlord. While his father worked in a Detroit auto-plant, he studied and trained for the Olympics, competing alongside Jesse Owens in Berlin in ‘36. His Olympic wins did nothing to help his life, and he ended up getting a job sweeping Terry Curtis’s lab. After Curtis disappeared, he got attacked when some of Ultra’s men came to steal the equipment. They took him to the Ultra-Humanite’s underground lair, where he hooked Everett up to a machine and gave him his powers. Everett first fought back, demonstrating his new powers, but when Ultra showed him respect and offered him money to work for him, Everett accepted (although there was clear resentment towards him from Deathbolt, and it’s weird that Cyclotron didn’t know him). Ultra sent Everett to retrieve the helmet, and Everett was able to enter the Tower by merging with the stone walls. He startled Inza, and she knocked an artifact onto her own head, knocking herself out. His story told, Everett remains unconscious. Fate realizes that he needs to put on his proper helmet again if he has any hope of finding and saving Spectre, although this upsets Inza a great deal. When he puts it on, he clearly is no longer himself, and as he leaves with Atom and Everett, Inza worries she’ll never see him again.

Batman is outside the quiet former lab of Robert Crane, and spies through a window that Robin is unconscious inside. He breaks through a window to get to him, and as he wakes, Robin warns Batman that two of the Sub-Men are about to attack him. Batman takes them down easily and ties them up; he tells Robin that they are going to the Perisphere as he loads them in the Batmobile. Robin explains that he went to the lab to meet Chuck Grayson, whom he discovered is his cousin. They weren’t there long when the Sub-Men came through the floor and attacked; when Robin threw one into a piece of equipment, there was an explosion that knocked him out. The other Sub-Men left with Chuck. At the Ultra-Humanite’s underground base, he gloats over his captives, Robotman, Firebrand, and Superman. Cyclotron wants him to stop what he’s doing, but he’s distracted when Grayson arrives. He explains that he wants Grayson to put his brain in Robotman’s body, and gets angry when Deathbolt suggests he keep his current female form. Ultra then explains his grand plan, which involves the Normandie, a massive French ocean liner being retrofitted into an aircraft carrier in New York. As it so happens, Johnny Quick is near the Normandie, in his Johnny Chambers identity, filming a war bond drive memorializing the recently deceased actress Carole Lombard. He and Tubby spot some celebrities, but then hear an explosion. Johnny changes and rushes to the Normandie, which is on fire. He rescues as many construction workers as possible before there is an explosion that sends him crashing into the pier. The ship capsizes. Green Lantern is flying Liberty Belle over the city when they spot the disaster. They arrive in time to stop a doctor from unmasking Johnny. GL dunks the ship into the river to put out the last fires, and then brings it back to the surface. A cop tells them that Ultra is broadcasting his demands over the radio – he wants one hundred million dollars or he will cause similar disasters in three more places. GL picks up Johnny and Liberty Belle to take them to the hospital and the Perisphere, respectively. Back at the Perisphere, Commander Steel is feeling sorry for himself, and thinking about how he doesn’t have a civilian life now. He hears someone, and pretends to be caught unawares when a person wearing a brown costume with a spider on the back swings down. It’s Tarantula, wearing a new outfit (unlike other new looks, like Firebrand’s, Tarantula looks very 80s, and has Liefeld style pouches on his boots, long before Liefeld was drawing professionally). Tarantula tells Steel about how he went home after his argument with Johnny, but was surprised to find a costumed person in his apartment, arguing with his cleaning lady, Olga. The man, who called himself Brainwave, was looking for Jonathan Law, author of Altered Egos, the book Law hadn’t written yet. Watching outside, Tarantula assumed he was the Brain Wave they’d just fought but never saw, and attacked him. They fought, with Brainwave using ‘brain-blasts’ against him, until Brainwave figured out that he had let the situation escalate too far. He explained that he calls himself Brainwave Jr., and is the son of Brain Wave. He’d come from the future to warn Law of danger. As they moved into another room, Olga clocked Brainwave Jr. with a small fireplace shovel, and knocked him out. Before he could return to the All-Stars, Tarantula had to get a new web-gun (this one also has a stun blast) because Brainwave Jr. wrecked his other one. Olga surprised him with a new costume, and Tarantula got a cab to take him to Queen’s. As he finishes telling his story, Atom enters carrying Amazing-Man. They head outside to see Doctor Fate leaving, and that’s when Batman pulls up, as do GL and LB. They compare notes, but no one realizes that Amazing-Man is awake and transforms into iron, breaking the ropes that held him. He comes outside ready to fight the assembled All-Stars. Ultra learns that someone is coming, telling his subordinates that he’s going to get the All-Stars to split up by attacking three different places. He says he has arranged for a group of people to take them on, and that his plans will make the All-Stars and the Justice Society very unhappy.
The Justice Society (Doctor Mid-Nite, Hawkman, Starman, Sandman, and Johnny Thunder, with Wonder Woman) are in the War Department in Washington, and hear from the radio about the Ultra-Humanite and his demands. They want to get involved, but are joined by Secretary of War Stimson, and Generals Marshall and Brody, who tell the newly re-named Justice Battalion that they are needed to address the crisis of the Black Dragon Society, a group of Japanese saboteurs. The brass explain that they’re waiting for a report from the FBI, and then want to send the Battalion after them. At the Perisphere, the All-Stars (Robin, Batman, Steel, Green Lantern, Atom, Liberty Belle, and Tarantula) face off against Amazing-Man. They fight for a bit, and after GL grabs him in a ring construct, Atom makes the mistake of trying to hit him with a tree branch, allowing him to turn into wood and escape (remember, Alan Scott’s ring couldn’t handle wood back in the day). Batman and Liberty Belle get him down, and Robin and Tarantula rope his hands. When Steel grabs him, Amazing-Man is able to turn into steel, but since he’s in a chokehold, he’s not able to free himself again. Liberty Belle tries to get through to him, and he learns that he’s targeted Detroit (along with LA and Brooklyn), where his parents live. He agrees to stop fighting and to help the All-Stars. Everyone is brought up to speed, and then splits into three teams. Green Lantern prepares to fly to Detroit with Amazing-Man and Atom, while Batman plans on taking the Batplane, boosted by GL’s ring, to LA, with Robin and Tarantula. Liberty Belle and Commander Steel hitch a ride to Brooklyn. In Ultra’s lab, the villains talk, while it becomes ever more clear that Cyclotron is not a willing villain; after he walks away from the villains and their captives, he thinks about how he’ll die if he turns on Ultra, as will someone he loves. Guardians stands watch over the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which he knows that Ultra is targeting. He’s joined by the Newsboy Legion, and they spot two figures entering the Yard. We know these two as Silver Scarab and Nuklon, and they start taking apart warships while being careful to not hurt anyone. Belle and Steel arrive and start to fight them. Guardian moves towards the fight, and sees that when Liberty Belle grabs Silver Scarab, and when Steel grabs Nuklon, the two All-Stars disappear. They are replaced by something we don’t see, but it surprises Guardian. Batman, Robin, and Tarantula tour an airplane factory in Los Angeles, which is also being visited by Senator Knight and his daughter Sandra. Two people burst through the skylight and identify themselves as Fury and Northwind. Northwind brings a flock of birds with him that attack the people in the factory while they start to take apart the planes. Batman and Robin attack Fury, while Phantom Lady turns up to help Tarantula deal with the birds and Northwind. When Batman grabs Fury, and Tarantula grabs Northwind, they both disappear. Robin is shocked by what appears in their place. Green Lantern takes Atom and Amazing-Man towards a factory in Detroit, and they spot two more costumed figures, who we know as Jade and Obsidian, entering. GL is surprised by how similar Jade’s powers are to his, while Obsidian’s shadow abilities confuse Atom. Once Obsidian becomes flesh again, Atom grabs him and disappears. Green Lantern tricks Jade and grabs her with a ring construct, but when he grabs her arms, he too starts to disappear (she apologizes for this). Amazing-Man is surprised by whoever or whatever replaces him. Back at Tarantula’s home, Brainwave Jr. wakes up, and learns from the radio that the All-Stars have engaged with Ultra’s forces, and says that this is what he came from 1983 to stop. He blows a hole in the wall and rushes off.

Issue twenty-six opens with some recaps of the last issue, showing the various All-Stars disappearing when they touched members of Infinity Inc. What we now learn is that the Infinitors (so awkward) passed out. When Batman and Tarantula disappeared, they were replaced by Vulcan, Son of Fire, and The Mist. They start trashing the airplane manufacturing facility, and after the Mist knocks out Robin, Phantom Lady lures him into a wind tunnel, forcing him to go solid before she kicks him in the head. Vulcan destroys more things, the Mist recovers, and then as police arrive and start shooting at them, they fly off. In Brooklyn, Liberty Belle and Commander Steel fade out, replaced by Psych-Pirate and Brainwave (who looks younger than he did when we saw him before, and is wearing a costume just like Brainwave Jr.’s). Psycho-Pirate’s powers affect the Newsboy Legion, who run off scared, and then the two villains also run away. Atom and Green Lantern are replaced by Monocle and Rag Doll, and Amazing-Man, recognizing that they are with Ultra, joins them in trashing the factory they’re in, since he knows that his parents aren’t there. Monocle claims to have heard orders from Ultra, so they leave, and Amazing-Man joins them. Tubby goes to see Johnny Chambers in the hospital, giving him his backup uniform. He’s about to leave through the window when Brainwave Jr. crawls in, explaining that he knows all about them. He explains that he wants to stop the Ultra-Humanite, and Johnny agrees to trust him and takes him to the Perisphere. Once there, they find some other All-Stars waiting. Guardian, Robin, and Phantom Lady have been joined by Flash and Wildcat. They compare notes, we learn that Phantom Lady can turn herself invisible now, and we see that the Infinity Inc. members are now in the machinery Brainwave once used on the JSA. Brainwave Jr. explains they are his friends, and everyone peppers Brainwave Jr. with questions. In one of the most convoluted explanations ever, we learn that in Jr.’s recent past, the white ape version of Ultra-Humanite led the Secret Society of Super-Villains in a fight against the JSA and JLA, and Ultra got sent to Limbo alongside the other villains, where they found Vulcan. Ultra used his mental energies to contact his 1940s female body, and they telepathically figured out a way to help Ape Ultra, using the brand new heroes of Infinity Inc. They lured them to a long-buried time capsule in the ash around Mt. St. Helen’s. When the Infinitors entered it, the two Ultras were able to bring it to 1942 where Ultra took control of the heroes, convincing them that the United States was on the wrong side of the war and sending them to do his bidding. Jr. doesn’t want to tell the All-Stars who they all are, but reveals to readers through his thoughts that everyone is connected to the JSA. The All-Stars decide to follow Jr., who then explains that the two Ultras figured out that swapping the other All-Stars for members of the Secret Society meant that Ape Ultra was freed in his own time. The heroes gather to go confront Ultra. After they leave, Jade, who is likely still unconscious, makes the room go dark, allowing Obsidian to turn everyone into their shadows, freeing them from the machine. They realize that Ultra is against them, and decide to go to Mt. St. Helen’s. Ultra, in the meantime, in is his lair, preparing to face all challengers, and planning on moving into Robotman’s body (we see that Cyclotron is having doubts).
The Second All-Star Annual continues the Ultra-Humanite story. Ultra and his men recap things while standing over Superman, Firebrand, and Robotman, their captives. The villains Ultra brought from the future arrive, and Deathbolt’s posturing leads to him getting into it with Vulcan and Brain Wave. While the villains squabble, Superman suggests that Firebrand might be able to get through to Cyclotron. Amazing-Man points out that a warning light is flashing, and we see that the All-Stars (Flash, Phantom Lady, Robin, Wildcat, Guardian, and Johnny Quick) and Brainwave Jr. are approaching Mount St. Helen’s, where Ultra has his base. They vibrate through the mountain, and a big fight starts. Amazing-Man suggests to Robin that he play possum, showing that he’s still with the heroes, but Rag Doll knocks Robin out. Guardian is surprised that his shield, which we saw in the first Annual he got in a costume shop, can withstand the blasts of Vulcan and Deathbolt. Jr. knocks out Brain Wave, but soon all the rest of the heroes are brought down. Brain Wave joins them, suggesting that they send them all to Limbo using his powers combined with Ultra’s. The Sub-Men bring Chuck Grayson into the room, and Ultra prepares to leave the base. We see that he has the Sub-Men moving a coffin-like tube, and the other captives (I’m not sure why he’s still keeping Superman and Firebrand) are all loaded onto an autogiro. Ultra orders Vulcan and Deathboat to kill all the Sub-Men, and they depart. The actual Brain Wave, having been replaced by his son, comes out of hiding to find the bodies, but then hides again as the All-Stars that had been sent to Limbo (Green Lantern, Tarantula, Liberty Belle, Atom, Batman, and Commander Steel) appear. Atom finds a note left by Amazing-Man showing that Ultra’s next targets are the three branches of government. The Infinity Inc. kids burst into the room, and Jade mistakenly lets slip that Green Lantern is her ‘daddy’ but refuses to explain more. They agree to work together and head to DC. Ultra’s set up in a hospital in New York, where he wants Grayson to transfer his brain into Robotman’s body. Amazing-Man decides to stand up to him when some doctors get hurt, and while he’s able to fight off Deathbolt, Cyclotron takes him down. Cyclotron slips away with Firebrand, his former lover, to show her that Ultra is threatening his young daughter Terri, who is sick because of his atomic powers. Rag Doll and Monocle enter the chambers of the Supreme Court, planning to kill the Justices, but Silver Scarab, Tarantula, and Liberty Belle stop them. The Vice President, Henry Wallace, is speaking to both levels of Congress when The Mist and Psycho-Pirate attack. Green Lantern, Jade, and Obsidian are able to take them down. President Roosevelt is hanging out with Harry Hopkins in the White House when Vulcan and Brain Wave attack. Brain Wave reveals he’s actually Brainwave Jr., but Vulcan just hits him. Batman, Steel, and Nuklon arrive and stop Vulcan. They think the President’s been killed, but it’s just an illusion cast by Jr.. Batman asks the President why the Justice Society isn’t helping, and he explains that they’re waiting to attack the Black Dragon Society. Back in New York, Grayson is ready to begin the operation on Ultra, and Robotman gives him permission. This is when Fury rips the roof off the place, and Cyclotron slips away to check on his daughter. Northwind and Atom join Fury, with Atom chasing Cyclotron, despite Firebrand’s plea that he let him go. Cyclotron tries to avoid using his powers on Atom, but after Al grabs him, and Terry knocks him out, he’s left glowing. Ultra joins the fight, Fury damages the machine holding the others, and Grayson tries to stop Ultra with no success. Firebrand is able to free herself, and then Superman, who is still very weak. Ultra grabs her hammer and chases Superman to the roof of the building (I thought they were on the top floor). Ultra lifts Superman and prepares to toss him off the roof. Jade and Green Lantern arrive in time to save him, and the combined All-Stars and Infinitors confront Ultra. Cyclotron pushes through them, wanting Ultra for himself. He grabs him and flies away, exploding in the sky. Jade and GL contain the radiation, and the heroes all talk. The Infinitors start to feel pain in their stomachs, and figure it’s a failsafe left by Ultra when they were brought to this era. Green Lantern figures that he and Jade can combine powers to send everyone home, and so they form a circle, and all of the Infinitors fade away (including Brainwave Jr., whose path to the past was never explained). In their place we see Phantom Lady, Flash, Guardian, Robin, Wildcat, and Johnny Quick appear. The general explanation is that the Lantern’s ring fixed everything, but I’m left wondering about the villains from the future, and where they went. Atom apologizes to Amazing-Man for not trusting him. Firebrand explains that Curtis worked with Ultra because of his daughter, and they go to check on her. Danette promises the little girl she’ll look after her, and Atom offers to help.

Firebrand and Atom stand on the roof of the hospital, holding the now much smaller/younger Terri, waving goodbye as their friends depart. Flash runs off, Superman flies away on his own, and Green Lantern carries the others – Phantom Lady, Guardian, Commander Steel, Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Batman, Robin, Tarantula, and Amazing-Man – to the Perisphere. Robotman and Wildcat have just disappeared it seems. Danette and Al fuss over the baby, then Danette has to burn through the roof door, which has become locked. They talk about Infinity Inc., wondering why they incorporated and how Brainwave Jr. came to the past (legit questions). Al feels odd, complaining of being warm. They strong-arm a doctor into examining Terri, and while they wait for results, Al continues to feel poorly. The doctor tells them that the baby does not have any radiation poisoning, but Al collapses. The Justice Society (Starman, Doctor Mid-Nite, Hawkman, Sandman, and Johnny Thunder) watch all of this through Wonder Woman’s magic sphere, which is a television-like magical box. Wonder Woman, who is there as the team’s secretary, wants to go help Atom, as do the others. She calls her robot plane to take them, and they explain to General Brody that they’ll be back when he’s ready to point them towards the Black Dragon spies. Danette sits with Atom at his bedside. The JSA arrives, and we learn that Atom should be fine, but he has been exposed to ‘atom energy’ that might have long-term side effects. The team wonders about Doctor Fate and Spectre, so Wonder Woman hooks up her magic sphere to Atom’s head so they can see his memories of Fate leaving. Using the box’s magic, it’s able to follow Fate as he flies to a lake. In the lake, he finds Jim Corrigan’s body, seemingly dead without the Spectre’s spirit inside it. He animates it and it points him to a portal that leads to another dimension. Fate passes through many mystical barriers, until finding Spectre standing outside a tomb. Spectre is cold to him, and warns him away. Fate splits into four beings, and his main self enters the tomb, where he finds Kulak, the high priest of Brztal, lying in repose. We learn that Spectre once stopped Kulak, with the help of the Ring of Life, supposedly destroying the ancient wizard. Fate sees that Kulak now wears the ring, but is dragged out of the tomb by the Spectre, who has grown in size. Fate, who is really Nabu imposed on Kent Nelson’s body, defies him and grows even bigger. They grow to the same size to fight, and it seems that Fate is at a slight disadvantage. He opens a portal to bring a large green slug-like creature to fight the Spectre. The creature’s tail hits the tomb. Spectre sends Fate falling through dimensions and time, and rushes to repair the tomb. It’s too late though – Kulak has risen. He places a spell of containment around Spectre and decides to turn his attention to Earth, given that the planet has gotten in his way twice now. The Justice Society watches all this, except for Atom, who has fallen asleep, and wonders when Kulak’s attack will come. This is when the sky opens and Kulak’s gigantic hands reach into the Manhattan night.
The JSA reacts to Kulka’s hands, and tries to figure out what they should do. They make it very clear that Atom should stay in his hospital bed, while the rest fly on their own or in Wonder Woman’s invisible plane towards the dimensional rift, which now also shows Kulak’s face. We see that this image is being seen around the globe, including in the Philippines where General MacArthur is fighting. Kulak flicks Wonder Woman’s plane with his fingernail, and Johnny Thunder calls up his Thunderbolt to help save the team. Atom leaves his bed and watches from the window, feeling hopeless. Sargon the Sorcerer appears and restores his health with a touch, although he admits that he can’t fix the effects of Cyclotron’s radiation. He turns a rug into a magic carpet and flies up to the Justice Society. He explains that the Ring of Life is what is powering Kulak, and that he needs to touch it. Kulak sees him coming and pulls back. The heroes do their best to grab Kulak’s giant hand, and Sargon touches the ring, which allows him to force the portal into Kulak’s dimension closed. They return to Atom’s hospital room, and Sargon explains things. He tells them how the ruby on his turban was found by his father, and that wearing the ruby gives him control over anything or person he touches. He talked about Kulak’s first fight with the Spectre, and how the Ring of Life was given to the Spectre to help him stop the evil being. Eventually, the Ring went to Kulk, which is how he was able to gain control of Spectre and do away with Doctor Fate. The Spectre appears over the city, and it’s clear to all of them that Kulak still controls him. The Spectre turns the people of New York against one another, and the Justice Society tries to attack him (he’s gigantic). While they fight, Sargon gathers his energy and makes contact with Doctor Fate, appealing to Nabu’s spirit for help. He’s able to bring Fate to the dimension where Kulak is, and they start to fight. The JSA keeps up their fight on Earth, with the less-powered heroes rescuing people. Atom holds Terri. The JSA gather for a final stand, but see that Spectre has paused his attack. Kulak has gotten ahold of Doctor Fate, and takes the helmet of Nabu off his head, before dumping Kent Nelson’s body through a portal to the skies above New York. Kulak shows himself to the team, and puts on the helmet. This was Sargon’s plan all along, and the trap that was laid in the helmet sends Kulak hurtling through time and space with it. The effect he was having on the people of New York stops, and Spectre returns to his rightful mind. Starman has saved Doctor Fate from falling, and then puts up a wall of solid heat waves around them so they can talk without the public seeing them. Spectre summons Inza Cramer to comfort Nelson, who is glad that he will never wear the helmet again. Atom and Sargon join everyone before Sargon flies off on a manhole cover to perform his magic in Philadelphia. Spectre gives Fate his half-helmet, and the rest of the Society returns to Washington to get ready to go after the Black Dragon Society. There is a two-page ad for the first issue of Infinity Inc., which shows a character who looks a lot like Wildcat II, but she’s in orange and is called La Garro. I’m curious about that story…

Issue twenty-nine is a bit of a fill-in issue, featuring gorgeous Jerry Ordway art. The Shining Knight is flying on Winged Victory above London, cutting up Nazi bombers. His work done, he meets up with Winston Churchill on a rooftop, and receives a telegram from Liberty Belle inviting him to an all-members meeting of the All-Star Squadron in New York. This makes Sir Justin think of his other team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, whom he’d only been with for three adventures before moving to England to protect Churchill. He starts to tell him of the adventure they had just before All-Star #13, which is a retelling of Leading Comics #3, from 1942. A villain actually called Dr. Doome (actually) uses a time ray he’s developed to bring five historical villains to him – Nero, Attila the Hun, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, and Alexander the Great. He wants them to help him gather precious metals that will let him finish his time machine so they can go conquer the future together. In New York, Green Arrow and Speedy test out their new two-way radios by walking around Wall Street. Speedy sees some of the historical villains rob an armored truck, and he gets knocked out by Attila, who takes his radio. The villains leave in Doome’s plane. Green Arrow gathers the other Seven Soldiers – Crimson Avenger, Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, Crimson Avenger, and the Shining Knight to explain what happened. They are able to pick up bits of the signal from the radio Attila stole, which lets them journey to the different places the villains have gone to get these metals (splitting up the team is such a Golden Age trope). Sir Justin stopped Genghis Khan, who used a time rod to escape home. Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy (who has to be one of the least cool characters ever) stop Napoleon, who uses his time rod to leave when some Arkham orderlies try to take him to the asylum. Green Arrow and Speedy stop Nero, who also disappears. Vigilante, aided by his friend Billy Gunn, stop Genghis Khan, and Crimson Avenger, aided by his valet Wing, who has a costume like his, stop Nero. They learn where Doome’s base is, in a lighthouse on Long Island, and when they go to stop him, they avoid some death traps. Doome uses a time rod to leave, and Speedy picks up another, taking them all to Troy during the famous siege. Doome has befriended Odysseus and Agamemnon, so they have their warriors attack the Soldiers, but soon Sir Justin convinces the Greek heroes to turn on Doome, who jumps back home. The heroes follow, but as they travel through the timestream (which we didn’t see happen before), Doome tries to convince Sir Justin to aid him in return for going home to Camelot. Justin turns him down, and they arrive back at his base. Doome’s machine is about to explode because he never got the metals he needed, but he makes one last jump, and the Soldiers figure there’s nothing more they can do but recite the oath of the knights of the round table. In the present, Sir Justin tells Churchill that he’s going to stay with him in England rather than join the All-Stars, and he talks about how he wants to create a new Camelot after the war is over.
Liberty Belle is working at the Perisphere, preparing for the All-Stars’ general meeting, when she is joined by Wonder Woman, who has come to write up her notes on the Justice Society’s most recent mission. They talk briefly about how it’s odd that such a powerful woman would have to serve as the team’s secretary, but Diana is fine with it. We look over her shoulder as she writes, and we learn how the JSA met at the Smithsonian to prepare to go after the Black Dragon Society, at last. Major McNichols, their liaison to the army, comes to let them know that the Black Dragons, a group of Japanese saboteurs, have kidnapped eight American inventors and taken the weapons they were building. The plan is for the JSA to split up and rescue each inventor individually, with Wonder Woman staying behind. As they leave, she reminds them that not every Japanese-American is an enemy. Hawkman gets the spotlight, as he finds a European-looking castle on a peak, and inside discovers the large propeller device that’s been developed to knock down tall buildings. He tries to take back the plans for the device, is discovered, and after fighting a bunch of Black Dragons, takes a bullet graze that knocks him out. He wakes up strapped to the propeller, which is then launched. Hawkman falls off while the Japanese saboteurs fly towards New York. Hawkman follows, and sees the Black Dragons drop a bomb on the city. He catches it and gets it to fall into the river before entering the propeller and taking out its crew. He flies it back to the castle, which he destroys. Wonder Woman writes about how Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Spectre, Starman, and Sandman all succeed in their solo missions. Atom is looking around San Francisco (it’s not shown how they all get to these different locations) for the Black Dragons. He attacks a man who is following him, and meets Morrie Fushido, a loyal American, who wants to help him. Morrie leads him to the restaurant the Black Dragons are using as a front, and they enter together, taking out the Japanese. They find a tunnel, and manage to take an orb with atomic symbols on it from the lead Dragon. Johnny Thunder has had his Thunderbolt take him to the centre of the Black Dragons’ base. Johnny is quickly caught, but chooses to send the Thunderbolt to protect a Burbank airplane factory the Black Dragons plan on dissolving. The Thunderbolt quickly stops the saboteurs, and returns to his master, but without clear orders, can’t do much (there’s a lot of talk about how Johnny’s not very bright in this issue). He is able to interpret something Johnny says as a wish, and summons the rest of the JSA to free him and to fight the rest of the Black Dragons, while shouting embarrassing catch phrases. Soon they’ve taken out the Black Dragons, and acknowledge that most Japanese-Americans don’t support the saboteurs in their mission. Liberty Belle is surprised by how quickly Wonder Woman wrote up her case notes, and then the two women discuss anti-Japanese sentiment. At the same tie, in Washington, President Roosevelt decides to sign the executive order that results in Japanese internment.

This seems like a good place to end this column, as with the next issue, the All-Stars get a new penciller, and take on an even greater number of heroes at the first general meeting. Also, thirty issues and two annuals is too much for one column, it’s just that there never seemed to be a good inflection point to pause and discuss this series before now.

I’ve been really impressed by Roy Thomas’s writing in this series, for a variety of reasons. He basically took on a book with a massive scope, requiring adherence to a historical timeline, a need to reconcile real events with the events of golden age comics, and a need to make the book interesting and provide space for the massive cast to grow and be developed. It could not have been an easy comic to write.

Because of the size of the cast, not many of them received a whole lot of development, but Thomas did steadily build on many of them. We see that Atom’s sense of inadequacy fueled his heroism. We see how Johnny Quick pursues Liberty Belle, and how she balances that with her role as leader of the team. Other characters get short character arcs, like when Firebrand became a hero, or how Robotman dealt with questions of his humanity. We see that Commander Steel is feeling alienated from the world, while Tarantula seems very excited to be embracing the life of a hero. The reality is, though, we don’t really know any of these characters very well.

The shifting nature of the lineup is difficult at times, as even some of the most established team members sometimes disappear for a few months. Plastic Man is introduced as the team’s liaison to the FBI, but after their first adventure, we don’t see him again. Similarly, Phantom Lady just turns up when she’s already at the scene of a fight.

You can tell that there was a lot of pressure to increase the number of stories featuring the Justice Society of America, but given Thomas’s desire to marry these stories to the established ones from the Golden Age, most of the JSA had to be taken off the table. Then, when Thomas could fit a JSA story into the historical timeline, they would become the focus of an issue or two. As we got deeper into this stack of comics, we saw how Thomas would re-write an old story, which almost always meant that the JSA would divide up to tackle a threat (we saw the same thing for the Seven Soldiers of Victory issue).

I like how firmly Thomas wanted to unify all these stories, acknowledging events that happened to characters like Batman and Superman while the All-Stars or the JSA were having their adventures. It’s interesting to me that these first thirty issues took place in just three months, charting the period of time between the attack on Pearl Harbour and the signing of the executive order calling for Japanese internment. It makes sense to roll through the war slowly, as I’m sure Thomas didn’t know how long this series was going to last, and didn’t want to write himself into a corner. It also helps to explain why the JSA aren’t ever sent overseas upon joining the armed forces.

I really liked seeing how Pearl Harbour impacted the different characters, and I think that my favourite part of this run was when the team seemed to be hanging out with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill a great deal. The level of care given to historical accuracy is appealing to me, and is not something I remember from my childhood reading of Thomas’s Invaders series at Marvel (which I now want to revisit). I also like how Thomas is gently pointing out how much society has changed from the 1940s to the 1980s, with little comments about gender and racial equality sprinkled throughout the run.

These issues are all pretty long compared to current comics, and I’m constantly surprised to hit the halfway mark in an issue, around the time I’m expecting it to wrap up. Thomas packed a lot into each issue, and sometimes things got a little dull, as he is so plot-oriented, but generally, I’ve been enjoying thinking about his approach to craft.

I do hate that in less than three years there are two different storylines that involve visiting with characters from the 1980’s present. We had the Justice League/Justice Society/All-Star Squadron crossover, which was a clever subversion of the old annual JLA/JSA team-ups. This was handled well, and probably helped draw some attention to this title. Then the characters of Infinity Inc. debuted in this series, and that didn’t go as well. I understand that they were included here to help build some buzz for their upcoming title, and that Thomas didn’t want to give away any of the surprises he had in store regarding their identities, but I don’t think they were introduced too well. I’m still left wondering how Brainwave Jr. made it into the past, and why he’d use such a terrible hero name.

Artwise, this book has been a late Bronze Age treasure trove. Rich Buckler’s initial issues were gorgeous, and I like the way he seemed to understand how 40s fashion worked in showing the characters’ uniforms. After he left, Adrian Gonzales did a more than admirable job of taking over. I think that Gonzales is an artist who should be better known, and I’m curious to track down more of his work now.

And then there’s Jerry Ordway. I’ll confess that I always thought Ordway is much older than he apparently is. I thought he’d been around forever when I was a kid, and hadn’t realized that All-Star Squadron was his first series. His classic lines always put him in company with artists like Curt Swan and Carmine Infantino in my mind, and I just thought he was of that older generation. I’ve always liked Ordway’s work, and it’s cool to see just how good he was when he started off.

I’ve always admired Golden Age characters, and their often kooky designs. I love the unnecessary collars and odd headgear. There is no way to take a character like Atom seriously when he’s fighting with completely bare legs but a full face mask/cape combo. The fact that Sandman and Tarantula had basically identical costumes, neither of which have any connection to their themes, is incredible to me. Then you have characters like Vigilante, who is basically a Times Square cowboy, or Shining Knight, who is apparently wearing a chainmail onesie under his tunic. These designs are so strange, but they kind of work.

The characters that were developed in the 1980s are a little different. Firebrand stays most true to the era, basically wearing a sheer blouse over a swimsuit, while Amazing-Man and Tarantula in his new suit, look like other characters from the 80s more than they look like they belong in the 1940s.

I’m left wondering how serious the issue of saboteurs were during the early days of America’s involvement in the War, given that they seem to be the focus of many of these stories. I did like the development of Baron Blitzkrieg as a Doctor Doom-like villain for the team, and was a little surprised to find that he was clearly in a romantic relationship with his little aide-de-camp. I’m curious to see if that gets picked up again in his later appearances.

From this point, Thomas starts to explore other Golden Age characters that were acquired by DC, which I think leads to more multiversal travel for our heroes. That’s where we’re headed in the next column, as I’ll continue to work through this series. I’m enjoying this book a lot, but know that Crisis on Infinite Earths is going to destroy it soon.

Thanks for reading so far! I don’t think the next column will be so long.

If you’d like to see the archives of all of my retro review columns, click here.

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Retro Review: All-Star Squadron #1-30 By Thomas, Buckler, Ordway & Others For DC Comics

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