The very next month, in August 1980, I got my first full taste of Earth-2 characters and the Justice Society of America themselves when they appeared in Justice League of America no. 183, the first of the three-part JLA/JSA/New Gods story - my very first (but certainly not my last!) JLA/JSA crossover tale. Power Girl! Doctor Fate! Huntress! I couldn't get enough. So, I started asking around (pre-internet days, thank you very much) and eventually found out more about them - how they started in the 1940s during World War II, they were published in a book called All-Star Comics, they disappeared from comics for a decade or more, they re-appeared first in Flash ("Flash of Two Worlds") and then in the first JLA/JSA crossover in 1963. But what excited me the most is that there was a revival series of All-Star Comics, picking up the numbering with issue 58 (the original series ended with issue 57) and telling new stories from Earth-2 in the late '70s. Unfortunately, it had been cancelled again before I was collecting comics, but they were not yet that old that I couldn't find them reasonably priced in the back-issue section of local comic shops. So, I hunted them down, high and low, until I found them all and could read these stories of my now favorite comic books characters - the Justice Society. I got to read the introduction of Power Girl, and later still, the introduction and origin of the Huntress (who was and still is my all-time favorite character!). I was sad when the series ended during the DC Implosion with issue 74, but I found the $1.00 issues of Adventure Comics that continued the stories, including the Death of Batman (from Earth-2, of course) and the Man Who Defeated the Justice Society. I must have read those issues over and over again as a teenager.Flash-forward to today, because DC finally honored its first super-team with an omnibus of that 1970s' collection of stories (having previously issues the entire run of All-Star Comics nos. 1 through 57 in Archive format). Well, I couldn't wait to dig into this new omnibus - All-Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever. Re-reading all of these stories again was such a beautiful escape from all the craziness going on in the world today. This was a time when continuity was just beginning to really come into focus in comics (the JLA/JSA crossovers happen in-between some of the issues), and while the stories are multi-issue in length, with subplots in some issues laying the ground for stories in future issues, the tales of the JSA were still much, MUCH lighter than the dark-gritty stories in today's comics. Also, these stories featured some beautiful art by Wally Wood and then Joe Staton and some fantastic writing by Gerry Conway and later Paul Levitz (who co-created the Huntress with Joe Staton). Each issue, while only 17 or so pages, was jam-packed with story, which is what I love! It definitely gives you your money worth (unlike the comics of today, which feature too many splash pages and too many 3-panel pages, these issues feature most of the time 5 or more panels of story per page, with splash pages being kept to a minimum for only very important scenes that give the story greater impact for those pages!), and it takes longer than just a couple of minutes to read a whole issue.
What I truly love about these stories is that they have some major battles with fantastic villains (such as Brainwave, the Injustice Society, Vulcan, the Psycho Pirate, the Strike Force, Sportsmaster and the (original) Huntress, and others, but at the same time, there is plenty of room for more personal struggles - such as Star Spangled Kids unease at being brought into the future (he was brought from the 1950s during a JLA/JSA crossover with the Seven Soldiers of Victory), Green Lantern's struggle with keeping a personal life and balancing it with his heroic work, Power Girl's temper and anger at being held back for so long in her cousin Superman's shadow, Hourman's feelings of uselessness, and Wildcat's growing need to get back to his life as Ted Grant. These were stories of heroes, but they were also stories of the people behind those masks as well. Conway and Levitz crafted the tales and wrote the characters so that you felt for them - you shared their joy, their tears, their wonder, their determination, and their loss.
Throughout these stories, Dr. Fate's life was in jeopardy - Power Girl's life was in danger - and even Wildcat faced possible death; the "hero-in-danger-of-dying" trope was played a bit too often for such a short run, but it did allow for a rotating use of heroes - while Star Spangled Kid, Power Girl, Flash, Green Lantern, Wildcat, and Hawkman (and later Huntress) played the main cast, Conway and Levitz occasionally brought in Superman, Wonder Woman, Dr. Mid-nite, Hourman, Robin, Starman, and even Batman to help the team in their fight for justice. There was a passing of the torch from some of the old-times (who headlined the original run of All-Star) to the newcomers, which offered readers their first glance at the ideal that the Justice Society would become a legacy team, passing from one generation to the next (more heavily played upon in the post-Crisis continuity of DC Comics with Geoff John's run on the JSA).
The stories in Adventure Comics were rather hit-or-miss; even with the first two-part story, "Only Legends Live Forever" (used as the subtitle for this collection) having been originally intended for the over-sized issue 75 of All-Star Comics that was never published due to the DC Implosion (when DC cancelled quite a few titles). The whole death of Batman story felt contrived and had no real lead-up to it in order to make the impact of his death more powerful to the reader. The follow-up story that revealed how Batman's killer got his supernatural powers was a major letdown with an unknown warlock-wannabe named Fredric Vaux (perhaps an Earth-2 version of Felix Faust??) who was trying to summon a nether god to grant him power. As the Huntress says when she attacks him, "Then Batman died for no earthly reason...." The story seemed to be nothing more than a way for Levitz to clear up the fact that with Bruce Wayne/Batman dying and his identity becoming public knowledge, people would know who Robin and the Huntress were.
However, the Wildcat tale from Adventure Comics no. 464 and the "countdown to disaster" tale from Adventure Comics no. 465 were both well written stories worthy of the Justice Society. The final tale, from Adventure Comics no. 466, was very befitting, as Huntress tells Power Girl the story of why the Justice Society disappeared from the scene for so many years when the government demanded they reveal their true identities to be cleared for national security in the early 1950s, and rather than compromise their identities, Dr. Fate simply removed them from the trial, and the members went on with their civilian lives, hiding their heroic sides until their fateful meeting with the Justice League in 1963...For me, these stories represent some of the best times of comics. While the stories occasionally dealt with death or other topical issues, they were still much lighter in nature (even the colors were brighter!), and there was a heck of a lot more story in each issue. The heroes were true heroes (unless they were being controlled by someone like Psycho Pirate or Brainwave) and never crossed the line , and they represented the hope of what being a hero truly meant. For me, this original Earth-2 and its Justice Society will forever be my favorite super hero team, my favorite characters (particularly the Huntress!), and my favorite comic book stories (with the exception of "The Judas Contract" from Wolfman/Perez' The New Teen Titans). I don't care how many times I read these stories, I still enjoy them just as much each and every time!
These are what comics were meant to be!
RATING: 10 namesake battles out of 10 for reminding me just how good comic books can be (and for giving me another opportunity to read tales of the Justice Society of America!).
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