And Still More Justice For All!!

Readers of this site with long memories that stretch all the way back to the middle of last month (about 100 entries ago!) will recall that I produced a list of my favourite comic stories of all time (with the proviso that I excluded the work of comic god Alan Moore, and wrote separately of his best material in a fawnish article right at the end of the month). On that original list of my Top 10 faves, the top spot went to the Superman Vs the Amazing Spider-Man event book of my childhood. No surprise there, as I'd previously waxed nostalgic over it. But there at # 2, not quite so obvious to anyone but me, was the first meeting of the JLA and JSA, in JLA # 21 & 22 (and I even put a picture of # 21's cover on the entry, because I love it so much).

I have a real appetite for stories with dopplegangers in them. Think of the original Star Trek episode with the bearded Spock (Mirror, Mirror, maybe?). Or Willow the Vampire on Buffy, Vampire Slayer (paging Tammy for the episode title!) Sadly, some tales involving duplicates or counterparts are done poorly; but when they're done well, I'm in Heaven. The two examples cited above both qualify, in my opinion. And, the JLA / JSA situation is the ultimate treat in this category.

The Justice Society was the first superteam, formed back in 1940 when DC (before it was called DC) published All-Star Comics # 3. They brought together a bunch of their characters of the day, all of whom were appearing in various comics but didn't have titles of their (like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman did, for example). This group of mystery men called themselves the Justice Society of America, met regularly in their brownstone headquarters, and fought all kinds of supervillains. The earliest stories were quite formulaic (and not very good) in that the heroes would meet and discuss some plot one or another of them had discovered, and then they'd split up and individually deal with aspects of the plot. Not much of a team-up, if you ask me, and eventually the writers smartened up and had them actually go out in groups and tackle menaces. More and more members joined over time, and even Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman became members and showed up from time to time.

But by the end of the 1940s the public's tastes had turned away from superheroes, and the JSA's day was done. All-Star Comics changed to All-Star Western Comics and most of DC's other titles went similarly off the rails. This transition marked the end of comics' Golden Age.

Don't despair, though! The mid 1950s brought with it a slow return of superheroes, at the dawn of what's now known as the Silver Age of comics. Many of those first new DC superheroes were simply updated Golden Age mainstays: the Flash, then Green Lantern, the Atom, and Hawkman were all re-imagined for the rocket era! Before long, some of them, along with the Big Three - each of whom had survived the superhero purge and continued to appear in Superman, Action Comics, Batman, Detective Comics and Wonder Woman - had decided to form a club, and called it the Justice League of America, in a very intentional homage to the Golden Age team that older fans still fondly recalled at that point.

So what JLA #s 21 & 22 represent, then, is the first meeting of these two great groups. The two Flashes had previously met in Flash # 123 and again in # 129, during which it was established that those Golden Age stories had actually occurred on a different Earth, in a parallel universe to what was going on in the Silver Age. In a reversal of logic for the ages, the writers called the Golden Agers' world Earth-2, and the current one Earth-1. This, despite the Earth-2 heroes all starting earlier and now being older! Yeah, that makes sense! Anyway, Crisis on Earth-1 in # 21, continued into Crisis on Earth-2 in the following issue of JLA. Any fan who read those stories as they were published (I don't think I was even born yet) must've gone apoplectic with excitement at the mere thought of 2 Flashes, 2 Green Lanterns and 2 Atoms, along with another half dozen heroes from each Earth, all in one gigantic team-up! I know I would've! It was practically raining dopplegangers, for Pete's sake!

I first read that two-parter years later, as a reprint in an issue that came out in the early 70s. By that, the JLA and JSA had established an annual tradition of teaming up, which continued for about 20 years. As a big JLA fan, the highlight of every year was that event. Around the time I started reading comics, after the Earth-1 Hawkman had joined the JLA, and Superman of Earth-2 had come out of retirement, they did one JLA/JSA team-up that was entirely doppleganger members: a pair each of Supermen, Flashes, Green Lanterns, Hawkmen, Atoms and even Robins! I go weak at the knees just remembering it! As time went by, the writers would experiment more and more, usually by bringing a third group of superheroes in as well: the Seven Soldiers of Victory one year, All-Star Squadron another, and the Legion of Super-Heroes yet another time. It was always great fun.

With the recent relaunch of Geoff Johns' Justice Society of America, along with Brad Meltzer's run on Justice League of America, the two writers have agreed to re-introduce this old tradition early next year! This'll be the first time that the two groups have met at a time when each group has its own monthly title, and so they're going to do a crossover between the two books. A four part story, with two parts in each title, crossing back and forth, all during a two month period! Pardon me while I clean up a little drool...

In actual fact, I doubt next year's team-up will compare to my nostalgic love for comics like JLA # 21 & 22. But that won't stop me from looking forward to it.. I kinda already am! :-)