TF Views

Justice Society of America #39 – Fatherland: part four

Bill Willingham continues to impress me with his writing, both by answering some of the questions I had about the situation, and by not taking the route I had expected when it comes to resolving the story.

The “Nazis take over the Earth” dystopian future storyline continues, with all of our depowered heroes putting their plan into action. They break out and try to reach the darkness engine on top of the central tower in the compound. The engine is of course what robbed all superheroes on Earth of their powers and allowed the Nazis to conquer most of the planet. The story makes it quite clear that there will be no second chance, as many of the heroes die in the attempt. Mr. Terrific makes it to the top of the tower alone, and puts the plan into action.

Now I had assumed that the idea was to go back in time to prevent this timeline from ever taking place. With such a drastic destruction of the usual DC status quo, this future Fourth Reich obviously won’t last beyond the current storyline. I had also expected the story to end with this issue, but neither happened. Mr. Terrific’s narration makes it clear that destroying the engine will trap everyone in the current timeline, and going back in time is not an option either. His solution is similar to one employed in the Star Trek Voyager episode “Timeless”, with a warning message sent to himself in the past.

But here’s the second story twist, which makes for a great ending to the issue. The message arrives at the point in the “Bad Seed” storyline where Mr. Terrific is dead. Meaning that on the face of it, all the death and effort was for nothing. Now that’s a good cliffhanger.

I said Willingham has slowly answered questions I had about the situation. I had wondered why the Green Lantern Corps didn’t intervene in the situation. Last issue, a few of them saw that the Earth was surrounded by the nullification field and simply put a quarantine on it. This issue they invade en masse, though they ultimately fail. The Nazis are well aware of the threat and have prepared for it. So that’s one gaping plot hole filled. And that’s what a writer should be doing. If I as a reader can pick out problems with the logic of the narrative (or others far better than I am can do the same), then the writer hasn’t done his best work.

Overall: I enjoy having my expectations about a story subverted. What I thought would be a fairly standard “go back in time to undo the timeline” ending to the story turns out to be neither. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next month. How are our heroes (who are still alive) going to get out of THIS one? Cool.

Given that the TF camo is on the wall, (as shown in )6's post), it looks like my theory about it being a weird lighting effect was pretty much right.

Dom
-not saying I like it or nuthin'.

Dominic wrote: Monday holidays are like furries, there are no good ones.

Well. On Monday holidays, I work eight hours and get paid for twenty, so I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

Onslaught Six wrote: Scourge, man, I love you, but how the fuck do you miss shit like this?

Well, I dunno. I was tired. Or I just figured that to be "lighting effect" and wasn't bothered by it. Because if that was seriously supposed to be a camo pattern for Prime, that'd just be silly. Actually, looking at it more, it makes less sense. On the wall, it looks more like shadows, on Prime, it doesn't look like anything. Odd.

Exactly. It's just, like, weird randomly darker blobs on everything. It's like that old crappy Dreamwave art where light would bounce off the surfaces of TFs in impossible ways.

Well. On Monday holidays, I work eight hours and get paid for twenty, so I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

That is like overtime squared.....

Dom
-has *no* hack guilt at this point.

So I got some comics again this week. I'm mostly caught up, except I need Ironhide, Avengers:Prime, and apparently Secret Avengers came out while I was slacking off.

Anyway. The comics shop guy told me that Pet Avengers was out this week, but he was mistaken. I think he was confusing it for the other series that my favorite super-pets have appeared in this year, the incredible Thor and the Warriors Four.

You know what, though? As good as Warriors Four is, it isn't my favorite of the week.

FrankenCastle #17: The Main Marvel Universe Punisher series with a new name for awhile. It's funny, because this issue gets Frank back on track with the tasks he was about before being dismembered and Frankenstein'd up, and it pretty much sets up Frank's return from being a Frankenstein. Really, if I was gonna change the title of this book, I'd have just gone with "Frankenstein Punisher". So now he's back to business, on his way to Tokyo to fight Lady Gorgon, a mystical telepathic ninja. So yeah, still pretty much exactly the sort of thing I want out of comics.

Thor and the Warriors Four #3: Still one of my favorite comics hands down. Gurihiru's art is, as always, fantastic. I like how Alex realizes that there's something straight up not right about the quest they're on. The trials to reach the Asgardian's golden apples are clever enough, as are the kids' ways to beat 'em. And the back-up feature is still Colleen Coover drawing Hercules and the Power Kids in the team-up I demanded. So really, it's still awesome. So why isn't it my favorite of the week?

Because it came out the same week as Hercules: Twilight of a God #1: I missed the "Space Hercules" books when they came out back in the day because I was six. But I've since picked 'em up, and they are a great time. It really just blows my mind that Bob Layton gets to do another series of Space Herc, and it's maybe more amazing that he's still just as good. The characters all feel the same, it's got the same kind of quirky humor to it, it's like a fantastic eighties comic that I never found. And the art? Man, Ron Lim rocks the cosmic Marvel style so well. When he was making people pay attention to the Silver Surfer's comic, he pretty much owned Marvel's space stuff (him and Jim Valentino, anyway), and he's only gotten better. But in addition to all this, you know what really puts this thing over the top? It's the first part of a four-issue limited series, which is likely to be collected, but instead of writing for the trade, Layton went and wrote a complete story in this issue. Sure, it ends on a cliffhanger, but there's a beginning, middle, and end to the action in this issue. You could read this and not feel like you'd just picked up one chapter of a short novel. It's like a lost art being found again!

I love New Comics Days like this one.

138 "No one else here cares about Marvel, I don't know why I do it, really" Scourge

Space Hercules was the back up strip to the main Transformers comic in the UK back in the day. It was the story where he saved a planet by making Galactus laugh. I still have those issues too.

138 Scourge wrote:138 "No one else here cares about Marvel, I don't know why I do it, really" Scourge

Hey, I arguably care just as much as I do about DC, which is next to none. But I still like to be made aware of things!

FrankenCastle sounds pretty awesome, though, it's too bad they're already setting up a return to the status quo on him. I'd love to see a character go through a change and actually *stick with it* for a while.

138 Scourge wrote:138 "No one else here cares about Marvel, I don't know why I do it, really" Scourge

If you enjoy it, share it. Nothing wrong with that. I don't read Marvel, but I do enjoy reading your summaries.

JSA: Justice Be Done

Having nearly caught up on both monthly issues and collected volumes of the current Justice Society of America series, I decided to look into the collected JSA series that began back in 1999. It’s been interesting to go back to a time when Jack Knight was still Starman, and when Alan Scott still called himself Sentinel (thanks to DC’s “Kyle Rayner is the only Green Lantern” editorial mandate in force at the time).

The series essentially begins with the death of 86 year old Wesley Dodds, the original Sandman. He gets a few pages before his death where he thinks about his life and the loss of Dian Belmont. He confronts the villain of the story and then jumps off the side of a mountain. The news of his death spreads quickly among the surviving JSA members, and the writers use this to introduce us to all the characters. With Dodds gone, the Flash, Sentinel and Wildcat are the only remaining founding members. Several children and former sidekicks of original society members appear, including Black Canary, Atom-Smasher and the Star-Spangled Kid. Elsewhere, Sandy Hawkins inherits the dreams of his former mentor Wesley Dodds, and he’s not too happy. Clearly he’s set up to be the inheritor of the Sandman mantle, even if he doesn’t jump at the chance.

As stories go, this is a pretty basic “introduce the characters” setup, combined with “a danger/tragedy compels the team to assemble” type of plot. In that sense, the stories collected in “Justice Be Done” are fairly well-worn and utilitarian. Despite the standard setup plot, the issues do serve to re-introduce the remaining Golden Age characters and the others on the team in an effective manner. Some of the expositional dialogue was helpful to me, since I wasn’t familiar with the android Hourman, for example, or the new Hawkgirl. And since the plot concerns Doctor Fate, one of the founding members of the JSA, it justifies the personal involvement of this group since Dr. Fate was a friend and colleague.

I wasn’t familiar with Mordru, the villain of the storyline. I had assumed he was one of the JSA’s Golden Age adversaries, but he’s apparently a Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes foe. He’s an ageless wizard, and he’s almost too powerful, as he easily deals with any and everything the JSA can dish out.

One of the deficiencies of the storyline is that the events of Zero Hour are not addressed. Several of the original JSA members were aged to death during that story, but that’s not really mentioned here. It seems like the funeral service for Dodds might have been an opportune time to do that, but it doesn’t happen.

Overall, I prefer “The Next Age” as an introductory storyline, but “Justice Be Done” is an effective vehicle for re-assembling the Justice Society.