Justice Society Presents – Crisis! #2

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #s 147-148

It's the second episode of CRISIS! Shag and Rob welcome special guest Dr. Anj to discuss the JLA/JSA team-ups "Crisis in the 30th Century" and "Crisis in Triplicate" from JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #s 147-148 by Paul Levitz, Martin Pasko, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin, co-starring The Legion of Super-Heroes! Plus YOUR listener feedback!

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28 responses to “Justice Society Presents – Crisis! #2

  1. In one of those weird acts of synchronicity I’ve just covered these issues! Mine will be up this (12th April) and next week for those interested in another take from a crossover crisis Beebe.

  2. Great episode, and thanks to Dr. Anj for appearing.

    This story takes place in between ongoing plots in All-Star Comics, and in particular, All-Star #68 and #69 (dude!) . In 68, the JSA came to Earth-2 to rescue Green Lantern (Alan Scott) who was under the Psycho-Pirate’s control, and that’s why he is there. I say this to speak to Shagg’s query on Wildcat’s speech patterns. It was an unraveling plot thread – in All-Star #63, Wildcat had been captured by the Icicle, and frozen solid. He was rescued and thawed out in All-Star #66, and suddenly, he was doing the ‘da’s’ and “dose”. And nobody brought it up, or seemed to notice.

    That carried on until All-Star #72, when he suddenly collapsed, and was in medical peril. Power Girl mentioned that she’d thought he was just ‘punch drunk’ – but in fact, had been affected by the freezing. That led to another plot thread where the Huntress had to retrieve the Icicle’s pistol from the JSA trophy room, so that the doctor’s could study it in order to treat Wildcat. When he got out of acute care, his speech patterns had been corrected.

    All that would never have happened had Dr. Anj been on the scene.

  3. Signing up here to add my voice to the “how great was Dick Dillin” choir. As mentioned during the podcast, many a time I have opened one of these issues, got completely frustrated by the story but stared at the pictures for hours. As a seventies child my On Model JLA is Dillin’s as much as the Legion is Grell. I like and enjoy other creators more, but hey are THE MODEL.

  4. Huzzah!!!
    More epic adventures of The JLA and JSA with an assist by the LoSH! I love it. This was a fun pair of comics. It shows you can still enjoy something, even if you don’t absolutely love it. Sure those books could be goofy and off the wall, but they are still fun. Thanks for another great episode.
    Rob, I too spent a long time building a complet run of the original Justice League of America. For me, I stalled out with the 100 pagers that ran from 110-16. It took me almost as long to collect those 7 issues as it took me to collect every other issue. It was a friend of mine that actually picked up the last one I needed when he brought back 115 from a trip to San Diego Comic-Con.
    On lay thing, in my previous comment I separated “Joy Shag And…” from the Rob, simply because the first letter in each word was JSA. No disrespect to you

  5. Impressive Podcast. Most impressive. Yeah Power Girl hitting on Supes was…weird. I’m not sure what to add. I’m a warped person…but I look at this and go…no just no. Not a fan of Mordreads look. But, he is an awesome villain. I used him once in a LSH fan fic. The other villans…meh. Sorry I only know them from another Nail. Psyche Pirate is a bit tall. Look like he’s played by the brother from Every Body loves Raymond. The hand is oy. Also Olie being a jerk. Shocking there. As for Bats and Supes kissing Canery on the cheek. Nah it’s Harmless. And lets remember with out his ok. And this was written by Gal. Cannery just plants a big old lip lock on Bruce.

    Doesn’t ask him nothing. She just does it cause she wants to know what it’s like. So heah them giving her a peck on the cheek meh. Back to this comic. It was fun. The LSh ware pretty cool. Yeah the women showed a bit of Skin. But lets look at what Cos was waring in this run. Also Satuern girls look is Just Storms classic costume with out the cape. And I think this was a Cockrum Hold over from when he drew the LSH. And not Mike Grails. Though Gral was awsome at costume creation. And Men and women both got skimpy costumes. So it’s fine.

    Fate as just the Helm is a bit weird.

  6. This is where it starts for Bradleyman! My dad bought me two issues of Justice League because we couldn’t find “The Superfreinds” and that was the teams other name in the cartoon. Reading material for my first plane trip. Somewhere over the Midwest my 8 year old self fell became a fan of superheroes, time travel and space wizards in general. My love for Allen Scott, Brainy and The JSA all come from this issue.

  7. Wondering if the worst teammate should be called the 4F award – the designation of being unfit to be drafted.

    Although I still prefer the A.S.S. award.

  8. Earth-2 Rob sounds great considering he started operating back in the 40s as host of the Fire and Water Hour: An Aquaman and Firebrand radio show.

  9. Fun shows. I’m glad Dick Dillin got a lot of love here. He was one of those stalwart guys who adapted a bit of Neal Adams into his style as the 70s progressed (much like Irv Novick) and it really clicked. But his women were ALWAYS gorgeous. I think he’s very underrated in that regard, and I’m glad you brought that up too.

    My personal favorite JLA/JSA team-up is the SSOSV one Rob mentioned, but Crisis on Earth-Prime is great too. The worst? That Cary Bates/Elliot S. Maggin one. I know those guys were having fun, but it reads as WAY too indulgent and “inside baseball” for a JLA/JSA crossover. Even with Earth-2 Robin in it prominently (in his Batmanesque suit to boot), it still ranks the lowest for me.

    Chris

  10. Enjoying your analysis of these JSA/JLA team-ups. Hope you get to review the 7 Soldiers and Secret Society 3-parters (although you may have done the latter previously?), as well as the Squadron of Justice 3 parter.

    Again, there was an Earth-One Doctor Fate… please see World’s Finest 201… and he didn’t get along with the original.

    I would have loved a Masked Wonder mini series (the alias teenage Earth-Two Clark Kent uses as a circus acrobat in those Superboy stories).

    Sadly there was only 1 meeting of Supergirl and Power Girl pre-Crisis… in Wonder Woman 293 in a throwaway panel.

    PS Thank you for cleaning up my choppy syntax in listener comments.

    1. I’d never read WF #201, though I have a lot of Superman’s team-up issues. Oh boy, this is one of the worst stories I’ve ever read… and people rag on Bob Haney for daft team-ups. What can I say but ‘Punish me Daddy. I deserve it!’

  11. This is one of my least favorite JLA-JSA team-ups, because it IS so all-over-the-place and because the Legion has really nothing to do in the story. I was not happy with the Superman-Batman-Green Lantern members, but I did like Black Canary and Green Arrow being here (although GA is, truly, a dick in this story, and neither really had much to do in either parts). The JSAers were fine, and were the main members from the then-current All Star Comics line-up. As for the Legionnaires….twenty some potential members and Brainiac 5 and Sun Boy disappear in the second part. Give me an effin’ break.

  12. Great episode. Love the team ups. And love you guys so I’m happy to hear this episodes.

    Worst performer should get the Johnny Thunder Award. Because no one will under perform as much as Johnny.

    The Power Girl ickiness reminds me of that scene from The CW’s Crisis crossover, where Supergirl sees the Brandon Routh Superman and thinks it’s Ray Palmer. She starts to flirt with him when the Tyler Hoechlin Superman starts shaking his head in a “nonononono that’s me, your cousin” motion.

    Thank you guys for using my suggestion of View from Earth-Prime! I am dumbstruck and completely honored that you selected it.

    I’m looking forward to your eventual coverage of the Crisis on Earth Prime from JLA 207-209 and All-Star Squadron 14-15. That was my first exposure to the multiverse as an 11 year old. A bit of diving in the deep end – but love love love those books and made me a lifelong fan DC and the multiverse.

  13. First off, I tagged S&R on Facebook. I vote for the worst member per issue award be called “The RedTomato” award. That is what they called the Red Tornado in All Star 3, when she ripped her britches.
    B) my first JSA experience was All Star Comic 64. 1977. The first panel explains so much of my fandom. Earth 2 Superman. Hourman. Star Spangled Kid. Power Girl. Love love loved this issue.
    -my favorite JSA/JLA cross over was JLA 195-197. Superman of Earth 2. Hourman!! The art is as good as comic books will ever get.
    -Can’t wait for the episodes covering Mr&Mrs Superman
    -Red Bee

  14. I think the underperforming teammate award should be named after, or at least be a reference to the worst member of the JSA: The Johnny Thunder award, or the Cei-U award.

  15. Great show, guys. I’ll have to go back and catch the first episode.

    One question that has bugged me for years: Did the recreated JLA satellite end up as Medicus One in LSH? Paul Levitz says no, but his memory is self-admittedly less than perfect. Could friend of the show Pat Broderick or Keith Giffen shed some light on this?

    I like both the silver suit and bughead outfits as Zatanna’s attempt at super-hero costuming, before giving up and just wearing her stage outfit.

    This issues is also followed up in an early issue of Crisis, where Brainiac 5 says “There’s no Legion on Earth -2,” presuming that they did some multiversal travel of their own.

    Hawkman didn’t even get to cross over into his Silver Age counterpart’s comic, presumably due to his lack of differentiation compared to Flash, GL and Atom.

  16. Tremendous show from our own answer to the Demons Three. I remember being disappointed by this team-up, it just didn’t feel momentous enough for a first meeting between the LSH and the JLA and JSA. I wanted to see the two contemporary teams visit the 30th century and be awed their environs, amazed by the size and diversity of the Legion. Instead we have the heroes spending a lot of time controlled by baddies, and never see any actual socialising involving the 30th Century’s Greatest Super-Teens.

    Poor Jay Garrick, taken over by a villain during a JLA/JSA team-up, let’s hope that never happens to him again…

    I love that the inter-dimensional transporter needs an hour to warm up. Couldn’t they have put Red Tornado into it?

  17. Oh, yeah! This was not my first JLA/JSA crossover, but it was the first I bought the entirety of! (The previous year’s I got part 1 only.) I’m glad that Gord already addressed the Wildcat dialog above. Thanks, Gord! I was still a relatively new comics reader, but I was buying each of the three team’s books, so I had some familiarity with the characters. Recently in S/LSH, Wildfire had been elected leader, despite Superboy more votes, and Superboy was less than gracious in defeat. Nevertheless, I was Team Superboy, as he was the reason I was buying the book! It wasn’t Wildfire and the Legion of Superheroes, Anj! The dialog of the Legion in these JLA issues reflect that.
    Yes, it’s kind of a mess of a story, but it’s a lot of fun! I’ve read interviews with Steve Englehart about his run on Justice League where he dismisses these issues as being “written by an editor.” I can understand that Pasko and Levitz would have lobbied Julie Schwartz to write a JLA/JSA/LSH team-up. The previous year included the Fawcett characters (Earth-S), three years earlier included the Quality characters (Earth-X), nad its easy to imagine a planning session that about including the Legion. Levitz was one of the writers of the Legion and the writer of JSA, and Pasko was a veteran of JLA and previous crossovers. It fits into Englhart’s run because the whole adventure takes between 2 and three hours on one day! JSA comes to Earth-1 to capture Psycho Pirate, go to the JLA satellite to return home, it takes an hour for the transmatter machine to warm up, Green Arrow turns it off because he enjoys socializing with the JSA and knows that that is the kind of story Rob Kelly wants to read. Then Mordru grabs a bunch of JLAers and JSAers nad drags them through time. Then the JLA/JSAers go back to where they started, MAYBE five minutes after they left! Meanwhile on Earth-1, Carter and Shayera Hall are trying to arrange a lunch with Mark Shaw, the Star-Tsar is planning a caper and Red Tornado is taking stock of what’s new in the world since he’d been destroyed. It can fit. It’s too bad that Englehart didn’t write a stand-alone JLA/JSA crossover as an inventory story.
    Finally, “Florida Man by Choice” and “Buddy Cianci-ville” Native have a lot of gall throwing shade at the social mores of Earth-2! At least their South Africa was an integrated nation in the 1970s!

  18. Seems I picked up most of the same points, independently I add, including the icky flirting of Power Girl with her not quite cousin. At least Supergirl wasn’t there or things would have gotten really weird, and that’s saying something for these bonkers little issues.

    It’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Power girl was somehow immune to the demons powers due to her youthful stamina! It’s also Dinah and Power Girl that has the ideas of how to defeat the final demon, though its others that carry the plan out though.

  19. Hey Shag & Rob, (and Dr. Anj), I loved this episode! I am pretty sure that JLA #147 was my first ever Justice League comic, and probably one of the first half dozen comics that I owned as a kid. What first issue! This was my introduction to both the JLA and the JSA. I can still remember wondering who Power Girl was when they first introduced her. “Why is she so drawn to Superman? Is she as strong as he is?” This was also my introduction to Earth-1 and Earth-2. It only took a couple of panels. Certainly not “too hard to follow” for this eight-year-old, and in fact it was a fascinating concept that I instantly fell in love with. Two Earths? Two Flashes? But the Supergirl of this other Earth is actually a grown-up Power Girl? Ok, I get it now! What a cool idea! (Count me on the side of those who think the Crisis on Infinite Earths was a big mistake, however well-executed it was.)

    That huge panel of the giant hand pulling the JLA’ers and JSA’ers forward 1,000 years in time is permanently etched into my mind’s eye. This is how you do big-scale, cinematic superhero action! And of course, the little caption boxes with the names of all the heroes were really helpful. As was often said, “every issue is someone’s first,” and they made sure that this new reader could follow along no matter how complicated it got!

    Rob, I completely identified with number 148 being the elusive “final” issue to collect your run of JLA… although I bought many other JLA issues, this particular one also eluded me for about fifteen years! Like you, I remember the day I bought it and where I was (a comics shop in Albuquerque) when it happened. I almost couldn’t believe I finally owned it. But I have to say, listening to your summary and commentary made me remember why I’ve never bothered to re-read it. After all those years of waiting for the conclusion to this epic story, I remember it being a letdown. I chalked it up to the fact that I just wasn’t a kid any more.

    But #147 will always be one of my most cherished comics! Still have my beat up original copy, which I must have read a hundred times as a kid. Thanks for doing it justice on your show — I could tell that you guys didn’t love it as much as I did, but you brought out all the highlights of the story and treated it with respect, and it sounds like you got some genuine enjoyment out of it, which was really satisfying to hear. And you can never praise Dick Dillin’s art enough in my book! Much appreciated, and I’m looking forward to more!

  20. May I suggest that the worst JSA-er be titled after the House Un-American Activities Committee as they broke up the JSA? Most un-American? You should also find a category you can call the Ian Karkull award in honour of all the Earth 2 Who’s Whos.

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