Our coverage continues of JSA in the 90s with David Steel and The Irredeemable Shag discussing JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #8 (Mar 1993) by Len Strazewski, Mike Parobeck, and Mike Machlan! Rick Tyler struggles with cancer treatments, while his dad Hourman struggles to regain his powers. Plus, Johnny and Jesse Quick defend the hospital from a hate group! Then, we decide which classic JSAer had the best publication life after the Golden Age! Finally, we wrap up with YOUR listener feedback!
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Good catch re: Jessi Chambers and Rick Tyler’s first on-screen meeting! It never came up in our discussion last month, but while I was researching Jessi’s history for last month’s podcast, I ran into some Jessi and Rick appearances in the Johns JSA title before they got married.
Long story short, Jessi came on in a secretarial while she believed that her speed powers were gone forever. It was immediately apparent that there was a spark between Jessi and Rick, and several others (including and especially Jessi’s mom, Libby Lawrence/Liberty Bell) commented on it and/or teased Jessi about. By the time they showed up married in the One Year Later Justice Society of America title, it wasn’t much of a surprise.
If you mentioned this, I didn’t hear it and I apologize, but Alan Scott also appeared in CHECKMATE after 52.
Anyone who follows my blog know that my favourite classic JSA member is Wild Cat, of which I must say David does a very solid voice for on the Earth 2 podcast! Along with struggles with post Zero Hour plots, but thats neither here nor there on another excellent episode!
Seriously, Shag? You don’t remember Kulak? He was everywhere, and wildly popular, too! Surely you remember all those scenes of him busting through walls, all those times he quenched children’s thirst, and the—
Oh. I have just been informed that was Kool-Aid Man. “Oh, yeah!”
Yeah, this issue was pretty great, particularly the involvement of Wesley Dodds and Rex Tyler. Outside of Marvel’s mutants and The Hulk, I don’t know of any other character(s) whose powers have been the source of so many problems as Hourman. Miraclo gives you strength, speed, and toughness, but also addiction and cancer. And seeing post-stroke Sandman taking out the bad guys from his wheelchair can’t help but put a smile on your face.
And Shag, we can file Kulak alongside your favorite Ian Karkull and Kulan Gath. I’ll take Lesser-Known Magical Villains Starting w/ K for $100, Alex.
Black Canary had about thirty years of second life as a JLA member and Green Arrrow partner; it was the same person before the retcon and the same mind until the Crisis. Including a few solo backups.
Great podcast, guys! I’ve only come across back issues of this series here and there, so I never had the chance to read it in full. This was one of the issues I had missed, and I loved that it featured the first meeting between Rick and Jesse, especially knowing that Johns later built on this in his JSA run. The one-page Hourman history and the nod to Sandman Mystery Theatre were great too!
As for classic JSA members who found a second life after the team, I’d have to go with Alan Scott. I think you may have missed a number of Alan-centric stories. Beyond his appearances in Green Lantern Corps Quarterly and as a supporting character during Ron Marz’s Green Lantern run, he popped up in a lot of places.
He was featured in Fate and then The Book of Fate, where in addition to being a supporting character he was part of the Conclave. This group seemed like a sort of precursor to the Sentinels of Magic, who played a big role in Day of Judgment. He also had a prominent part in Greg Rucka’s Checkmate, and of course, he was the main Green Lantern in Kingdom Come.
Post-Zero Hour, starting with his appearance in Showcase ’95, he starred in several one-shots and minis like Green Lantern/Sentinel: Heart of Darkness, Underworld Unleashed: Abyss – Hell’s Sentinel, Flash/Green Lantern: Faster Friends, and the gorgeous prestige one-shot Green Lantern: Brightest Day, Blackest Night by Steven T. Seagle and John K. Snyder III. That story retells his first encounter with Solomon Grundy and was collected in JSA Presents: Green Lantern alongside JSA: Classified #25, 32, and 33 (which also feature Alan).
Also worth highlighting: his fantastic three-issue team-up with Batman in Detective Comics #784–786 (“Made of Wood”), written by Ed Brubaker with art by Patrick Zircher and covers by Tim Sale. That arc is collected in Batman: The Man Who Laughs trade.
I agree that the original Black Canary has been underserved with solo stories outside the Golden Age. However, I’d suggest checking out Tom King and Ryan Sook’s Black Canary: Best of the Best. It is a great series focusing on the mother/daughter relationship of the Canaries.
Looking forward to the next episode!
I wanted to add that Alan Scott also becomes the JSA Chairman in the 1990s and takes on the Superman-style “big strong guy” role post-Crisis, especially in stories like The Golden Age and JLA: Crisis Times Five.
Beyond the 1st Issue Special, Doctor Fate also had a three issue miniseries called the Immortal Doctor Fate. (Which I just ordered)
Sadly he seems to always get the short end of the stick nowadays.
In addition to Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate meeting a disappointing and abrupt end.
Doctor Fate was also unceremoniously dispatched in the Smallville two-part episode Absolute Justice.
I think the only time the good Doctor got decent treatment outside of comics was in the DCAU.
I hope this won’t ruin your day Michael, but The Immortal Doctor Fate was a three-issue reprint collection, rather than anything new.
Oh well that’s a bummer.
Are they reprints of old golden age stories or are they reprint of the backup stories in Flash?
Both. The first issue is the DC Special origin, a story from More Fun and the First Issue Special, then it’s two issues with the Flash shorts. They’re great packages, though, with new covers. Full details at the Grand Comic Database.
https://www.comics.org/series/2980/covers/?page=1
I forgot about Rick’s cancer. Maybe on purpose. About this time my daughter developed a brain tumor. Rex saying that he would rather it be him than his son is one of the two most realistic things I’ve read in a comic along with supergirl + Mary Marvel.
I’m happy to report that my daughter is still with us.⁹
To clarify on Supergirl + Mary Marvel, a cop is accused of groping Mary Bromfield. He claims it was a routine frisk, she claims otherwise. Something tge cop said at the end of the issue resonated as true. “This is the kind of accusation that sticks even if it’s disproven.” The Matrix era Supergirl book is one of the smartest books I’ve read when it comes to showing human nature. Too bad it’s so poorly remembered
Do you mean little remembered, Brett? I only hear it spoken of with admiration and respect.
I hear you, Brett. My wife was diagnosed with cancer 6 years ago (thankfully she’s healthy and clear ever since surgery and treatments) and my constant thought was “Take me instead.”
I KNow some male charcters that change their costumes but they are all Marvel
1 henry pym
2 ANGEL
3 Wonder man
4 hawkeye
5 Cyclops
Hank Pym needs a special award for “most identities based on a single theme”: Ant Man, Giant Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, The Guy in the Red Jumpsuit, and maybe a few I don’t remember.
He also took up the Wasp name during that time everyone thought Jan had been KIA
Great episode guys! I could feel the enthusiasm coming through my earbuds. I will definitely be checking out the Earth 2 Podcast thanks to David’s guest spot here!
The splash of Hourman flying into action again is one of the images from this series that always comes to mind. I’ve always dug Rex and his look, and I think Parobeck did some nice tweaks. He changed it quite a bit with the bracers around the wrists and repeated those on the anlkles instead of the traditinal red stripes. The oHOTmu Girls would probably balk at the bucket-style boots, but I like them! I will say that I prefer how George Perez intepreted the cowl/hood. It was black on the outside, and yellow inside. Much like Tim Drake’s later Robin cape!
Good on David for catching this is the beginning of Jesse/Rick. Jick? Reese? What do we call that couple? And why do I want peanut butter cups now? Either way, it’s another nice bit of legacy for this series.
Speaking of legacy, Wes coming out of nowhere to save the day is a nice callback to how he saved FDR duriing the flashback in the issue we covered Shag (#6). I remember being confused as to why Al looked so ill and was in a wheelchair when I first saw the visual of Wes. So I’m with David, I don’t really care for mustachioed Wes, mostly because that’s Al’s distinguishing feature in this series. Minor quibble.
And while we’re on the subject of issue #6, I will say the comments left here since I voiced my opinion that Alan coming out later didn’t quite fit the character as established in these stories…well, enough listeners have shared personal stories about similar situations that I now rescend that opinion. In my own personal life, I haven’t really had those experiences with friends or loved ones, but so many folks here have chimed in, it’s opened my eyes more. Based on what they have shared, I now see that Alan could of course love Molly, but still be hiding a part of himself he felt uncomortable with revealling, at this time. See, I can grow!
And the obsession with pink skin continues…Kulak is supposed to be BLUE! Someone take the magenta away from the DC offices in 1993!
Add me to the list of folks who have been “converted” on Alan Scott’s retcon (My original criticism was more that a change in the timeline… as Flashpoint was understood to be… shouldn’t “make someone gay” if being gay isn’t a choice, but that’s long since been done away with, and I find that the way Alan’s previous relationships are explained to fit within his current reality works just fine).
I’m still against Alan’s old-man beard (really. I HATE that look!), but I guess one can’t have everything.
Since you’ve been so deeply inconsiderate as to continue to produce monthly episodes of this show, even though not a single human being on this planet has even made it halfway through JSApril, I will now try to start catching up on my commentary for same.
I wasn’t aware of the extended timeline on the evolution of Black Canary II. I just assumed that had all come from Alan Brennert swiping Silk Spectre from Alan Moore for Secret Origins, not that her existence wasn’t already deeply indebted to Harvey’s Black Cat. I’ll be honest, two months on, I don’t recall if you guys got into the Action Comics Weekly strip, or whether it also contributed to these distinctions between mother and daughter. It’s also a little weird that Dinah Lance wasn’t in Limbo with the boys, and I wonder who got to decide on matters like that. I wish Randy DuBurke had done more comics in general, but especially Canary ones. I loved the combination of Von Eeden and Giordano on her mini-series, but it also felt retro at a time when DC really needed a bold, contemporary take like DuBurke’s. One of the best things about the Post-Crisis JLA reboot was the elevation of Black Canary as the JSA legacy member co-founder. She had a much better dynamic with “the boys” than Wonder Woman in the original stories, where every member was more or less interchangeable.
I generally like Michael Gustovich, particularly on his own Justice Machine, but I recall Rob being really dismissive of him, and his butchering of Dave Ross on Last Days bears that out. For all the flack Ostrander got over the Hawkworld ongoing, I liked what he did in the annual to resolve some of the continuity issues. But then he created even more continuity issues afterward, reinforcing the due flack.
I know other people liked it, but I really suffered through the Ostrander/Mandrake Martian Manhunter ongoing series, which I think was the last best chance of ever putting the Alien Atlas over with a broad audience. Val Semeiks was also a guy who did an awful lot of awful JLA material in that period, which I mostly distinguish as “at least it’s not as bad as Pajarillo.” I was not especially open to their teaming up for a so-poor-he’s-eating-dirt-naked-in-the-woods-man’s Marvels with Incarnations. I bought some of the issues new, but the fact that I took individual issues of a mini-series as optional tells its own tale. At a quarter century remove, I mostly remember not enjoying the twio teams bickering and fighting, especially while drawn like that.
Not to beat the Crisis dead horse, but I wouldn’t be here without that reboot. I found having two Earths with similar characters in different time periods confusing and off-putting. I guess that I was also vaguely aware of Earth-C, but I didn’t figure that really counted, since Superman teamed-up with everybody this side of Santa Claus. I bought one issue of Who’s Who and found it to be more barnacle than ship– too corny and convoluted to be seriously considered. It just didn’t make sense to me not have the World War II heroes just be in the past, and there be a modern generation in the ’80s, which is what Crisis accomplished.
If I remember correctly, Gilligan’s Island was never a major hit in the original run. I think that, like Star Trek, it built its audience as a cheap rerun option for local stations. It probably didn’t rate export until it proved not to be worthy of the expense to do so, whereas Bewitched & Jeannie were valued prime time programs.
Given Dr. Mid-Nite’s color scheme and tunic, he was already kind of the adult Earth-2 Robin. I’m one of the few guys who never got on board with the Brian Stelfreeze Nightwing costume because it doesn’t have as many Robin legacy elements as this guy had from stealing them exactly one year after the Sensational Character Find of 1940.
I’m going to say another thing that people won’t like: based on this series, Len Strazewski just isn’t a technically proficient writer. There’s a lot of acrobatics in these episodes with hosts trying to excuse the quirks in this book, but the plotting and narrative flow have been a mess from the first issue. #6 starts with a six page prelude of the Nazis last attempt on FDR’s life before the end of the war. It bears no resemblance to Golden Age continuity for an audience that demands fidelity, features original characters with no exploration in ahistorical costume designs, it’s a fairly major story concept not afforded an actual story, but most importantly, it’s a completely unrelated set piece that exists solely to shoehorn super-villains into the issue. There’s been so much moaning about the book not being given a chance, out of ageism or it not meeting the moment for DC editorial– but this is a two-parter set on a seniors cruise. It’s a dialogue heavy issue of older people in Hawaiian shirts talking about investigating a shady island resort. That would be a stretch for Matt, Foggy, and Karen in a single Silver Age issue of Daredevil. This is the entire JSA! Alan Scott could have scanned the island with his ring and routed the mercenary army to save the captives all on his own in an 8-pager in DC Showcase and you’d still need a human interest b-plot to fill it out. The other big action set piece is an at best middle-aged man inserting himself into an exhibition boxing match and getting arrested, as he should, and that’s the cliffhanger?!? Are you seriously telling me that this is the monthly JSA title that you wanted as a young adult in 1992? Would you be making as many excuses for it if another !mpact artist like Chuck Wojtkiewicz or Grant Miehm had drawn it? You really think this narrative didn’t have enough space to resolve appropriately?
So then we get to #7, opening with a Jesse Quick splash and then a single page origin story. While this was still a new character that readers hadn’t invested all that much into yet… wouldn’t you rather be reading her personal story in greater depth, instead of Kooey Kooey Kooey played semi-straight? And again, I love Parobeck here, and Machlan’s finally inking him instead or Ordway, but the John Byrne influence doesn’t so much peak out as lurch forward and push against your eyeballs. I feel like I could match some of those faces directly back to a Heather Hudson or Sue Richards if it was worth the effort. And again, despite the innocent facade, Parobeck is horny on this this book. The Nazi sideboob last issue, and now Jesse’s feminine wiles? I’m not mad at it, but I am a little taken aback at the cognitive dissonance.
Getting back to the plot– this might as well have been from an episode of Buck Rogers. Some paunchy dudes and much younger women in Lycra uncover a slavery ring on Fantasy Island? How about the part where Ted is under mind control for a few panels, just to gin up an action beat? All that stuff tying the lame and uninspired villain to Nazis, but not the ones at the top of the previous issue, and not in a way that explains anything about him? Setting aside the punny “St. Germaine,” they’re acting like this guy is going to be another Vandal Savage who goes after the JSA again, but nobody wants more of this. Maybe if he had a plot to steal the Thunderbolt or something, but as just evil long-lived Nazi? Not happening. This is another issue of people with super-speed atomic punches sneaking around in plain clothes until they have to knock out racially squicky rent-a-soldiers from a lesser A-Team episode. There’s three pages of Kiku pushing Johnny around in a wheelchair from hut to hut. But the best/worst part is the JSA proving so incompetent that they accidentally let the entire island get blown up in an oopsie. Are you series? After Superman showed them up so hard in #1 that it gave one of them a heart attack, now they’re letting Ra’sh O’Toole take out Bahdnesia with a suped-up butane lighter? And after all that, not only did the build up to Kiku taking over the Thunderbolt genie never happen, but that last cloying splash page? In what way are the JSA all sole survivors? They’re literally a super team of people still active in unity for half a century. There’s a Green Lantern Corps. There’s a Flash Family. Only one of them is a widower. None of them have buried any children or legacies yet. The moral of the story is nonsense.
Impressive podcast most impressive. Ah I two have super hero tattoos. Superman and Huntress my left arm. And Zed martin from Constantine. On my back.. with her casting a spell saying “Black Sheep 4 Life. “ So cool tattoo action y’all gout going on. Moving right along. Ah look cool cover of the JSA fighting the Supreme Court of America and Britain.
Moving on. Ah so Jessie and Hour man 2 got married cool. I haven’t read that far along. Last I saw him he was dating the female Dr. Midnight. Dr. Beth Chapel . Ah fun I forgot she has the same first name as me. Er Doc Chapel that is. Any way back to Rick and his dad. Ah this was an interesting story and glad hour man got to be the hero of this story. And Sandman making a come back . Still who gave Jesse the striped shirt? It makes it look like she’s ready to go work for McDonald’s.
I realize we have to keep a theme here on her colored outfit fitting her costume. The geez, there are certain bad choices and taste. One should not make Elton John would be embarrassed to wear that shirt. It looks like she robbed that girl’s clothing from the Batman family era.
I miss that podcast. Rate this is an overall good story.ah johnny Quick it’s a classic costume so I will let it be. Though i’m glad Jesse ditched this eye sore she’s wearing.still she’s doing well here. Moving on glad to see at the end of the story a classic villain returning. Can’t wait to hear the next podcast.
I have to say the episode I’m glad explains why Johnny quick formula works for him cause I think when his mentor used it and taught to him, didn’t he gain the power flight? And not super speed . I like hour man being able to call upon the power at will . I think there was a anime tiger and bunny where each hero had the same power as hour man have you guys seen it ?
Excellent crossover episode. I stumbled across both the Fire and Water Network (via “For All Mankind”) and the Earth 2 Podcast around the same time and have am glad to finally hear both on a single episode. I look forward to more to come.
Though every time Shag said “Dave” I thought “Dave? who is Da— Oooooh! David!”
More #IrredeemableSteel please (can we get that hashtag trending?)
Hello,
So my pick for the best JSAer’s second life would be Spectre. The reason for this is because we as a family got the first 20 or so issues of the post crisis 1987 series. We got them as they were coming out. I was still a young kid who was actually taught to read via comics. I am 41 now. So it was in I want to say 3rd grade we had to bring in our favorite books to read. I want to add this before I continue, “The Spectre” really wasn’t a book meant for kids but my parents were parents who always were up to explain to my brother and I (he is 6 years older) things if we had questions. We also knew the difference between reality and fantasy and so on and so forth. With that said, back to the story. I took some of my favorite things to read, which were all comics. So I packed up some of my favorite issues that we had bagged and boarded. We had two issues per bag with a board in between. Even as a kid I had OCD so my parents didn’t mind me taking the books because they knew I’d be careful.
So I got them to school during the book show and tell time I began to explain why I liked the books and I said it was the stories but also the artwork and how comic book art can really set a tone. I picked up the JL issue where Batman punches Guy Gardner and passed it around and how its colors were bright and were fun. I passed the book around. I pulled out a Silver Surfer book and said it was a sci-fi book like Star Trek or Star Wars. I passed around a couple Surfer books, kids thought those were neat. I pulled out my “The Spectre” books. Then I said then you can look at this book and he is a ghost hero. His colors are dark and scary. So his books tend to be scary but not real bad because you know he is the good guy. This was all stuff my dad and older brother taught me about comics. So I let a couple “The Spectre” books be passed around the circle. It all went great, the teacher appreciated I was this smart nerd. Until a kid goes look, “boobies”.. No one in my family cared or even thought it was an issue as it was a comic but yea in “The Spectre” number 9 there is full on nudity. Madame Xanadu (I think that is who it is) is naked in bed rolling around moaning and sighing and all other kinds of noises in her sleep. The books were taken away for the kids and given back and I was told to put them in my backpack.
I was super confused. I had to spend recess inside, being told that those kind of books aren’t school appropriate and shouldn’t be for children. My parents did not get called or anything. The teachers could tell I didn’t think it was sexual or anything. Even though it most likely was suppose to be in one way or another but I was a kid and saw it as a fun scary hero book. The teachers realized it was an accident. My parents asked how show and tell went, I told them I got in trouble because of nudity in “The Spectre”. My parents laughed and I sort of did too. My parents told me that not all parents treat their kids like adults and not all kids are ready for mature reading. I shrugged and put my comics up and came back to the living room and watched afternoon cartoons.
-Dustin (Fa†e)
–I meant to include, feel free to include story on podcast if you want, I am sure your listeners would find it funny LOL
Great episode! I love Jesse and Rick as a couple, though they are kind of a gross out couple in the 2000s JSA book. Basically, they’re the couple that makes out on the couch while everyone is hanging out in the living room. I love them together, but I bet they made Jay leave the room more than once.
Jay Garrick is probably my favorite of the classic JSAers, I thought they made great use of him as a supporting character in the Flash series in the 1990s-on. Though he gets defeated to prove how tough the bad guy is a bit too often for my liking.
I think you guys gave short shrift to Ted Knight’s time as a cast member in the Jack Knight Starman series. Ted was an intregal part of the series and even starred in a few issues, IIRC.
It is weird this series was canceled bc it’s true, the JSA was everywhere in the early 1990s. I remember Alan Scott popping up everywhere!
Oh how I wish the Sandman Vertigo series was on DC Infinite! I’ve always thought it looked great (and I love how Wesley was used in the Jack Knight Starman series) but apparently I’d have to pay for the Ultra subscription to get access to it.
What a treat to have another episode of the JSA podcast, with astonishing knowledge from David all the afterlife of the JSA members.
That cover is fun – Jesse Quick’s ponytail looks like an extra sleeve.
This issue, I enjoyed the Johnny and Rex scene, but was surprised Rex said that without Johnny’s help he couldn’t afford the cancer treatment for Rick – wasn’t Rex a massively successful industrial chemist?
The art wasn’t great all through this issue, for one thing, I thought that Wesley Dodds was Al Pratt. For another, Wesley, in panel 4 of page 7, seems to have developed the ability to detach his head. I did like Johnny with the yellow tights, that’s the costume Jesse should have nicked, that low-cut chest square would certainly have pleased security guards everywhere.
‘What are you doing Man of the Hour… Man of the Hour…’ So Rex did some self-hypnosis? That IS handy. Or was it indeed Johnny’s massive multivitamins dose? A combo? A passing magician? I think we should be told.
The Hourman costume tweak is…not great. The egg timer-shaped cape sounds interesting, but looks awful, as do the complementary nipped-in boots. The all-yellow cowl is too cartoony, and the cape chest piece clunky as heck. The original was just fine. Actually, I think the cape shape is just Rex holding it in as he jumps out of the window, in which case it’s clever stuff.
You’re right, Shag, that final page shocker would’ve been great if anyone had known who Kulak was.
Second Lives: I don’t have a lot of exposure to The Sandman in any life, but I hear good things about Mystery Theater. I’m just not a big Guy Davis guy, especially proposing 70 issues of his work. I would disagree about The Spectre’s second life because he’s such a disaster in the Post-Crisis scene. How often is he a greater threat to the universe than he is a benefit? Plus all the different hosts after Corrigan was laid to rest? Yikes! Doctor Fate lore is another embarrassment. I think given a choice, most fans would rather see a Justice League Unlimited episode. Whether or not the father or son stars, the Zero Hour Starman series is unarguably the high point of that concept. I guess Hourman’s highest profile was in the Johns JSA, but that’s a faint acknowledgement. I really like the kinky, creepy Atom costume, so I’d probably favor the Golden Age stuff over any revisions. How do you even count Dinah Drake, since she was technically in all those Silver Age JLAs, up into the ’80s? She just gets dead once the daughter retcon takes effect, and I certainly prefer Dinah Lance overall. I really enjoyed the second life of Alan Scott in Green Lantern Quarterly, Fate, and Underworld Unleashed, but that all got handwaved in Green Lantern/Sentinel: Heart of Darkness. For years afterward, he was just the elder JSA and the pappy of Infinitors, which was such a letdown. I never cared about Jay as a solo character, so I actually prefer his second life as an elder in the Flash Family. I’ve always dug Wildcat, and he’s benefited greatly from associating with Batman and Catwoman in later life. Of the lot, I’ve enjoyed the Sentinel stuff the most.
Moving into Justice Society of America #8, the opening pointedly recalls my criticism of Strazewski. We’re going to start this issue with a flashback to a video conference from the middle of #2, which theoretically explains where the Hawks have been, except it doesn’t. I read this issue in two sittings, and had forgotten about that prelude, so I was totally confused with the epilogue (that itself is a prologue to actually addressing anything, next month.) Instead of seeding the Hawk stuff across multiple brief asides over the months, it sandwiches the issue’s actual story in cryptic foreshadowing. And I’m sorry, but I don’t even remember Kulak, so the big reveal is a nothingburger.
I recognize that the Kulak stuff plays into the racist uprising against definitely-not-Desmond-Tutu, but whatever, that’s just excusing a particularly sudden flare-up among proto-January 6ers. This feels like a fill-in, so why is the regular creative team devoting an issue to all the guys that they themselves sidelined? We apparently don’t want Sandman on the team, except in a lengthy ahistorical flashback in #6, and in a wheelchair today saving the assassination target in exactly the same way as he had in the flashback (including not giving said target protection against his gas.) The core of the story is getting Hourman his powers back, but not having read whatever stories had set this up in other books probably years earlier, Hourman lost his power? I knew Rick had developed cancer from Miraclo, I think in Infinity Inc., but can I request some friggin’ editors notes so I can seek out these references? And this is the third consecutive issue pitting the greatest super-heroes of World War II against… a bunch of regular dudes? Were those dudes that worked for Ultragen enhanced, or has this book been 50%+ fighting a bunch of random dudes? And this one wasn’t even any kind of trained security, just dumpy bigots.
It was also fun to see both Quicks in action, with Johnny looking great here, and Jesse… um. It’s 1993, so even though I know decades don’t break cleanly from 1989 to 1990, but Dynasty was still gone nearly half a decade by this point. There is no excuse for those throw pillows on her shoulders. Not only does daddy look better, but his costume is comparatively timeless, compared to Jesse Quick’s being insta-dated. Plus, what is going on with her boobs in that thing? Everything about the design suggests a dense, firm material that would smother the girls, and yet she’s got torpedoes flying ever which way. She just looked way better in the aerobics gear last issue. Again, it’s so jarring when the John Byrne influence comes in hard only for Jesse Quick panels. Well, okay, it’s less blatant than last issue, and it also effects Johnny on page 16, panel 4.
One more shot at the epilogue– maybe don’t give both Carter Hall and Alan Scott similar receding hairlines, so that I initially think Carter is watching a fake Carter on TV, until the strawberry blond who could also pass for Shayera calls him “Alan?” Since when did Carter wear glasses and smoke a pipe, by the way? Not that it matters, because among the characters in this series, there’s barely any variance in personalities. Ted is impulsive and Al is gruffly reserved, while Alan, Jay, Carter, and Ted are basically the same guy. Charles McNider is a little more terse and isolated, but not wildly different. Johnny and Wesley are both a bit overeager and awkward, but they’re all still shades of the same guy. Jesse has some ambition and inquisitiveness, but could you really tell her dialogue apart from Kiku’s, or any other woman in this series? Strazewski’s characterization isn’t that far from Gardner Fox’s, so it’s a good thing his scripting is enjoyable, in spite of the individual speakers being indistinct.
I never noticed that this was probably when we first saw Rick and Jesse possibly together. I always took it as they were interested in each other but at this delicate stage in Rick’s life, neither acted on it. And speaking of Rick, I’m reminded of his appearance in issue nine of the Peyer/Morales Hourman series, and man do I miss that series overall. Now I have to find my DC Direct Hourman figure signed by Rags Morales. I haven’t seen that in a while.
Wonderful episode, guys, and what a coup for Shag to snag a guest host who was the former Speaker of the Scottish Parliament! (What do you mean… it’s a *different* David Steel? )
It’s clear that Hourman has a very special place in David’s psyche – perhaps the inspiration that our pop-culture heroes can bring to our real lives is an under-recognised benefit of the cult media we love?
Similarly, I often find myself drawn to the Terrance Dicks quote about Doctor Who which I know you, Shag, will be all too familiar with: “He never gives in, and never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him. The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly.” I find those to be words to live by.
And… Thank You both! Finally there’s a podcast where I can ask the Armageddon Inferno questions that have been burning in my brain for 33 years!
Armageddon 2001 was the very first event I ever read and I was incredibly excited for DC in general in those heady days. I avidly bought up the post-event mini-series… (more fool me!)
We all know now that the end of Armageddon 2001 was… shall we be kind, and say “hastily improvised”, what with the swapping out of Captain Atom for Hawk etc.
My question for the JSA hive mind is this: How much were the two subsequent Armageddon mini-series meticulously thought out in advance, and how much did they come into being only with the change in the identity reveal of Monarch? Was the return of the JSA always planned as a peripheral outcome of the Armageddon books, or was the Armageddon Inferno mini series and it’s effect on the fate of the JSA all last minute, random, fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants stuff?
The Inferno books themselves are drawn by multiple art teams, which makes me wonder if it was all thrown together as quickly as possible, but – for all the mocking – without Armageddon Inferno, our beloved heroes would still be stuck in limbo, preventing Ragnarok!
I would be fascinated if anyone knows the background story at DC that led to the release of the JSA back into continuity in this mini-series.