All-Star Comics #3-4

All-Star Comics #3-4

Originally released in 1940

Written by Gardner Fox et al.

Art by Everett E. Hibbard et al.

I decided to take a step back in time and read about the original adventures of the first superhero team (that I know of), the Justice Society.  The team was larger than I expected, with a total of thirteen members in their first appearance.  However, in a tradition that will continue into the Silver Age Justice League comics, Batman and Superman are basically members in name only - we're told that they (and Robin) are part of the team, but they're generally busy with something else.  Red Tornado (a woman named Ma Hunkel) only makes a brief appearance as comedic relief, so it's more like there's nine active members.

The first issue is an anthology series, where each member takes turns telling a story.  If they're trying to one-up each other, it seems like an unfair competition, considering that the Spectre (the embodiment of the wrath of God, though I'm not sure if that was established by this point or not) goes third, talking about how he flew across galaxies to save the Earth before he turned a villainous creature into a statue, and two of his teammates (the Sandman and the Atom) have no superpowers at all and tell their stories near the end.

Johnny Thunder serves as an audience surrogate and comedic relief - he doesn't realize it, but if he says "say you" or anything that sounds like that, anything he wishes for in the next hour will come true.  As a result, he keeps accidentally doing things like making the Justice Society's dinner disappear or shrinking his own head.  As far as audience surrogates go, I found him more entertaining than Rick Jones in the Lee-Kirby Avengers comics or Snapper Carr in the Silver Age issues of Justice League, so that's a point in his favour.

Jay Garrick, at least, stands out from the rest of the team personality-wise, though the rest of them don't stand out much from each other.  It's a similar issue to the one that I had when I read Gardner Fox's run on the Justice League of America, though at least here a few of them stand out and have a different voice.

I realize it's likely a product of the time that this book was made, but the team feels like even more of a "boy's club" than the original JLA did - even with over a dozen members, there's only one woman in the group, who makes one extremely brief cameo appearance in these first two issues. (I may have my issues with the desire to stick strictly to the original seven members of the Justice League in adaptations, but at least in that case, Wonder Woman has a major role)

This book was my first exposure to most of the team - Alan Scott's oath might not be as catchy as the modern one, but his powers seem different enough that he could still stand out among the modern Green Lanterns.  Unlike the more fantastical shrinking abilities that the modern versions of the Atom possess, the Golden Age version is simply a short guy who's good at boxing.

Hourman gains super strength by drinking a formula, but only for an hour.  Sandman is just a normal guy who hates crime and developed a gas gun, though his story (involving people and animals being experimented on and turned into giants) was one of the more interesting.

There's some good moments of comedy here, both intentional and unintentional.  The Justice Society meets in a hotel, and when Johnny Thunder arrives, he sees that nobody is moving aside from the Sandman, who's holding a smoking gun.  He immediately comes to the conclusion that all of those unmoving men are sleeping. (he's right, but it's an amusing image)

Issue 4 is another anthology, though one that's almost over-the-top levels of patriotic (though that's understandable, given that this was written in the middle of World War 2).  The Justice Society's introductory page mentions America about five or six times, and their battle cry is "for America and democracy!"

Upon meeting with the FBI and getting missions to stop Nazi spies from infiltrating the country, the Justice Society sets out individually to stop the saboteurs. (also, Al Pratt seems way too eager to start beating up college professors)

I kind of wish that these missions were done in teams, but I get why these are solo adventures - aside from making the book longer so readers get more for their money, this comic also serves as a way to encourage people to read other comics, and for all I know, the intent was to make some members of the team popular enough that they'd get their own solo books. (both of these issues have advertisements at the end of a story saying where you can read further adventures of the heroes in question)

Unlike issue 3, where the stories were varied, issue 4 is more straightforward - the heroes go to different parts of the country, beating up Nazis and showing how the American spirit can overcome Nazi cruelty.  It's a little repetitive, since the book is sixty pages long and each member gets their own story, but I'm not about to complain about seeing Nazis get beaten up in increasingly ridiculous ways.

Also, going into this without knowing much about each member resulted in several moments catching me by surprise.  At one point, the Spectre finds out about a time bomb, and arrives just as it goes off.  His method of solving that problem was one that I certainly didn't expect.

Given that the team includes Doctor Fate, a powerful sorcerer, and they're up against ordinary Nazi spies, the resolution of the full story once they uncover the mastermind is hilariously anti-climactic.  Still, it's a fun little read.

The stories were old fashioned, and they didn't really take advantage of the Justice Society being a team (issue 4 has the whole team coming together to take on the mastermind, but it's only in the last three pages or so), but I enjoyed reading these issues.  I would have liked to see Batman or Superman interacting with the team, but I suppose that those characters didn't really need the publicity.