In 1999, the Justice Society of America, as far as the DC Universe was concerned, was a non-entity. Half the members were unceremoniously killed off in the Zero Hour event five years prior. A handful of members—Doctor Fate, the original Flash and Green Lantern—were active, but not very prominent. Considering the JSA originated in World War II and were always closely defined by that era, now 50+ years gone, the general sense seemed to be that the Justice Society’s time was done.
But you can’t keep a good concept down. Or maybe you just need to keep those trademarks active. Or maybe it was because Grant Morrison’s relaunch of the Justice League of America was going gangbusters, and James Robinson’s Starman, with its strong sales, critical praise, and focus on superhero legacies, meant that maybe there was an audience for the original superhero team after all. In any case, the JSA returned to the spotlight in 1999 in a multi-comics event dubbed “The Justice Society Returns!” with the ’99 model of All-Star Comics was meant to reintroduce the JSA to a then-modern audience.
The story starts with a prologue in 1919, where a pre-adolescent Rex Tyler (Hourman) receives an hourglass from a mysterious stranger. Then the story then skips to 1945 where the bulk of the action takes place. Some generic bad guys are performing a magical ritual. Because it’s 1945, the occultists are Nazis, and they’re about to go do that voodoo that they do so well to summon a god called “Koth” to help Der Fuhrer win the War. But instead of Koth they bring forth The Stalker, an immortal, soulless warrior whose purpose is to go from world to world (and dimension from dimension) and eliminate all war by killing all life. The Stalker kills the occultists as soon as he arrives, which makes the fact that they were Nazi’s pretty irrelevant.1
Now, the choice of The Stalker as a villain is an interesting one. The Stalker starred in an eponymous sword-and-sorcery series from DC in the mid-70’s that lasted all of four issues. He was basically a forgotten character.2 In that respect, he shares similarity with the Justice Society who, by 1999, have been largely ignored (by DC editorial). Thus, the heroes, who time has passed by will be fighting a villain who, in the meta-sense, time has forgotten, which is a great conceit. But this story is taking place in the prime of the JSA’s career, so the subtext of their status in 1999 doesn’t matter. Worse, Stalker is written as a one-dimensional baddie, single-mindedly focused on destroying everyone on Earth. He may be appropriate on a meta-level, but within the story he’s generic and boring.
The second half of the first issue is mostly a giant slug-fest as the JSA attempt to stop Stalker from destroying the world. They manage to wound Stalker enough that he has to go into hiding to recuperate but before he does that, he resurrects the occultists as super-powered baddies to “do [his] bidding” in the meantime. There’s seven disciples, whom Stalker disperses throughout the world. Conveniently, there’s 14 members in the JSA, so the team splits into pairs that are featured in all the one-shot issues that DC published as part of this “Justice Society Returns” event.
The second issue picks up after all those one-shots. The JSA has defeated Stalker’s disciples (in the afore-mentioned one-shots) but it’s explained that those disciples were just a ruse to buy Stalker time to heal and finish his extinction act. The JSA seems surprised to learn this, which is odd because Stalker outright told the JSA that this was his plan at the end of their first fight; maybe they just didn’t hear him. At any rate, the assembled team learns that Stalker is hiding out in Antarctica and that’s where he’s created “an infernal engine . . . to funnel his chthonic energies into the sun itself…. As Stalker’s power grows, the sun’s fire will increase tenfold.”
Now, when Stalker first appeared, intent on killing all life on Earth, he just went to Washington, DC and started trashing the place. The implication being that the guy was just going to rampage across the globe killing everyone. Now, conveniently, there’s a big ol’ machine that’s going to do the job . . . by increasing the sun’s fire? What does that mean? There’s a throwaway line of dialogue where Stalker says “the sun will die yet” so I guess the machine is meant to cause the sun to nova. None of it is very clear (why does Stalker even need a machine now when he didn’t before?) and that almost seems deliberate. Given how little effort it put into Stalker, it’s pretty clear that the plot is just an excuse to have the reader marvel at how awesome the JSA is for beating up a god.
Admittedly, it’s in the ramp-up to this final confrontation that the story shows a little bit of life. When Stalker learns of the JSA’s approach, he resurrects a bunch of dinosaur skeletons to attack them. It’s the sort of story element you’d find in a Golden Age comic: completely nonsensical but kinda cool. Who doesn’t like watching superheroes fight animated skeletons? So that part is fun; possibly the most fun thing in this story. But then you realize that this obstacle only exists to tie up the minor JSAers (like The Star-Spangled Kid) while the marquee members (Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, etc) go after Stalker and his machine. Mr. Terrific manage to destroy the machine (OK, so maybe not all the lesser heroes were fighting dinosaur skeletons) while the rest fight Stalker directly. But while JSA is awesome enough to beat up a God but they can’t actually beat him.
Just when all seems lost, Hourman remembers the magic hourglass conveniently given to him in this story’s prologue. He throws the hourglass at Stalker, the hourglass shatters against Stalker’s armor and Stalker is caught in an explosion of “energized tachyons” that “devolve” Stalker back to his “personal timeline”.
Now, let’s talk about this for a minute. Because I think there’s a valid idea that is just lost in terrible execution. By the end of the story, Stalker has won. His machine may be destroyed but he can rebuild it, and he’s physically beaten the JSA. It takes a deus ex machina to turn things around—which wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened; except, if this story is meant to showcase how great the Justice Society is, why is the day saved by something the JSA have absolutely nothing to do with? Sure, Dr. Fate gives Hourman the idea to use the tachyons, but Hourman didn’t create the tachyons. It wasn’t like the JSA wracked their brains to came up with the solution and built a machine to fire tachyons at Stalker. The JSA don’t save the day, the tachyons do, given to Hourman by a stranger who appeared for two pages at the beginning of the story.
The thing is, I get why it was done this way. It’s an attempt to bring back the idea of Time, to link the legacy of the Justice Society from the past to the present and then the future. The tachyons link the Rex Tyler Hourman of the Golden Age to the latest character (as of 1999) to use the name: an android, from the 853rd century made from the memories and generic material of the Tyler family dynasty.3 It’s revealed that this android Hourman was the one who gave Tyler the hourglass in the prologue, and he appears in the epilogue (set when the JSA got wiped out in Zero Hour) to show a dying Rex Tyler that his legacy—and the legacy of the Justice Society—will live on. The story literally ends with a pin-up of the new JSA team that debuted shortly after this special. “Time” saved the world from Stalker. “Time” brings victories for the JSA, and defeats, too. Time comes and goes. The Justice Society of America will have their time again.
That is a powerful statement. Unfortunately, it’s not earned. It’s just tacked on to a story that otherwise has no connection to that idea. The potential was there: if the JSA were the ones who actually came up with the means to defeat Stalker; if the idea of time and legacy were incorporated into the plot—possibly uniting the 1940’s JSA with the 1999 version shown at the end to show that the idea of the Justice Society was just as important, if not more important, than the individual heroes who made up its membership. That could have been a special, moving, story. Instead we got Generic Baddie #45643 and a deus ex machina.
On the bright side, the Justice Society seem to win out in the longer-term. Starting in 1999, there will be a Justice Society comic published for the next twelve years, ending only once DC did the whole “New 52” thing. They’ve yet to have a proper appearance in the wake of “DC Rebirth” so it seems as though the cycle is repeating. But if that’s truly the case, then that means the JSA is in the fallow part of the cycle. It’s only a matter of time (or trademark renewal, or a writer/artist with enough clout) before the next part of the cycle. Time comes and goes. The Justice Society of America will have their time. Again.
Next Issue: We’re not quite done with the JSA yet. Rather than let this review ramble longer than it already is, I’m going to have a separate entry for the All-Star Comics 80 Page Giant. Seven stories for the price of three! Some of them are actually fun!
1Don’t get me wrong: I love a good “fight the Nazis” story as the next person. And since the JSA is so closely tied with World War II (and you can’t spell “World War Two” without “N-A-Z-I”) I get why Nazis get name-checked. But considering the occultists get wiped out not even halfway through the issue, it seems like the only reason the occultists were Nazis was because the JSA is so closely tied with World War II and someone felt contractually obligated to include Nazis in the story somewhere.
2Wikipedia helpfully point out the Stalker actually appeared in an issue of Swamp Thing just a few years before these issues, so he wasn’t completely forgotten before appearing in this story. But Swamp Thing was nearing cancellation at the time, and it sounds like the issue had an even crazier meta-purpose than Stalker’s appearance in All-Star Comics. All of which is to say: I stand by my description of him as a forgotten character even if it isn’t entirely true.
3Whaddya expect? It’s superhero comics.
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