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Who Is This Justice League of America? - Part X, The Expanding Universe Theory By Bruce MacIntosh
Fans of the new Justice League of America or Justice Society of America will notice that DC Comics has made a big deal about the recent cross-over between the two teams. Over the last few years the Big Two comics companies have bombarded readers with Universe-shattering big events, so the significance of this event may seem insignificant in comparison. But there was a time when the annual JLA/JSA meeting was the big event in comics – the highly anticipated extravaganza every summer.
That is – until Crisis on Infinite Earths screwed everything up.
To be fair, things were already pretty screwed up in the DC Universe by the mid-Eighties, and Crisis was designed to simplify things. In fact, it was all because of the annual cross-over events in the pages of the Justice League of America that things got so convoluted, prompting DC to wipe out an Infinite number of parallel universes in 1985.
THE GOLDEN AGE
To even begin to explain how things go so out of hand, we must go all the way back to the early 1940s. In the heyday of comics – particularly superhero comics – there were practically as many comics publishers as there are comics these days. Sales of individual issues were measured in the hundreds of thousands and publishers were free to whip up new characters (and copy their competitors’ characters) at will. Comics in those days were generally anthologies, with a headliner (often a superhero) and a variety of other features, ranging from westerns, to spies, to funny talking animals.
Every comic publisher had a lineup of superheroes – some luminary and some merely rip-offs of the competition – but DC’s were arguably the most popular. It may have been superior writing and art, or it may have simply originality. (As explained in the first nine installments of Who Is This Justice League?, DC was “first” with many heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al.). But these birds initially flew solo… That is, until some genius decided that if sales of Superman, Green Lantern or the Flash were good, then if they teamed up those characters and more in another single title, sales would be even that much better!
Although the writer of the first superhero team-up is disputed, we do know that 22-year old Editor Sheldon Mayer for All-American Publications (DC’s predecessor) brought together eight of the company’s heroes (who had previously appeared solo in anthology titles like Adventure Comics, Flash Comics, and More Fun Comics) in Issue #3 of All Star Comics (Winter 1940-41).
The Atom, The Flash, Sandman, Spectre, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, and Hourman, initially met to swap stories of their solo adventures. However, the format was so successful that they eventually began to team together to fight crime. Nevertheless, each chapter of the book-length story typically involved only one hero (and each was illustrated by a different artist), framed by opening and concluding chapters involving the entire team together.
The Justice Society of America’s adventures in All Star Comics were immensely popular, until – seemingly overnight – the bottom dropped out of the superhero comic industry at the end of the 1940s. With the exception of the two Superman titles (Superman and Action Comics), the two Batman titles, (Batman and Detective Comics) and Wonder Woman, DC abruptly dropped superheroes from their lineup of comics. (Two exceptions would be Aquaman and Green Arrow, who appeared as backups in other titles throughout the 1950s. I would argue, however, that those were more adventure-themed characters than superheroes. See WHO IS THIS JUSTICE LEAGUE? - PART SEVEN)
The Justice Society disappeared from the pages of All Star as quickly as they had appeared almost a decade earlier, and as quickly as the solo adventures of their individual members were jettisoned from their respective anthology titles. Gone were the likes of Wildcat, Black Canary and Dr. Fate – seemingly into the oblivion of forgotten comic characters.
THE SILVER AGE
By about 1949, the 8- to 12-year old boys at whom the superhero genre had been aimed had grown up, and the WW II servicemen had all returned from wartime and started their own families. Now comics shifted from superheroes to Westerns, Horror and Science Fiction. Even DC’s mainstay supers, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, took to largely battling monsters, witches and space aliens.
By 1956, DC Editor Julius Schwartz felt it was time to try out something “new”. Adhering to the adage that the target audience for comics was pre-teen boys and that their readership turned over about every five years, Schwartz surmised that there was practically no one left who remembered the superheroes who had disappeared seven years earlier. He decided to test the waters with a “recycled” hero in his new “try out” title, Showcase.
Showcase was a book where DC could feature new themes or characters without having to file for new postal rate certificates or convincing newsstand venders to carry untested titles. If – when the figures came in several months later – the character was a hit, Schwartz could give the character their own title. If sales were positive but inconclusive, he could decide to give the character another chance to generate some heat for two or three more issues of Showcase. (Of course, if the idea flopped, it never was heard from again!)
The first “new” hero Schwartz tried was the Flash. But this was not your grandfather’s Flash, he of winged helmets and booties, who graced the pages All Star Comics and Flash Comics in the 40s. Schwartz and writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome, and artists Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert chose instead to bring the Flash into the Jet Age and introduce the character to a whole new generation of comics readers. For the first appearance of what is now called the “Silver Age Flash”, the new writers and artists tossed out the clunky helmet, gave him an aerodynamic and sleek mostly-red costume and a hip new police/science secret identity. (See WHO IS THIS JUSTICE LEAGUE? - PART TWO)
Sales of Showcase #4 and the Flash’s next try-out issues in the title were apparently so good that DC not only gave the Flash his own title, but they also were encouraged to resurrect several other “Golden Age” heroes and debut them for their eager new audience. Soon, kids were reading the adventures of the revamped Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Flash.
With so many new heroes around, Schwartz naturally thought that the next step to take would be the same that his predecessor Sheldon Mayer had taken almost 20 years earlier: Put them in a team comic and have them fight evil together. It worked big, and – as described in Episodes Two through Nine of this column, the Justice League of America has been around in one form or another for almost 50 years!
But what about the heroes of the “Golden Age”? (A term that was not really used until the 1960s, when enough time had passed for comics fans and “historians” to step back and realize that one era had truly passed and they were somewhere within another era.) Although forgotten by his readership, five years after the inception of the “new” Flash the original DC characters were still roiling around in the back of writer Gardner Fox’s mind.
For the Flash #123 (July, 1961) he wrote what now could be called the most influential story of the Silver Age of comics. In “The Flash of Two Worlds”, Barry Allen - the “new” Flash’s civilian identity - recounts how as a kid he was always a fan of the “fictional” exploits of the (Golden Age) Flash in comic books. (Keep in mind that readers at the time were unaware that there really had been a Golden Age Flash, so this newly-introduced character truly was “fictional”.) In that story, the new Barry Allen Flash learns that the previous Flash’s world had indeed been “real”, when he accidentally bridges the gap between both realities.
Despite the fact that the Jay Garrick Flash’s world came “first”, in that first cross-over of Universes Barry Allen dubs that other world “Earth Two” and his own “Earth One”. The appellations stuck, and have been thusly named ever since.
Old met New in that seminal story, and the plot device was so popular with readers that Schwartz never looked back – utilizing it several more times in the next year in the Flash comic, and Green Lantern. The pages of the Justice League of America seemed to be the next natural step in the progression, and that’s where the fun begins!
PARALLEL LINES
Despite being aimed at its pre-teen readers, Fox’s writing is nothing less than brilliant for the premier meeting of the Justice League and Justice Society of America in the unusual double-issue story that spanned the pages of the Justice League of America #21 and #22 (Aug & Sep, 1963). The initial pages thoroughly detailed the “physics” behind the two Earths for readers curious why all these heroes hadn’t previously been tripping all over each other: “Unknown to the Justice League of America – at this same moment on a duplicate Earth occupying the same space as our own Earth, but separated from it because it vibrates at a different speed – is gathered a similar organization – the Justice Society of America…
“For those readers unfamiliar with the two Earths in which Barry (Flash) Allen and Jay (Flash) Garrick operate, we point out that two objects – like our planet Earth and its duplicate – can inhabit the same space if they vibrate (as all matter does, to an extent) at different speeds.”
(At the dawn of the 21st Century, we comic readers take these concepts for granted, but to readers in the early-Sixties this was heady stuff. I wonder how many readers were inspired not only to devour more science-fiction books but also to learn as much “real-world” science as possible to explain these fantastic concepts.)
The story of Justice League of America #21 begins with a meeting of that team called by the Batman to deal with “a new team of evil-doers – the Crime-Champions.” It turns out that some of the heroes’ foes – Chronos, Felix Faust and Doctor Alchemy – had assembled to rob a bank, a sunken ship and an armored car. He informs the team, “They boast they will rob and elude us – no matter what we do!” Naturally, the JLA decides to split up and battle each villain.
Meanwhile on a separate Earth, the members of another team – who had disbanded twelve years earlier – were meeting again for the first time to deal with a similar crisis. “Yes, after more than a decade of inactivity – the old Justice Society of America is meeting once again! True, there are a few gray hairs showing – and their faces are lined with the passage of time – but their mighty powers are only slightly dimmed…”
The seven JSA heroes from the parallel Earth – Black Canary, Doctor Fate, Hourman, Hawkman, the Atom, the Flash and Green Lantern – learn that they have also been challenged by a trio of their old nemeses, the Fiddler, the Wizard and the Icicle. The terrible triumvirate has also vowed to commit three million-dollar robberies and elude the team in the process. At the end of the introductory chapter, this super-team also splits into smaller groups to go after each villain.
Chapter 2 depicts each group of “our” heroes (the Justice League) battling in vain against their adversaries, as well as each group of JSA nonpareils trying in vain to vanquish their own foes. Faust defeats Aquaman despite the latter’s always-effective “finders-keepers” lesson to the local whales, (“Stop this wicked man from stealing money that belongs to the steamship company! Their divers located it! It belongs to them!”), and he naturally prevails over Martian Manhunter with a volley of fireballs. As soon as the Atom tries to clunk him in the jaw, the magician disappears in a puff of smoke.
The team dealing with Dr. Alchemy’s armored car robber suffers a similar fate: Flash is vibrated apart, Superman is disabled by a Kryptonite telephone pole and hydrant and Green Arrow is literally stuck in the mud. Alchemy similarly disappears when struck by Arrow’s arrows. Chronos easily dispatches Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and disappears upon contact with a desperately-thrown batarang.
Meanwhile, on their parallel Earth, the members of the Justice Society had their own troubles with the Wizard, the Fiddler and the Icicle. Later, “On the rim of twin Earths…” the two teams of super-baddies come together to discuss their victories in a well-appointed “great sphere of vibratory energy”. The Fiddler reveals how the villains stumbled on the same secret that previously only allowed the two Flashes to sport between their respective universes: “It was a lucky day for me when I discovered the vibratory pitch that opens the doors between our Earths…”
Then the Fiddler reveals the ace up his sleeve: The two Flashes “ran right into vibratory traps we set up for them … and reassembled inside those small spheres…” which “counter-vibrate to the vibratory speeds… so that no matter how fast either or both Flashes vibrate to escape, their vibrations are neutralized!” Their big plan was plan was for each trio of criminals to spend the loot from their robberies in the other Earth. Since the local super-team wouldn’t recognize them, they could party with impunity! (Okay, it was a weak plan. But if these guys weren’t so dim, the superheroes wouldn’t always defeat them.)
Not satisfied with the meager amounts of cash from the previous robberies, the Earth-Two villains devise plans for further capers on Earth-One. The only thing in their way is the Justice League of America. Disguised as the JLA’s foes, they notify the JLA of their plans to relieve “Casino Town, USA” of all its cash. Their plan is really to capture our super-team using the Wizard’s magicks… and it succeeds, because the team believes they are using their powers against their familiar foes.
Trapped by magic in their own headquarters, the JLA uses a crystal ball to communicate with the Flash of Earth One. The Flash reveals what they have overheard from being trapped in the vibratory spheres in the makeshift headquarters of the two teams of super-villains. The scene itself is pretty silly and standard early-60s comic fare. But what makes it remarkable is that it leads to the first meeting of the two teams of heroes from the parallel Earths (below).
(Note that the Golden Age Hawkman has no counterpart at this meeting. As detailed in WHO IS THIS JUSTICE LEAGUE? - PART EIGHT his Silver Age doppelganger was not inducted into the JLA for about another year.)
Anyway, I’m a fanboy – but this confab is pretty cool. And I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who, upon seeing this depiction of each character meeting his “alter ego” thought, “Is there another me in a parallel dimension? And if so, would I be super… or would I be evil and sport a cool beard?”
Dr. Fate’s magical powers freed the JLA, and the first meeting of the Justice League and Justice Society of America concluded Justice League of America #21, and was continued in the next issue of the comic.
If you’re a fan of all-out rockem’-sockem’, superhero on super villain action, Justice League of America #22 is for you. Not a single panel lacks for some sort of battle scene. (Artist Mike Sekowsky must have been cursing his editor and writer. It’s no wonder he described drawing the book as a pain, and these two issues must have given him fits!) Twelve of the heroes square off against the six villains in six separate vignettes, while the two Green Lanterns set out to free the two Flashes from their energy bubble prisons.
On Earth-One (again, that’s the one we know as the Silver Age Earth) the Wizard animates a stuffed polar bear and Gorilla to battle Hourman and the (Golden Age) Atom, while is attempting to rob a museum in Alfalfa City. (Quit laughing – this is serious business!) The highlight of that battle was the Atom throwing a Pterodactyl at Hourman, causing its wing to strike the sixty-minute super-guy’s belt and activate a frequency-jamming signal. Dr. Fate defeats the Icicle all by himself in Clayville, while Black Canary and Hawkman defeat the Wizard, despite interference from some rock creatures and Hawk’s malfunctioning wings.
Meanwhile, on Earth Two, the Atom saves his compatriots, Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow, while Felix Faust was giving them a “whirl”. We join Batman and Wonder Woman after Dr. Alchemy turns their planes into wild winged horses. Then, while being buried alive, the Amazing Amazon saves them with a new ability: spinning so fast she could drill her way up through the ground. After that pair defeats Alchemy, Superman and Aquaman square off against Chronos, whose “vibration watch” causes our fishy friend to fall into a coma. Supes is forced to fly A-man to an island containing a Kryptonite rock that will cure the hebetudinous hero. (Sounds reasonable, right?) Chronos escaped underwater, but Aquaman gets some of his finny pals to rat the villain out – leading to his capture.
The next problem freeing the Flashes from the energy bubbles, but once the Green Lanterns succeed, all the heroes disappear! Turns out, it was all in Felix Faust’s plan: They needed that extra energy boost to spring their final trap: All the heroes are now trapped in cages, linked together in space! (Didn’t I tell you that this story had everything?)
Believe it or not, I don’t want to spoil all the fun by describing the final battle in all its glorious detail. You really should pick up one of the two volumes (See Essential Reading, below) to read the two-part tale yourself. The climactic double-page fight scene with all the heroes and villains in all their Silver-Age glory, is worth the price of admission alone.
Whether intentionally or not on the part of writer Gardner Fox, the Fiddler portends the next year’s big JLA/JSA team up: “I’ve got it! There is an Earth-One and an Earth-Two! Somewhere there must be an Earth-Three! If we can find the doorway into it – before the Justice Champions find us – we can escape them forever!”
Until the next installment of Who Is This Justice League?, faithful reader… where we will learn the results of that fateful forewarning!
ESSENTIAL READING:
Crisis on Multiple Earths (2002). Showcase Presents, the Justice League of America, Vol. 2 (2007). Roy Thomas, All Star Compainion, Vols. I and II. Michael Eury, The Justice League Companion, Vol. I.
You can read more of this series of articles here:
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I've never read any of the Golden Age JSA tales, but from this article, it sounds like all they did was sit around and tell each other tales of their own adventures, not battle villains alongside each other. That can't be right, can it?
Posts: 240 | From: Lakewood, OH | Registered: Aug 2003
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The first JSA issue of All-Star Comics (#3) did take on that format. But then the format changed for most of the next twenty or so issues to each JSAer having their own chapter within a larger adventure; The story was set up and the JSA met, then they split up to tackle their own sub-set of the menace, then they came together again for the finale. Eventually, tho, the format changed further: same basic story structure, but most of the "sub-set" chapters featured team-ups of two or three JSAers.
Matthew
Posts: 4935 | From: Seattle, WA USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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Make that ten! The incontrovertable Ma Hunkel, The Red Tornado, also made a cameo appearance at the first JSA meeting!!! (Altho the only story she managed to "tell" was by way of a rather notable item she managed to leave behind when she departed...)
Matthew
Posts: 4935 | From: Seattle, WA USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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For the Flash #123 (July, 1961) he wrote what now could be called the most influential story of the Silver Age of comics. In “The Flash of Two Worlds”, Barry Allen - the “new” Flash’s civilian identity - recounts how as a kid he was always a fan of the “fictional” exploits of the (Golden Age) Flash in comic books. (Keep in mind that readers at the time were unaware that there really had been a Golden Age Flash, so this newly-introduced character truly was “fictional”.) In that story, the new Barry Allen Flash learns that the previous Flash’s world had indeed been “real”, when he accidentally bridges the gap between both realities.
On Earth-One (again, that’s the one we know as the Silver Age Earth) the Wizard animates a stuffed polar bear and Gorilla to battle Hourman and the (Golden Age) Atom, while is attempting to rob a museum in Alfalfa City. (Quit laughing – this is serious business!) The highlight of that battle was the Atom throwing a Pterodactyl at Hourman, causing its wing to strike the sixty-minute super-guy’s belt and activate a frequency-jamming signal. Dr. Fate defeats the Icicle all by himself in Clayville, while Black Canary and Hawkman defeat the Wizard, despite interference from some rock creatures and Hawk’s malfunctioning wings.
ESSENTIAL READING: 
