G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero Pt. 1

Marvel Comics' G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero launched in 1982 in conjunction with Hasbro's revamping of their venerable, long-lived G.I. Joe toy line. The heavily accessorized, Barbie-sized action figures of various soldiers that had been around since the 1960s was being reborn as a line of 3.75-inch, Star Wars-sized toys, complete with vehicles, playsets and, perhaps most importantly, a rather complex backstory involving soldiers from various branches of the military battling a fictional terrorist organization. 

Larry Hama wrote the series, with Herb Trimpe serving as the initial pencil artist. Trimpe would leave relatively soon, but Hama would stick with the series for the duration, eventually penning the majority of a saga that spanned 155 issues over 12 years, spawning several spin-offs and, many years later, being eventually un-canceled by later publishers to hold the G.I. Joe license; in fact, Hama is still writing a continuation of his original Marvel series today, currently for Image Comics. 

In 1982, I was only five-years-old, and probably too young forthe toys—I would get my first Masters of the Universe toys that Christmas. I was definitely too young for the G.I. Joe comic book. I mean, I had just started learning to read at that point, and while I could manage the funnies, picture books and the little story boooks and comics packed with the He-Man guys, a whole full-size 22-page comic book would have been too much for me...especially one as relatively complicated and sophisticated as what Hama and were producing.

But by 1985, when the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero TV series began airing after school (following a pair of five-part miniseries), I was eight years old, and pretty much the prime target audience. I watched the show five days a week (along with Transformers, which aired right before it at 4 p.m.). I didn't have a lot of the toys, so I wouldn't say I collected them or anything, but I did have some, as did many of my friends at school, and we would play with them together. I also read a few "Choose Your Own Adventures"-style paperbacks with intriguing painted covers, books in which you, the reader, were cast as a member of the Joe team (I believe "my" codename in one was "Wise Guy"), and I remember eating a G.I. Joe breakfast cereal at one point; it tasted a bit like Cap'n Crunch and was shaped like stars.

I never really got into the comics though, for whatever reason. I did buy and read a few; looking at the Grand Comics Database, I see that I had read 1986's #44 and #49 (both of which had particularly great covers by Mike Zeck) and 1989's #83. I can't remember if I had bought them with my own money, or if they were given to me by my mom or grandmother when I was home sick from school; as I mentioned before, they used to get me comics when I was sick, perhaps to give me something else to do while lying on the couch than just watching daytime TV. Oh, and I also read a reprint of G.I. Joe #2, in Tales of G.I. Joe #2; that particular story we'll talk about below.

Aside from those, though, and some of the classic comics that would later be collected by Image and IDW in trade paperbacks this century, the Marvel G.I. Joe comic has long been one of my many, manly blind spots in comics history. 

In 2024, Image released G.I. Joe: A Real Americal Hero Compendium One, a 1,000+ page, paperback collecting the first 50 issues of the series. According to the back cover, it cost $86.99, but I got it for some $50 cheaper, via the evil book-selling website. It looks like the whole series will end up being collected in four such volumes, the last of which is due for release this September.

That seemed like a good price point for 50 issues of a comic book series that I've been curious about my whole life. So now I've got what is probably the thickest book I've ever owned sitting on the table next to me as I type this post, a book that, at three-inches thick, is slightly bigger than even the biggest omnibus collection I own. Unlike other omnibuses on my shelves, it also has the benefit of probably cheaper, pulpy paper that looks and feels like that of comic books from the eighties and, because of the lighter-weight cover, it doesn't creak or moan or feel like it's going to fall apart in my hands as I read it. 

Somewhat to my surprise (even dismay), the comic is really good, too. 

Like, right out of the gate. As soon as I would finish an issue, I found myself wanting to read the next, which was easily accomplished, as there are 49 "next" issues in this very volume. (This is dismaying, of course, because it cuts into my productivity; I have repeatedly found myself preferring to read just one more issue of G.I. Joe rather than reading something I needed to read, or writing something I needed to write).

I will, of course, be blogging my way through the book. I considered reviewing it as a whole, but, well, despite the fact that it is now being sold as a series of four huge books, Hama and company weren't creating it as such, but rather as a series of single issues (In this volume, the series starts as done-in-ones, then gradually grows; I'm currently on issue #18, and it seems to be involving into more of a serial, with plotlines now running from issue to issue). 

There's that, of course, and then there's the simple fact that it is just so goddam big. 

So, after all these paragraphs of background, I'm going to tackle the first handful of issues, via bullet pointed thoughts. This will be the first in what will ultimately be a very, very long series, I suppose.

I'm posting the cover images from the Grand Comics Database to separate the issues, but in the compendium's reproduction of those covers, the strip along the top reading "Marvel Comics Group" is blank, and the boxes with Spider-Man's mug in them in the lower left corner, spaces where the UPC symbol appears on the newsstand versions, are also blank.

Oh, and all issues are written by Hama unless otherwise noted. 

Ready?

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #1 (1982) 

"Operation: Lady Doomsday" art by Herb Trimpe and Bob McLeod and "...Hot Potato!" art by Don Perlin and Jack Abel

•Trimpe and McLeod's cover is now iconic, so much so that I feel like I've always known what the cover of the first issue of G.I. Joe looked like, even if I had never read it (Or read it over 20 years ago and had forgotten it). The image's only real rival on that front would seem to be that of 1984's issue #21, Ed Hannigan and Klaus Janson's image of Snake-Eyes scaling a wall while firing a gun on the infamous silent issue. 

•I was a little surprised that the first issue wasn't a little more "toyetic," given that it owed its existence to the selling of toys. I mean, the average Batman comics or Justice League comic seems more toyetic than the "Operation: Lady Doomsday" story. 

Although, on the other hand, the toy line had just started, the TV show was years away and there were only so many figures and vehicles in the line at this point. Revisiting it today, it seems odd to see, like, generic Cobra guys working the computers and communications equipment rather than Televipers, or regular old helicopters and tanks with the Cobra symbol painted on them rather than Cobra FANG helicopters or HISS tanks (My best friend growing up had both; the one-man F.A.N.G. with the detachable missiles was particularly cool). 

•The plot of "Operation: Lady Doomsday" is that scientist Dr. Adele Burkhart, "the nation's top nuclear physicist" and "one of the top brains behind The Doomsday Project" has stated that she was misled by the United States government about the true nature of the mysterious project, which she says in a press conference was "the development of a retaliatory weapons system capable of annihilating all life on this planet!"

Hama doesn't elaborate on the specifics any more than that, but this being the early 1980s and her being a nuclear physicist, it no doubt has something to do with nuclear weapons. As a child in that decade, I was genuinely scared of the possibility of nuclear war more or less all the time. 

By the fall of the Soviet Union, that fear subsided, and, in the new millennium, it seemed catastrophic climate change was the true danger of life on our planet.  Of course, now we seem to have a genuine madman, a person who has never demonstrated any genuine empathy for any other human being and doesn't even pretend to care about the loss of life, in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. And the U.S. is currently at war with Iran, an ally to Russia, who is feeding them intelligence. While Russia is at war with Ukraine, an ally of NATO and, traditionally, the U.S., and the U.S. is backing Ukraine. So honestly, the threat of nuclear war—or at least some limited use of nuclear weapons—has resurfaced now that I'm in middle age.

•Anyway, Burkhart is on her way to testify before congress, and several characters seem to equate her rethinking her participation in the project as something akin to betrayal of the country. When Cobra kidnaps her and whisks her away to a heavily fortified island in the Caribbean, it presents a moral dilemma for our heroes to wrestle with a bit, as they are being tasked with rescuing her. 

Short-Fuse asks Hawk if she's a traitor, and the Joe leader replies, "We each took an oath to defend the constitution of the United States. That constitution guarantees the right of every citizen to disagree with the government." 

Damn, has the current commander-in-chief read this? (Ha ha, just kidding; it is a well-known fact that he doesn't read, like, anything. I'm sure that includes comics). What about the current secretary of defense? Or secretary of state?

In the next panel, Snake-Eyes asks via sign language that Scarlett translates, "How the rights of an individual compare to the safety of the entire world?", going on to suggest that a bombing raid would solve the problem with less risk.

Hawk argues, "We're the good guys, remember? The island has a civilian population--Besides it's not our job to judge Dr. Burkhart."

The U.S. military defending the rights of citizens to disagree with their government and wanting to avoid civilian casualties...?! What a refreshing change from the headlines of today! I know this is a comic book fantasy glorifying the United States military to children, but I still like to hear it!

Similarly, later, when the Joes ultimately rescue her, Burkhart apologizes to them for thinking so badly of the military before, saying, "I guess I forgot no one has a monopoly on scruples."

•The Secret Service all wear matching black hats in this that make them look like the Blues Brothers. Did they wear old school hats with brims back in the '80s? I don't know; I didn't watch the news back then.

•There's a panel on, like, page three where The Baroness, who was posing as a reporter at a press conference, pulled something out of her bag and screwed it on to her camera, transforming it into a gun, and I, a 49-year-old man, thought, "Whoa, that's cool!" I can only imagine what that must have looked like, to, like, a 10-year-old.  

•After we see Cobra and The Baroness kidnap Burkhart, who and what Cobra are is explained in a sequence in The Pentagon during which a General Austin and General Flagg discuss them. Amusingly, the image shown on the computer screen in front of them looks vaguely Nazi-like, with some figures in the background at a reviewing stand as soldiers march by, but the marching seems to be some sort of parade, with a Cobra soldier in the foreground astride a horse, drums on its side.

•It's not hard to see why Snake-Eyes would quickly be the breakout character here...eventually becoming so popular that, for a period in 1993 and 1994, the book would seem to be retitled G.I. Joe Starring Snake-Eyes, at least based on the covers. 

As the generals talks about calling G.I. Joe into action, a woman calls up 14 headshots on the screen. I'll rattle off some names, if you're a G.I. Joe fan: Hawk, Zap, Grand Slam, Short-Fuse, Scarlett, Steeler, Flash, Grunt, Clutch, Stalker, Braker, Rock 'N Roll, Snake-Eyes and Shooter (Although I'm not sure if a "Shooter" ever actually appears in the comic, or if he's just a guy needed to fill up the screens). They are overwhelmingly a bunch of interchangeable looking white guys in green. 

Dressed in all-black with a mask and goggles over his face, Snake-Eyes immediately stands out. Scarlett, the only woman, and Stalker, the only person of color, similarly stand out from the pack. To a lesser degree, so too does Rock 'N Roll who, while still a white guy in army green, at least has a big, bushy blonde beard to distinguish him from the others.

Eventually, the Joes would become much more diverse in every way, with radically different costumes that often had to do with their specific military specialties in some way, but, at this point, the Joes seem to be overwhelmingly made up of "green shits", and I had trouble telling who was who throughout much of the issue. 

This group, minus Shooter, would be the entirety of the Joe team for the first year of the book, by the way.

•At two points in the story, generic Cobra soldiers run up to Cobra Commander and stick their arms straight up in the air. On the first occasion, it looked like the soldier was raising his hand, like a school kid trying to get the attention of their teacher. When it happened a second time, I assumed this was supposed to be some sort of stiff-armed salute. This too is vaguely Nazi-esque, although here it is drawn in such a way that the salute looks like the soldiers are performing it straight up, rather than at a Nazi-like angle. 

•While the comic never lingers on death, it's clear that people die in this comic, which seems striking, given the fact that all of the laser blasts and explosions of the cartoon never lead to any casualties. There are a few panels showing the bodies of Cobra soldiers thrown into the air during explosions and, in one scene, the Joes discover that Cobra apparently slaughtered the island's civilian population off-panel, as they find their corpses in a village and remark upon the fact in the dialogue, while the art depicts a few bodies strewn about the panel in a relatively long-shot. 

•The first issue includes a 10-page back-up entitled "...Hot Potato!", starring Scarlett, Snake-Eyes and Rock 'N Roll on a mission "Somewhere in the Middle East..." Cobra is only nominally involved, and are said to be bankrolling a Colonel Sharif and his "fanatical" Guardians of Paradise group.

The enemy group are brown-skinned and apparently vaguely Islamic (they call the Joes "infidels", in addition to speaking of paradise), but the comic never gets into specifics in terms of what country the action might be set in or where Sharif and his Guardians hails from. Here the Joe's opponents are even more unequivocally killed, being mowed down with machine guns and blown up in explosions.  

G.I Joe, A Real American Hero #2 (1982)

Art by Don Perlin and Jack Abel

•This is one story I know I have definitely read before, as I was familiar with the cover, the character Kwinn, the weasel skull necklace and the events of the book...even if I didn't recall all of the details.

I didn't read the original issue in 1982, though, but a 1988 reprint of it in Tales of G.I. Joe #2. At that point, I would have been about 11 and would have been steeped in G.I. Joe lore via the cartoon and toys. I remember buying it from a spinner rack in a drug store, making it one of the earliest comic books I had ever read. 

•It's set at the North Pole, but the Joes don't yet have any of their winter weather specialists like Snow Job or Iceberg, so Stalker, Snake-Eyes, Scarlett and Breaker are tasked with the mission to investigate a remote U.S. military installation where everyone is found shot to death. The nearest people, and thus the only real suspects, are at a relatively nearby remote Soviet military installation, although given that such an action could lead to the Cold War becoming a hot war, that doesn't seem too likely. 

•There's a short passage where the four Joes are all pulled away from leave to go on this mission, and we get hints of what they do when they have free time. The bit with Stalker is fun, as Hama's script and Perlin's art at fist intimate that he's hunting a deer—perhaps, you might say, stalking it—and at the end of the sequence we see he is actually just trying to take a photo of it.

The bit with Snake-Eyes is more revealing. He's found in a sensory deprivation chamber tank in a  Columbia University basement. When he emerges, the military guy who has come to summon him sees him without his mask on. (The readers only see the back of his head.) 

"My God!" the army guy chokes, "Th-that face..."

"He'll be far more presentable if you give him time to put his mask back on..." one of the two men in lab coats says. "We've grown accustomed to his appearance!"

This is the first intimation in the comic that the reason Snake-Eyes wears a mask is that he's horribly disfigured. 

•The plot, which is another extremely solid done-in-one story, involves a big, burly, extremely competent mercenary named Kwinn. In fact, he's so competent that he repeatedly outmaneuvers the Joes, who ultimately only survive their conflict with him here because he feels badly about the work he's doing, and leaves them enough of a lifeline that they ultimately pull-through. At one point, Scarlett delivers a flying kick to the back of his head, and he swats her way, unphased by the blow. 

•Apparently, the Soviets were working on some sort of secret device to "beam low frequency fear waves at the U.S. in an experiment to induce mass paranoia."  The Soviet operatives weren't immune to the fear waves themselves, though, and grew paranoid that the nearby Americans were spying on them, so they went and killed them all. Then their heater broke down, but by then they were "too far gone" to fix it and ended up freezing to death. The Soviets then hired Kwinn to recover a key component from the fear wave device and the Americans' research and then to destroy all of the evidence.  

•Kwinn is apparently Inuit, although, this being 1982, he is referred to as "Eskimo" throughout. The Joes aren't particularly sensitive to Kwinn's ethnicity, either. Stalker refers to him at one point as "our blubber-chewing friend."

•The last page of this comic is so good. Just all-around perfect comics storytelling. 

G.I Joe, A Real American Hero #3 (1982)

Art by Herb Trimpe, Jack Abel and Jon D'Agostino

•Entitled "The Trojan Gambit", this issue's done-in-one story sees the G.I. Joe team taking a disassembled Cobra robot back to their secret underground headquarters to examine in the aftermath of their latest (and here off-panel) battle against the terrorist organization. The huge robot looks much more generic inside the book than it does on artist Bob Hall's cover, and much smaller; it's actually only about twice the size of a human being, while the one on the cover looks more mecha-sized.

•Hama has a fun, sitcom-esque set-up for this issue. The Joe's base, The Pit, is located beneath the Chaplin's Assistant's School at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, New York. Hawk and Scarlett change into their "dress greens" uniforms to attend the Chaplin's Assistant's Social Tea being held in the motor pool above The Pit. Cobra Commander expected the Joes to take the robot back to their radio and ray-shielded base for analysis, though (see the title), and he has a plan: The robot is pre-programmed to reassemble itself and then fight its way out of their HQ, at which point it can transmit a homing beacon back to Cobra and reveal the location of the Joe base. So, while the other Joes are in a pitched battle with a killer robot, Hawk and Scarlett have to play it cool, making excuses for the strange smells and sounds escaping to the surfaces before the attendees at the party become suspicious.

•The robot re-assembly sequence is pretty neat. First, the robot's left hand awakens, throws itself off the exam table, and crawls around like a disembodied hand or arm in an old-school B-movie. Then, when the other hand awakens too, there's a panel in which the two hands stand up and walk around, using their middle fingers like legs and their other fingers like arms, like hands in an old cartoon, to carry the robot's head. 

•Hasbro had yet to release any Cobra vehicle toys at this point, so it's up to Heck to design them however he sees fit. While awaiting the robot's beacon, Cobra Commander has his men standing by in hovering helicopters for an imminent attack; these Heck gives cobra hood-like designs, making them look a little like the heads of the snake. 

G.I Joe, A Real American Hero #4 (1982)

Plot by Herb Trimpe

Art by Herb Trimpe, Jon D'Agostino and Jack Abel

•Bob Hall's cover has pretty much nothing to do with this issue, although I guess some of those Joes do appear in this book (I don't think Hawk has worn such a hat at all in the series yet, though). It makes me wonder if this was just an inventory one applied to this issue for one reason or another. 

•The first page of this issue is a splash featuring the face of Commander Wingfield, leader of a Montana para-military group called Strike First, which Hawk says in a briefing are believed to be funded by an international terrorist organization, perhaps Cobra. Wingfield sports a preposterous handlebar moustache, more Snidely Whiplash than Doctor Mindbender.

•Hama and Trimpe never let on what exactly the militia's ideology, religion or politics might be—not unlike Cobra, they seem to be bad guys who are simply bad without a real-world motivation beyond a generic, comic book desire to rule the world—but they are stockpiling weaponry, recruiting soldiers and moving their families to their compound. 

And they do have a pair of nuclear bombs. Wingfield's master plan is to fly across the Pacific and bomb the Soviet city of Vladivostock (Which seems to be a real city in Russia, although when I Googled it, it was spelled without the "c"). The Soviets, their thinking goes, will assume that the United States is responsible and will respond, setting off a nuclear exchange. Afterwards, Strike First will emerge from their bunker to take over. 

Plan B is to set off the second nuclear bomb right there at their camp should the authorities raid them, which might also set off a nuclear exchange, although in that case they will all be dead and unable to take over the world afterwards.

•This reminded me a bit of Peter Laird's 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #12, in which the Turtles encounter a militia in rural New Hampshire that also has a nuclear bomb. I can't recall what their plan for it was, though.

•The Joes' mission is to infiltrate the militia. Hawk and Grunt go undercover, joining up and going through Wingfield's rigorous basic training (and they have to keep intentionally holding back—running slower, fighting with less skill—so as not to give themselves away). Meanwhile, Snake-Eyes will sneak around the perimeter and do Snake-Eyes stuff. We see the notes he takes while doing his observations, written in cursive on a notepad, and the notes serving as narration boxes in several panels. Snake-Eyes has really nice handwriting!

•There were passages of this issue where Trimpe and company's artwork reminded me of the work of Benjamin Marra and the more recent graphic novel work of Derf (mostly in the drawings of Hawk's face), while others reminded me of John Romita (mostly in the drawings of Grunt) and Jack Kirby (some of the physical action). Romita and Kirby make sense, given that this was an early '80s Marvel book, but as for the others...? I don't know; did Trimpe maybe inspire those guys? (I wouldn't be surprised in the case of Marra, whose Terror Assaulter: O.M.W.O.T. has a degree of post-modern adult power fantasy G.I. Joe-ishness about it.) It might just be me, though. 

G.I Joe, A Real American Hero #5 (1982)

Art by Don Perlin, Jon D'Agostino and Mike Esposito

•This issue opens with some of the boys washing "the o'l MOBAT--Multi-Ordinance Battle Tank", the team's highly advanced super-tank, which, we are told, is "packed with stuff our Cobra enemies would curl up and die for." They're prepping it to appear in a military parade in New York City; despite the tank's secret nature, General Flagg wants to roll it by the joint chiefs of staff to convince them that no one will be able to tell the difference between the MOBAT and a regular, more run-of-the-mill tank. For the first two and a half pages, Clutch, Breaker and Grunt talk up the tank and its various features to a completely unimpressed Scarlett. Naturally, each of the features they mention in passing here will later become key in the comic. Is this an example of Chekov's gun...? Or maybe Chekov's tank...? 

•Cobra Commander is in the process of engaging in what appears to be his hobby—sitting on a cobra-shaped throne and shooting at mannequins of the members of the G.I. Joe team across the room—when the Cobra spy network informs him that the MOBAT will be in the parade. A plan is quickly formulated to steal the tank, as Cobra is just as interested in it as the Joes said they would be a few pages earlier.

•Their plan involves agents disguised as a suspiciously bad marching band and a huge float with secret doors. It doesn't go off quite as planned, though, and the rest of the issue is devoted to a chase through the streets of New York, as Cobra forces try to catch, corner and take the unarmed and thus mostly defenseless tank from the three Joes operating it.

•Steeler uses the tank's "electronic gun sight turned on full magnification" to perv on one of the majorettes in the band in front of them. He doesn't yet realize that the butt he is ogling is actually that of a Cobra agent. 

•In Central Park, some jocks from City High make fun of the Cobra agents for their choice of disguise. That's right, only nerds would join a stupid marching band, kids. Now you know...and knowing is half the battle!

•Quite audaciously, Cobra Commander and The Baroness have stationed themselves beneath the parade's reviewing stand for this operation...quite literally under the noses of Flagg and the other generals. When their position is finally revealed by Clutch, Flagg and Cobra Commander pull their guns on one another, but the Commander is protected by standing amidst a nearby Girl Scout troop.

"You would have fired by now if you had it in you!" Cobra Commander taunts him, "But you are weak, Flagg-- --And I am strong!" 

Strong, maybe, but a lousy shot. The Commander fires at Flagg but ends up just grazing him ("TZINGGG!", a good bullet-whizzing-past sound effect) before fleeing.

A few panels later, Clutch questions Flagg, who we are told is the captain of the army pistol team: "I've seen you put a whole clip in the bull's eye--at ten times that range--but you never even released your safety!"

"Yeah, well, that's why we're the good guys," Flagg responds. Apparently, he didn't want to even risk the remote possibility of hitting a little girl.

Again, while it might be a fantasy that the U.S. military is that noble that they would let a terrorist get away to avoid a potential civilian casualty, it's a nice and comforting fantasy. 

•I started this book fully expecting it to be a bit of a slog, especially at the beginning, as most of the characters I know and like the best weren't introduced until a few years into the franchise's existence, but that has not been the case. These first five issues were all tightly constructed done-in-one stories, offering plenty of action, engaging plots and just enough characterization to care about the various players. And while I'm not super-familiar with the genre of war comics, my main exposure being DC's WWII-set comics of the 1970s that they collected in those Showcase Presents black-and-white collections, Hama and company seem to have done a fine job of updating that particular waning comics genre and synthesizing it with many of the conventions of superhero comics.

G.I Joe, A Real American Hero #6 (1982)

Plot by Herb Trimpe

Art by Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel

•This begins the first multi-issue storyline in the series, a two-parter that concludes with the next issue. 

•The plot for this one actually involves several real countries, and thus probably felt more ripped-from-the-headlines than some of the other stories that have appeared in the title so far...although I'm not sure how many G.I. Joe readers in 1982 actually also read newspapers. 

A secret Russian spy plane that utilizes anti-gravity technology has crashed in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan. A CIA team has made contact with the Afghanis who have it in their possession, but the Joe team is needed to transport it. They will be doing so via a big Rough Terrain Vehicle (or RTV; as you've probably noticed, G.I. Joe is a comic in love with acronyms), which looks a little like a giant truck version of a lunar rover. It will be parachuted piecemeal into Afghanistan along with the Joes, and they will then assemble it, load their cargo on it and drive it to Pakistan and safety. Complicating matters are the fact that both the Soviet Union and Cobra will be after the plane as well.

•The RTV, by the way, is not from the toy line, but an original—if toyetic!—creation of Trimpe's here, I guess. 

•On the plane rider over, a clean-shaven Clutch—it seems like the artists or colorist forgot his beard in this panel; that, or it grows really fast, as it will be present in future panels—hits on Scarlett. Here's the whole exchange.

Clutch: Hey, Scarlett! I hear you're going to be riding shotgun on the Ar-Tee-Vee!

Scarlett: What of it, Clutch?

Clutch: Well, if you get tired of staring at Steeler's ugly mug, maybe you can ride point with me and we could, uh, run out of gas somewhere...?

Scarlett: Frankly, Clutch--I'd sooner have a date with Clint Eastwood's baboon.

Clutch: It's your loss, babe!

Scarlett: Don't call me "babe", you grease monkey!

Though it seems like a bit of a throwaway scene here, Hama will revisit Scarlett's ill feelings towards Clutch in future issues, so this seems like the beginning of real enmity between the pair. (As I was only five years old in 1982 and thus wasn't up on the pop culture of the moment, I had to Google "Clint Eastwood's baboon". I came up empty, so I imagine Scarlett was referring to Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can, in which Eastwood co-stars with an orangutan, not a baboon. "Baboon" is a funnier word, though.)

•Interesting to read this story from the other side of 9/11, as Trimpe and Hama take some jabs at the CIA while lionizing the Afghan rebels, who, at the time, we were supporting in their war against the Soviet Union.

The Afghanis are depicted as so competent that they get the drop on the Joes, and though Hama writes their leader Ahmed's dialogue in a broken English to demonstrate that it is not his first language ("Please to accept apology for being too cautious!"), they are depicted as the rough equivalent of the America's elite fighting force.

When the CIA guy ribs Stalker about the incident—"Looks like these Himalayan hillbillies really caught you guys with your pants down...If they had been the October Guard, the top Russian assault team--you'd be buzzard meat right now"—Stalker dismisses him coldly. 

"Look, you tend to your business and we'll tend to ours!" he says. "You wanna be helpful, you give a hand with the crates! And if that ain't exciting enough for you-- --you can just grab a machine gun and join our team!"

Later, Ahmed tells Stalker that the CIA guy was similarly surprised by them upon his arrival ("We scare him so bad he drop his gun and surrender before he remember password!"). Ahmed asks Stalker if the Americans can send them weapons to fight the Russians, and Stalker says he will do what he can. 

When the Joes leave the camp, the CIA guy tells Ahmed that Stalker, "a two-bit line infantryman", is not actually in a position to promise anything.

"He is a fighting man!" Ahmed counters.

"So?" the CIA guy replies.

"I knew you wouldn't understand!"

•Oh, back to something the CIA guy said earlier though. "October Guard." That's the Soviet equivalent of G.I. Joe. I was really surprised to see them in this comic (That's them on the other side of Cobra Commander's mask on the cover). That's because I had assumed they had originated on the cartoon, but I guess not; Trimpe and Hama must have created them for the comic before they made it onto TV a few years later.

They first appear in a pretty spectacular double-page splash, which I think is the first of the whole series. In it, the Joes' RTV and VAMP (Vehicle Attack/Multi-Purpose) are in the process of crossing a deep gorge, and the October Guard are doing the same in their own high-tech vehicle, and everyone is blasting at everyone else, the firefight continuing as everyone's in mid-air. 

•No one dies in the ensuing gun battle, and eventually they all get close enough to switch to hand-to-hand combat, too. No one dies in that either, but then, it only goes on for about two pages, before a small army of Cobra troopers arrives and surrounds both teams. In the series' first cliffhanger ending, we get a close-up of Cobra Commander, the Joes and Guard seen reflected in his facemask, not entirely unlike on the cover.

"Sergeant, collect their arms..." he orders an underling, "Then, you may line up all the prisoners by the ravine-- --AND KILL THEM!"

Is this the end of the G.I. Joe team...and The October Guard? Well, given that there's still over a thousand pages left in this collection, probably not, but as to how they will get out of this situation, we will have to wait until the next post, because I have decided six issues is more than enough per post on G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero. 

I do hope you guys are interested in Marvel's G.I. Joe comics too, because the series ran 155 issues, so, divided by six that's...about 25 posts. Although given that these compendiums also include spin-off series and specials, it will likely turn out to be more than that....

Batgirl on a horse!

Takeshi Miyazawa draws Batgirl on a horse in 2025's Batgirl #9, collected in Batgirl Vol. 2: Bloodlines. 

I can't believe it took me this long to learn that DC Special #27, aka Danger: Dinosaurs At Large!, existed.

Two things I have been extremely interested in for my entire life have been dinosaurs and DC Comics superheroes. Despite that fact, I had never seen, nor heard of, 1977's DC Special #27, emblazoned with what appears to be the title of the comic, but I guess is actually just the title of the 34-page story that filled the issue, "Danger: Dinosaurs at Large!"

It's a pretty good-looking logo, though, and while I could take or leave the "at large," I think "Danger: Dinosaurs" promises a lot of potential. I mean, I would read a comic book with that title...!

In looking for the first time that the Justice Society encountered the Spear of Destiny in DC Special #29, I ended up looking at the gallery of the 1968-1977 series on The Grand Comics Database, and this one stood out. Because, again, dinosaurs.

To my surprise and delight, DC had actually collected this issue. It's in 2011's Secret Society of Super Villains Vol. 2, presumably because it stars Captain Comet, who looks like he's the hero of the SSoSV book, which I have never read and thus don't really know anything about. 

A relatively minor character, Captain Comet was created in 1951 by, according to Wikipedia, Julius Schwartz, John Broome and Carmine Infantino. He therefore appeared well after the superhero boom of the early 1940s, but before the genre's Silver Age revival, which may explain his being a relatively minor character in the first place. 

After a decent run in the pages of Strange Adventures, the Captain went into character limbo...until he started appearing in SSoSV and related stories in 1976 and 1977 and then reentered limbo after the DC Implosion. In the decades since, he's occasionally shown up in various DC space-related comics, and I understand Mark Waid has been using him in his recent Superboy stories in Action Comics. 

His appearance in this comic is, of course, part of his late 1970s adventures. He's not the only old sci-fi character in "Danger: Dinosaurs at Large!", as the first page reveals:

The other guy, the blonde in purple, is Tommy Tomorrow. Created in 1947 by five guys whose names don't sound familiar to me, he went from the pages of a Real Fact Comics to the back pages of Action Comics to World's Finest Comics to Showcase. I don't think I've ever actually read a story with him in it, but from what I see in this comic and from a few minutes of Internet research, he seems like a more-or-less generic space hero in the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon mold, a handsome, effective and all-around stand-up guy having adventures in the future. 

Bringing these two—And dinosaurs! Don't forget the dinosaurs!—together in this issue are writer Bob Rozakis, pencil artist Rich Buckler and inker Joe Rubinstein. How would they accomplish this? Time travel, of course!

That opening splash page above is followed by a pretty great two-page splash, featuring two scenes separated by many years and visually spaced out on the pages, bisected by the fiery diagonal slash of a meteor or comet:

On the left, it's 1977 aboard the Justice League satellite, and Captain Comet is hanging out with Hawkman, speaking in expository dialogue (Cap's been away for 20 years, he's a mutant born 100,000 years before his time) and telling Katar-Hol how he likes spending time with him. Is he about to make a confession of some sort? If so, the meteorite, and Hawkman refers to the object, interrupts them; it suddenly materializes, and disappears just as suddenly.

On the right, it's 2056 aboard a spaceship headed towards Vega IV to deliver medicine to help with a space-fever epidemic. Tommy Tomorrow (who looks kind of old to still be going by "Tommy" instead of "Tom" or "Thomas") and a Brent Wood are dressed in matching purple uniforms and are apparently in charge of piloting the ship. With them is an older bespectacled bald guy (Um, who I guess is my point-of-view character, as he's the one who looks most like me at this point). He's also dressed in purple, but a duller, paler shade, and without the snappy white gloves of Tommy and Brent. 

The comet, as they call it, catches them in its " remendous gravitational pull" and it drags their ship along with it as it travels back to the past of "100,000,000 B.C.", where they are soon beset by huge pterosaurs (I'm not sure what the prevailing thoughts on the matter were in 1977, as I was still an infant, but 100 million years ago wouldn't have been dinosaur times; we now know they all went extinct about 165 million years ago).

Using their ship's laser field, they blow the head off of one of the poor beasts and then crash land. Tommy decides to go scout for the comet, as that is what brought them there. He takes the bald guy, who turns out to be a doctor, with him. If I were Tommy, I probably would have chosen my fellow big, strapping guy with a laser gun to accompany me instead of the elderly, easily frightened doctor, but then, what do I know? I'm not a Planeteer. (Oh, that's what Tommy and Brent are, I guess; not to be confused to those kids who use their magic rings to summon Captain Planet.)

Meanwhile, back in 1977, a triceratops appears in the Gotham subway, and a gorgosaurus in Tokyo, "the city that has been 'destroyed' countless times in the movies by Godzilla." Aboard the satellite, Hawkman appoints Captain Comet "an honorary member of the JLA" so that he can take over for him on monitor duty, and teleports himself down to Gotham City to fight dinosaurs.

Other Leaguers make dinosaur-fighting cameos while Captain Comet watches from above, although there's one "costumed character" confronting a brontosaurus in Sheboygan that he doesn't' recognize, presumably because of having been in space for 20 years. Reader will, of course, recognize him by his yellow cape, striped pants and the clock hands on his forehead: Chronos!

In the prehistoric past, something happens involving a dinosaur. Something awesome:

A Tyrannosaurus rex is wandering nearby the comet—which I guess is technically now a meteorite now that it's landed, right?—only for it to emit a flare of radiation that causes the dinosaur "an instant mutation," turning him into a man-sized humanoid dinosaur, teaching him English and even mutating clothes onto him. That's some radiation!

The newly christened Tyrano Rex will soon demonstrate a super-power of sorts: He's able to control dinosaurs! Immediately I wondered why I've never seen this dude in any other comics before. I mean, a humanoid T. rex with the power to control dinosaurs sounds like a pretty cool supervillain, right? Surely someone must have encountered him while reading this comic as a kid and then later grew up to write for DC Comics, right? 

It's only a page later that Tommy and the doctor stumble upon this bizarre scene:

Our new friend Tyrano Rex apparently built an altar for his "god", the comet/meteorite? And somehow forged and sculpted golden pterodactyls to adorn it? And what's with that weird TV screen behind and, here, seemingly connected to the altar, upon which we can see scenes from the "future"? 

And, most importantly, just what on Earth is the dinosaur man doing? Note the motion line by his left arm. It looks like he's...exercising...?

What I love most about this page is that it doesn't make much more sense in context than it does out of context. I mean, anyone encountering it anywhere would probably react similarly to the doctor: "Good Lord...what's that?"

Then, it's time for action! 

Tyrano tells his "people" (a bunch of dinosaurs and pterosaurs nearby) that the men from the future are evil spirits come to steal their god, and he sics them on our heroes. Tommy uses his "space-gun" to cover them as they begin their retreat to the ship. 

And then, back in the seventies, Captain Comet notices Chronos gloating in front of what he calls a "hole" but appears to be identical to the screen above Tyrano's comet altar. It's through this that the dinosaurs are coming into the present. 

Captain Comet flies from the satellite to Wisconsin and helps Chronos fight off a brontosaurus and a pair of "stegosauri". During the battle, Chronos uses a surprising array of time-based weapons, including spear-like watch hands and blinding "sands of time". Unfortunately for the time thief, Captain Comet was able to read his mind during the scene (Oh, apparently Captain Comet can read minds; this, like his other powers, he announces and explains at various points in the story). By doing so, he learns that Chronos is actually a villain.

In fact, he's the villain of the piece, even if he didn't make it on the cover like Tyrano Rex did. It was Chronos who drew the comet towards Earth (um, somehow), hoping to possess its unique powers over time, but he lost it, and it ended up in dinosaur times. The screen/hole/tunnel is his doing, apparently part of an effort to get his hands on the comet. 

The dinosaurs being at large, "The Incredible Dinosaur Invasion of 1977!", that's just a side-effect.

In the past, Tommy Tomorrow makes a dinosaur explode:

And then he and the doctor make it to the ship, use a special metal grabbing arm that seems like it was designed specifically to pick up comets as they fly by (with Tyrano Rex leaping aboard the ship after the comet) and then flying straight into the time tunnel, which is in the process of shrinking, thanks to Captain Comet using his mental powers to try and close it in 1977.

In the present, Tyrano Rex holds the comet aloft, and Chronos shoots some watch hand spears at him, inadvertently striking the comet and causing it to explode, which reverts the dinosaur-man back into a normal dinosaur. So I guess that's why we've never seen Tyrano Rex again; the villain was only around for like 15 pages of a single comic from 49 years ago. 

There's one more dinosaur fight left, as the heroes deal with the Tyrannosaurus rex that was temporarily Tyrano Rex, and then there's nothing left but the epilogue, wherein the characters debrief with Superman and Hawkman. 

In the very last panel, Captain Comet tries to do that wink at the reader thing that Superman perfected, and he looks awfully awkward doing so:

Like, maybe this is the first time he tried winking...? (Also, I know it's cliche to make fun of superheroes for wearing their underwear outside of their tights and all, but I think the fact that Captain Comet's briefs are white really accentuates their underwearishness. Especially in that panel above.)

So, I guess that's what I've missed my whole life by never having read this comic. It, obviously, has its moments, but doesn't quite live up to the promise of the cover...as is, of course, so often the case with comic books, especially those from yesteryear when great thought and care was put into the crafting in each cover, as it was the primary way in which publishers tried to sell a particular comic over another to their readers, who would likely be learning of it for the first time when they saw it on a spinner rack or a newsstand. 

I still love that "Danger: Dinosaurs" logo, though; I wouldn't mind seeing that make a comeback for some future story about a dinosaur invasion of the DC Universe. Maybe next year, for the book's 50th anniversary..?

Bookshelf #23

This week's bookshelf is comprised of Top Shelf Productions (left) and Image Comics (right). 

The Top Shelf side has a pretty wide variety of cartoonists, some of whom I am quite familiar with, like James Kochalka, Jeffrey Brown and Scott Morse, and several others I don't think I've ever read other, future works from, at least not that I can remember off the top of my head. 

That side of the shelf includes Craig Thompson's signature work and masterpiece (No, not Blankets; Goodbye, Chunky Rice, one of the saddest comics I've ever cried over), as well as the short, sorta weird Beach Safari by a Mawil, which I really enjoyed the art of. 

Looking closely for the purposes of this post, I see there are a few books that aren't Top Shelf ones mixed in. There are two Faith Erin Hicks books, apparently together by they were both by Hicks, although I don't know why they are on this particular shelf, The War at Ellsmere (from Slave Labor Graphics) and Brain Camp (from First Second and written by a Susan Kim and Lawrence Klavan). Brian Chippendale's If 'N Oof from Picture Box is there too; I suspect that's there due to its size, and because it was sturdy enough to act as a book end and hold the rest of the books to the left of it up. 

The Image side includes a similar variety, and most of them seem to have been purchased due to the creators involved: Bo Hampton (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), Matt Wagner (some Mage), Adam Warren (Gen 13 Bootleg: Grunge: The Movie), Andi Watson (Glister, Princess at Midnight) and Garth Ennis with Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (The Pro) and Kevin Smith with Michael Oeming and Mike Allred (Bluntman and Chonic). Some of the others I bought for their high concept, like Tales from The Bully Pulpit (The time-travelling adventures of President Theodore Roosevelt) or The Five Fists of Science (Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla vs. a cabal of evil scientists, some of whose names are as familiar as those of the heroes). That last one was written by a promising young man named Matt Fraction; gee, I wonder what ever became of him...?

Furthest of the right, you'll see six volumes of The Walking Dead. Volumes 1-3 are standing upright, while volumes 5, 6 and 8 are upside down. What's going on there? Well, I started reading the series in trade paperback way back when, and, at some point at a con, I found a bunch of volumes 50% off at a con, so I bought those, even though I didn't yet have volume 4 (or 7). I figured I would pick volume 4 up at some point soon and then continue on with the series in trade and, well, I never did. Volume 3 is as far as I ever got and, like some manga series, The Walking Dead just got away from me, eventually going on so long that I was intimidated to jump back in. 

I did like those first few volumes I read, and I suppose I will get around to reading this series eventually, but, well, when I do, I assume it will be via giant omnibuses or compendiums, rather than these slimmer trades, which I assume Image stopped publishing a while ago. 

The Justice Society vs. Hitler and The Spear of Destiny, post-Crisis: On 1988's Secret Origins #31

In 1988's Secret Origins #32, the creative team retold a previous comic story, keeping the plot basically intact, the only changes being those made to realign it with then-current, post-Crisis continuity and to use more modern storytelling techniques. Well, that, and the changes that are natural when different writers and artists tackle the same story, as their various styles inevitably affect the result. 

In that particular case, it was Keith Giffen, Peter David and Eric Shanower retelling the Justice League's origin story from the pages of 1962's Justice League of America #9. (I wrote about that story in this recent post.)

The previous issue, Secret Origins #31, did the same, only for the Justice Society's origin story. In this case, the creative team consisted of Roy Thomas, Michael Bair and Bob Downs, and they were retelling a story of much more recent vintage: Paul Levitz, Joe Staton and Bob Layton's "Untold Origin of The Justice Society" from 1977's DC Special #29 (The subject of the previous post).

As with the Secret Origins retelling of the Silver Age JLoA story, it's interesting, even fascinating to read the comics back-to-back, as doing so accentuates the stylistic decisions the creators make, including how to present the events, how to stage them, how to design the characters and otherwise tweak them. I was able to do so because DC Special #29 was collected in 2006's Justice Society Vol. 1, while Thomas and company's Secret Origins #31 was collected in 2017's Last Days of the Justice Society of America, both of which my local library system still have on their shelves. 

Now, Levitz's "Untold Origin" was published pre-Crisis, and was thus set on Earth-2, and included the Golden Age Superman and Golden Age Batman in the adventure alongside the eight original members of the Justice Society. Thomas' was post-Crisis and thus set on the then still new-ish Earth with its new history. 

The most immediately apparent change then is that Superman and Batman have been eliminated from the proceedings. Batman doesn't do a whole hell of a lot in the original story, and so Thomas doesn't replace him with anyone else; instead, rather than having The Flash, Green Lantern and Batman embark on a mission to Scotland to take out the advance men for a Nazi invasion of England, Thomas simply has the first two go.

As for Superman, he has less panel-time than the Dark Knight in Levitz's story but plays a bigger role overall. He shows up at the climax to destroy a Nazi bomber before it can drop its payload on Washington, D.C. and he then grabs a Valkyrie who has targeted President Franklin Roosevelt, at which point she disappears. It is also Superman who rejects the idea of the heroes forming some kind of battalion within the U.S. armed forces and comes up with the name "Justice Society of America."

Here, Thomas has Green Lantern using his ring to destroy the bomber. The bit with the Valkyrie menacing Roosevelt goes quite differently without Superman there, which we will get to in a moment. And as for the decision to form the Justice Society, here it is The Spectre who rejects Hawkman's proposal of a "super-battalion" ("battalion" is here spelled correctly, in contrast to the same scene from DC Special #29) and then comes up with the team's name. 

Thomas also explains a few things that didn't really make sense in Levitz's story. He explains why Green Lantern and The Flash aren't able to use their powers to escape their bonds after being captured by the Nazis during their mission ("Still dizzy--from the drugs Streicher gave us--couldn't use my ring before!" Green lantern says as Doctor Fate and Hourman arrive to rescue them). He explains why Fate doesn't immediately take down Hitler upon his arrival ("For all my power, I cannot attack Hitler while he holds The Spear of Destiny--", Fate tells the others). And he explains how it is that the Nazi long-range bomber seems to get all the way across the Atlantic and over D.C. so quickly; in the original story, Levitz seemed to suggest that the superheroes battled the Valkyries the entirety of the trip, whereas here that trip is almost instantaneous, with Green Lantern remarking that the journey was made supernaturally shorter ("Hitler's spear did it!" he cries. "That's the only answer!)

The biggest change comes at the end, which the creators add several pages to. Without Superman there to stop the Valkyrie who had targeted Roosevelt—who Thomas gives a name to, Gudra—she is free to continue her attack after zapping The Atom. In fact, she succeeds in killing Roosevelt.

The heroes mourn for a panel or two, with Fate saying that even his great power has never been able "to bring a man back from the far side of death", but The Spectre says he's going to try anyway. He disappears from the White House and journeys like a humanoid comet through bizarre backgrounds, finally declaring "I have pierced the veil!"

And The Spectre finds Roosevelt in a line of humans wearing pink-ish purple robes, "wandering toward a vision of blinding light," and The Spectre then announces, "I must speak with the one who decreed that JIM CORRIGAN should walk the world, an undead SPECTRE!"

Who, exactly, was that...? Thomas was equivocal here, as was the case at that point in The Spectre's history. This is, presumably, the mysterious entity referred to as "The Voice." Indeed, The Spectre is answered by a voice, communicating with him in big, bold, red, disembodied letters that emanate red rings.

This is, presumably, God himself, although Thomas, like creators before him, doesn't come out and say this exactly, as heavily as it is implied.

The Spectre and Voice argue a bit, and when the latter refuses to allow Roosevelt to return to life, The Spectre raises his hands against The Voice. The Spectre is powerless against The Voice, of course, but, noting The Spectre's tears, The Voice proceeds to show The Spectre the future, in which Roosevelt is destined to die soon anyway, after a few years of the world at war. Giving The Spectre the choice of whether it is worth resurrecting the president or not knowing all of this, The Spectre says that is still his wish, and so Roosevelt is restored to life, everyone but The Spectre a little confused as to what just happened.

The other changes to the story are more-or-less matters of style. Thomas is, perhaps unsurprisingly, much more wordy here than Levitz was, and he fills his narration and dialogue with references to real-world history, more closely tying the events of this superhero adventure to those of 1940. He also offers quite a bit more characterization, allowing us to see more of the heroes' thoughts and to hear them engaged in more revealing dialogue, seemingly noting the momentous nature of this story, as it involves the first meetings of the various heroes who would go on to spend so much of their careers together. 

Bair and Downs' art is much more realistic than that of Staton and Layton. I'm not sure which approach I prefer, but, if pressed, I think I would choose the latter team's, as it looks so much more "comic book-y." Bair and Downs' work is much more appropriate for this version of the story, though; certainly their Roosevelt, for example, looks more like the guy I've seen picture of than Staton and Layton's more cartoony take. 

Interestingly, the artists hew quite closely to one of the previous art team's designs, like that of the big green robot in the Nazi castle that Flash and Green Lantern battle (Here Thomas gives it a German name, the "mordmaschine--or, as you Americans would say-- --THE MURDER MACHINE!"), while doing their own thing with other elements, like the Valkyries, which here wear armor and winged helmets, looking more opera than Staton's more superheroic looking versions.

Bair also draws a lot of cooler magical effects when it comes to The Spectre and Fate, and I prefer the energy orbs the latter sends to scoop up Hawkman, The Atom and The Sandman to the energy tendrils that Staton drew in the earlier story. 

Oh, and speaking of Hawkman, Bair gives him the appropriate helmet here, the one with the weird screaming bird face, with the open beak and tongue obscuring his human face.

As for the Spear of Destiny, the reason I got interested in these stories in the first place...? 

Well, as noted, Thomas has Fate explain that he can't attack Hitler while he holds the spear and, on the following page, after Hitler inadvertently summons the Valkyries, Green Lantern seems to make a move toward Hitler, but the Fuhrer shouts "Keep back, Amerikanen!", and the tip of the spear glows with pink energy and Kirby dots, a barrier of fire appearing between Hitler and the heroes.

The exact nature of its effect on the superheroes isn't delineated here then, but it is at least clear that it protects Hitler from them while he's holding it. I suppose future stories will further explain how it kept the Justice Society off the frontlines, even though here we see Doctor Fate, at least, able to enter Berlin itself, with Hourman in tow.

The particular trade I found this story in, the aforementioned Last Days of the Justice Society of America, is also filled with the title comic, and stories from the pages of Secret Origins devoted to new tellings of the origins of Golden Age heroes The Sandman, The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, The Flash, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, The Spectre, Hourman, Green Lantern, Doctor Mid-Nite, Doctor Fate and The Atom, all written by Thomas. We'll take a look at those stories in the near-ish future.

The Justice Society vs. Hitler and The Spear of Destiny, Round One: On 1977's DC Special #29

In discussing what seems to be the first appearance of the Spear of Destiny in the DC Universe in 1977's Weird War Tales #50, a couple of you pointed me towards that same year's DC Special #29 as the first time the spear played a part in the story of the Justice Society. Over the decades, the magical properties of the spear were used as a retroactive explanation—that is, a retcon—of why it was that America's many powerful superheroes didn't directly enter World War II, with nigh omnipotent characters like The Spectre or Doctor Fate subduing Germany and capturing Hitler over the course of a busy afternoon.

The special was much easier to find than I originally worried, as it was collected in the back of 2006's Justice Society Vol. 1, which contained the first half of the 1976-1978 All-Star Comics series (It looks like it was also collected in 2011's Showcase Presents: All-Star Comics, one of the too-many Showcase collection I unfortunately missed, and 2019's All-Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever).

Entitled "The Untold Origin of the Justice Society of America", the 34-page, oversized story was the work of writer Paul Levitz, pencil artist Joe Staton and inker Bob Layton, with Neal Adams providing the cover, in which the Justice Society battles Valkyries while the greatest comic book villain of the Golden Age rants and raves in the foreground.

While the Spear of Destiny does feature rather prominently in the proceedings, and while it does evince magical powers that give Hitler some military advantage over America's superheroes, Levitz does not use it as any sort of explanation for why the JSoA didn't serve on the frontlines of the war, so that aspect of the spear in DCU history must have been introduced sometime later. 

It's also worth noting that this "Untold" origin of the Justice Society seems to contradict their actual origins from 1940's All-Star Comics #3 and the earlier issues of the series in several ways...which I only know because DC recently collected those comics in a pair of DC Finest: Justice Society of America trades.

First, there's the line-up. The Golden Age Batman and Superman are here involved in this adventure, whereas they were honorary members in the original comics (In a fun peculiarity, whenever a JSoA member got their own title, they were essentially promoted to "honorary member," leaving behind the also-rans of the Society; Wonder Woman was an exception, but then, she served as the Society's secretary, and thus wasn't active in each of their adventures). Meanwhile, Johnny Thunder, who was present from the first, even if he had to wait a few issues before he could earn an official chair at the team's round table, is here MIA.

Second, here the team's origin is prompted by President Franklin Roosevelt, who sends a trio of heroes on a mission into wartime Europe, and others join in various ways as the adventure unfolds. In the last pages, Roosevelt suggests they stick together as a team. 

Of course, in the original comics, the team seems like more of a social club devoted to swapping stories, and the war had no influence over their first banding together. They would soon go on various missions at the behest of the government, though (as soon as All-Star Comics #4, in fact), and they did all temporarily resign to join various branches of the armed forces (in All-Star Comics #11), an army general asking them to stick together in their superhero identities and form "The Justice Battalion of America." (Here, Hawkman suggests they form "a special super-batallion," [sic] but Superman corrects him, saying "we're not part of any army" and that "we fight only in the cause of justice...and that'll give us our name...").

With that out of the way, let's see how Levitz had reimagined the formation of the Justice Society, over 35 years after Gardner Fox and company had originally assembled them, and, in particular, how he made use of the Spear of Destiny.

I suppose I should also not that, this being 1977, this entire story is set on DC's Earth-2, the alternate world where the publisher's Golden Age comics all really happened, and where the original, Golden Age versions of their heroes continued to adventure on into the present day (Crisis on Infinite Earths would later collapsed Earth-2 into a single DCU, where the Golden Age heroes passed the baton onto the Silver Age heroes, and the likes of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were all modern-day heroes, their Golden Age iterations erased from continuity). That said, this story—or at least a slightly altered version of it—still existed post-Crisis, as Roy Thomas, Michael Bair and Bob Downs would re-tell it in 1988's Secret Origins #31, stripping Batman and Superman out of the proceedings...along with a few other alterations. (We'll take a look at that story in a future post). 

The title page features a crowd of over 20 heroes, the entirety of the Earth-Two Justice Society, with Red Tornado Ma Hunkel and the other Red Tornado in the back, and the likes of Power Girl, Skyman and Robin-with-yellow-pants in the foreground. 

In the upper left corner, Levitz pens a green narration box setting the stage:

In the winter of 1940, Adolf Hitler abandoned plans to invade England! To this day, no one knows why--no one but the ten heroes who battled across two continents to ruin those plans--and give birth to a legend!

One stormy night in 1940, a British agent named Smythe meets with President Roosevelt (who Staton gives a huge, pumpkin of a head, its size seemingly magnified by the tininess of his little glasses), telling him that he has reliable information that Hitler plans to invade England, and that he's been sent to ask for America's help in repelling the Nazis.

Roosevelt responds:

As God is my witness, you know I want to help...but I am the president of this great nation--not the king.

And I have promised my friends, the American people, that I would not lead them into war--not unless we were attacked!

How quaint that all sounds today! An American president acknowledging the limits of his powers, specifically saying he's not a king. An American president who feels honor bound to keep his word regarding not entering a war to the people who elected him. An American president who realizes he can't just enter a war because he wants to. 

Roosevelt has something of a compromise, or a workaround, to suggest to Smythe instead, though: Sending some of the "costumed heroes" who have appeared all over America in the last few months, men who are "more powerful, more daring than ordinary mortals."

Across his desk he slides a half-dozen photos of some of these guys, including the likes of Green Lantern, The Flash, Doctor Fate and, um, Batman, who I guess is technically more daring than ordinary mortals but, well, he's not the secret weapon I'd send to stave off an enemy army if I had my pick of Golden Age superheroes...

But what do I know?

A week later, Batman answers the bat-signal to find Green Lantern, The Flash and Smythe waiting for him in Commissioner Gordon's office. Maybe Smythe decided to call on Batman because, though lacking in super-powers of any kind, he is the easiest superhero to get a hold of...?

The trio are sent to a castle in Scotland, where advance men for the Nazi invasion are based. The heroes bust them up, but the aren't counting on the presence of an "experimental...murder machine!", a big, green robot with a swastika on its chest that kerShlams Batman into unconsciousness. Then The Flash bounces off of the robot at super-speed and strikes Green Lantern, rendering them both unconscious as well. 

The first use of superheroes in World War II does not exactly get off to a great start, then.

We then find the heroes in Berlin, where they stand atop a high wall, bound at the wrists and ankles, while Adolf Hilter himself plans to unmask them and publicly execute them, using "the ancient Spear of Destiny that a Roman soldier used on Christ himself!"

 It's unclear why The Flash's speed powers are no use to him when it comes to escaping such bonds, nor why Green Lantern can't use his ring to break free (It's not like he's in a wooden stockade or anything). Levitz never explains this, either. 

Regardless, Doctor Fate and Hourman appear, the former having seen Batman and company's capture in a crystal ball, and then picked up the latter on his way to Berlin. "I have need of your power!" Fate said by explanation to the Man of the Hour; granted, Hourman has more power than Batman, but wouldn't The Spectre of Superman have been a better get...?

As the newcomers free their fellow mystery men, Hitler grips the now-glowing spear and shouts.

"Then you Amerikaners are doubly fools," he starts: 

For you shall now only pay with your lives--

--you shall not stop the blitzkrieg that strikes Britain!

This I swear by the mystic spear and by all that is holy to Germany!

There's a flash of lightning in the sky, and a loud "Kulthoom," apparently the sound of thunder. Doctor Fate yells a warning at Hitler: "Madman--put down that talisman! You are unleashing forces beyond your ken--or your control!"

But it's too late. Through the power of the spear, Hitler has inadvertently summoned the Valkyries, "the sword-maidens of the Germanic war god, Wotan." Staton's women warriors seem to hail from a Norse mythology more like the one Jack Kirby drew for Marvel than that of our world. The fierce-looking women, each astride a winged white horse, wear tight red and green uniforms that suggest superhero costumes, the necklines plunging to their waists, showing off lots of cleavage. 

Fate leads the heroes into battle against the women, a battle that "rages overhead like a tempest", despite the fact that most of the heroes can't fly like Fate and Green Lantern can. Maybe Fate's magic is keeping the others airborne...? (In one panel, Staton does draw a tornado beneath The Flash's feet, though, so maybe his speed was able to generate a swirl of sufficiently powerful wind to keep him aloft...)

Meanwhile, Germany's invasion fleet closes in on England, and so Fate unleashes four magical tendrils that stretch across the Atlantic to pluck defenders from America. These turn out to be The Sandman, The Atom and Hawkman (Hawkman's helmet looks off to me; it's not the weird, screeching bird face mask he wore in the Golden Age All-Star Comics, but looks more like that of the Silver Age, Thanagarian Hawkman; did the Golden Age Hawkman ever wear such a mask? Like all things Hawkman, I have no idea). 

Somehow, this trio seems to help turn the tide on the beaches, despite the fact that all three are basically just above average regular guys, likely in better shape and more experienced at punching people out than the average G.I. would be, but otherwise not bringing all that much to the battle.

I mean, Hawkman's power is that he flies (He doesn't even bring a mace to this fight). The Atom's is that...he works out a lot...? And The Sandman? Well, his gimmick is that he puts gangsters to sleep and leaves them poetry...at this point, he's still in his suit, hat and cape instead of the purple and yellow tights he would later change into, but rather than a gas gun, here he throws sand at his foes, sand that seems to have a soporific effect.

At any rate, together with British military (and I have to assume the British military did most of the work), the three American heroes are able to repel the invasion...at least for a panel. With dismay, they realize that they had only turned back the very first wave, and that a whole fleet is on its way. 

But then the fourth hero Doctor Fate had summoned across the sea makes his appearance, first as "a sinister shadow against the moon," and then taking his more familiar form, that of "The astral avenger known only as...THE SPECTRE!"

The Spectre descends from the sky as a giant, wades through the English Channel, which reaches only to his waist, and sinks the fleet singlehandedly. 

At one point, he scoops a defiant Nazi officer up in his giant hand and looks directly at him, seemingly breaking the man as he does so: "Admiral Wilheim von Krupp looked into the eye of The Spectre this night... And all he saw was death!"

The Spectre's brief battle against the German fleet takes up only two pages, but there's one panel that is of particular interest. Levitz's narration reads, "Like the Angel of Death among the Egyptians, he visits each and every ship..."

That's an evocative image, of course, and a pretty intriguing metaphor. I can't help but wonder if John Ostrander had read it when it was originally published, or if he had encountered in when doing research for his 1992-1998 series The Spectre, which revealed that the "astral avenger" wasn't simply a powerful vengeful ghost, but was in fact the embodiment of God's own wrath. Indeed, in The Spectre #14, The Phantom Stranger tells us that The Spectre was literally the angel of death that went among the Egyptians in the Exodus story. 

If Ostrander did not read this scene in this particular comic book, though, he definitely read it in Secret Origins #31. In 1994's Spectre #20, an elderly Johnny Thunder tells a story of the first time he met The Spectre, when they were fighting "a holding action against a German invasion fleet that was in the English Channel." Johnny's story is only five panels, the first of which is a splash page showing a gigantic Spectre ankle-deep in the channel, holding aloft a German ship as if it were a toy. The remaining four panels show a German officer looking The Spectre in the eye, in which he sees the image of a skull. This retells a scene from both DC Special #29 and Secret Origins #31, although here it's a little more deadly sounding: "All them Germans that looked The Spectre in the eye--they all died screaming, you know that? Every one..." (Of course, Johnny Thunder wasn't present for the battle in the channel in either previous telling of that story, but then, by the time he's telling it, his memory had started to fail, so perhaps he was confused about the first time he had met the Spectre...or if he himself was even at the channel that day.)

Back in Berlin, the heroes finally beat back the Valkyries, and the furious Fuehrer grabs nearby underling Professor Stauffen by the lapels, demanding that he send their experimental long-range bomber to attack America immediately, despite the fact that the U.S. wasn't yet officially at war with Germany, and that the bomber was one of a kind, its early deployment risking the whole program.

Hitler is unmoved: "Set a course for Washington, D.C.--I want the Amerikaner president and capitol destroyed!"

As the plane takes off, the Valkyries reappear around it, acting as, in Levitz's words, "an unholy honor guard." The heroes, who have by now all gathered on the beaches of England, see the accompanying Valkyries pass nearby on their way across the Atlantic, and again they clash in the skies (Batman, Hourman, The Sandman and The Atom are carried aloft on a Green Lantern ring-generated platform, while Staton again draws The Flash with a little tornado beneath his feet as he runs in the sky). 

Even with The Spectre's help, the two sides seem evenly matched, and they fight all the way across the ocean and into the airspace above Washington, the heroes never able to overcome the warrior women and get their hands on the plane.

In the last panel on one page, something seems to catch Green Lantern's eye below. "Look--leaping up from the press building--" he starts. 

A turn of the page reveals a striking splash, depicting Superman soaring up into the air and breaking fist first through the Nazi plane (with men parachuting to safety in the background, presumably to assure readers that Superman had not, in fact, just killed the plane's crew). In the upper left corner are two big words in bold red, the last two words of Green Lantern's sentence: "It's Superman!" That last word is the character's familiar logo.

After destroying the plane, Superman then catches the massive bomb it was carrying (With a big blue "OOF!" on the Man of Steel's part). 

The Valkyries fight on, though, and one manages to leap through a window into President Roosevelt's office. She takes aim with her spear, and from its tip leaps some kind of energy beam. Before the beam can strike the president, though, The Atom leaps in front of him, taking the blast himself.

After this, the Valkyries disappear again, and Roosevelt asks after "the little fellow" who had just saved his life, as the wounded Atom, his costume ripped at the chest, is being cradled in Hawkman's arms. 

"F-Fine, Mr. President," The Atom manages. "Don't you know--you can't split an atom?"

Well, not yet Al, but they're working on it...!

It is here that Roosevelt says it would be a shame to split this group up, as "you'd make a snappy army regiment!"

Superman immediately replies that he doesn't think that's possible, while The Spectre disagrees, almost quoting Shakespeare to the Man of Steel: "More things are possible than you know, Superman--"

Doctor Fate finishes The Spectre's thought: "--And this one is necessary--if we are to battle the great evils I see in the days ahead!"

It is here that Hawkman suggests the formation of a "special super-batallion" [sic], and Superman corrects him, giving the team it's official name, which appears on the last page of the story, a splash featuring all ten heroes posing with their hands on their hips or their arms crossed...well, all except The Atom, who still looks a little worse for wear after taking a blast to the chest. 

Now, as to why these heroes didn't just return to Europe the next day to take care of the Nazi threat, or do so when the U.S. officially entered the war the following year, this story never offers an answer. It would be up to future stories by later writers to explain how in a world where the likes of The Spectre, Superman and Doctor Fate could fight for the allies that the war lasted as long as it did.