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.
