This one’s the granddaddy of all superhero team books.
All-Star Comics 3 from late 1940. The first appearance of the Justice Society
of America.
I can only imagine the impact that seeing eight superheroes
on one cover had on kids scanning the newsstands of that era. Plus the idea
that the heroes were all working together. That’s a lot for a feverish young
mind to take in.
DC – or National as it was called then – clearly was riding
a superhero wave when they decided to put their characters in a comic along
with those of sister company All-American, a separate firm with some shared
ownership and shared distribution. DC launched Superman in Action Comics in
early 1938 then followed with Batman in Detective and various heroes in the
pages of Adventure and More Fun. AA debuted the Flash and Hawkman in Flash
Comics in late 1939 and found a home for Green Lantern in All-American.
The first two issues of All-Star had been an anthology
featuring several of the characters who would form the JSA. Then writer Gardner
Fox apparently decided to stop messing around and bring the whole gang
together. With the exception of Sandman, all of the JSAers had made their
debuts in the previous 12 months.
This also was the last Famous First Edition that DC would
publish in the 70s, and the series went out with a bang. These oversized
(11x14) comics that DC and Marvel put out in that era are some of my most
treasured childhood memories and remain some of my favorite comics to this day.
Seeing the art blown up to this size remains thrilling. Yes, I enjoy simple
pleasures.
The iconic cover of All-Star 3 was drawn by Everett Hibbard,
a Golden age artist who drew the Flash for several years. Hibbard worked to
draw each character in the style in which they appeared. It was either that or
an early version of a jam cover. The same image with different text makes up
page one of the comic.
Interesting also that the JSA is seated at a round table,
like the Knights of King Arthur, history’s first supergroup, unless you want to
go way back and count the Twelve Apostles.
The framing device for this issue was a meeting of the JSA
where the members shared stories of their adventures. This very first episode
starts with Johnny Thunder – a character who controlled a magic genie named
Thunderbolt – being angry that he wasn’t invited, then accidentally using his
powers to be there anyway, encountering the JSAers in the process. After three
pages of humor, the Flash gets things started.
For the most part, each character’s story is drawn by the
artist who was drawing the character’s solo adventures. This practice continued
until the series went to stories where the entire team was working together.
The Flash’s story is drawn by Hibbard, who already had drawn
the character in several stories. His art is better here than in the framing
sequence. Hibbard’s style was very cartoonish and basic, but effective. Flash
battles pirates who are stealing sunken treasure.
Hawkman is next, encountering a lost civilization in a story
drawn by Sheldon Moldoff. Here, he’s doing a good job of emulating Flash Gordon
comic strip artist Alex Raymond, who was a huge influence on many Golden Age
artists. It’s more fitting here, since Hawkman almost certainly was modeled
after birdmen characters that earlier had appeared in Flash Gordon. In the
story, Hawkman rescues Shiera Sanders in the days before she became Hawkgirl.
Very realistic and well-done adventure art.
The next two stories both are drawn by Bernard Baily. The
Spectre battles monstrous villain Oom the Mighty and Hourman runs into a gang
of crooks who are impersonating him. Baily draws some great cosmic sequences of
the near-omnipotent Spectre, as well as some entertaining scenes of Hourman
slugging it out with several versions of himself.
Up next is a page drawn by Sheldon Mayer in which the Red
Tornado – a chubby housewife masquerading as a less-than-serious superhero –
arrives at the meeting and soon departs. RT was a character in Scribbly,
Mayer’s entertaining feature about a young cartoonist.
Then there’s a glorious two-page spread advertising all of
the comics that the JSAers were appearing in. Even in 1940, comics makers were
good at self-promotion.
Sandman follows up in a story cartoonishly drawn by Chad
Grothkopf, who apparently was filling in for regular Sandman artist Creig
Flessel. Sandman battles a scientist who has created an enlarging ray.
Dr. Fate next battles another sorcerer in a story drawn by
Howard Sherman, whose creepy and bizarre art – along with equally weird
lettering and panel borders – made Golden Age Dr. Fate stories glorious to
behold.
After a 2-page Johnny Thunder text story – which I think
comics needed for some kind of mailing rate – the Atom runs into crooks stealing
a gold shipment in a story drawn by Ben Flinton. Very cartoonish, but like most
GA Atom stories, redeemed by the uniqueness of the character’s costume – blue cape
and hood with only eyeholes, yellow shirt open to the waist and brown leather
belt, briefs and gauntlets capped off with red boots. The little guy packed a
lot of color into a small package.
The Atom was the only JSAer who hadn’t made a cover
appearance prior to All-Star 3, but kids must have been intrigued by the
costume if nothing else.
The final story in All-Star 3 has Green Lantern fighting
gangsters in a story involving a Walter Winchell-type newspaper columnist. This
one’s drawn by longtime GL artist and co-creator Mart Nodell…and…well…Nodell is
well-remembered and was one of the last living Golden Age artists, but I think
a lot of the time he was getting by on the energy of his drawing and the
novelty of a guy with a magic ring that could do almost anything. Carl Burgos
did the same thing at Marvel with the Human Torch. A man made of fire! The low
quality of the art is made up for by the sweep of the action.
All-Star 3 ends with the Flash returning from a quick trip
to Washington, where the head of the FBI asks to meet with the JSA in the next
issue of All-Star, which they of course agree to do.
The cast of the JSA would soon begin working together.
Membership would fluctuate for the first 25 issues or so. Hourman was gone
after issue 7. Wonder Woman joined in issue 8 – her historic first-ever
appearance.
All-Star was a hit, lasting 57 issues before wrapping up in
1951. Surprisingly, very few other comics makers tried to imitate the JSA. Timely
(Marvel) put characters together as the All-Winners Squad for two issues. Fawcett
and Prize each had a story that featured several of their characters. There
were sporadic team-ups here and there – and characters often wld appear
together on a cover without ever meeting - but the only JSA level attempt came
from DC itself. The company used second-tier characters for the Seven Soldiers of
Victory, who appeared in 14 issues of Leading Comics in 1941-45.
All-Star 3 got the age of the team book off to a roaring
start, even if it took a while for comics makers to see what was right in front
of them : When it comes to superheroes, more is better.
