Make the Warrior Princess Take Notes...

All-Star Comics Archives Volume 1, introduction by Don Thompson, written by Gardner F. Fox, illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff, Bernard Baily, Everett Hibbard, Howard Sherman, Howard Purcell and others (1940-41; collected 1992): A combination of exhilaration and exasperation accompanies my reading of most Golden-Age (that is, 1937-1949) American superhero comic books. One can see both a genre and a medium being defined and refined, sometimes boldly, sometimes wrongly, sometimes ineptly. And as per Sturgeon's Law, at least 90% of it is crap. Maybe 99%.

Before the Avengers, the Justice League of America, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the X-Men -- before all other superhero teams and superhero groups -- was the Justice Society of America, debuting in 1940 in issue 3 of All-Star Comics, just less than 3 years after the appearance of the first American superheroes. The group comprised the company now known as DC's Golden Age superhero stable, with a few notable exceptions: Superman and Batman were honorary members who almost never appeared, as the Society was used to help promote 'DC's' less popular heroes, while Wonder Woman would generally only act as recording secretary and not an actual fighting member of the group.

The most active original members of the JSA would range from the fairly famous (the original Green Lantern and original Flash) to the more obscure (comic relief Johnny Thunder and Red Tornado, the original Atom, Hourman, Dr. Fate, and the Spectre). Heroes with earth-shaking cosmic powers (the Lantern and his magic ring, Flash, Fate, Spectre and, surprisingly perhaps, Johnny Thunder and his magical intelligent pink thunderbolt) sat beside heroes with limited powers (Hourman, whose Miraclo pills gave him an hour of enhanced strength), powerful gadgets (Starman, Dr. Midnite, Hawkman, Sandman) or no powers or gadgets at all (the dreary Atom, whose power was that he was really strong for a height-challenged person. And he wasn't a really strong dwarf or midget -- he was maybe 5'2". Really, every JSA adventure should have ended with the dead body of the Atom being taken to Paradise Island to be revived with the super-healing Purple Ray, his revival being accompanied by the other heroes standing around laughing about how he got killed in every adventure by someone with a handgun or just a pointy stick. It wasn't until the Silver Age that a character named Atom got appropriate, and appropriately awesome, super-shrinking powers).

The first two issues of All-Star Comics published individual adventures of what would soon be Justice Society members; the third issue featured the origin of the Justice Society. And what an origin! A bunch of superheroes decide to get together in a hotel banquet room and talk during dinner!

OK, dramatic it's not. In the 1970's, writer Paul Levitz and artists Joe Staton and Bob Layton would give the JSA a truly awesome origin story, complete with Batman and Superman, but for now they are a jovial, joking sausage party (Wonder Woman was still a year away). They don't even fight crime together in that first issue, instead telling tales of individual heroism. But by issue 4, they were fighting crime in what would be the first model of a JSA story, individually tackling criminals in stories drawn by different artists (but all written by Gardner F. Fox) before coming together at the end of the story. Eventually, they'd do more teaming up, at least in pairs or trios, prior to the final gathering.

The art ranges from awful through competent to interesting. Sheldon Moldoff, later a Batman artist with a much different style, here does his best Alex Raymond impersonation on Hawkman; Bernard Baily does some really peculiar work on the Spectre; Howard Sherman does his typically weird, offbeat stuff (including the oddest lettering of the Golden Age) on Dr. Fate. The only real greatness here is the core concept of heroes getting together. As one can see from the hype surrounding next year's Avengers movie, that's still a concept with a lot of pop-cultural heft. Recommended.

Four!

America's Best Comics, written by Alan Moore, Peter Hogan, Steve Moore and Rick Veitch; illustrated by Art Adams, Sergio Aragones, Jim Baikie, Kyle Baker, Hilary Barta, J. Scott Campbell, Zander Cannon, John Cassaday, Claudio Castellini, Frank Cho, Dame Darcy, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Melinda Gebbie, Michael Golden, Adam Hughes, Phil Noto, Kevin Nowlan, Kevin O'Neill, Jason Trent Pearson, Humberto Ramos, Alex Ross, Eric Shanower, Rick Veitch, Al Gordon, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story and John Totleben (2001-2003; collected 2004): This collection is essentially a portmanteau of stuff that doesn't fit into any of the other collections of Alan Moore's America's Best Comics universe, anchored by a lengthy dimension-hopping adventure of Tom Strong's daughter Tesla. The shorter stories are all pretty solid; of greatest interest, probably, is the bizarre but appropriate League of Extraordinary Gentlemen board game. Sketches and early design work fill out the volume. It's all good, mostly clean fun. Recommended.




The Helmet of Fate, written by Steve Gerber, Steve Niles, Gail Simone, Tad Williams and Bill Willingham; illustrated by Scott Hampton, Shawn McManus, Duncan Rouleau, Peter Snejberg, Phil Winslade and others (2007): One of those odd non-miniseries miniseries that DC occasionally plays around with -- as originally published, this was five one-shots with different writer/artist teams, and really worked best as an adjunct to the Day of Vengeance miniseries and the subsequent ongoing supernatural team series Shadowpact.

Having been pummelled by the Spectre in a suicidal (and successful) gambit to get that loony, near-omnipotent supernatural avenger back under control, longtime DC mystical hero Doctor Fate has been reduced to its essence -- a magical helmet without a human partner/host -- and flung into space by Captain Marvel to let fate find it a new, um, Fate. It meets up with a handful of DC's supernatural heroes, some of them newly rebooted 'legacy' heroes (Ibis the Invincible and Sargon the Sorcerer), some of them just new (Black Alice), some their old loveable selves (Detective Chimp and angel-on-assignment Zauriel).

And that's about it. The helmet and the heroes have an adventure; the helmet moves on. Nothing is really resolved, as Steve Gerber's subsequent Fate stories in the Countdown to Mystery miniseries would reveal who the new Doctor Fate would be. Still, the writing and art are for the most part top-notch; it's a shame that none of these spun off into at least a miniseries (so far as I know). Recommended.

Fantastic Four Visionaries: Walt Simonson Volume 2, written by Walt Simonson and Danny Fingeroth; illustrated by Walt Simonson and Rex Valve (1990-91; collected 2008): Marvel pushes the acceptable lower page limits of comic-book collections here with a volume that collects just five of writer/artist Walt Simonson's early 1990's run on the Fantastic Four. And one of those is a fill-in issue that basically reiterates the point of an earlier John Byrne FF, complete with a reference to that earlier, better story.

We do, however, get the FF's loopy adventures in an alternate reality in which Stalin is still running the Soviet Union in 1990 (shades of Command and Conquer!). Simonson does shine here doing the fast-paced science-fantasy stuff that's been his strongest suit as a writer/artist ever since he did Thor in the mid-1980's. The reconstituted FF takes a bit of getting used to (at this point in their history, Ben Grimm isn't the Thing, but his girlfriend Ms. Marvel is the (a) Thing. But she's not the original Ms. Marvel. And female Things look pretty much identical to male Things, though she wears a top for modesty's sake so we don't really know how anatomically correct she is). Short but fun. Recommended.

Fantastic Four Visionaries: Walt Simonson Volume 3, written by Walt Simonson; illustrated by Walt Simonson, Art Adams and others (1991; collected 2009): Walt Simonson's FF run continues, or possibly ends...Marvel really isn't big on supplying context in its reprint volumes. Marvel's first family of superheroing battles Doctor Doom and a time-controlling adjustment bureau angered by the FF's meddling in history.

Cosmic shenanigans proliferate, Reed Richards shows once again why he's the most dangerous member of the Fantastic Four, and Ben Grimm goes through yet more mutations and permutations of his rocky, orange self. Hopefully there's a timeline out there somewhere in which Simonson wrote and drew a Superman comic for several years -- the combination of lightheartedness and the cosmic is pretty refreshing, much like a Junior Mint. Recommended.