Friday, March 23, 2012

It's like a clip-show episode, but you hadn't seen all those anyway:


Darn, I have three of the four issues of this one: the 1984 limited series America vs. the Justice Society. Written by Roy Thomas, with Dann Thomas co-plotting and art by Mike Hernandez and Alfredo Alcala. (Howard Bender pencilled the last two issues, with Alcala on inks.)

Back before the Crisis, Earth-2's heroes face a congressional committee investigating the "Batman diaries." Supposedly written by Batman before his death, it implicates the entire JSA for treason, as spies for Nazi Germany. With Helena (Huntress) Wayne serving as counsel for the defense, and Dick Grayson as prosecution; the JSA counters the diaries by trying to recap events from old, old issues.

There is a pretty good checklist on the inside covers, and I'd have to guess a lot of those issues still haven't been reprinted. And you'd have to track down appearances in Adventure Comics, Showcase, Infinity, Inc. and only Roy Thomas knows what else. So, the clip-show nature of the series isn't a bad thing. Except every so often, it gets into the JSA pointing out little things, like that Batman wasn't involved in a good deal of the stories in question. And even with the Spectre showing up to try and scowl down the committee, and surprise witnesses like the Wizard, it's still four issues of courtroom shenanigans.

4 comments:

SallyP said...

Is...is Jay hugging Alan?

CalvinPitt said...

Looking at the first picture, I can't help thinking Mid-Nite's about to tell Johnny Thunder to sit up straight and stop being such a sad sack, he's making them look bad.

SallyP said...

Heh. I think you are right.

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Nice one for posting these. I feel bad now for passing these up. And yean, Earth-2 batman looks sorta like a dick for causing all of this, even though it's all a trick to foil the real bad guys. I guess no matter what earth it is, Batman is a dick regardless.