Review: Last Days of the Justice Society of America by Roy Thomas, Michael Bair, David Ross, Mike Clark, et al.

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 1986-88
Acquired: June 2020
Read: September 2020

Last Days of the Justice Society of America

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Written by Roy Thomas

Co-plotter: Dann Thomas

Pencillers: David Ross, Michael Bair, Tom Grindberg, George Tuska, Luke McDonnell, Mike Clark, Michael T. Gilbert, George Freeman

Inkers: Mike Gustovich, Steve Montano, Jerry Acerno, Tony DeZuniga, Dave Hunt, Michael T. Gilbert, George Freeman, Bob Downs

Colorists: Carl Gafford, Anthony Tollin, Julianna Ferriter

Letterers: David Cody Weiss, Mary DeZuniga, Agustin Mas, Jean Simek, Helen Vesik, Susan Kronz & Janice Chiang

This trade paperback collects the triple-length Last Days of the Justice Society of America one-shot from 1986, as well as twelve Secret Origins stories from 1986 to 1988 about members of the JSA. I dipped in and out of the volume while reading Infinity, Inc., reading the Last Days special where it was set chronologically, and interspersing the Secret Origins stories where they were released. This definitely added to the experience: origins, in my experience, can be kind of tedious read one right after the other, but I liked them as breaks from the ongoing storylines of Infinc that were nonetheless loosely related.

The Last Days special is an odd one. It was designed to kill off the JSA, which 1980s DC management felt was irrelevant as a present-day concern in the new unified post-Crisis DC universe-- why do you need the JSA when the Justice League is the world's preeminent superhero team? An answer to this question would emerge in the 1990s and 2000s, but DC was as yet only groping towards the idea of "legacy." But writer Roy Thomas and co-plotter Dann Thomas didn't want to kill kill the JSA; they rightfully realized someone would want to bring them back someday. It also seems like they wanted there to be a last "Golden Age" adventure as well as a last present-day one.

Even when he's facing the reality of his own death, I still kind of hate Sandy the Golden Boy.
from Last Days of the Justice Society of America Special #1 (co-plotted by Dann Thomas, art by David Ross & Mike Gustovich)

So what happens is this: gathering for the funeral of the Earth-Two Huntress and Robin (they died in the Crisis, and were eventually eliminated from history, but early post-Crisis stories still had some of the pre-Crisis characters remembered), the JSA discovers that when they gathered for the funeral of President Roosevelt back in 1945, they ended up going on a mission to Germany to stop Hitler from using the Spear of Destiny to summon Ragnarok, and died in the process, so the 1980s JSA has to travel back to the stop the 1940s JSA from dying, and prevent Ragnarok.

I like the way this sequence uses captions to parallel what's happening in Ragnarok with what's happening in the real world.
from Last Days of the Justice Society of America Special #1 (co-plotted by Dann Thomas, art by David Ross & Mike Gustovich)

In the process, the JSA ends up joining in Ragnarok, merging with various Norse gods in the story and dying-- but then coming back to life and fighting again and again.

Hawkman may always suck, but the art here is nice at least.
from Secret Origins vol. 2 #11 (art by Luke McDonnell & Tony DeZuniga)

I'm of two minds about it all. As a moody, atmospheric story about the doom of the universe, it mostly works. A real sense of fatalism permeates both the 1940s JSA and the 1980s JSA segments, especially thanks to the pencils of David Ross. It hurts when the JSA are gunned down by Nazis; it feels inevitable when they get sucked into playing roles in the Ragnarok cycle. And what better way to go out than in preventing the end of everything?

I love how they draw Corrigan's big beefy face.
from Secret Origins vol. 2 #15 (art by Michael T. Gilbert)

On the other hand, we get a lot of thaumababble, but really makes it not totally work is that in the end, the JSA feels kind of irrelevant. They get pulled into Ragnarok, and that's it: there's no big moment of choice, no big moment of heroism, they just become subject to whims of the universe. Yes, they do the right thing, but the choice doesn't land like it ought to, it feels like someone else made the choice for them. It's not really based in their characters, but rather it feels like it could have happened to any group of characters. So it's unsatisfying in that sense.

A lot of JSA members sure seem to be wimps hanging out with women who want them to be less wimpy.
from Secret Origins vol. 2 #16 (co-plotted by Dann Thomas, art by Michael Bair & Mike Gustovich)

Of course, it would be all undone, so the Thomases played it right. In addition to what this story implies itself about its reversibility, Neil Gaiman would actually reveal in The Sandman that it wasn't the real Ragnarok at all that the JSA entered, but a simulation run by Odin. I look forward to seeing if this fact is used when the JSA is eventually returned to the normal universe in the 1990s. And speaking of Gaiman, reading Last Days cleared up a long-standing mystery for me, of why the corpses of JSA members turned up in the 1940s in Legend of the Green Flame, though I admit to not being entirely certain as to how those corpses still managed to be there once the Ragnarok timeline was averted!

Having a one-hour strength pill doesn't really put someone in Fate's league.
from Secret Origins vol. 2 #31 (art by Michael Bair & Bob Downs)

The Secret Origins issues collected here cover all of the post-Crisis 1940s JSA members (i.e., there's no origins for the Golden Age Superman or Batman), plus the Star-Spangled Kid (who didn't join the JSA until the 1970s). They're mostly pretty satisfying; I got bored reading about incarnation in the Hawkman one (that shit is tedious), but otherwise these were generally satisfying updates of where a lot of classic characters came from. Highlights included the Star-Spangled Kid one (despite his centrality to the 1970s All Star Comics revival and Infinity, Inc., his origin wasn't really covered in either series), the atmospheric Spectre one, and the charming one for the Atom. Roy Thomas writes all of them, and some are co-plotted by Dann Thomas, but the real star in many of them are the excellent art teams who really bring these 1940s stories to new life.

The new JSA origins puts too much emphasis on the Spectre. I know taking Superman out meant the emphasis had to shift somewhat, but I don't think the Spectre's brand of mumbo-jumbo was the answer.
from Secret Origins vol. 2 #31 (art by Michael Bair & Bob Downs)

I didn't really get the point of the new JSA origin, though. I know the previous JSA origin by Paul Levitz from All Star Comics is out of date because it has the Earth-Two Superman and Batman in it, but this story is pretty much that one over again minus those two characters, and with somewhat obscure art. (I find Michael Bair hit or miss.) Just reread Levitz's version and pretend Superman and Batman aren't in it.

This post is the eleventh in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]