Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: JSA: Ragnarok by Paul Kupperberg

05 April 2023

JSA: Ragnarok by Paul Kupperberg

JSA: Ragnarok
by Paul Kupperberg

Ragnarok is a prose novel originally intended for publication in early 2006, supposed to be the first part of a JSA trilogy from iBooks. However, the owner of iBooks died in a car crash and his company limped on for a bit before going into bankruptcy. The manuscript was due to go to the printers when everything came to a halt. Fourteen years later, the author, Paul Kupperberg (writer of many DC comics, but most relevant to this project, a couple issues of All-Star Squadron) was able to finally get the book released through indie publisher Crazy 8 Press. I bought the book when it was released, and decided that I would read it as part of my JSA marathon around the time it would have been released. Early 2006 would put it after JSA, during the run of JSA Classified, and before volume 3 of Justice Society of America, so I read it following JSA Classified.

Published: 2020
Acquired: December 2020
Read: February 2023

It is actually set during JSA, a bit before the events of Infinite Crisis (more on that later, though), and it features the JSA line-up of that time: Green Lantern, the Flash, Mr. Terrific, Power Girl, Jakeem Thunder, Sand, Wildcat, Stargirl, and so on. The book chronicles an encounter between the Justice Society and the Injustice Society, here led by the Wizard. The Injustice Society is trying to hunt down the Spear of Destiny and release a Norse god; the Spear of Destiny is of course the artifact Hitler used to keep American superheroes out of Nazi-occupied Europe according to All-Star Squadron, and there's an extended flashback in the middle of the book chronicling what happened to the Spear after the end of the war. It also ties into Last Days of the Justice Society of America, as part of the Wizard's plan is to send the JSA back into Ragnarok.

Kupperberg is primarily, I believe, a comics writer, and overall a solid one, the kind of comics writer who is not distinctive enough to be a favorite, but who typically turns in work that, well, works. I do have fond memories of his Starfleet Corps of Engineers novella Sargasso Sector, which would have been written around this same time, but I didn't find the book very gripping.

Superheroes in prose is a very tricky thing, and I've found that few have managed it well (basically just Elliot S. Maggin and Marv Wolfman, to be honest). Overall, basically, the book is fine. Many of the characters have little moments of development, but they are pretty generic and don't really feel like they arise out of the plot and themes of the novel, nor does it feel like much is ever at stake for them. The story is a bit slow considering how long it is, and the action doesn't jump off the page. This isn't to say it's terrible or anything; I found it a diverting way to spend a couple days. But it did feel to me like the promise of a JSA novel is a bit more than what we got here: these are characters with more depth and history than your average DC superhero, and I would have liked to have seen that explored in a more novelistic way, while what we have here feels more like a comic on the page, not really playing to the strengths of the medium.

I did enjoy, though perhaps it was a bit too long, a flashback to the JSA after V-E Day, drawing a lot on retcons established in All-Star Squadron and other post-Crisis stories. (For example, the Hippolyta Wonder Woman turns up, and her affair with Ted Grant is mentioned.) That period stuff is always a win for me. There's another flashback that didn't work for me, though, which is to the events of Last Days. Near the end of the novel, the Wizard tries to send the JSA back into Ragnarok, so we get a flashback showing us the original events of that story. Specifically, the flashback tries to emphasize why Alan Scott would really really not want to go into this. But a flashback only a couple chapters before the climax of your novel really disrupts the pacing, and the groundwork it lays would have been better laid earlier, in more detail. A good idea, but needed more to support it.

The book as a book is clearly small press, and could have used some better typesetting and proofreading: some em-dashes are left as two hyphens, for example, and sometimes the book shifts into the present tense for a single paragraph.

I do, of course, have some continuity issues. The book has to take place after JSA #50, because Power Girl knows that her Atlantean backstory is false, which is something she learns in that issue. It has to take place before JSA #59, because that's the issue where Captain Marvel leaves the team. However, from issue #50 to #64, Sand isn't present in the JSA because he's been turned into actual sand—so there's no actual time where the line-up present in this book all exists.

Kupperberg also does some retconning for the post-Crisis history of the JSA. The events of Last Days took place after the Crisis on the Infinite Earths; the story begins with the JSA at the funeral for the Earth-Two Huntress and Dick Grayson, who both died in the Crisis. But of course they couldn't exist at all post-Crisis, and so when Kupperberg retells those events, he makes it the funeral of the original Mr. Terrific, who died in the 1979 JLA/JSA team-up. At the funeral, Green Lantern thinks about how the JSA is stepping down and Infinity, Inc. is kind of supplanting it, so Kupperberg has moved the death of Mr. Terrific (Year Nine on my timeline) later or the founding of Infinity, Inc. earlier (Year Ten on my timeline). It's reinforced when in that flashback, Alan Scott thinks about his daughter Jade, but he didn't know she was his daughter until Infinity, Inc. Annual #1 (Year Eleven on my timeline). (And, weirdly, he doesn't think about his son Todd at all. I get why Todd isn't mentioned in the present-day stuff, as he's evil from the time of JSA #1 to #52, but why doesn't Alan think of him fondly in the flashbacks?) Most of this isn't an issue, but I just found it interesting.

This post is fortieth in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper. Previous installments are listed below:

All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)

The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)

All-Star Squadron (1981-87)

Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)

Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)

Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)

America vs. the Justice Society (1985)

Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)

Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)

Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]

Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)

All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)