Showcase Presents Wildcat by Eddie Berganza, Nick Gnazzo, and Ray Kryssing / Green Lantern / The Flash: Faster Friends by Ron Marz, Val Semeiks, Chip Wallace, et al.

From June 2020 to December 2023, I chronicled the history of the Justice Society in fifty installments. And then, at last, I was done!

Or was I? The nature of these projects I undertake is you can always discover there was some relevant comic you didn't know about at the time. Such was the case when a friendly commenter named Drew popped up to tell me that, after I'd bemoaned Geoff Johns forgetting about the brother of Yolanda "Wildcat" Montez, the character made an appearance in an issue of Showcase '94. Well, it looks like I have more comics to read, so this series is (much like the JSA itself) called back into action again after a long gap. Since December 2023, I've discovered a few different JSA-adjacent comics, so this will be the first of, I think, three new installments.

So, the second Wildcat, Yolanda, was created by Roy and Dann Thomas in Infinity, Inc. (see item #10 below), but like a lot of DC's legacy characters, basically went into limbo once the series was over. And then was brutally killed off to prove the situation was serious... in an issue of freakin' Eclipso! Gotta put that old white guy back into his rightful position, of course. 

from Showcase '94 #8

But as Drew told me, there was a follow-up to all this in an issue of Showcase, DC's anthology series. In this story, Ted Grant, the original Wildcat, goes to Yolanda's funeral... only to find out that her parents, desperate with mourning, have hired a witch doctor to bring their daughter back to life! It's a pretty simple story: you might not be surprised to find out that Yolanda comes back as a mindless monster, and Ted defeats it. It is, after all, just ten pages. I didn't much care for the art, but it was nice to see that Roy and Dann Thomas's original conception of Yolanda wasn't totally forgotten; her brother is in the story. (For some reason, Geoff Johns later makes up a cousin for Yolanda rather than just use the brother during his JSA run; see item #34 below.)

from Green Lantern/Flash: Faster Friends #1

I also read Faster Friends, a two-issue miniseries from 1997 about Green Lantern (then Kyle Rayner) teaming up with the Flash (then Wally West) in order to deal with the consequences of an early adventure of a different Green Lantern (then Alan Scott) and Flash (then Jay Garrick). We get some flashbacks to that original adventure, the first time Green Lantern and Flash ever teamed up, back in 1940, as the present-day characters work alongside their namesakes and each other.

I think the idea here is good but I also think there's too much going on for the story's ninety-six pages... or maybe there's too much action, which pushes out the stuff it seems to me the story should actually be about! The first issue in particular is a bit of a nothingburger; we have a flashback of Jay and Alan teaming up but it goes so quickly it doesn't really give us any insight into their personalities. In the present, I think we're supposed to see a sort of rivalry between Wally and Kyle, but it's more like something we're told happened in other stories than something we actually see in this one.

from Flash/Green Lantern: Faster Friends #2

The second issue has more potential but again is trying to do too much: Jay is terminally ill, and Kyle and Wally go through a teleporter that mixes them up a bit. But Jay's impending death is a bit too much to deal with in a story like this, and of course it's all resolved by the end of the story (albeit in a clever way). One might think that Wally and Kyle being scrambled up would yield some good drama or character insight, but basically all it means is that each is wearing the wrong costume and seems to know stuff the other should, and then it gets fixed. There's no meaningful character arc: one expects more from Mark Waid, to be honest.

As far as this project goes, it's always fun to see Jay and Alan... but this is from the period (see #23 below) when Alan was deaged and went by "Sentinel." Such things happen in superhero comics, I suppose, but one doesn't have to like them. Bad creative decision, though again, Waid and Augustyn do an interesting thing with it, at least. 

(I read the story collected in a DC Comics Presents issue from 2011, but I think it will end up being collected whenever DC does The Flash by Mark Waid Omnibus, Volume Three, which I will buy when it comes out, so that may have been pointless.) 

Wildcat: "Brujas Y Gatos" originally appeared in issue #8 of Showcase '94 (July 1994). The story was written by Eddie Berganza, pencilled by Nick Gnazzo, inked by Ray Kryssing, colored by Suzanne Bourdages, lettered by Bill Oakley, and edited by Neal Ponzer.  

 

Green Lantern/Flash: Faster Friends #1 and Flash/Green Lantern: Faster Friends #2 originally appeared in 1997. The story was written by Ron Marz (#1) and Mark Waid & Brian Augustyn (#2); pencilled by Bart Sears, Andy Smith, Jeff Johnson, Ron Lim, & Tom Grindberg (#1) and Val Semeiks (#2); inked by Mark Pennington & Bill Anderson (#1) and Chip Wallace (#2); colored by John Kalisz (#1) and Ian Laughlin (#2); lettered by Chris Eliopoulos (#1) and Albert DeGuzman (#2); and edited by Kevin Dooley (#1) and Paul Kupperberg (#2). It was reprinted in DC Comics Presents: Green Lantern / The Flash: Faster Friends #1 (Jan. 2011).

 

This post is the fifty-first in an improbably long series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Impulse: Bart Saves the Universe. 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]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
• Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
15. Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
16. The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
17. Gladiator (1930) ["Man-God!" (1976)]
    
18. The Crimson Avenger: The Dark Cross Conspiracy (1981-88)
19. The Immortal Doctor Fate (1940-82)
20. Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (1951-91)
21. Armageddon: Inferno (1992)
22. Justice Society of America vol. 2 (1992-93)
23. The Adventures of Alan Scott--Green Lantern (1992-93)
24. Damage (1994-96)
25. The Justice Society Returns! (1999-2001)
26. Chase (1998-2002)
27. Stargirl by Geoff Johns (1999-2003)
28. The Sandman Presents: The Furies (2002)
29. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book One (1999-2000)
30. Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter: A Love Story (2000)
31. Two Thousand (2000)
32. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Two (1999-2003)
33. Golden Age Secret Files & Origins (2001)
34. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Three (1999-2003)
35. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Four (2002-03)
36. JSA Presents Green Lantern (2002-08)
37. JSA #46-87 (2003-06)
38. JSA: Strange Adventures (2004-05)
39. JSA Classified (2005-08)
40. JSA: Ragnarok (2020)
41. Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper (1989) [Catwoman: Year 2 (1996)]
42. Wonder Woman: Past Imperfect (1997-2002)
43. Batman/Wildcat (1970-98)
44. Justice Society of America vol. 3 (2007-11) [reading order]
45. Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant (2010-11)
46. Terra (2007-09)
47. Power Girl: Power Trip (2005-10)
48. JSA All-Stars vol. 2 (2010-11) 
49. Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years (1941-2012)
50. Power Girl Returns (2022-23)