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:

Catwoman: Year 2 by Doug Moench, Jim Balent, and Mark Pennington

So, this story has no direct relationship to my history of the Justice Society of America—which at forty-one installments and counting across more than three years is clearly never going to come to an end. But when researching Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper, I discovered its existence and, well, it made sense to me to read Catwoman: Year 2 after what was "Catwoman: Year One" in all but name. So here I am with a brief break from the JSA.

This story, obviously, takes place during the early years of Batman and Catwoman. Specifically, it must fall after The Long Halloween, as Harvey Dent has become Two-Face, and it must precede Dark Victory, as Batman is not yet working with Robin. Indeed, that lines it up pretty much exactly with my placement for Batman: Year Two, which seems right. In Long Halloween, Selina briefly pops up as a socialite in Bruce's circle (if I remember correctly; it's been a long time), an identity she must have established for herself with her proceeds from theft. For her, it would also go before When in Rome, another story of her early years.

The story seems to be designed to bridge the gap between the dark, gritty Selina of stuff like Batman: Year One and Her Sister's Keeper and the more lively, flirty Selina of the Batman comics of the 1990s. One aspect of the transition is very obvious. By the end of Her Sister's Keeper, Selina was wearing a gray costume; here, inspired by a meeting with the Joker in his purple suit, she discards it and replaces it with a costume in royal purple, such as she was wearing by the 1990s. More significantly, the story wants to establish Batman and Catwoman's flirtatious relationship, where he's attracted to her, she's attracted to him, but also he thinks of her as a criminal and therefore can't let himself act on that attraction, and she does enough good things that he can overlook the bad.

from Catwoman vol. 2 #39

On the other hand, while the story is designed to bridge the approach of the 1980s Catwoman to the 1990s one, it's not actually—despite the title—a very direct follow-up to "Year One." Holly Robinson is nowhere to be seen; my understanding is that she would never appear in a Catwoman story again until the Catwoman vol. 3 ongoing in the 2000s. Where did this character so integral to Selina's early days go off to? You can of course make something up, but writing her out is the kind of thing I expected this story to do. 

More jarring if you go directly from Her Sister's Keeper to Year 2 is the fact that here Selina has no sister... It's not that Maggie isn't mentioned; Year 2 goes so far as to explicitly state that Selina was an only child! Like, the last story was called "Her Sister's Keeper," you can't just ignore that. (And if Her Sister's Keeper was considered not to "count" by 1996... then what else was "Year One" supposed to be? You can't have a "Year Two" without one!) In my last post I said Her Sister's Keeper and Year 2 together would make a good trade... and that's still true but it would make an odd read!

from Catwoman vol. 2 #40

As for the actual story, well, it's okay. Selina goes for a cat-themed jewel but Batman anticipates her; to plan her next heist, she decides to distract him by releasing Two-Face, the Joker, and the Penguin from Arkham Asylum. The story tries to establish that unlike them, Selina's not a killer... but c'mon! Releasing the Joker is about as bad as being a murderer yourself! The idea that this was somehow a forgivable act was one I just could not buy no matter how hard the story tried to sell it to me. On the other hand, Jim Balent was born to draw Catwoman (her 1990s incarnation, at least), and it was always fun and engaging to read. Aside from the continuity aspects I discussed above, I also felt like I wanted a better sense of how Selina transitioned from someone adopting a costumed identity to help herself and others (in her own way) to someone obsessed with jewelry for its own sake... but that seemed to have happened off-panel between Her Sister's Keeper and this story.

Catwoman: Year 2 originally appeared in issues #38-40 of Catwoman vol. 2 (Oct.-Dec. 1996). The story was written by Doug Moench, pencilled by Jim Balent, inked by Mark Pennington, colored by Buzz Setzer, lettered by Albert T. De Guzman, and edited by Dennis O'Neil.

This post is a supplement to an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Wonder Woman: Past Imperfect. Previous installments are listed below: