"They are the sons—the daughters—the protegees—of the legendary Justice Society of America. They are the new generation of Earth-Two super-heroes. They are—INFINITY, INC."

One of the things that originally spurred my interest in reading the Earth-Two/Justice Society comics from DC was that idea of legacy that grew to dominate their depictions in the 1990s onward: series like Starman leveraged the long histories of these heroes in powerful ways, and I liked that a lot, and wanted to experience more of it. But the other thing that made me want to read all this was that Lyta Hall is actually my third-favorite Sandman character, and I wanted to see where she originated: Infinity, Inc.

It actually kind of amuses me that Neil Gaiman's Sandman, read by so many people who are otherwise unaware of DC continuity, has a major storyline rooted in an overcomplicated Roy Thomas retcon from the 1980s that is now in many ways forgotten and irrelevant. Yet while Infinity, Inc. has never really been collected, Lyta has recently been played by Laurel Lefkow in Audible's high-profile adaptation of The Sandman! The character lives on, even if detached from her past.

But let's go back to the beginning. I've previously discussed the first ten issues of Infinity, Inc., the "Generations Saga" (see below), but the series ran up to 53 issues in total, plus two annuals and a special. Infinity, Inc. was a super-team created by Sylvester Pemberton (the Star-Spangled Kid, later Skyman), mostly made up of heroes with relations to Golden Age characters, set on Earth-Two. So there was Skyman himself (a kid hero in the 1940s, propelled forward through time to the 1970s), Fury (the daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor), the Silver Scarab (the son of Hawkman and Hawkgirl), Nuklon (son of the Atom's goddaughter), Northwind (a mentee of Hawkman), Obsidian and Jade (children of the Green Lantern), Brainwave (son of JSA foe the Brain Wave), Wildcat (mentee of Wildcat), Doctor Midnight (mentee of Doctor Mid-Nite), and Hourman (son of Hourman). Rejected from membership in the Justice Society, they struck out on their own.

I liked the Generations Saga, but after that, I found the book hard to get into. Todd McFarlane takes over as regular artist with issue #14. I know he would later become one of the superstar artists of the 1990s and creator of Spawn, but I found his over-complicated layouts made for tough reading and distracted from the storytelling. Plus a lot of those early issues are that kind of team book I am not a huge fan of, where the fights just come on top of fights, and one feels that if people weren't always shooting off hot-headed and/or not having conversations, three-issue subplots could be over in one. The book suffered, too, during Crisis on Infinite Earths (#18-24), as it had to connect into the big story, but not actually do anything important.

I know a lot of people (including, I think, co-creator Roy Thomas himself) think the Crisis ruined this book, but it was at that point where it really took off. McFarlane is penciller up until issue #37, but learns how to balance his layouts with clear storytelling, and Roy's wife Dann goes from co-plotter to full-fledged co-writer. The characters begin to pop more, the team has clearer interactions and connections, and the ongoing subplots start to get underway. I really do love ensemble books, and Infinity, Inc. has the interplay of personalities required to make a good one. I came to pretty fond of all the characters: overbearing but well-meaning Skyman, earnest Midwesterner would-be starlet Jade, angry Obsidian, doofy Nuklon, feisty Wildcat, and so on. I don't think the Thomases always used them all to their utmost-- there was a Jade/Fury resentment that never went anywhere, and Northwind was underused-- but all-in-all the effect was charming, and I was always happy to spend time with this bunch.

Highlights for me included the debut of Helix, a group of genetic experiments gone wrong. I had this vague notion that Director Bones, who I know from Marc Andreyko's Manhunter, had been a supervillain at some point; I hadn't know he was an Infinity, Inc. character who originally spoke in rhyme! Mr. Bones, as he was then, is paroled under Skyman's care after Helix helps Infinity, Inc. He only behaves to protect his "siblings" in Helix... but by the end of the run, he's a well-meaning member of the team (and the final story arc actually has a very neat storyline where he is framed for murder and has to prove himself innocent). I liked the use of Solomon Grundy; after Jade (daughter of his old enemy) saves his life, he declares allegiance to her. This is one of those comics where even weaker storylines are elevated by the cast: I was always up for some Nuklon/Wildcat flirting, or a cameo from Stripesy, or what have you.

The Crisis, of course, complicated everything, as did the killing off of the Justice Society (more on that in a future post). But both of those things produced some of the series's strongest issues, "Memories" (#27), where we get a flashback to the JSA brats as kids, and "What Private Griefs..."  (#30), where each Infinity, Inc. member must deal with the loss of the JSA in their own way. Suddenly Infinity, Inc. was folded into the same DC universe as the Justice League and everyone else-- but to be honest, I thought this almost always worked just fine. The only time it didn't work was "The Degaton Paradox" (Annual #2) which took itself to explain how the events of America vs. the Justice Society played out in this new timeline... a question I never had, given an overcomplicated answer.

And what of Fury? Lyta Trevor was the daughter of the Earth-Two Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, who were wiped from existence by the Crisis. Roy Thomas clearly originally thought he could make this work by just never mentioning it, so Brainwave wipes Lyta's memories of her parents. This was kind of a dark move the series never really reckoned with, and later moved away from because it doesn't actually make any sense: Lyta would have to have parents in this new timeline, after all. So we slowly learn that she's the adopted daughter of one Admiral Trevor (no relation to Steve, I guess) and the Golden Age heroine Miss America (who in the new history took Wonder Woman's place in the JSA), but also the biological daughter of the (retroactive) Golden Age heroine Fury. I thought the new backstory was interesting, and worked in terms of making her a legacy-- which seems to me was really the point of all the Infinity, Inc. characters. You can work around the specifics of whose legacies they are. The original Fury is given an origin in Secret Origins #12, and I am given to understand that she plays a key role in The Young All-Stars, which I will read in the course of time.

In a very complicated plotline, her fiancé the Silver Scarab (Hector) deserts her after she becomes pregnant, but that's because he's under the mental influence of an ancient Hawkman villain. He ends up dying-- but then it turns out he's not dead, as he has become the replacement for the short-lived 1970s Jack Kirby version of the Sandman. Why Roy Thomas decided to pick up this character concept, I have no idea, except that he is always compelled to chase down loose continuity ends. Lyta goes off to the Dream Dimension to live with Hector-- and the series is promptly cancelled, leaving the two of them free to be used by Neil Gaiman when he starts publishing The Sandman just five months later. (I have a theory that Gaiman really wanted to use the actual Kirby Sandman, but had to deal with revelations and changes Thomas made to him in Wonder Woman #300 and Infinity, Inc. If so, I think it worked out for Gaiman in the long run given how important Lyta became to the climax of The Sandman.)

Outside of the continuity issues, I still did like Fury a lot. She's a daughter of money and privilege, and good looking (one imagines that these days, she'd be showing off on Instagram), but she's strong, physically and mentally, and heroic. There's a harder edge to her in her post-Infinc appearances, for obvious reasons, but you can see how that's nascent here. I don't think she's a great character yet, but you can see the potential for greatness-- and that's what I love about shared universe superhero comics anyway.

Vince Argondezzi later takes over for McFarlane on pencils, and he's pretty good-- both are aided well by Tony DeZuniga, an old favorite of mine, on inks. Near the end of the run, Michael Bair becomes the regular penciller, and though I like his work on some of the Roy Thomas-penned Secret Origins I've read, his slightly macabre style doesn't really fit Infinity, Inc., and he is way too obsessed with working in panty shots and sideboob for the female characters. (Comics, everybody!) But despite this, I enjoyed the series up to its end, and wish it had run longer and done more, because I think it had a lot of potential. As I keep bouncing around DC's Earth-Two-adjacent material, I look forward to seeing what other writers do with these characters.

One last continuity note: I had previously read it, but I reread Convergence: Infinity, Inc. at the point I think it takes place, between issues #24 and 25. Published in 2015, Convergence was about characters being plucked out of old continuities to live on an alien planet for a year and then fight; Infinity, Inc. and the Justice Society were taken from during the Crisis itself. So we get appearances from the whole original gang. (I think? Now that I think about it, is Northwind in it?) The issues were written by Jerry Ordway, who co-created the series with Roy Thomas and Mike Machlan, and who pencilled issues #1-10 and part of Annual #2. Ordway emphasizes some aspects of the characters that had been forgotten at that point (Jade's desire to be an actress, for example), but he also incorporates post-Infinc revelations about the Infinitors. Most notably, I had completely forgotten that Todd "Obsidian" Rice was revealed to be gay in Andreyko's Manhunter! Ordway plays that up here. Reading subsequent issues of Infinity, Inc. through that lens actually really works: there are some comments, when Todd dates Marcie and when Todd meets Raven of the New Teen Titans, that I actually found hard to interpret any other way than hinting at him being gay! He has a dark secret, and I feel like he doesn't perform well sexually-- but his girlfriend Marcie is actually a Manhunter using him for evil purposes, so she has incentive to play along. Fortuitous, and I'm glad Ordway was willing to take on retcons to his co-creation.

This post is the tenth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment will be a supplement covering a reading order for Infinity, Inc. 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)
   

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Gotham, Part XVI: Batman: Year Two: Fear the Reaper

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2002 (contents: 1987-91)
Borrowed from the library
Read March 2015

Batman: Year Two: Fear the Reaper

Writer: Mike Barr
Pencillers: Alan Davis, Todd McFarlane
Inkers: Paul Neary, Mark Farmer, Alfredo Alcala, Pablo Marcos
Letterers: Richard Starkings, Todd Klein, Agustin Mas
Colorists: Steven Oliff, Gloria Vasquez, Tom Ziuko

Year Two, November - Year Three, August
The first of many overt attempts to "cash in" on Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Batman: Year One, this would be followed by Batman: Year Three, JLA: Year One, Batgirl: Year One, Robin: Year One, Nightwing: Year One, Huntress: Year One, and even Metamorpho: Year One and the (tragically uncollected, I'm sure) Guy Gardner: Year One. There's nothing to really distinguish Year Two from the slew of tales of Batman's early years that followed it in publication order, many of which I've already read. Basically Batman discovers that the Reaper, a vigilante who operated in Gotham after the Alan Scott Green Lantern and before himself is back, and things get weird as he decides this is the time he'll use a gun... and not just any gun, but literally the same gun that killed his parents. And, get this, thanks to contrivance, he has to team up with the guy who killed his parents to do it. Even for superhero comics, this is a bit goofy/implausible, but I think that in principle it could be made to work. Well, unfortunately Mike Barr and a cohort of artists don't succeed, but man, Alan Davis draws nice pictures.

Next Week: If you thought one year-long holiday-themed murder mystery was good, why not a second, in Dark Victory!?

Review: Invasion! by Keith Giffen, Bill Mantlo, Todd McFarlane, Bart Sears et al.

Comic trade paperback, 256 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 1988)
Acquired and read June 2015

Invasion!

Plot and Breakdowns: Keith Giffen
Script: Bill Mantlo

Pencils: Todd McFarlane, Keith Giffen, Bart Sears
Inks: P. Craig Russell, Al Gordon, Joe Rubinstein, Todd McFarlane, Tom Christopher, Dick Giordano, Pablo Marcos
Letters: Gaspar, Agustin Mas, John Costanza
Colors: Carl Gafford, Gene D'Angelo

I don't blog about it much because they're not technically books, but I've been reading through DC's uncollected space-based superhero comics. I bought and read Invasion! because it essentially bridges the gap between The Omega Men (1983-86) and L.E.G.I.O.N. (1989-94). A number of the Omega Men are killed off to prove the situation is serious in that way I despise, while a couple of the characters who would star in L.E.G.I.O.N. are introduced.

The basic premise of Invasion! is that a number of alien races, led by the Dominators (primarily appearing in Legion of Super-Heroes) ally to invade the Earth. It's a neat idea, though as someone who just Omega Men, it was odd to see the Psions, the Citadel, and the Warlords of Okaara all on the same side; the Psions and the Citadel are devoted enemies, and Okaara is where most of the Omega Men trained to fight the Citadel! But it's actually realistic; these aren't races of "good" and "evil," they're just political groups whose interests usually conflict but happen to align in this particular instance.

Anyway, I bet this was really cool to read as it came out. Invasion! consists of three 80-page chapters, each of which ends with a game-changer that I'm sure played out in all the ongoings coming out in between. Collected here, though, it often feels superficial; there's no real point-of-view character except for some of the folks captured on the alien Starlag... and they're not in the main action for most of the story! You can see how this would have worked in monthly format though; the main series provides the scale-- exposition is very effectively provided by newspapers television news coverage-- while the ongoings show how these global events play out on a local scale.

Weirdly, though, even key events within the title are given short shrift. The change in allegiance of the Daxamites is a big deal, yet none of them ever display distinct personalities. As far as I can tell, none of them even have names! (Though L.E.G.I.O.N. '90 would establish one of them to be the father of future Legionnaire Lar Gand.)

The space heroes-- my whole reason for being here-- have surprisingly little to do. The Omega Men are ciphers, and don't really convince as the characters written by Roger Slifer and Todd Klein. The characters who would go on to star in L.E.G.I.O.N., on the other hand, contribute little and are easily forgotten; you could read L.E.G.I.O.N. '89 #1 without ever having read Invasion! easily. Oddly, the new characters who get the most setup are the Blasters... whose series lasted exactly one issue.

The hodgepodge of artists here doesn't help. Todd McFarlane was supposed to pencil the whole thing, but he disappears about halfway through, replaced at first by Keith Giffen and then by Bart Sears; meanwhile, an army of inkers goes to work. The art is for the most part undistinguished, sometimes confusing, sometimes very good. It could have been worse, and the big crossover kind of calls for a certain genericness of style, but I suspect that everyone involved has done better works elsewhere.

I was amused to discover the presence of old-school Justice League mascot Snapper Carr. I was even more amused to see him develop teleportation powers, as I'd only just read Final Crisis Companion, featuring a teleporting Snapper Carr. The DC universe, it connects in odd and unexpected ways sometimes.