Society Dame: Justice Society of America #8

Previously...

Justice Society of America #8 is written by Len Strazewski with pencils by Grant Miehm, inks by Rich Buckler, and a cover by Tom Lyle featuring Black Canary and Solomon Grundy.  The series is edited by Brian Augustyn along with Mike Gold, who edited Black Canary's miniseries, her ongoing series, and her first arc in Action Comics Weekly.  The issue is cover dated August 1991 and hit the shelves in June.

"Vengeance from the Stars Chapter 8: Battle of the Stars" opens with the heroes Green Lantern, The Flash, Hawkman, and Black Canary beset by Vandal Savage dressed as the Egyptian Prince Cheops and a trio of constellation monsters composed of energy.  Except the monsters aren't in their normal mythic form; they look like characters out of television.  And Vandal Savage isn't happy about their new appearance.  Perhaps he doesn't wield as much control over these beings as he made it seem.

Vandal Savage uses the Cosmic Rod he took from Ted Knight to command the energy monster that looks straight out of I Love Lucy to attack Green Lantern.  While Black Canary helps Alan Scott get back to his feet, The Flash speeds around the energy monsters, drawing their attention away from his friends.

The racist caricature of a Native American constellation monster starts a rain dance type of thing before attacking Flash.  Hawkman and his friend, William Wildeagle, scoff at the offensive depiction of one of William's people, and neither of them have the situational awareness to recognize Savage's hired goons creeping up on them with guns.

Eventually, the Joe DiMaggio/Babe Ruth monster nails Green Lantern with his bat, and the "I Love Lucy" monster gets a good shot on The Flash.  It takes the wind and some of his own awareness out of him.

Hawkman barely manages to get an attack on the Indian monster, but it has little effect.  As Savage's goons capture Will Wildeagle, the Justice Society members are surrounded by the constellations which change shape again, this time back to their animal forms.

Before his beasts can finish off the heroes, Savage is confronted by Ted Knight who rises from his wheelchair brandishing a newly created Cosmic Rod of his own.

While Ted fights Savage, Wildeagle disarms his captors and turns the table on the hired goons.

With a lot more practice and expertise with the Cosmic Rod, Starman is able to destroy Vandal Savage's weapon and then the tools he stole from the Gotham Museum, effectively stripping the immortal tyrant from any control over the constellations.

Then Starman turns his attention to the energy beasts and uses the power of his Cosmic Rod to batter at the three otherworldly beasts.

Starman and Green Lantern contain the monsters, the Flash destabilizes the pyramidal structure that Savage erected, and Hawkman flies into the observatory to redirect the telescope.  All of this draws the constellation monsters into the same energy portal that shoots them back up to the stars where they belong.

But what can Black Canary do in this situation?  Defense.

In desperation, Vandal Savage grabs Starman's Cosmic Rod.  Solomon Grundy grabs Vandal Savage. The result is they both end up cast into the heavens with the star monsters, and the heroes rejoice.

Ted Knight confesses that he, too, feared change and ran away from his duty with the Justice Society of America.  He doesn't want to completely forget his normal life at the observatory, but he requests to be reinstated as a member of the JSA if the others consent.  They wholeheartedly do, and the issue ends with them watching television.

That's all for this miniseries, but Len Strazewski and artist Mike Parobeck returned for a second Justice Society series a year later.  Black Canary didn't appear in that series; I think it took place chronologically after she left Earth 2 to join the Justice League of America.

Overall thoughts on this story: It was mostly good.  The different artists were a bit of a hindrance on my enjoyment.  Parobeck was stellar and Miehm was pretty good, so it was fortunate that they drew five of the eight chapters.  More than art inconsistencies, though, I think the big problem with this story is the villains are boring.  I have never cared about Vandal Savage, but this story in particular didn't make him charismatic or even very scary.  And the energy monsters attacking the heroes were both emotionless and flat, as well as repetitive.

What worked was that I like the characters in this book.  Obviously, I love Black Canary, and Hawkman is one of my favorites, although I don't like him in the yellow luchador mask he wears in this series.  I also love Starman and his connection to Dinah, and Green Lantern and Flash both have some nice interactions with her.  This wasn't a great series, but it was fun when the heroes got to play off each other.

The End

Society Dame: Justice Society of America #7

Previously...

Justice Society of America #7 is written by Len Strazewski with pencils by Grant Miehm, inks by Rich Buckler, and a cover by Tom Lyle featuring Black Canary and Solomon Grundy.  The series is edited by Brian Augustyn along with Mike Gold, who edited Black Canary's miniseries, her ongoing series, and her first arc in Action Comics Weekly.  The issue is cover dated August 1991 and hit the shelves in June.

Miehm previously pencilled the Black Canary-focused second issue of the series, which looked pretty great.  That bodes much better for this issue than the last chapter by Tom Artis.

"Vengeance from the Stars Chapter 7: The Return of the Justice Society" opens with Green Lantern Alan Scott and Black Canary happening upon the nefarious Vandal Savage and his undead henchman Solomon Grundy just before they destroy the heroes' compatriots, Hawkman, the Flash, and William Wildeagle.

At the sight of Green Lantern, Solomon Grundy loses what little remains of his mind and rushes to attack.

The Flash uses his super speed to catch Black Canary before she hits the hard ground.  Green Lantern uses his power ring against Grundy, but the magic has little effect, so he calls the Scarlet Speedster back for reinforcements.

Nice of Black Canary to be able to mock the damsel in distress trope as--while she is the least powerful person in the area--she was also the first one to step up and throw down against Grundy.

Meanwhile, inside the Mt. Pride Observatory, a manually and emotionally battered Ted Knight watches his old friends battle valiantly and perhaps futilely against the power of Vandal Savage.  The same power that crushed Ted.  He thinks back to the glory days of the Justice Society of America, before the team broke up and members went their separate ways... before Ted retired his Starman duties to focus on astronomy.

But now, Ted sees that he was wrong to walk away from the responsibility of being a hero.  And for the first time since the first issue, he stands upright in defiance.

Outside the observatory, Vandal Savage is struggling with the damaged Cosmic Rod he stole from Ted while the rest of the heroes try to subdue Grundy.  Hawkman grabs the not-so-gentle giant and lifts him into the air, only to drop him from a great enough height that Grundy leaves a crater in the earth when he lands.  Green Lantern knows, sadly, that's not nearly enough to keep Grundy down.

As the four heroes (and Wildeagle) close in on Vandal Savage, they come under fire from Savage's hired guns, the same hoods who robbed the Gotham Museum and fought with Black Canary back in issue #2.  The boys finally arrive with the stolen loot and Savage dives into their car.  He throws a hook around Grundy and drags the brute back to the observatory where an energy force field goes up, preventing the Justice Society members from following them.

Inside, Ted Knight is frantically working to construct a means of fighting Vandal Savage with spare parts, when the ancient evildoer tosses Ted's own Cosmic Rod at him and demands Ted fix it.  Then Savage takes in the stolen relics from Ancient Egypt: tools, he informs the men, that will grant him total control over the energy monsters he creates and the power to rule the world.

Outside, the four heroes recap the events that brought them to this point.  Realizing they will soon be faced with three different energy monsters when none of them could even defeat just one, they decide to storm Mt. Pride and stop Savage before he can attack.  But they still have the force field to contend with.  William Wildeagle suggests using his ancestor's tomahawk, a wooden weapon that Hawkman used to some success in his battle with the giant woman.

Hawkman throws the tomahawk against the force field, causing a massive energy spike.  Or maybe it has nothing to do with the tomahawk and everything to do with Vandal Savage making a dramatic re-entrance in his best pharaoh fashion.

Savage goes on to monologue about how the monsters went into the modern world to steal "the powers that drive the modern age: electricity, radio and television waves, and atomic power."  He also boasts that he is Cheops, returned to greatness once again.  Hawkman takes issue with that claim because he's a reincarnated Egyptian prince himself and knows who Cheops really was.

Then things take an... interesting turn, when Savage unleashes the three constellation monsters in their true form, which appear to be three television celebrities.

Simply solid issue with some great action beats from Black Canary and The Flash.  It's great to see the heroes working together as a team and interacting rather than fighting electric giants one-on-one.  It's also great to see Ted Knight get his balls back and start to resist the crippling influence of Vandal Savage.

And Miehm's art is without question better than Artis' work on the last issue.  It's not always clean but it is dynamic and energetic.

Come back Thursday for the final chapter of Justice Society of America...

Society Dame: Justice Society of America #2

Previously...

Justice Society of America #2 is written by Len Strazewski with art by Grant Miehm and a cover, once again, by Tom Lyle featuring Black Canary and Solomon Grundy.  I forgot to mention it last time, but this series is edited by Brian Augustyn along with Mike Gold, who edited Black Canary's miniseries, her ongoing series, and her first arc in Action Comics Weekly.  The issue is cover dated May 1991 and hit the shelves in March.

"Vengeance from the Stars Chapter 2: The Sack of Gotham" begins with Alan Scott addressing the public, not in the guise of Green Lantern but in his role as managing editor of Gotham Broadcasting Channel.  He informs the public of the intermittent power outages all across the country even as the television we're watching is boosted from a store by looters taking advantage of the blackout in Gotham.

The looters are pretty confident that Gotham's police force is overworked this night and there is no one who can catch them in the act of stealing.  They are, of course, wrong.

The first of the criminals, Rocco, comes at Black Canary with a switchblade; she breaks his arm.  The other two try and attack her together; she uses their own force against each other and puts them down.    She leaves the three looters tied to a telephone pole, and then as she's getting back on her motorcycle, a distress call comes over the police radio frequency.

Police report a burglary at the Gotham Museum, then the cop on the radio begins screaming in terror and firing his weapon.  At her current location, Black Canary isn't far from the museum so she heads out on her bike.  By the time she arrives there, the lights have gone out in the city again, but her ride's headlight illuminates an overturned police cruiser in front of the museum.

Inside the museum, the first thing Black Canary sees is a security guard whose neck was broken.  She follows the killers' trail into the Ancient Egypt wing of the museum while mentally noting her like of living things like flowers and her dislike of dusty, dead things like everything in this museum.

She sneaks up on a group of criminals standing around a display of the Crown of Cheops.  The leader says this is the relic they're supposed to bring back to their Master; he smashes the display case with a pistol.  That's when Black Canary makes her presence known.  She draws their attention (and gunfire) and then kicks over a sarcophagus, causing two of the shooters to scatter or fall.

With some more fancy footwork and a pun ("Does your mummy know you do this?" Hilarious...), she takes down the leader of the crew.  Two of them trap her behind a model of a pyramid; she sneaks inside and then pops out when they don't see her, managing to clobber them both.

She walks over to the Crown of Cheops to try to figure out why the crooks were so interested in it.  She knows the relic is too well known to be sold after they made off with it.  A glance at the item description on the display case mentions that Cheops was somewhat of an astrologer for his time and is believed to be one of the first worshipers of celestial beings.  Hmm... that sounds a bit like what the mysterious Master is interested in.

That's when Black Canary is spotted by another hood... and Solomon Grundy!

Yes, Grundy calls her "Bird Lady" and the other hood refers to her as "The Lady Crime Fighter".  Pretty impressive, huh?

When Grundy throws a priceless relic at Black Canary, hoping to kill her, the other hood slaps him and warns him not to damage anything of value in the room.  Grundy slaps the man back, only he carries enough force that he probably killed the guy.  Then Grundy stalks the prone Black Canary, ready to pounce on her.

Meanwhile, at the Mt. Pride Observatory, former Starman Ted Knight is still a captive slave of the mysterious Master.  Said Master tells Ted that the Flash failed in his attempt to stop Orion last issue; Orion has siphoned off energy from all the nearby power plants, plunging the nation into darkness.  The master holds Ted's Cosmic Rod and throws down a fake wig, revealing that he was the alleged crazy man prophesying doom during the observatory's grand opening.

Ted Knight, stuck in a wheelchair, can only despair as his captor uses the Cosmic Rod to fire a burst of energy into the sky that transforms into the shape of Sagittarius.

Back in the Gotham Museum, Black Canary taunts Solomon Grundy as he moves in for the kill.  She has the advantage of speed and knows how to keep him off balance, but only for so long.  She tries to club him with ancient weapons and relics, but that doesn't have much effect on Grundy other than ticking him off.

However strong Grundy is, however invulnerable, Black Canary is a master of martial arts and she expertly redirects his size and momentum, flipping him into one wall after another.  At last he makes a dive for her and she manages to propel him right through a second story window and down to the alley below.

Pumped up on the thrill of victory, Black Canary goes down to the alley, brimming with confidence over her rout of the feared Solomon Grundy.  Of course, her over-confidence proves her undoing as Grundy wakes up and throws her into a wall.  (This fight reminded me of the duel between The Viper and the Mountain in a season 4 episode of Game of Thrones, though thankfully it didn't end nearly as horrifically as that.)

Even after she's thrown into the wall, Black Canary has enough of her strength and smarts to counter attack before Grundy crushes her head like a piece of fruit.

As Black Canary climbs to her feet, she's lit up by the headlights of a police cruiser driving down the alley.  She doesn't see Solomon Grundy get up until it's too late; he hurls her across the alley into the wall again.  The cops get out of the car and open fire on Grundy, but their bullets have no effect.  He knocks over the squad car and sends the police running away for backup.

Black Canary stands up and challenges Solomon Grundy to another round, but the monster is distracted by the vibrant light shining in the sky above them.  Black Canary tries taking on Grundy, but she's knocked unconscious by the revived gang she fought inside the museum.  Naturally, I mean, Black Canary always gets knocked unconscious!

The leader tells his boys to pack Black Canary away in a crate with the rest of their stolen loot.  Meanwhile, in the sky above Gotham City, Alan Scott--now dressed as Green Lantern--defends his television studio from Sagittarius.

Yeah, so this issue is basically one long Black Canary fight scene and it kicks all kinds of ass.  We see her take out the looters on the street pretty easily.  She has to be a bit more crafty and rely on her environment when she takes on the armed robbers in the museum.  Then she must call on all her wits and reserves to hold her own against the supernatural might that is Solomon Grundy.  Given how absurdly outclassed she is, Black Canary handles herself remarkably well against Grundy.  This is the kind of Black Canary action that proves her quality and worthiness to the ranks of Justice Society of America.

My favorite moment is when she has already been clobbered, she has broken ribs, and Grundy just sent two police running for their lives after they emptied their guns at him.  She doesn't cower; she doesn't call for backup.  She stands up Solomon Grundy and challenges him yet again.  Earlier in the issue, the wounded cop warned her not to go in the museum by herself but she did anyway, because she is a hero and she's going to fight evil no matter what.

Come back Monday for the next chapter of Justice Society of America...

Out of Context #21: "Wait, What was Stuffing the Bird?"

From Justice Society of America #2 (1991), art by Grant Miehm. 

Every Thursday, Flowers & Fishnets provide a panel that--when taken out of context from the rest of the page--may be funny, suggestive, or just dumb.

Out of Context #19: "Get Comfortable"

From Justice Society of America (1991) #2, art by Grant Miehm.

Every Thursday, Flowers & Fishnets provide a panel that--when taken out of context from the rest of the page--may be funny, suggestive, or just dumb.

Out of Context #15: "Shamed"

From Justice Society of America (1991), art by Grant Miehm.

Every Thursday, Flowers & Fishnets provide a panel that--when taken out of context from the rest of the page--may be funny, suggestive, or just dumb.

Out of Context #13: "What Every Man Wants to Hear"

From Justice Society of America (1991) #2, art by Grant Miehm.

Every Thursday, Flowers & Fishnets provide a panel that--when taken out of context from the rest of the page--may be funny, suggestive, or just dumb.

Out of Context #9: A Little Grundy Goes A Long Way

From Justice Society of America (1991) #2, art by Grant Miehm.

Every Thursday, Flowers & Fishnets provide a panel that--when taken out of context from the rest of the page--may be funny, suggestive, or just dumb.