The Calculator Saga Finale: DETECTIVE COMICS #468

Continuing from this week's amazing exploits of Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, the Atom, and Elongated Man individually combating The Calculator, writer Bob Rozakis brought this thrilling saga out of the backups and into the main pages of Detective Comics.  Joining Rozakis was Marshal Rogers, making his debut on the character of Batman, along with regular inker Terry Austin.

Detective Comics #468: "Battle of the Thinking Machines" opens with the Caped Crusader swinging by a construction site where the Calculator is robbing a newly unearthed time capsule of its centuries-old trinkets.  The Calculator uses the equipment on his chest and head to project an axe; he hurls it at the rope Batman uses to swing down, cutting the line and sending Batman falling to the street.

Calculator anticipates every one of Batman's attacks with the gadgets from his utility belt, effortlessly thwarting the Dark Knight's attempts to capture him.  At last, Batman gets the better of Calculator by using the criminal's own projected objects against him.

As Batman takes the Calculator into custody, the villain pushes some buttons on his chest piece, claiming he will turn defeat into victory.  This is basically the same thing Calculator has been saying for the past five issues of Detective.  Every time one of the Justice Leaguers smacked him down, Calculator bragged that this was all part of his plan.

The next day, Morgan Edge of Galaxy Broadcasting calls Bruce Wayne, hoping to sway the wealthy playboy into voting his way on some boring corporate stuff.  Bruce isn't interested in dealing with Edge, and he blows him off so he can head to a meeting of the Justice League of America.  Of course, he doesn't tell Morgan Edge he's meeting the JLA, and Edge assumes Wayne is jet setting with some supermodels.

In the Justice League Satellite, Batman tells Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Elongated Man, and the Atom that the Calculator broke out of jail that morning.

The heroes discuss the Calculator's crime wave when Aquaman interrupts their meeting to tell them that the Calculator is committing a crime in Central City.  Aquaman is only there on Monitor Duty, and the Flash is away from Central City battling in the future.

The six heroes teleport down to Star City only to find the Calculator waiting for them, even applauding their arrival as it fits right with his plan.  Green Arrow fires a boxing glove arrow, but Calculator redirects the shot directly at Elongated Man.

Using his uncanny and ill-defined powers, the Calculator turns the heroes' attacks against each other, as Batman's batarang snaps Green Arrow's bow line just after he misfires, sending the arrow back at Batman.  Black Canary stumbles into Elongated Man and gets tangled up.  Hawkman drops Atom on Calculator from a distance; the Atom's full weight should smash Calculator, but he bounces off harmlessly.  Then Hawkman moves in for the attack.

The Atom changes to his normal size and appearance as Ray Palmer.  He takes a swing at Calculator but cannot connect.  Ray is physically unable to hit the Calculator.  As the villain saunters off in victory, he reveals that by allowing himself to get captured by each of them in the past, he inoculated himself to ever getting caught by these six superheroes ever again...

...WHAT?!!

Okay, Rozakis, that is some straight-up Bob Haney level insanity!  You couldn't provide a better explanation than that?!!

The next day, Bruce Wayne is obsessed with finding a way to stop the Calculator when Morgan Edge shows up to nag him about the Galaxy sale at the board meeting.  Edge's sudden appearance gives Bruce the inspiration for how to thwart the Calculator, but it pisses Edge right off as he has twice been ignored by Wayne.

Later, the Calculator reads that S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City is going to launch another time capsule, so he goes to, like, rob it or something.  Along the way, he uses his head projector thing to create a blizzard and freeze a pair of police officers attempting to arrest him.  When he arrives at S.T.A.R. Labs, he creates a crane to hook the time capsule.  Then Batman arrives.

Batman throws some gadgets but they have no effect on the Calculator, of course.  The Calculator projects a large cage and throws it at Batman.  Then, inexplicably, the floor rotates changing Batman and Calculator's relative position, thereby dropping the cage down on Calculator.

See, Batman could not capture the Calculator, but the Calculator could capture himself.  He rages and howls and his equipment sputters and breaks down on him.  Later, Batman explains to his fellow Justice Leaguers how he tricked the Calculator.

Then an irate Morgan Edge calls to complain about stuff we don't care about.

Maybe the reason you've never seen Batman laughing is because it looks creepy as hell!  Seriously, Marshall Rogers makes him look insane in that last panel; this should be a cliffhanger into a Joker story!

Speaking of Rogers, his figure design and panel work is pretty solid.  I especially like he deviates from the normal construction to throw out some interesting special effects, like how Hawkman crashes during his fight with Calculator.  On the other hand, he's pretty spartan about backgrounds in a lot of these pages.  Rogers would go on to be one of the best Batman artists of his time, but this early issue needs a bit more work.

The story is pretty crazy.  As a climax, I like that Rozakis brought the five heroes back to help Batman foil the Calculator, even though none of them were particularly helpful.  The Calculator would eventually become a serious villain for the DC Universe in general and for the Birds of Prey in specific.  At this early stage of his career, however, he's pretty much a joke.  His costume is lame and his powers are so wonky and inconsistent that it's hard to take him seriously.  I mean, Signal Man was better than this guy.

Thus concludes the Calculator Saga.  Come back tomorrow when I jump forward nearly one-hundred issues of Detective Comics for the next part of "Pretty Bird" with Black Canary and Green Arrow.

The Calculator Saga: DETECTIVE COMICS #467

Continuing from yesterday's thrilling adventure of Green Arrow and The Calculator, writer Bob Rozakis, penciler Marshal Rogers, and inker Terry Austin test the Calculator's criminal computations against the Winged Wonder in Detective Comics #467.

Presented here, uninterrupted, is the six-page backup story "The Man Who Skyjacked Hawkman" starring, naturally, Hawkman.

Come back tomorrow for the final part in the Calculator Saga starring Batman and all the heroes who have appeared in the last five chapters!

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 #6

Previously...

Justice Society of America #6 is written by Len Strazewski with pencils by Tom Artis, inks by Frank McLaughlin, 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.

The last issue that Tom Artis drew for this series was the Hawkman-centric issue #4.  That was a shame because I love Hawkman, but Artis' art was pretty lifeless and boring.  This time it's even worse, which sucks because this chapter focuses on Black Canary and Green Lantern fighting in the sky.  But, as we'll see, Artis' art is boring and awful.

"Vengeance from the Stars Chapter 6: Danger Flies the Skies" opens with Black Canary slowly regaining consciousness, pleading with her husband, Larry Lance, to let her sleep ten more minutes.  Then her eyes open fully and she realizes she is dangling high in the sky in the taloned clutches of a giant energy bird, the latest form of the constellation monster Sagittarius.

Green Lantern, caught in the bird's other talon, tells Canary to shut up so he can concentrate.  Real nice, Alan, coming from the crime fighter who can fly if the bird drops you!

Green Lantern struggles and manages to free his left arm from the talon.  He doesn't use his free hand to escape, though, just scratch his nose.  Black Canary tells him that the bird is also carrying a box full of stolen Egyptian relics from the Gotham Museum, and while she's recapping events from issues #2 and #3, a crop-duster soars nearby.

This is no random airplane flying near the bird's path, though, this "borrowed" crop-duster happens to be piloted by Doiby Dickles, the buffoonish cab driver that took palled around with Green Lantern before usurping his feature in All-American Comics.  Dickles flies close enough to tell Green Lantern he brought the special item, but the bird takes notice.  Sagittarius swoops down to attack the crop-duster and Doiby leads it on some fun little aerial acrobatics that make Black Canary nauseous.

Well, they should have been fun aerial acrobatics, but Tom Artis' layouts and panel construction are so flat that the motion and energy of the stunts is lost.  Anyway, Doiby gets out of the pilot's seat and hands Alan Scott the green power lantern.

Sagittarius doesn't like this at all and dives down toward Doiby who is trying to regain control of the plane.  Green Lantern uses this time to speak the oath that powers his magic ring.

Alan creates an energy projection to pluck the bird's hind feathers, causing Sagittarius to drop Green Lantern and Black Canary.  Green Lantern creates a green parachute for Dinah, allowing her to settle gently on Doiby's plane while Alan turns around to combat the bird monster.

Meanwhile, on the ground below, Vandal Savage's henchmen watch the fight in the sky while Solomon Grundy rages about wanting to kill Green Lantern.  The henchmen use reverse psychology on Grundy to get him to pick up the fallen box of Egyptian loot and put it in another plane.  Then they take off for New Mexico and the Mt. Pride Observatory where their evil master awaits.

Back in the sky, Green Lantern tries to cage the bird with his power ring but it doesn't work.  The bird is too powerful and it shoots energy beams out of its eyes that knock Alan unconscious.  He begins to fall, but the ring keeps his descent slow and steady.  But that puts him in danger of Sagittarius' beak and claws.

Doiby flies the plane near the bird and releases its tanks of insecticide smoke in Sagittarius' face.  The monster is distracted enough fro Black Canary to climb out onto the plane's wing and catch Green Lantern.

Black Canary brings Alan around and asks if he can absorb the monster's energy using his lantern and he thinks it's a great idea.

Green Lantern flies out again, but this time when Sagittarius fires its deadly eye-beams, Alan catches them with his green power lantern and siphons the monster's stolen energy.  Weakened, the bird flies off.  Green Lantern and Black Canary are able to follow the bird, sending Doiby off on his own to hopefully die a horrible death.

The heroes follow Sagittarius to the Mt. Pride Observatory where their friend, Ted Knight, works.  Sagittarius disappears into the massive antenna relay that has been constructed around the observatory.  As the heroes get closer, they find Vandal Savage gloating over the half-conscious forms of Hawkman and The Flash.  They witness William Wildeagle shoot Ted Knight's Cosmic Rod out of Savage's hand, but then Solomon Grundy sneaks up on Wildeagle.

After the awesomeness of Mike Parobeck last issue, it really sucked to endure Tom Artis' pencils in this issue.  They're not terrible on their own, but they don't compare to Parobeck or Rick Burchett or Grant Miehm.  And the greatest problem is the uninspired panel construction and layout.  Every page is based on a six panel grid.  Occasionally, two panels will merge into one or he'll give us a splash, but they're never anything impressive.  I don't know if he was trying to emulate the simplistic style of Golden Age comics.  I also don't know why this eight issue series needed four different artists.  Either way, this issue suffered.

It's also not the best story.  It's just as formulaic as the rest; the aerial combat with the energy monster really isn't powerful enough to take up two thirds of the book, and the last two pages cover stuff we already know.  Plus, Doiby Dickles is lame.  All in all, this isn't a great way to lead into the final two issues of the series, but they should pick up.

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

Society Dame: Justice Society of America #5

Previously...

Justice Society of America #5 is written by Len Strazewski with pencils by Mike Parobeck, inks by Rick Burchett, 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 5: Double Star Rising" begins with the fastest man alive, Jay Garrick, alias The Flash, rapidly assembling an energy detecting geiger counter out of spare parts.  He grabs the device and rushes across the American military base to where Hawkman is being treated for injuries sustained last issue.  The base doctor suspects Hawkman has a concussion, but Hawkman refuses any further treatment now that Flash is there and ready to roll.

A boyish-looking enlisted soldier tells Hawkman that a Native American named William Wildeagle is outside waiting for him.  Wildeagle is the friend of Hawkman's archaeologist alter-ego, Carter Hall.  When Hawkman and Flash greet him outside the base hospital, Wildeagle makes it clear that he knows who his friend is, mask or not.

The three of them head off running and flying to New Mexico, which happens to be home to the Mt. Pride Observatory, where Ted Knight works.

Knight isn't in very good shape right now, though, as he's been tortured and enslaved by Vandal Savage.  The immortal evil-doer has taken over the Observatory and reconstructed the outer facade to look more like a pyramid; the observatory now siphons every type of energy to fuel the Cosmic Rod he stole from the former Starman, Ted Knight.

Savage reminds his hostage, Ted, that soon he will be joined by his old Justice Society colleagues, Green Lantern and Black Canary.  But when the phone rings, Savage learns that The Flash and Hawkman are still alive and coming for him.

Meanwhile, somewhere between here and there, Hawkman realizes maybe he should have let the doctor do a more thorough examination.

Flash tells the others they're close to Mt. Pride and Hawkman wonders if the crazy star monsters are connected to Ted Knight's work.  With some amount of dread, Flash suspects there is, indeed, a connection.  He gives the geiger counter to William Wildeagle and asks the man to catch up on foot while he and Hawkman approach the observatory, which now seems to be glowing.

When they approach, the sky is lit up by the female energy monster that Hawkman squared off against last issue.  The giant is standing around the scaffold of the pyramidal observatory, feeding energy into or from the structure.  Flash and Hawkman concoct a plan to trip the monster into the scaffolding, hoping it will ground her and shut off the power.

They run and fly around her until she contacts the scaffold, but it doesn't draw energy from her.  It juices her up.  Also, the dog monster that Flash fought in the first issue returns, and then changes back into the giant humanoid with a club, so now each of the Justice Society members has an energy giant with which to contend.

Hawkman is nearly battered by one of the giants; his reflexes and fighting ability are still a bit shaky from the concussion.  Flash manages to trip one monster into the other in an attempt to get his friend to safety, but when he tells Hawkman to leave, they notice that physical contact between the giants caused a power disruption.

Hawkman reasons that the monsters' weakness is each other and the heroes spring back into action to stop the beasts.  This time, with a plan.

The energy giants collapse into each other and dissipate.  Inside the observatory, Vandal Savage snarls a curse at this setback.  He grabs Ted Knight's Cosmic Rod and propels himself through the skylight.  Ted is only too glad to be rid of Savage, and begins working on something as soon as his captor is out of sight.

Outside, Vandal Savage makes his presence known to Hawkman and The Flash and takes them out of the fight just as quickly with the energy of the Cosmic Rod.  As he gloats over the stunned heroes, however, a gunshot rings out over the desert and a rifle slug knocks the rod out of Savage's hand.  William Wildeagle comes down the path holding a rifle trained on Vandal Savage, telling the villain to surrender.

Wildeagle doesn't realize, though, that Vandal Savage's monstrous servant has returned.

The first four issues of this series were pretty good, but man this one was so much better.  A lot of that credit can be attributed to Mike Parobeck, whose art was so classy and distinguished that it still saddens me that the man died so early in his comics career.  He made solid gold of books like Elongated Man and Batman Adventures, and I know he would have been very successful today if he'd survived.

Staying on the art for a minute: Hawkman is one of my all-time favorite heroes, but I have never, ever liked this version with the Mexican wrestler-looking luchador mask.  Hawkman's helmet is one of my favorite pieces of art design, so it sucks to see him reduced to such a commonplace cowl.  That said, this is probably the best it has ever been rendered because Mike Parobeck just rocks the design in every way.

What else makes this issue stand out is that finally, finally our heroes have someone to talk to besides themselves and endangered bystanders.  Sure, Hawkman and Flash can be solo acts, but this series is called Justice Society of America; let's see the team work together already!  And they do--really, really well!  I also think it's fun that Strazewski put these two heroes together for the first team-up given that they co-headlined Flash Comics in the 1940s.

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

Society Dame: Justice Society of America #4

Previously...

Justice Society of America #3 is written by Len Strazewski with pencils by Tom Artis, inks by Frank McLaughlin  Burchett, and a cover, once again, by Tom Lyle.  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 June 1991 and hit the shelves in April.

"Vengeance from the Stars Chapter 4: Evil of the Ancients" begins with archaeologist Carter Hall being led into a cave by William Wildeagle, a Native American expert in ancient tribal art found in the southwestern United States.  The power generating the lights in the cave flickers on and off as this part of the story takes place at roughly the same time as the previous two issues.

In the cave, William shows Carter some tribal wall art that dates back thousands of years and depicts animals and images created in the same style as cave paintings found throughout the world.  The two scientists speculate on what could have caused different races and cultures separated by oceans and eras to focus on the same types of mythological concepts.  Carter suggests the possibility of shared "racial memory"...

So Carter's theory suggests that giant monsters from the heavens may have terrorized prehistoric man to the point of inherited fears and superstitions being passed on throughout the ages.  He recognizes it's a crazy, not scientific idea, but William doesn't dismiss it at all.

Then the earth shakes and Carter thinks an earthquake has rocked the area but William knows that an atomic bomb has been set off nearby.  The two archaeologists don't have time to escape the blast, but thankfully, an enormous and slightly familiar figure sucks up the energy from the atomic explosion, saving their lives.

Carter realizes that the being looks like the constellation Andromeda and that its presence on earth seems to confirm his theory about the ancients.  William is less concerned with the theories than with survival.  Andromeda is heading toward a nuclear warhead depot and they need to get out of their immediately.  They drive away in William's jeep; Carter gets out at the museum while William goes to get the army for help.

In the museum, Carter puts on the Nth metal wings and mask of his heroic alter ego, Hawkman.  He also grabs an ancient spear and shield.

By the time Hawkman catches up to Andromeda, she is at the warhead depot and beating the crap out of the army and their tanks.  He tries to distract the monster, and she shoots him with lasers from her eyes.  The lasers are rebuffed by the wooden shield and he figures that while the constellation seems to absorb energy, it has a weakness to wood, just like Green Lantern.

Hawkman advises the army to build wooden battering rams to fight it while he spears Andromeda in the hand.  She lashes out savagely and knocks him around, but he regroups and grabs the chain that is linked to her arm.  He wraps her up and binds her, but Andromeda changes shape into a pegasus and bats him into the cliff face.

Andromeda/Pegasus reaches into the depot and pulls out three nuclear warheads.  The winged horse takes off into the sky with Hawkman in pursuit, but before he can get close enough to retrieve or disarm the warheads, she blasts him with her powerful beams.  The energy destabilizes his Nth metal and Hawkman begins to plummet to his death.

Thinking he's about to die, Hawkman sends out a silent declaration of love to his wife, but The Flash catches him in the nick of time.  They stumble relatively unharmed and then get up to watch the constellation monster fly away.  Now able to compare notes on their individual bouts with these monsters, Hawkman and The Flash team up.  Now we see how four solo heroes are starting to come together as one unit.

Even though I like Hawkman better than The Flash, Green Lantern, and yes, even Black Canary, this was easily the weakest of the four issues so far.  For one thing, we have seen and heard this same story four times in a row.  Carter Hall doesn't add much beyond speculation that these monsters may have visited Earth before in the ancient past, but I'm not sure how that's relevant.  Even with the immortal Vandal Savage as our primary antagonist, it sounds like he wasn't the one responsible for unleashing these monsters back in the day so I don't need that kind of backstory.

Also, the action sequences in this story aren't that spectacular and I blame a lot of that on the artist.  I don't know Tom Artis from any other book, but it looks like he recycles a lot of the same poses and shots for Hawkman within this book from page to page.  He never lets the character spread his wings; the panels are always too small and confined for Hawkman.

Anyway, this may be the low point, but now the characters are coming together so next issue ought to turn things around.

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