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 #3

Previously...

Justice Society of America #3 is written by Len Strazewski with pencils by Mike Parobeck, inks by Rick 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 3: Dead Air" begins with Alan Scott addressing the nation from the anchor desk on GBC News.  He informs the viewers that Gotham City and indeed most of the country is experiencing power outages.  This scene puts us at the same moment where issue #2 began, except instead of watching the scene on TV from the perspective of some looters, we're now in the studio with Alan Scott and his production staff.

Unexpectedly, the power goes out in the studio which shouldn't be possible with the emergency generators running.  Scrambling around in the dark, one of Alan's crew tells him something is sucking power from the generators as well as the broadcast signal.  Alan tells his crew to get on the problem and fix it, but they're startled by a brilliant light in the sky outside.  Rushing to the window, Alan and his crew see the giant shimmering image of Sagittarius in the Gotham skyline.

Alan orders the crew to point some cameras on that thing so they can show it on TV as soon as they're able to broadcast.  Then, he slips into his office and speaks the oath of the Green Lantern.

Green Lantern flies out and scans Sagittarius, discovering that the giant energy monster is feeding off the local power, including the broadcast signal from the GBC television studio.  To get the monster to stop, Green Lantern gets its attention, which causes it to lash out at him.  It wrecks the studio's antenna and slaps the Emerald Knight across the sky.

Down below, we catch up on the climax of last issue's story with Black Canary making one last charge against Solomon Grundy.  Grundy is distracted by Green Lantern in the sky, but Dinah doesn't get a chance to take the giant out before the museum robbers knock her out.

This is the same scene as last issue, basically, except now Mike Parobeck is drawing it, so, y'know, score!  As the hoods carry Black Canary to their car, they're almost stopped by Alan Scott's producer and cameraman, but Charlie, the producer, is a lot more interested in filming a tussle between super powers in the sky than a woman in fishnets.

Green Lantern throws a massive energy punch at the giant.  Charlie dispatches Alan's personal assistant, Johnny, to go back to the studio and make sure they're broadcasting this fight live... and to get him and the cameraman some coffee.

As the battle continues, Green Lantern finds something familiar about the form this monster has taken.

Green Lantern tries to remove Sagittarius' weapons, but it leaves him vulnerable to a counterattack.  The monster swats him into a high-rise window.  As the glass rains down on the street below, Charlie revels in the chaos that his camera is capturing and only wishes the technology to broadcast in color was possible.

Someone else wishes the battle could be shown in color and that's the mysterious villain who has unleashed these energy monsters and caused all this destruction.  He is called by the leader of the museum robbers and told they captured Black Canary.  We learn this villain is Vandal Savage and he orders the robbers to bring Canary and Green Lantern--once Sagittarius has defeated him--to Savage's hideout at Mt. Pride Observatory.

Vandal Savage holds the Cosmic Rod and uses it to torment his slave, the former Starman, Ted Knight.

Savage ignores Ted and watches the battle on TV, revealing that Ptolemy introduced him to the power of the celestial constellations centuries ago.

Green Lantern fears his battle with the archer isn't going well and needs to stop it; he casts a green energy straightjacket on the humanoid form that only binds it until it transforms into the shape of a giant eagle.  The bird knocks Alan through the signal antenna, taking the footage off the air and infuriating Charlie down on the street.

Green Lantern cages the monstrous eagle, but then must decide what to do with it.

Meanwhile, Solomon Grundy is on the street fuming that his enemy is out of reach.  The hoods still have Black Canary and they're trying to calm Grundy down, too.  They fail, of course.  Solomon Grundy rips a telephone booth out of the street and hurls it into the air.  It slams into Green Lantern's back, the wooden frame penetrating his force field.  Green Lantern falls, but only so far before the magic of the ring protects him and lowers him down at a gentle floating pace.

Free of distraction, the energy creature rips the signal antenna off of the GBC tower.  The hoods want to put Green Lantern in the car with Black Canary, but Solomon Grundy doesn't want to wait for his revenge.  He throws the men aside, but before he can bash the heroes, the eagle swoops down and picks up Lantern and Canary in its talons and carries them off.

Grundy is left howling in disappointment as the tag reveals that next issue will focus on Hawkman.

So far, each issue of this series has spotlit one member of the team in a more-or-less continuous battle taking most of the story.  So far, Strazewski's formula hasn't faltered, but it does seem to be wearing a little thin by this third time around.  What saves this chapter from being boring and repetitive is Mike Parobeck's outstanding artwork, and the power of Green Lantern.

I wasn't much of a fan of any iteration of Green Lantern until Geoff Johns' Rebirth miniseries, and after that I loved Hal Jordan more than any.  But since then, the more I see and read of him, the more I really love Alan Scott.  It's almost not fair to compare them because they're such different characters, despite having the same name and essentially the same power.  But there is a stateliness to Alan Scott, a refined gentlemanly quality that really sets him above his peers in the Justice Society.

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