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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Flashy Friends and Atomic Enemies - Crisis on Multiple Earths - The Team-ups Volume 2

 

Cover of Crisis on Multiple Earths - Teamups Volume 2

Review:

The milking of existing intellectual property for profit was happening long before comics made the jump to TV or the world of the Hollywood blockbuster. Long before Hollywood mined our childhoods for nostalgic reboots, long before DC and Marvel brought second and third-tier characters to screen production, comics companies were already very familiar with keeping the past alive. The 1960s and 1970s crossovers between the contemporary Silver Age characters and their Golden Age predecessors mined exactly that desire for nostalgia. And in the case of DC Comics, they led to the mess of continuity conflicts that were finally cleaned up in the mid-1980s Crisis on Infinite Earths massive crossover event.

This volume continues DC Comics reprints of some of those early nostalgic meetings, bringing us 8 issues from the mid to late 1960s. A pair of Green Lantern stories; two Flash tales, a couple more from the pages of The Atom, plus a Wildcat appearance in the pages of The Spectre (two very different heroes!) and a Brave and the Bold meeting of Black Canary and Starman. We, the readers, get a range of threat levels and story-telling approaches, from a variety of writers and artists, many legendary in their own right.

Tops among this set of stories are the two Flash tales. In the first, Barry Allen aka Flash of Earth-1, has been cursed by 64th-century scientist-magician Abra Kadabra and can no longer see crime and violence, even when it is right in front of him. Only with the help of Earth-2 heroes Dr Fate, Dr Midnight and Jay Garrick (Flash) can he save the day and have his vision restored.

Then just three months later, the Flash title drew Garrick back into the book as the Flashes of both worlds, along with Kid Flash, are teleported to a distant planet to serve as the quarry for master hunter and intellect the Golden Man.

These 1967 tales feel closest to ones of our Modern Era - an interesting realization, given how emblematic of the Silver Age this run of Flash years was. But the muted silliness and the nuance to the emotions and dark threads in the narratives by Gardner Fox and John Broome would not feel so out of place in a later era. And it is always a delight to see Carmine Infantino's creative visuals and his innovative ways of rendering the unimaginable speed of these characters.

The rest of this collection pales in comparison but all are still fascinating slices of Silver Age life in their own right. Sure, they tend more toward the goofiness of the era - human sidekick Doiby and his car Goitrude chief among them here. And the constant stream of inventive perils, especially as Black Canary and Starman battle the fetching Huntress and her spousal partner in crime Sports Ace. And the two Atoms seem more at each other's throats than teaming up.

It all adds up to a fun, if unremarkable, book of 1960s Earth-1 / Earth-2 crossover reprints, filled with the vivid colors and melodrama of the era. These tales carry no real sense that they are contributing to a growing crisis, just heroes living their lives and doing their thing, with the help of a cross-dimensional counterpart.


Description:

Twice the adventure!

In a time when there were infinite Earths, the greatest heroes of two worlds would regularly cross the dimensional barrier to vanquish the threats that faced them both. Earth-One's Justice League of America, composed of powerful young adventurers at the beginning of their careers and Earth-Two's Justice Society of America, an organization of legendary champions of truth returning from retirement, team up to face the threats of a new generation.

In these eight Silver Age classics, the wondrous Wildcat is back in action to aid his former JSA teammates, as their old enemies hunt down Starman and Black Canary, and he also assist the supernatural sleuth, the Spectre. Plus Flash, Green Lantern and the Atom meet their counterparts to ward off powerful enemies who seek to destroy the heroes, their loved ones and the multiverse itself!

Collects: The Brave and the Bold #62, Green Lantern #45 and 52, Atom #29 and 36, Flash #170 and 173, The Spectre #3

Authors:  Gardner F. Fox, Gil Kane, John Broome, Mike Friedrich
Artists:  Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Dick Dillin, Sid Greene, Neal Adams
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  March 7, 2007
Parental Rating: Everyone
ISBN:  978-1401212285
Pages:  199 pages



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