Direct Course #4

Justice League of America #73

(Aug. 1969)

 “I... I'll do my best!" -Red Tornado

Star Light, Star Bright-- Death Star I See Tonight 

by Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin & Sid Greene
                         
Deep in space, a very long time ago, a group of sentient suns hold court over their fellow sun called Aquarius who has committed some sort of crime. The suns take away all of Aquarius’s powers, except for the very basic needed to sustain it’s life. Drifting for eons, it’s hate being fueled the entire time, Aquarius eventually reaches earth.

On earth, the Justice League consisting of Batman, Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman and Superman at this moment, are gathered around a red robot from Earth-2 (an earth located in another dimension) who they call Red Tornado, is telling them the tale of how he got there; Back on the earth that he comes from, in an early spring evening at his observatory, a man named Ted Knight who is also the superhero Starman, is gazing through his telescope at the stars when he sees a strange anomaly in the sky. Donning his costume, Starman flies up to meet it. He fires his cosmic rod weapon at it, to no effect. Using a greater charge, Starman blasts the strange being, only for the blast to reflect back and hit himself at a greater power level. When punching it fails to work, the anomaly now in the form of some giant being, grabs Starman’s cosmic rod and keeps it, knocking Starman back to earth.

At that moment, Dinah Lance (alias Black Canary) and her husband Larry are just arriving at Ted’s observatory with some dinner for him. It’s at that time that Starman crashes back down through the glass dome of his observatory from space. Dinah quickly changes into her Black Canary outfit, and searches around the building to see if she can find what is amiss. Suddenly her husband approaches her from behind with a block of wood in one hand, and menace in his eyes.

Acting on instinct, Black Canary reaches behind her to disarm Larry. Larry suddenly wakes up out of his trance-like state, unable to remember anything between Starman falling and Black Canary attacking him. Utterly confused, Black Canary decides to use the signal on her belt to summon the rest of her team, the Justice Society of America. In this story, the members are Doctor Fate, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Wonder Woman, Doctor Mid-Nite and Superman of Earth-2.

On Alan Scott’s way to Black Canary’s summons, he passes by a big neon billboard for a movie featuring some kind of fantasy knight. The neon knight suddenly comes to life and starts attacking Alan Scott. Using his ring, Alan forms a sword to battle the neon knight, and after a small duel tears the neon knight apart. Flying off, Alan guesses that this has something to do with Black Canary’s call.

Doctor Mid-Nite on his way to the summons, comes upon a boy and his father standing outside of a toy store. The young boy sees figures of Doctor Mid-Nite in the window, and desperately wants one. After his father points out that Doctor Mid-Nite is heading their way, the boy whines, “Aww, I don’ want Doctor Mid-Nite in person! I wanna doll!” The young boy goes on a tantrum, tripping over his father, smashing a car’s window, and tearing down a lamp post with his bare hands. Doctor Mid-Nite approaches the kid to get him to stop, but the boy slugs him in the gut. Doctor Mid-Nite tosses one of his blackout bombs to momentarily blind the boy so he’ll stop. And just like that his strength vanishes, as quickly as it came.

Up in the sky, Doctor Fate is also following the summons, when a group of very dark clouds start to surround him. The clouds start raining fire down upon Doctor Fate, making him cast an ectoplasmic aura around himself for protection. He fires an astral bolt at the clouds, but they fight back with more intense fire. Using a two-handed bolt attack on the clouds, he manages to make them disperse. Drained of energy, Doctor Fate creates a cushion out of his astral energy to safely fall down on.

The rest of the Justice Society rush over to Doctor Fate after he lands. Doctor Fate looks up “Behold! The dark fog has pursued me!” Moving like a thing alive, the “fog” reveals it is indeed alive, for it is the banished sun Aquarius. It has recharged itself to full power, using the energy stored in Starman’s cosmic rod.

Aquarius tells the Justice Society that he was banished from the rest of the suns, for he is too in love with chaos to follow order, that he attempted to upset the natural working of the universe. Doctor Mid-Nite quietly diagnoses the being of being manic depressive, with a slight touch of schizophrenia. Larry tells the group that he’ll keep Aquarius talking, while they figure out a way to deal with it.

Larry asks Aquarius what is plans are now. The sun tells him that he’s been testing their world, by sowing the seeds of disorder around a bit. He claims that his absence has robbed him of his self-confidence. He plans to destroy the earth, before turning his attention to the universe itself.

At that moment, Superman, Wonder Woman and Red Tornado arrive ready to fight. Superman tells Red Tornado that it might be best if he sits this one out “Look, Red Tornado, I have nothing against you personally-- But you have a way of ...well... botching things!” Wonder Woman agrees. Red Tornado angrily watches, wondering how he’s ever going to get better is they don’t let him fight.

Superman flies to Aquarius, telling him that he must surrender. Hitting the giant sun being, Superman is astonished when Aquarius rises back up without any problem. Aquarius tells Superman that he had planned to delay earth for a bit, but he’ll destroy it right now instead. He then blasts Superman out of the sky with Starman’s cosmic rod, which is magic based and hurts Superman more seriously than kryptonite.

Wonder Woman sneaks up behind the being, to try and swing her lasso over the cosmic rod, from Aquarius’s grasp. After she misses, Aquarius begins to glow and emanate a massive amount of heat from his body. Wonder Woman retreats for fear of getting burned, and Aquarius claims this is more fun than he’s had in eons.

While trying to wake Superman back up, the rest of the Justice Society muster up the courage to rush the giant being. Suddenly Aquarius glows all the more, and unleashes energy spreading across the entire world, touching everything in its unstoppable path. The entire earth fades into nothingness.

Inside an ectoplasmic bubble that Doctor Fate created mere seconds before, the Justice Society have just witnessed the end of the world. Holding them in their shield bubble, Aquarius that they will perish just as their earth has. However, the sun being is too depleted after unleashing such energy and must wait to build it back up in order to destroy the heroes.

Unseen by Aquarius, a small red robot soars away. Doctor Fate telepathically tells Red Tornado that he must travel to Earth-1 and bring the Justice League back with him, in order to save everything.

Back on Earth-1, we learn that Red Tornado has been there for about two weeks, before the Justice League would listen to him. Hal Jordan proclaims that they have no time to start blaming themselves, as the team sits together to figure out a plan to rescue the Justice Society and Earth-2.

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• I was originally going to do another Batman related post, doing the return of Two-Face in the 70‘s (also by Denny O’Neil), but this story grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. I’ll do that one soon though.

• While I was writing this, my brother brought to my attention that there are sun beings like these represented in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. I haven’t really read a lot of Sandman myself, but I appreciate it being around. He tells me that in it, the Rao sun being of the planet Krypton is sort of talked into creating Krypton and Superman by Despair of the Endless.

• I really like this story, I can see how somebody like Grant Morrison is inspired by comics like this one when he was growing up. Animate, sentient suns, the way the Justice Society eventually bands together is reminiscent of the old golden age All-Star Squadron, where each member would go on a separate adventure that are mostly only tangentially related. Each member gets their own little character moment or beat.

Quotes

“Oh, well, if I’m having a fantasy, I might as well make the most of it!” -Doctor Mid-Nite

“Aquarius has just transported the people and object of earth to another dimension-- Another plane of exitance! There they will remain as long as we continue to exist-- For their only link with reality is our minds! Only our consciousness is checking the flood of chaos-- Of nothingness-- Aquarius has loosed! For when we perish-- All is lost!” -Doctor Fate (I know it’s rather long, but I thought this entire monologue was quite interesting in a meta-textual sense.)

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