1st Find: DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest Vol 1 #11

Review by Darryl
Talk about beginner success!  When Dan and I recently discussed our interest in acquiring and/or revisiting the old tabloids and digests neither of us could have possibly predicted our first find to have such a pedigree.  "33 Super-Stars In One Epic Adventure!"  How could I possibly not put down my hard earned 2013 dollar for this 1981 .95 cent classic!  The list of characters that appear in the reprinted stories from JLA nos. 100-102 is intense! In addition to the Justice League of America is the Justice Society of America and the Seven Soldiers of Victory!  I wasn't up to date on my DC trivia and needed to be reminded who were the members in this Super-Group.  The All Star Line up consisted of: Crimson Avenger, Green Arrow (Earth-Two), Shining Knight, Speedy (Earth-Two), Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, & Vigilante.

With a fantastic wraparound cover by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano I can't wait to indulge in this three part Epic team up.  If you're interested kindly find in the links below the "serious", detailed synopsis of the issues.
Justice League of America #100  Justice League of America #101  Justice League of America #102

Now, I've never read this story which is surprising since the Earth 2 heroes were of great interest to Dan and I.  I'm very curious to my own reaction to this tale some 30+ years later!  Naturally, I started with part  one: "The Unknown Soldier of Victory".  I couldn't help but notice how the production team of this episode were all over themselves thinking they were writing a real piece of DC history, check out this splash page and some of the remarks!  Funny stuff!  In the same vein, you just have to  love stories where the  characters acknowledge the numeric count of their book's title!  The Heroes are meeting to share a large cake for their 100th meeting, in naturally Justice League of America #100, I'm not making this up.   Poor Martian Manhunter, who can't attend because he's too busy building a World!    Strange pairings include Batman and Wonder Woman who share an interesting chemistry (see panel).

"The Seven Soldiers of Victory" are introduced like they were successful DC characters, but even the Heroes (yes, Batman too) don't know who they are/were.  This certainly was an attempt to rekindle some interest in characters long since forgotten by the public at large!  I guess DC was partially successful in this initiative, as these characters finally did find an audience and became part of many future DC Universe storylines.  I love how the Heroes have to split into seven teams in order to track down these "7 soldiers";  I was left wondering who was picked last. LOL.  In a missed opportunity Woman Woman does not have any panels with, well Wonder Woman.  Perhaps in a future issue they'll meet and discus wardrobe, as since this story occurred after the WW reboot, Earth 1 WW  appears in fancy 1960's swag, while the JSA counterpart looks like the more traditional WW.  

 

Part 2 begins with a recap; I chuckled at this.  I thought, if you didn't buy JLA #100, why ever would you buy JLA#101. This of course illustrates perfectly the point we made in the introduction about corner stores not receiving sequential issues meaning collectors had to rely on recaps to know what previously happened to their heroes.  These little digests were the original graphic novels!

I can't tell you what shock I felt when I discovered for the first time that Wonder Woman had lost her powers!  Honestly, all this time I thought she had only lost her costume and her relationship with Steve!  I'm not even going to ask about what happened to her Invisible Plane!  Part 2 is largely a selected "history lesson" with Robin Hood and Genghis Khan making a comic friendly appearance.

  I wondered if anyone has attempted to recreate this incredible story with the Mego Superhero Action Figures collection!  It seems tailored made.  Jealousy was a theme in this issue.  It seemed to be a big deal within the Justice League members, poor Sandman and Metamorpho complaining to the DC Universe about "establishment types".  I laughed my ass off!

 Naturally by Part 3 all "Seven Soldiers of Victory" are collected by the assembled Heroes, but not before Batman smashes Hourman's "egg timer" to free himself, Hourman and Starman from being bound by simple ropes.  My heart sunk a little bit during this chapter!  Ropes!  Not magic ropes, not mystic ropes, but old fanished ropes.  Luckily no one was scoring a report card in this issue!  More "heroic" is the chapter where Aquaman and Wildcat ride Green Lantern's generated couch for almost the entire adventure, I'm not lying!

  Black Canary has to remind both Green Arrow and Johnny Thunder that's she's a lady and not simply their comic sexual conquest, which of course, is open to debate.  

To top it off, Flash, Red Tornado and Zatanna are transformed into hybrid animals!  Luckily all this zaniness gets worked out and all the Heroes assemble back at the Justice Society's Sanctuary.

  The last surprise is the return of Robin (only recognizable in name), Mr. Terrific and Earth 1 Green Lantern who have basically the whole adventure figured out, but are stopped mid-sentance by the Crimson Avenger who proposes to have secret powers no one has been alerted of yet.   Maybe he was feeling the "establishment type" jealousy. 
The Iron Fist makes one last desperate attempt but the non-costumed Wonder Woman or Diana Prince as he's referred only as in this story, handles his threat easily, even though 33 heroes were originally gathered to defeat this threat!  This left me to question, "did she actually lose all her powers or selected ones?"  She certainly delivered a knock out blow to the Iron Fist!

 In the end it's Red Tornado and Wing that suffer the greatest sacrifice, Wing long ago and until now, nobody knew, but one to upstage his fallen patriot is Red Tornado, who would be the only character readers cared about because until his introduction in the Seven Soldiers of Victory, nobody knew or cared about Wing!  LOL.    Overall, I enjoyed it.  Certainly it was an ambitious task!  While the idea was great the execution simply could not be delivered in a three part comic.  It was almost too much of a good thing!  I also didn't relate to how some of the characters were portrayed but it was a great example of DC Comics from 1972, a period of transition for many of the greatest heritage characters. 

  

The Silver Age Gem reprinted in the digest is "The Triumph of the Tornado Tyrant", originally published in JLA #17 with a story by Gardner Fox and art by Mike Sekowsky and Bernard Sachs.

The synopsis for this story is rather ambitious.  Having survived his encounter against Adam Strange, The Tornado Tyrant begins observing Adam Strange to see how he manages to defeat his opponents. He witnesses many of Strange's adventures including when Strange battled Kanjar Ro with the help of the Justice League of America.  This became the turning point for the Tyrant as he switches 'sides' and decides that he wants to become a champion himself.  Nice to see comics had such postive stories in the '60's.  Creating his own Earth, and splitting himself into duplicates of the Justice League(!!), ( I did say, this story was ambitious) the newly renamed Tornado Champion (Love the re-branding!)  attempts to be a hero in his own right. However, with the creation of his own Earth, the Tornado Champion also created a duplicate Tornado Tyrant.  (Things were looking really good up until then!)  Fight, fight, yadda, yadda, another Justice League Victory. 

I think my four year son had the best observation about this story, "Is this the old Justice League?" he asked.  Amazed that he can tell the difference between the Modern Age and the Silver Age at age four, I answered, "Yes, how can you tell?". 

"They're old and fat".  He said.  How could I argue?  Out of the mouth of babes.  Thankfully I didn't show him what happened to his dear Batman in this issue. Guess "Bats" got beat up so bad his ears drooped.   Sad in any Comic Age! 

Until next time! Happy Hunting!
Darryl