DCU Comic Book Reviews

JSA #70

JSA/JSA, Chapter III:  High Societies

April 2005

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Don Kramer

Inks by Keith Champagne

Cover by Dave Gibbons

Synopsis

Present Day...Black Adam gets an offer to join a different type of Society.  In 1951...Michael Holt continues to search for Terry Sloane in New Orleans.  Terry is looking for his brother.  Instead, he finds his brother’s newborn baby girl being held by a Casino owner.  Terry grabs the baby and runs.  In a restaurant in Gotham City, Johnny Thunder listens to Jakeem’s tale of the future and doesn’t believe him.  When Jakeem leaves the restaurant, he is attacked by a group of thugs.  Johnny Thunder comes to the rescue, but finds he can’t call on Thunderbolt for help.  Instead, Johnny and Jakeem kick and punch their way to safety.  In New York City, feds try to coerce Al Pratt into helping bring down Hawkman and Hawkgirl.  Atom Smasher watches and sees parallels to his relationship with Black Adam.  At the headquarters of the Sandman, Sandy confronts Wesley Dodds.  In New Orleans, Terry runs off with his niece.  Michael Holt follows, but loses him in a cemetery.  In Opal City, an unknown figure breaks Stargirl free of the padded room.  She then grabs Jack Knight and flees the sanitorium.  In Washington DC, Per Degaton erases one of the Linear Men from existence and then waits for Hourman to appear.  In New York, Dr. Charles McNider listens to Dr. Pieter Cross’ tale of the future and decides he is telling the truth.  In New Orleans, Michael Holt runs smack in the middle of a KKK meeting. 

Review

“They call me Mister Terrific.”

Other than the groan-inducing final page, which should have been cast aside and noted as a very, very bad idea (and without an exclamation point, I mean come on it needs an exclamation point), this issue was very, very good.  Like the previous issue, Johns is doing a deft balancing act with about a half dozen or so separate stories that will all eventually bleed into the final battle against Degaton in the final issue of this storyline.  Some of the stories are interesting while others are less so, I think it depends on your own taste and which characters involve you the most.  Personally, I was never a fan of Jakeem so that part didn’t grab me.  I did like the fact while Johnny Thunder didn’t believe Jakeem, McNider did believe Cross simply based on his ability to discern the physical patterns of lying.  The best part (to me) was the Atom Smasher section, especially the breif panel in which we see Black Adam echoing what the feds are telling Al Pratt.  Atom Smasher is in an interesting character in an interesting situation and I really hope that when this all over, we get to see more of him.  Finally, I am torn with the KKK scene at the end.  Part of me applauds Johns attempts to remain true to the era and its treatment of blacks but another part of thinks this story is wildly out of place in a super hero time traveling story.

The bit with Terry and his niece totally caught me by surprise; this does not seem like something that would have been part of the character’s history.  I have a tough time believing that writers back then would have given Terry a niece, especially one born out of wedlock to a woman who does not seem to very nice.  Yet, the storyline is strangely compelling, probably for that very reason.  I am not sure where Johns is headed with this, but it does have my curiosity. 

In the 1967 move In The Heat Of The Night (winner of the Oscar for Best Film), a racist white sheriff (Rod Steiger) from a small southern town questions the identity of a black police officer (Sidney Poitier) from the north.  The black cop answers, “They call me Mister Tibbs!”  A 1970 sequel to the movie was called They Call Me MISTER Tibbs.-- Review by MRB