DCU Comic Book Reviews

JSA #84

When The Dead Call

June 2006

Written by Paul Levitz

Pencils by Rags Morales & Luke Ross (flashbacks)

Inks by Dave Mekis

Cover by George Pérez

Synopsis

Jim Craddock (aka The Gentleman Ghost) always warns ye when yer gonna die...and now he is warning the JSA. The team tries to capture him, but the ghost is insubstantial and easily gets away.  In flashbacks, we learn Jim’s mother passed and he was forced to dig her grave before being sent out on his own to become a pickpocket thief.  Meanwhile, Johnny Thunder asks Jakeem to show him the brother he never knew.  Jimmy, or JJ, tells Johnny that he died in the same fire that killed his grandma and that he was told by the Gentlemen Ghost to shake him up.  Speeding towards Gotham, Alan Scott tells Jay Garrick that the ghost that visited him was his old college buddy Ted Musgrave, who died due to an electric shock.  Ted appears once more to Alan and Jay but they get no answers from him.  In flashbacks, we learn of Jim’s visit to a palm reader, who tells Jim that he will walk the Earth long after he is dead and if stands with those he hates the most, he will live.  Back at JSA headquarters, The Gentleman Ghost appears before Mother Hunkel looking for Wonder Woman, but finds instead Power Girl who knocks him down but she can’t seem to touch him!

Review

This issue definitely suffers from middle child syndrome:  a good continuation of the current story, but doesn’t really hold up on his own. I am actually enjoying the flashback scenes more so than the JSA scenes.  I am curious to see where it leads, how he dies and what the reading by the gypsy really means.  As for the JSA, I have not really liked Johnny Thunder (so cool) as a character.  I enjoy seeing Alan and Jay together but their scenes don’t really make much sense to me.  One would think that if a ghost is haunting you, you would want to know why and talk to it, but Jay instantly rushes to it demanding answers and then we are left with a brief fight scene.  As I am reading the fight scene, I keep asking myself, why?  I guess this issue needing some action, but I found it unnecessary.  This is also true of Courtney’s sudden action to attack the ghost.  I was waiting for someone to say:  what do you mean we are going die?  Care to explain?  But, alas, no, someone attacks and this question will be saved for later.  And why are the JSA so unconvinced he is a real ghost.  Dr. Mid-nite I can understand given his scientific background, but the rest of the team had the Spectre as a teammate.

Why is it Power Girl can actually touch and hurt the ghost when all of the others simply go through him like he was...well, a ghost.

One last final comment regarding continuity between the various books in which Alan Scott appears.  In both JSA Classified and Checkmate, Alan is shown wearing an eye patch indicating that something happened to his eye.  Yet, in this issue, there does not seem to be eye damage.  There are three possibilities:  (1) the events in JSA occur before the accident, (2) he doesn’t need the eye patch when he is Green Lantern and I think his appearances in the other book are out of costume, and (3) the editors messed it up.  Of the three, I hope it is #1 but I suspect it is #3.

My comment to the review of the last issue about the lack of major changes to the JSA was true of the current book, but not true altogether.  It has been announced that the end of the Levitz story line with the Gentlemen Ghost will be the final issue.  Somewhere down the road we will get a new book called Justice Society of America.   Perhaps this explains why the One Year Later version fo the JSA was so bland compared to all of the other titles.-- MRB

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