I’ve been a Justice Society fan since JLA #193, published in 1981, introduced me to the heroes of the 1940’s. From then on I tried to buy up any new comics featuring the JSA but I stopped collecting in the 90’s because I had other financial priorities and totally missed out on JSA: The Golden Age. The Golden Age is exactly what I think DC writers should be doing more often. James Robinson took established DC characters and made them his own. As much as I’m a fan of keeping continuity, Elsewhere stories give the writers so much more flexibility to write the story they want and ramp up the intensity.
This is a much more mature story than any other JSA story I’ve read and far more serious. It revolves around Mr. America, Tex Thompson, who has become the number one hero post war given that he was one of only a few costumed heroes active overseas. In fact, thanks to his popularity in fighting the Nazi’s Thompson has gone on to become a Senator with presidential aspirations. As the story stretches into the early 50’s, however, Thompson more resembles Joe McCarthy pushing the narrative of the Red Scare. Something is clearly wrong with Thompson despite his high approval and the revelation as to what happened to him during his time in Germany is pretty powerful. In addition to Mr. America there is also a lot of focus on several other obscure Golden Age heroes including Manhunter (Paul Kirk) and Captain Triumph (Lance Gallant).
In some ways JSA: Golden Age reminds me of Watchmen. Watchmen was originally supposed to feature heroes from Charlton comics but the decision was made by DC that Watchmen would ruin their future viability. In Golden Age they DID use established characters but simply took them out of continuity. It would have been very interesting to see how Watchmen would have turned out had Alan Moore been allowed to use the Charlton characters. We actually do see some of the Charlton heroes but Robinson was careful to not include some of the characters that would have thrown the story off including Superman, Wonder Woman and The Specter. And heroes die, a LOT of heroes. These kinds of powerful moments can generally only happen in Elsewhere stories.
I really enjoyed this story. It’s a very well written superhero deconstruction with some pretty memorable moments. One issue I do have is that Dynaman, who is a pivotal character, has one of the most generic costumes I have ever seen. In all honesty, one of the reasons I didn’t pick up the trade paperback version of the book is because the cover put Dynaman front and center and I was wondering who this goofball was. The Deluxe Edition cover wisely puts a lot less emphasis on Dynaman. For a Deluxe Edition this one is kinda light. It’s certainly Deluxe Edition size but just like the recent Cosmic Odyssey Deluxe Edition DC went with a cheaper paper stock. The only extra was a 5-page article by Howard Chaykin from 1995. Despite the paucity of extras this is the premier edition of a great story and I highly recommend it. If you find you like it let me also recommend JSA: Liberty Files which to this point only exists in trade paperback.
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