BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #124

It came in the mail, folded in half as was the custom of the time: my subscription copy of the second half of 1975′s team-up between the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and their counterparts in the Justice Society of Earth-2. As I’ve mentioned while chronicling the preceding issue, this storyline was, to put it generously, a bit of a mess, and this follow-up second part did nothing to dissuade that impression. The cover is a nice composition undercut by blobby, distorted-looking figures that seem as though they’d been inked with the blunt end of the brush. This was a regular issue during this period, in which Ernie Chua/Chan was the designated cover artist for most DC super hero books.

So, picking up where the previous issue left off, the Justice Society members are all dead, killed in error by the Justice League. It’s all the handiwork of writer Cary Bates, who has traveled to Earth-2 and come under the mental sway of the Wizard, transformed into a super-villain whose plotting abilities can cause anything to happen. Cary’s fellow writer Elliot S! Maggin has joined forces with the JLA, but apparently Elliot can’t plot for shit, because he’s of no great consequence to the proceedings, apart from demonstrating how much like Green Arrow he is.

While the JLA members try to figure out how they wound up in this mess of a story by recapping the first half, Cary Bates has been busy. He’s already established a reputation for himself as the most dangerous, most evil villain on Earth-2. But all of his ill-gotten profits are delivered to his masters, the Injustice Gang. But the bad guys’ plotting is spied upon by a mysterious bit of green smoke that promises to visit not just vengeance upon them, but justice!

Meanwhile, the guilt-ridden members of the JLA get busy, standing in for the now-dead Society on Earth-2, preventing disasters and saving lives. But this is a stopgap measure at best, they realize, and eventually the fact that they were responsible for their fellow heroes getting killed is going to come out. In the midst of all this, the JLA loses track of Elliot Maggin, who is thereafter abducted by Super-Cary as bait to lure the JLA into a trap. And still, that green smudge watches and pontificates.

The League is able to find Maggin, but they are set-upon by Cary and his cohorts. And the Leaguers are still so guilt-ridden over having wiped out the JSA in a similar battle days earlier that they’re ineffective and getting their teeth handed to them. But all is not lost. That smudge turns out to be the Spectre, the undead member of the JSA who possesses almost unlimited powers. Rather than interfere directly, the Spectre–and I swear, I am not making this up–petitions his boss, God, to bring the Justice Society members back to life because, you know, reasons. To maintain some shred of suspense, the Almighty says that he’ll think about it.

Back at the fight, Elliot realizes that the reason the JLA is seeing ghost images of the fallen JSA is due to Cary’s interference. So he attempts to distract Bates by needling him with some bad Borsht Belt insults. Surprisingly, this works–not that it was necessary, because suddenly the dead Justice Society members blink into existence again, and start mopping up on the Injustice Gang. In the melee, Elliot knocks Cary to the ground, whacking his head, which restores his normal pleasant demeanor.

And so, after an action splash page that allows all of the villains to be painlessly dispatched in a single image, this mess wraps up. Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt is able to zap Elliot and Cary back to Earth Prime, and the Spectre has arranged it so that the heroes don’t remember how the JSA heroes came back to life. Even editor Julie Schwartz doesn’t believe this one–and he’s the guy who paid for this monstrosity of a story! The issue ends with him tossing Bates and Maggin out of his office. The issue ends with a plug for the then-upcoming Super Squad book featuring the JSA, but I can’t imagine the preceding 17 pages making anybody hungry to check it out. Man, what a fiasco!