Classic JSA stories. Worth it for the Power Girl and Wildcat banter alone.

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Product Description

The world's first team of super-heroes, the Justice Society of America, has stood for truth and justice since their founding during the Golden Age of comics.

This first volume in a series of trade paperbacks collecting their classic adventures from the 1970s reveals the JSA's origin and shows what happens when the veteran members of the team welcome a new generation of heroes into their ranks,including Robin, Star-Spangled Kid and Power Girl.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #461278 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-02
• Released on: 2006-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up—Never heard of Dr. Fate, Wildcat, and the Star Spangled Kid? The publisher has a tendency to overestimate the appeal of their B-list superheroes. Especially distressing is the inclusion of small crossover appearances by Superman or Batman, when this book is really about the least-interesting members of the DC Universe. Most comics take a recurrent interest in the haunted or bitter origins of their superheroes, and that's what makes Superman and Batman so appealing, giving them emotional depth and a dark gravitas. But in these stories, the characters are merely all super, all the time, not even seen in their civilian personas, which strips away any potential for reader empathy. Many of the villains are preposterous, even for comics standards. Clearly, this series has not aged well. Despite the flawless page design and artwork, which shows no age at all, and despite a final story involving Hitler and Roosevelt that has some good plotting, most of these tales are rightly forgotten.—John Leighton, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In the 1970s and some 15 years after resurrecting the concept of the superhero team with the Justice League of America, DC revived the original 1940s superteam, the Justice Society of America. The first of two volumes collecting the subsequent, short-lived series shows the vintage characters, including the original versions of the Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman, retaining a nostalgia-tinged mystique they would later lose through overexposure. The main attraction here, however, is the artwork of legendary artist Wally Wood, which vaults the 8 (of 11) issues in which he had a hand quite above the mundane. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Customer Reviews

I couldn't have been more surprised
If you're a fan of DC's JSA, you owe it to yourself to read THE JUSTICE SOCIETY VOLUME 1 trade paperback. Collecting ALL-STAR COMICS #58-67, plus the origin of the JSA from DC SPECIAL #29, this book presents the "modern" pre-Crisis adventures of the Earth-2 Justice Society, with the original members (Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Wildcat, Batman, and Superman) growing old and gray, and new heroes (Star-Spangled Kid and Power Girl) joining the team. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting much in terms of the writing, but Paul Levitz and Gerry Conway crafted some amazingly tight, fast-paced stories, and the narration is excellent. It's interesting to see how these heroes developed in "real-time" on Earth-2, with Clark Kent becoming editor of the Daily Star, and Bruce Wayne becoming police commissioner of Gotham City, and Dick Grayson now the US ambassador to a more politically-representative 1970s South Africa. These classic characters deal with threats to their personal lives, as well as threats from Brainwave, the Injustice Gang, Vandal Savage, Vulcan, and others.

As for the art... wow! This is a Wally Wood extravaganza. Actually, pencils are primarily provided by Ric Estrada and Keith Giffen, but Wood inks all of the All-Star Comics stories, and his style really comes through. It's amazingly consistent between the different pencilers and looks beautiful. As for the cover by Brian Bolland, well, what more needs to be said? I'm happy to see that DC has a second volume in the works that will collect the rest of the issues in the series. That, along with a reprint of INFINITY INCORPORATED (please, DC?), would be a heaping helping of Earth-2 goodness!

(One more thing: All-Star Comics #58 contains one of the most unintentionally humorous panels I have ever seen, as the Star-Spangled Kid attacks a criminal in his own inimitable fashion. "Chomp", indeed!)

JSA RULES
I've always been a fan of the JLA and JSA.The 70's stories are the ones I like the best bacause the plots were written so you could read an entire storyline in 2-3 issues instead of today where it seems you have to wait for an entire storyto be published as graphic novels thanks dc for publishin these books

Best JSA Comic Collection
The JUSTICE SOCIETY: VOLUME 1 is a masterpiece collection that can be enjoyed reading over and over. I'm more of a Marvel person than D.C. comics person, but this is one of the best collections of D.C. comics yet - the 1970s JSA is the best drawn and most entertaining of all the years JSA have existed.

By the way, this collection in VOLUME 1 has already been produced as a small D.C. digest-size book a long time ago. I had it when I was a kid in the 80s, so I assume that it was made in the 1970s or early 80s. Since I have not read this since I was a kid, I'm glad to have found this collection again, since I had no idea what exact issues VOLUME 1 were from.