How Green Was My Victory
Infinity Inc #9
Cover Date: December 1984
Released: 20th September 1984
We open by finding out what happened to the Star-Spangled Kid and Brainwave, Jr, no they weren’t crushed by the avalanched caused in #7 but were instead transported to Limbo where they meet the original Brainwave. Old Brainwave is in his Golden Age Doctor Sivana look, which avoids confusion as he’s also taken on exactly the look Junior is wearing here. After a quick round of explaining how he was a bad dad, and that Junior’s mom is Merry and the sister of Star-Spangled Kid, Senior explains whilst he could transport them to Limbo none of them can leave.
Obsidian and Jade are watched leaving the JSA headquarters by Harlequin, an old foe of the Alan Scott Green Lantern. But enough continuity references for this issue it’s time for the main point of the story fighting Green Lantern in spaaaccceee…..
First Starman has a go at defeating the Lantern but is caught by an illusion of Alan created by the ring, which means the hero is rapidly deorbited and out of this fight for the issue. Alan does however provide a protective ring construct, in the shape of a Mercury capsule. This is noteworthy, but not important to the plot, as the other water effective JSAer’s have been pretty brutal to those they’ve fought against. To hype focus on this minor thing, it suggests that more of Alan show through than the others, or just that the idea of a hero burning up in orbit was a bit too much.
Why I’m going on about it is that most of the next few pages are a, pretty good and inventive, fight scene between him, Jade and Obsidian. Alan’s constructs are particularly inventive and the two younger heroes work well together. But y’know fight scenes are really hard to describe well and I’m more interested in the other stuff. Talking of we cut the Batcave where Dick is locked in a handy cage with a suitably sassy Alfred staying strong after playing a hologram from Huntress explaining what had happened before. We then cut to the nuclear power plant where Wildcat find out that Nuklon is fine and now has phasing power, whilst Northwind has less success holding Hawkman who aptly escapes his own house. Finally, our girl Power Girl is preparing a flask of Kryptonite to take down her cousin.
Our last little scene is Lyta and Silver Scarab arriving at the mayor to learn where Shiera and Dr Mid-nite waits, the nearby mountains, where we find they’re now captured by the Ultra-Humanite. As a last revealing splash page, we get all five of the effective JSAer’s crash into the villain’s hideout, ready for whatever evil scheme we’ll find out next issue.
Another moving parts into place issue, but it does feel like we’re getting to an endpoint, which considering we’re only two issues for the end of the plot is a good thing! Balancing so many characters means some go in and out for an issue, hence the need for the little scene to remind us of all the plot elements in place. It’s deftly handled but peeking ahead it’s something the writers realise and once we’re done with this plot they’ll put changes in place.
⋅ Writer: Roy Thomas / Dann Thomas ⋅ Penciler: Jerry Ordway ⋅
⋅ Inker: Mike Machlan / Tony DeZungia ⋅ Colourist: Anthony Tollin / Adrienne Roy ⋅
⋅ Letterer: David Cody Weiss / Lois Buhalis ⋅ Editors: Roy Thomas ⋅
⋅ Writer: Roy Thomas / Dann Thomas ⋅ Penciler: Jerry Ordway ⋅
⋅ Inker: Mike Machlan / Tony DeZungia ⋅ Colourist: Anthony Tollin / Adrienne Roy ⋅
⋅ Letterer: David Cody Weiss / Lois Buhalis ⋅ Editors: Roy Thomas ⋅