Crisis in the Thunderbolt Dimension!
Justice League of America #219
Cover Date: October 1983
Released: 7th July 1983
Sometimes the star aligns and things work out perfectly, such as the case here where the last two JLA/JSA team-up happen to fall at the end of 2021. When I picked things back up this year I didn’t expect to have such a (near) perfect run of weekly blogs running so long, and even then I didn’t know this was the last crossover of the two teams. The inevitable Crisis of Infinite Earths is starting to be a looming presence over the comics, something that I’m sure that people of the time wouldn’t have known back in the 80s. Even then I’ve a good six months or more before we get there. For fairness, there is a much reduced JSA/JLA cross over in ’84, with not Power Girl, before we start to transition into JSA Detriot!
I also must admit here that it’s only at the end of them that I’ve noticed that these crossovers happened every year for the October issue of the comic! (Published in July for display until October, comics were a little different back then)
We open the comic proper with a team-up between Jay Garrick and Barry Alen, the splash page being a homage to the comic that started all this, the Flash of Two worlds. In fact, this part of the story makes a big deal of the fact that Garrick Flash is considered fictional on Earth-1, something that’s not been touched upon for quite some time. In this light opening we get the classic comment that Earth-2 was first but so it should be called Earth-1, something bought up by our Power Girl herself. After the fight, they go to use a rooftop teleporter to go back to the JLA Satellite, though I’m not sure why they’re situated on the roof, when the two are attacked by Johnny Thunder, with Barry being seriously injured in the fight.
Meanwhile, on the JLA satellite, we pick up on the subplot that has been running through the last few team-up, that of Firestorm having a crush on Power Girl. He’s sulking a bit, remember he’s a teenager after all, that Kara hasn’t spoken to him since arriving on Earth-1, they shared a moment at the end of the last team-up (JLA #209). Meanwhile Black Canary is telling a story to Kara and Helena that is probably as suggestive as you can get away with in 80s comics!
Ralph, Elongated Man, being the good sort he is spots that Firestorm is in a bit of a slump and tries to find out what’s wrong, with Firestorm instantly spilling the beans on his infatuation with Power Girl. Some of the others, like Zatana and Hourman, give him some advice to just go and talk to Kara about it all and Firestorm is about to when the satellite is attacked.
Johnny Thunder is brutally efficient with Firestorm, who rushes to attack, is taken out almost straight away. Though he’d probably be happy to have been caught by Power Girl. Then in short order, Hal Jordan, Elongate Man and Zatana are taken down being in a serious condition. The others struggle and it’s only Black Canaries sonic scream that drives the attacker away. It’s quickly determined that for some reason only those from Earth-1 were seriously affected as the few remaining Leagues and the JSA try and work out what is going on, as for now they’re stuck here until their way home is repaired.
In a weird moment, that I’m sure isn’t exposition, Dinah explains her origin on Earth-2 back in the Golden Age. How Starman crashed through the roof of her Flower Shop, her joining the JSA and meeting the League and how her husband Larry sacrificed himself from a deadly attack. After that, she came to Earth-1 to join the League and escape all the sad memories of her home dimension. When then get told that her sonic screech only manifested once she got here, and then the plot kick back in with Superman and Wonder Woman being taken out in just a single panel each!
Power Girl has been on comms, being obviously smart and capable, and has some bad news to interrupt the hunt for Johnny Thunder. Apparently, a number of Earth-1 and 2 villains have teamed up and are at various places around the world. But as it’s something that seems to be for the next issue we’ll cover who and where there.
Important to this part of the story is that Starman and Black Canary decide not to go after the villains but to travel to the Thunderbolt dimension to try and find out what’s wrong with Johnny Thunder. After a trippy flight through the dimension, they meet the Earth-1 Johnny Thunder whilst the Earth-2 one quickly disables and captures the two heroes. We then get a big reveal to end the issue, a perspex coffin containing the corpse of Larry Lance, but also … Dinah!
I know from my time around comic book areas of the Internet that this is fix-fic, a story that retcons some aspect of the universe in this case Black Canary, but it’s solid and competently put together right now so I can’t fault the comic. And whilst it might be 21st century me projecting back it feels that for the final team-up they’re hitting all the classic beats on more time.