Acquired Taste Book Club Week 5!
2019-12-03T02:00:00Z → 2019-12-06T19:59:00Z
Welcome to a belated edition of the Acquired Taste Book Club! We’re circling back around to Quality Comics today, for a look at where the bulk of Quality’s characters ended up.
In this case we’ll be taking a dive into the history of Earth-X, the adopted home of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. While Plastic Man joined DC’s main heroes on Earth-1 and Blackhawk Squadron had a long but sadly undigitized run under the DC banner, the rest of Quality’s stable languished out of publication, none of them having been seen since their original wartime runs.
Then, they reappeared in a crisis. Not the Crisis, a crisis. The Justice League of America and their Earth-2 predecessors and counterparts in the Justice Society of America would traditionally team up with one another for a two- or three-part storyline every year. Often, they would travel to other worlds, like Earth-3, home of the villainous Crime Syndicate of America, or Earth-S, home of a certain mighty mortal who we’ve already met. These stories would traditionally be entitled “Crisis on something-or-other” or “Crisis at so-and-so,” after the original JLA/JSA two-parter “Crisis on Earth-1” and “Crisis on Earth-2.” Quality’s characters, however, inhabited a world a little different from the others, as you’ll soon see.
We’ll also be looking at their other major Pre-Crisis appearance. Created by Roy Thomas, All-Star Squadron was one of a small sub-line of DC books taking place on Earth-2. It featured a large group of Golden Age heroes brought together by the government as a task force to battle the Axis during World War II. This story arc from the series delves more closely into the origin story of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters.
Reading Assignment: Justice League of America (1960-) #107-108 and All-Star Squadron (1981-) #31-35
Justice League of America:
Justice League of America (1960-) #107
Justice League of America (1960-) #108
All-Star Squadron:
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
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What do you think of the premise for Earth-X?
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I don’t think it’s a controversial statement that the characters who made up the Freedom Fighters have been heavily underutilized. Who would you like to see more of?
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OK, the plot is silly. Good silly or bad silly?
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Did you spot the error on one of the two covers?
ALL-STAR SQUADRON DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
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Does this expansion of the Freedom Fighters’ origin make sense?
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How many of the characters from the big meeting did you recognize?
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There are a lot of characters here. Does the story do a good job of juggling them all?
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Do you need to throw tomatoes at me for getting this up so late?
For questions or concerns, contact me @BatJamags.
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Next week: The Red Skies descend once more… on Earth-S!