:jsa_book_club: The Magnetic Marauder / June 1-15 2021:jsa_book_club:

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Hello members of the @JSABookClub and welcome to our first June session. This session we will be taking a look at some more All Star Squadron and the stories include, a strange triplocate advasary, Wonder Woman seeking the Squadron’s help in rescuing Steve Trevor, Robotman gets taken to court and a spotlight on Tarantula.

Lets get started!

THE JSABC ROLL CALL

Club Leaders

@JasonTodd428 & @Aurora

Standing Members

Abrax, AggressiveIntellectual219, anthony.javier3, Applejack, Azrael_Jean-PaulValley14, BBlake, bbzo24, bigblock66, Blueandred BlueBeetlesAssistant, BobbinIrving, Brenticus_Rex, CaptainYesterday, CassTheStreet, CrazyQuilt, Daffern, dave7atgosky, dave_worrell, DC_Community, Deathstroke’sPunisher, december360, djganon, Doctor075, DocterFate1, Don-El, fawsid, frankie.lacy79, Flynn.P.Campbell, Frostbite30, ganaoque, harrist, HombreDeMaiz, hotstufflouie, Jay_Kay, Jflow, jlevin, Jurisdiction, kaliym73, lunalane, MatthewHecht, mbpbinder, _meegs, Meisaj, mgeiler, Midnitehour, MisfitCMJ, mitchellbpearson, MPMCN86, msgtv, Odbo255, PaintEater, parzival27, ProActress, QuadPen, ralphsix, Ravenrifft, ReaganFan78, Remember5NovEveyHammond, RexRebel, RickTylerHourman, rlynchfamily, ROMANLEGION rspezzano, rwm, Ryan22, scoop001, Sinestro1,slowp0Ketail, Smallengineerings, SuperBlue Grodd, TheCosmicMoth, TK52, TurokSonOfStone, YolandaMontezz, ZacharyLee1995.

THE JSABC WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS

@Tommyskindlefire.68105
@Alec.Holland
@D4RK5TARZ

Glad you could join us!

To join us here at the JSABC just click the link.

Readings

* All Star Squadron Annual #1
* All Star Squadron #16-18

Discussion Questions

  1. What did you think of the story told in the Annual?

  2. How did you like Wonder Woman’s cameo in issue #16?

  3. I really enjoyed seeing Robotman get a bit of a spotlight in issue #17. Would you want to habe a metal body as he does and what would you do with such a body?

  4. What did you think of Tarantula’s backstory here?

And that’s all for this session. Next session we will be taking a look at another tale from the JSA Classified series featuring Green Lantern Alan Scott and in honor of Father’s Day we also have two stories from JSA. Please join us then.

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Can’t wait, bookmarked for the weekend!

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on this set @Don-El.

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You just jinxed him to get amnesia and lose the ability to read.

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  1. It was nice to see the heroes working together, although the villain was very generic.
  2. I always like Wonder Woman, although I am glad that deal with the being bound by a man negating her powers has been forgotten.
  3. I would never want a robot body. I want to be able to eat and feel things like a real person.
  4. Tarantula’s backstory was ok. I definitely prefer his later costume to this one. It represents his name better.
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Kind of amazing that Wonder Woman would lose to “The Amazing Rope Guy.”

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I liked that too but boy was that villain ever generic.

I’m glad too. I had totally forgotten about that deal.

I’m not sure I would want one either even if it would save my ‘life’ as it does here. I don’t think it would be worth it.

Yeah, his later costume is much better than this one but you have to start somewhere I guess.

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Originally his costume was he had hundreds of tarantulas crawling on his nude body. He just got stuck with the name and theme.

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That was not an image I wanted stuck in my head. Thanks. :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :stuck_out_tongue:

Spiders are not my favorite thing.

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ANNUAL #1

The opening page is from the cover of Comic Cavalcade #2, their race in the Preview issue was from the cover of #1.

Roy Thomas takes little bits of past stories and meld them together into one. The idea that there was just one coach that taught Ted, Al and Jim was a good one. For today’s audience it might have worked better if they dropped the evil orb and the high powered characters and just had the other three investigate their mentor.

#16

A magnetic villain named Nuclear, please someone invent the Atom Bomb quickly. He wasn’t too boring as villains go. The good thing about All-Star Squadron is that you have the main crew and can bring in guest stars all the time so as many Golden Age heroes show up as possible. I don’t mind the Wonder Woman losing powers if bound by a man in the Golden Age setting since the opponents are usually much lower powered.

#17

This is one of my favorite stories of the series. I really like this version of Robotman. His disguise is dressing up like a normal man. Is Johnny Quick’s endangering everyone in the courtroom so Robotman could be a hero really that out of step for a Golden Age tale?

#18

Tarantula is one of the heroes I hadn’t heard of before this series that I really liked. I like the thought of a mystery writer as a mystery man and his quips are a bit more sophisticated than the next Spiderhero from New York. That purple and gold is just such as bad combination. His next costume was much better. I just wish John Law had a story done by Darwyn Cooke at some point. Alas…

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In that opening cover I do not think Wildcat is really helping.

I see it now. Breaking news- Superheroes die in dangerous circus act.

Wildcat wanted to be a doctor. Well doctors must know how the human body works, which should come in handy in a fight especially if they refuse to kill by accidently breaking something important.

I enjoyed the beginning of the annual, but it dragged on too long.

Does Steve know Diana is Wonder Woman?

Good role for her needing help from heroes she considers inferior to her usual teammates. I find Wonder Woman has a bad problem with sometimes being a Mary Sue, and this was far from that seeing her much more vulnerable than usual.

I like to think I would be a superhero with a superpowered metal body. In reality I would probably be a retail worker who joined an online book club discussing things like what would I do if I had a metal body.

Can Sandman sue Tarantula for copyright infringement. All I could think of was the Spider-Man villain with that ridiculous and impractical footwear.

Let me guess, something with Hourman. Two stories might mean the “Out of Time” storyline or maybe “Their Finest Hour.”

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At my ancient age, it won’t take a jinx to get to that lol

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Just starting to toy with the reading now. I noticed at the very beginning the statement made on the opening page 1 of the Annual that they hope this is the first of many annuals by this team. I decided to flip through the selections on DCUI and indeed there are three All-Star Squadron Annuals in total up to 1984. Although the series runs through 1987, the annuals never appear again… maybe they were lost during the Crisis? Maybe DC decided annuals weren’t cool to make money with anymore?

The third Annual that we’ll get to someday is a very interesting one that mirrors the old school All Star Comics.

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What do I think of the story in the Annual:

Like so many stories in comics, books and on TV, the beginning and the middle are engrossing as we try to understand the mystery. Beyond the story, the artwork by Jerry Ordway as always is very satisfying. He is so good at background detail unlike a lot of modern artists, and also in my opinion excels at drawing character’s faces and making them distinctive.

I don’t know why we always enjoy watching the good brawl between superheroes where nobody gets seriously injured, but for some reason we do. Maybe it’s an early version of WWE Wrestling…

The conclusion of the story and all that stuff about the Guardians of OA is okay but frankly I don’t remember all that was going on in the Green Lantern Universe back in 1982 so it kind of flew right over my head all these inferences about magic etc.

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oooo spooky, I’m trying to read the next issue, I’m getting about 8 pages in and then it’s almost like a magnetic storm is attacking my tablet and I can’t read any further!!!

Nuclear, you MONSTER!!!

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I really liked seeing that cover used here. Here’s the original for comparisons sake.

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Homages like this are one things I nearly always enjoy.

In the context of the Golden Age setting it does make sense that Wonder Woman would have some sort of weakness. Green Lantern’s powers during that period were hampered by wood and Superman himself by Kryptonite so why not.

Gotta love Robotman and no what Jesse did here isn’t all that out of place for a Golden Age story at all.

I really liked that too though that costume was pretty bad.

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That would be quite the headline. :rofl:

Personally I like my heroes to show vulnerability once in awhile and to make the occasional mistake. Nobody’s perfect.

Maybe he should consider it.

We shall see…

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Looking forward to that one.

Everything about Ordway’s art is satisfying to me to me as well.

I don’t know why either but I certainly do enjoy a good brawl between heroes (or villains to be honest).

Yeah, me either. Anyone with more GL knowledge than I care to chime in?

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I’ll clip and paste this from elsewhere

What Green Lantern did not know, and would not learn for many years, was that, eons ago the immortal Oans, in the process of becoming the Guardians of the Universe, had purged their own hearts and minds of all Evil.[1] They couldn’t destroy the Evil, so they compacted it into a glowing white sphere, throbbing and pulsing with malevolent life, then they sent it away into an alternate universe (known as Earth-Two), where they earlier had sent all (or supposedly all , anyway) of the magic that didn’t belong in their “universe of science”.[2] As a precaution, they rigged the globe-being to split into three weaker parts, if it ever attempted to act on its own evil volition. The only thing that would be able to reunite those three parts would be the discarded magic from their earlier purification (what’s now known as the “Starheart”). And that magic was of course the source of power for Green Lantern’s lantern and ring.

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Thanks for that piece of information @CaptainYesterday.

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