JSA All-Stars #13

The first time I read JSA All Stars 13 I was quietly impressed. It was a nice break in what is often an incomprehensible team book which itself spun off from another overpadded team book whose purpose and indeed distinction has often been unclear to me. A character piece which focused on Cyclone, one of the newer JSA legacy characters (Red Tornado’s – with the pot on the head – granddaughter with convenient tornado powers) whose previous distinction seemed to be unbridled fannishness which merely manifested as talking too much. Plus a costume whose ridiculousness for once was not based on its anatomical implausibility but rather on being based on the Wicked Witch of the West. But green.

When you jump in at episode 13 it seems pointless even trying to explain any aspect of a book like JSA All-Stars.

Anyway this is part two of a story, but the good writing on display made it more than easy to just drop in. I was attracted by the cover, which was intriguing. Shapeshifters? Aliens? Clones? The cover and first couple of pages catch you up pretty quickly. Maxine, aka Cyclone, has lost her wind powers, but two powered-up copies of her are on the scene too. Luckily you can spot the difference because the CyClones (their joke, flubbed on the cover) are in costume, and the depowered, POV Maxine is in civvies. Oh and some bloke Maxine likes at University seems to be manifesting wind powers too. Requiring help the three Maxines return to the JSA All-Stars headquarters for help, where they encounter nine more CyClones.

When drawn all together the sheer ridiculousness of a floppy witches hat as part of your costume when your powers are wind based becomes even more stark.

Unfortunately the rest of this part of the Justice Society of America are off on the desert planet of Qorath IV (half Dune half Tremors by the look of the sandworms) having an awesome adventure we see excerpted occasionally. I like this kind of storytelling. It hints nicely that the kind of world saving, honour-winning fisticuffs which are the meat and potatoes of a team book are actually a bit tedious and repeated ad nauseum in this kind of team book, and it is not wrong. What interests writer Sturges is a stab at rounding out Maxine Hunkel, and a nice little sci-fi tale. The problem not apparent on a skim read but glaringly obvious later is that no-one has explained the story properly to his editor or the artist Howard Porter, much better than in his JLA days, who makes a huge mistake in the book which destroys its otherwise nicely thought-provoking twist.

There needs to be spoilers to explain.

Maxine’s powers come from nanites – 2010’s magic science. When she almost died in a previous episode, the nanites were worried about their “world” dying. So they left her body leaving her powerless and infected another eleven women of similar build and turned them into copies of her host. Apparently including the daft costume. The only thing they didn’t change was the bone structure, since it was so similar. So says the snarky JSA supercomputer Roxy (it’s as if someone saw Jocasta over at Avengers Mansion and thought we should have one of those). The last load of nanites went a bit mental and infected the bloke Maxine fancies instead and were having difficulties turning him into a girl  – hence the out of control wind powers. Luckily Roxy reckons she can reverse everything as long as they get the final lot of nanites off the bloke, which as ever in this kind of tale involves kissing.

There are interesting philosophical ideas here generally ignored in this comic, mainly ones about identity. Luckily all the CyClones (it never gets old) are happy with the explanation given and despite believing they are Maxine all accept being turned back into their previous identities. Some superhero business then goes on. What it is important to note is that artist Porter draws all the CyClones in the silly, not wind resistant, superhero outfit. The “real” Maxine is in jeans and a T-Shirt. When she regains her powers, she remains in her jeans and T-Shirt. When the rest of the JSA arrive back home – with a ridiculous “WE RETURN” – she is still in said clothes. And when the CyClones are changed back they look a bit befuddled to be in a mysterious place wearing a green, knock-off Wicked Witch of the West outfit. It comes off like a crossover between A Chorus Line and Wicked.

None of which would matter bar the coda of the book. The good bit, I initially thought, the clever bit. Not the bit where King Chimera (snotty-nosed brat member) declares his love for Maxine and says implausibly that he would have been able to tell which one of the exact copies of her she was if he handn’t been on a different planet fighting in the inconsequential B-story. That is just sappy soap opera. No the “good bit” is the last page where Roxy admits to team leader Power Girl that there might have been a bit of a mistake and Maxine actually has the wrong bones, which means she is the wrong person.

Aha – in creeps our old friend philosophy and asks what makes a person a person. Is it the “quantum state of their brain”, their history, some sort of continuity of flesh. All of which is laughed over leaving what should be a slightly creepy body-snatching ending. A nice little sci-fi sucker punch.

Except, reading it again to lavish praise on this smart little comic, it struck me we always knew who the original Maxine/Cyclone was. She was the only one not in the silly green costume. As such she was the only one who did not need to submit to the process of being changed back. She knew that, Roxy knew that, the reader clearly knew that from the visual part of the storytelling. The pictures bit. The ending doesn’t actually make any sense.

In wanting to like this comic more, I initially missed what the editor and the artist should have realised. I’ve got to hope there was an excuse in the script (the spontaneous generation of the costume as with all the other clones would have worked). The Freddie Williams II cover does not make the mistake, yet the story does. And so a relatively lively if forgettable issue of a convoluted team book went from being a smart little done-in-one to a shoddy piece of tat.

All of that and I didn’t mention that the flying monkey on the cover doesn’t turn up once.