Dead Presidents - Justice League of America #208

 The Bomb-Blast Heard 'round the World

Justice League of America #208

Cover Date: November 1982

Released: 5th August 1982

We open with the best of all team up cliche's, the misunderstanding fight between the two groups of heroes. The JLA (Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman, Superman, Zatanna) newly arrived in 1942 deck it out with the All-Star Squadron (Commander Steel, Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Firebrand, Robotman) from the era, who want to know what happened to the JSA. Supes eventually gets fed up enough to literally shout for everyone to stop acting like bickering kids, with Robotman agreeing with the sentiment. I know it's mostly my biases, but being used to the Doom Patrol (TV version) this reasonable version of Robotman is weird.

Apparently, all it takes is for supes to mention he's from the future to make everyone cool allies, they even had a little get together to celebrate. Though I could have done without Firebrand serving drink, to be fair I guess it is still the 40s there. Though it does lead to a cute scene with Firestorm flirting with firebrand over a common power set, though we don't see if he gets shot down in flames (I apologize for nothing!). instead Supes does the standard Earth-1 /  Earth-2 two thing and espouses the merits of the 1980s, including space stations,  the moon shots, 100 story building and President Reagan! Though Reagan again is probably one of those looking back from the 21st Century type of things. We then get a quick summary of the previous issue, from the JLAs point of view, and we're good to go!

Then, to increase our President count, the All-Star Squadron gets summoned to the White House to meet with President Roosevelt and his little dog too! After a very cute meet and greet, including a joke about getting Einstein to look at parallel worlds, we find out that the White House has received a VCR and projector TV that plays a recording from Per Degaton threatening nuclear annihilation unless they pay a ransom. It's implied that it's not an actual recording but live, but I like the idea that it's just time travel tricks at work here!

We then cut back to Earth-Prime where the JSA are looking for signs of life. After defeating a group of mutants they enter a tunnel system leading to a sole survivor from the last war. Though blind Dr Fate uses his magic to project images on a handy TV. Here we get our third President of the issue, J. F. Kennedy, revealing that the world was destroyed due to an escalation of the Cuban Missile crisis. 

We then cut back to 1942 where the two teams are gathered together on a Royal Navy ship to watch for Per Degaton's demonstration of his power.  It's one of the Soviet missiles that the JLA, obviously knowing more about the weapon's power, help contain the blast so it causes no harm to anyone watching the demo. After that, they discover a time bubble that contains the JSA who apparently have followed the trail here from Earth-Prime, unconscious but still alive. It includes some very uncomfortable comments from Firestorm about the unconscious Power Girl, which makes the earlier comments much less cute even if he is still a teenager at heart.

We end with per Degaton watching from a jet at 25,000 feet gloating that both the Axis and Allies will soon surrender to his demands or he will destroy them all! It's a little strange though that from all of time and space he could pick his stuff up from he's mostly going to the far future of the eighties to source his stuff! It's a nice touch that he refers to the superheroes as Mystery Men, the term they used before supers became more common. That's a lot of words to say it's kind of a non-ending, but it's fine as the middle part of the story sets up the back half of the plot.

Apart from the rather awkward method of bringing the JSA together with the other two teams, it's a pretty solid issue showing how the villain has put everything together whilst letting us know what will happen if they fail to stop his plans. Let's hope everything runs smoothly as we go towards the end of the tale...

 ⋅ Writers: Gerry Conway ⋅ Pencilers: Don Heck ⋅  Inkers: Sal Trapani ⋅  

 ⋅ Colourists: Carl Gafford ⋅ Letterers: Phil Felix ⋅ Editors: Len Wein ⋅