Justice League of America #183 - Where Have all the New Gods Gone?

 

CRISIS ON NEW GENESIS
or WHERE HAVE ALL THE NEW GODS GONE?JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #183

Published: 10th July 1980
Cover Date: October 1980
Cover Artists: Jim Starlin
Writer: Gerry Conway
Penciler: Dick Dillin
Inker: Frank McLaughlin
Colourist: Gene D'Angelo
Letterer: Ben Oda
Editors: Len Wein

Introduction

Everything these days has to be a massive crossover with the entire Multiverse in crisis, whilst in the 70s and 80s you got these (relative) low-key events where two or more teams just teamed up over both of their comics. Which I guess is weird as this involves New Genesis and Apokolips, y'know the New Gods that you'd figure would want, no need, to be in a big massive story. But somehow for me, these kinda stories have a bigger appeal, probably because right now there's a little bit of event fatigue.

Synopsis

We start, as with all these crossovers with the standard one-page explanation of how the JLA are from Earth-1 and the JSA on Earth-2, and because it's a crossover all the classic JSAers, like Wonder Woman, show up in the summary at least.

We actually open with the team-up in effect, with the two teams already on New Genesis, in a suitably Kirby-esq two-page spread. It seems that the teams have been kidnapped from the JSA satellite to arrive here. We have a fairly small team with Earth-1 Batman, Firestorm, Green Lantern, and Superman and Earth-2 Dr. Fate, Huntress  (weirdly called The Huntress), Power Girl (obviously!), and Wonder Woman. You might ask why Firestorm is sitting at the big boy table, well basically his creator Gerry Conway is writing the JLA so he's fairly recently added him to the team. I can't hate it as he added an interesting idea to the issues.

Helena sensibly asks Superman what he knows about how they got to New Genesis and we get this fascinating bit about Clark saying that he's visited before and thinks of it as something of a dream-like experience, thinking that New Genesis feels a little like home. To which Power Girl actually agrees and asks why he'd ever wanted to leave the place? It's kind of weird when he describes himself as a misfit on Earth, really it's an odd little aside on the first real page of the comic. The two agree that they're too dedicated to the responsibility to defend the Earth(s) including giving his (sorta) cousin a little friendly hug.

Wonder Woman breaks things up with a very Captain America-like comment that the only gods she knows are from Mount Olympus and with that the teams all split up to explore the planet and try and find the missing New Gods. So we have a good page of Firestorm, did I mention Conway created him? Thinking to himself about the situation (for those who are here and somehow don't know about Firestorm he's a combination of an inexperienced Jock and a wise old scientist) we get him generally enjoying the time to explore this very alien planet. Unfortunately for him, he finds a New God, the slightly mad Orion.

The fireworks from the two fighting get the attention of the rest of the team(s), who it seems were just standing around looking cool whilst Firestorm explored, and they all rush into action. The fight is already over, with Orion looking after an unconscious Firestorm, and in the classic misunderstanding fight everyone gets a chance to show off just what it can do! Batman or all people, or maybe Huntress as the two are working as a team, throw a gas grenade that manages to incapacitate Orion enough for the heavy hitters to punch him out. Whilst 1980s Batman is very much less powerful than the Batgod of the 2000s, but I guess Batman has to Batman!

Now the fight is over the rest of our New Gids show up, only it seems important enough to get a half-page splash, Metron, Oberon, Mister Miracle, and most importantly Big Barda! One of the first DC comics I read had Big Barda in it, and it was influential enough that I've been a fan of the character ever since. This is despite that issue being the infamous John Byrnes Superman issues where an Apokoliptian called Sleez takes control of Supes and Barda and makes them perform what basically boils down to a porno! Plus ça change and all that I guess!

Anyway, Metron comes in to set things right, bringing Firestorm back to full health, with Pee Gee asking him if he's okay, and getting Orion to sort his head out using a Mother Box to bring him back to sanity. Oh and whilst I don't like to criticize artists unless they're really bad, it's obvious that very few can draw Big Barda's magnificent hat as well as Kirby can!

And as Barda tells it the entire population of New Genesis has been kidnapped by Apokolips to be used as slaves in a nefarious plot, aided by all people as the Injustice Society or Earth-2! And obviously being powerful entities with almost god-like abilities, they bought the JSA here, with a few JLA hangers-on, because they're their villains and first bragging right or something, besides we wouldn't get a team up otherwise!

Anyway, they all arrive on Apokolips, via a Boom Tube that literally goes BOOM! And split into two teams. 

We start with the team of Batman, Huntress, and Mister Miracle infiltrating the Imperial Palace, with several pages of them being cool and taking down goons! As they go deeper into the place we learn that Orion hasn't been quite himself since he took down Darkseid, interrupting an attempt by Darkseid to piece the Final Barrier which caused him to grow to giant size apparently resulting in his own people to shoot him down as a potential threat. Because as we know giant planet-sized beings are generally not good for your planet!

But enough exposition because we need the boring team to do their bit, that being Oberon, Dr Fate, and Green Lantern. For some reason they play the old Oberon having been captured by them so they can sneak into the Central Barracks, this doesn't get even beyond the entrance to the place so I'm not sure why they decided to do this instead of the general frontal assault. This is how things generally go with the Fate and Lantern getting to show off the full range of powers to break into the place. Green Lantern find something shocking, but we're bored of them so let's go onto the other part...

We go to Granny Goodness's orphanage, where she raises the Female Furies, warriors for Apokolips, and we see one of the younger orphans about to be punished for some infraction, before Superman, Wonder Woman and Big Barda free the young orphan from the clutches of the guards. We get a big deal with the fact that the two female warriors free the young female orphan, especially as this was the environment where Big Barda was bought up as a warrior.

Finally, we get our Power Girl, with Orion and Firestorm, investigating a massive construction project, where we find the Injustice Society at work, and in an impressive final full-page splash of Darkseid who surprise, surprise has been bought back to life!

Final Thoughts

By this point, these crossovers have been going on for a while and they've got the basics down pat, The teams are split into three with each little team getting an opportunity to show off what they can do, all the while driving the plot forward with stuff set up for the second issue. The only issue really is one of time, the reveal of a restored Darkseid probably hit a little harder when such things were a lot rarer, this is just a smidge before Jean Grey (the X-Man character) has her first return from the dead.

It sounds like faint praise, but it's a solid put-together comic that tells the first part of this tale, which is both high stakes and low drama in nature!