Art By: Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott, Monica Kubina
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 27, 2015Forever Young
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
You know what I love? Earth 2, that's what and I was tickled pink........ which now that I write it sounds terrible, but that doesn't matter. What I'm trying to say is that I love Earth 2 and reading this book last month gave me so much joy in catching up with these Golden Age heroes and it's definitely on my Top 5 of best books of Convergence list. In that issue, we had our heroes, Hawkman, Flash, Green Lantern and Dr. Fate feeling old as hell after they spent a year under the dome without powers and we spent that issue walking through a day in their lives, while it made us realize how much it sucks to get old. Don't worry though, instead of the dome falling and our heroes simply falling and breaking their hip, Dr. Fate gives them the choice to become young again, one last time and our heroes take that choice and run with it as they went off to fight a Qwardian death machine. Let's see how our favorite young old timers fair as they protect their city. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our story begins and continues through most of the issue, with our heroes going after the Qwardian death machine and finding out it's strengths and weaknesses, while Dr. Fate really drills the idea that being old is terrible into our heads. I have to say, as much as I loved just seeing these heroes being themselves and getting into a giant battle and all, the first half of this issue was kind of boring. Yeah, we had the battle and some quippy banter, but the majority was just Dr. Fate musing on what's gone down and what our heroes are doing. Eventually though, the book picks up as we find out that our heroes are having the time of their lives fighting this death machine and we feel their joy as they do it. The review I did on the last issue, I used the header Cocoon 3: The Dome.......... and no matter what you read here, do not feel like you need to go back and watch Cocoon or Cocoon 2, the plot of that flick was simply that old men got rejuvenated and it seemed like something fun to use in a review, but it's really in this issue where you'd see the comparison to that film series because man do these characters have a blast being young and getting back to what they did best.
After battling the death machine for awhile, our heroes finally manage to damage it, but we soon find out that the machine has the capability to rebuild itself and once again the battle is on and our heroes go full bore in trying to take the threat down. Using all their experience in working together, they completely obliterate the Qwardian death machine and the threat is teleported away, while our JSA is announced as the winner of game.
In the end, instead of our heroes burning out fast due to the spell to give them one more shot at being the heroes they were.......... like I thought would happen, we see that they have been returned to their old age instead. The day is saved and Kent Nelson excuses himself from the group to go give Infinity Inc. his blessing on them carrying on the torch, while the rest of our heroes go off together to reminisce and continue their long friendship for as long as they're allowed to.
That's it for this issue of Convergence: Justice Society of America and while this issue wasn't the heart felt, action packed, insert cliche review word here, it was still fun. It's odd because I found myself being disappointed for half the book but the second half really picked my spirits up and really presented these characters the way we wanted to see them and really ended on a high note...... even if it wasn't like I thought it would be. On top of the fun of these characters we get Tom Derenick continuing to draw the hell out of the JSAers and man does he do them justice in making them look great. So yeah, while not as strong as the first issue, this was certainly not a bad way to end this tie-in.
Bits and Pieces:
Yeah, some might be disappointed that this issue wasn't as strong as the first, but we do get some strong moments with our heroes and begin to believe that youth is wasted on the young. Really, this is just us getting one final time to see our Earth 2 heroes in their prime, kicking ass and taking names and it was really enjoyable. One last hurrah and I'm happy that I got to see it.
7.5/10
While I have been a JSA Fan since 1974, my favorite era is the 1999-2006 series set on the main Post-CRISIS Earth ~ Early Only where everyone was on the same Earth. LOVED that the JSA became major enemies with Mordru, Kobra, Eclipso, and other "Earth-One" villains.
ReplyDeleteThe Pre-CRISIS JSA, like these two issues, were just old men past their prime, whining about their age. These same men did NOTHING like that in the 1999-2006 JSA series, where they were vital characters with VERY important niches in the DCU (Jay with Wally, Alan with Kyle and Hal, Wildcat with Catwoman and Batman, etc.).
While I started my JSA fandom with the Earth-Two version in 1974 (and have ALL JSA appearances ever since 1940), their life on old Earth-Two is my least favorite. Now, I'm hoping for the Pre-FLASHPOINT Earth to take over again...