Annotations - Justice Society of America #6

“The Lightning Saga,” the JLA/JSA/Legion of Super-Heroes teamup story running through Justice League of America and Justice Society of America, reaches its penultimate chapter, and so, we reach the next to last in this series of annotations. JLA writer Brad Meltzer and JSA scribe Geoff Johns clearly have a soft spot for the DC stories of the 1970s and 1980s, but some of the references from that era that they include here might elude newer comics readers. So I’ve put together this guide. To read the first three sets of these annotations, you can click here, here and here, respectively. And now, on with the minutia of past wonders…

Justice Society of America #6
“The Lightning Saga, Chapter Four”

Cover art: As was the case with JSA #5, the regular-cover edition of this issue features no indication on the cover that this is part of the JLA/JSA crossover, no mention of “The Lightning Saga.” Given that this has happened twice in a row, and that this cover features a continuing series of single-character portraits by comics painter Alex Ross, I can only assume that DC doesn’t want to break the format or that Ross has negotiated some sort of deal to ensure as little cover dress as possible intrudes on his artwork. As for the variant cover by Phil Jimenez and Rod Reis, again, it appears to be part of a larger image, with the variant covers connecting to form one along poster.

The cover features Damage, a new member of the Justice Society, and he is more prominently featured in this chapter of the crossover. He is Grant Emerson, and he has explosive super-powers, the result of genetic experimentation by immortal villain Vandal Savage. Genetically, he is the child of the Golden Age Atom, and his current costume is patterned after his. Damage’s powers actually seem to resemble those of the Golden Age Human Bomb, a member of the original Freedom Fighters. That explains Damage’s brief association as a member of a modern version of the Freedom Fighters (as seen in Infinite Crisis, not the recent Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters limited series).

Page 1: The headshots lining the splash-page panel (as well as those of the Legionnaires a few pages later) are in keeping with previous JLA/JSA crossovers in the 1970s and ’80s. The “Jay” referred to in Superman’s narration captions is Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. “The Legion of Three Worlds” is a new reference, but could easily be explained by the three different incarnations of the Legion of Super-Heroes: the original versions, the post-Zero Hour (a mid-1990s Crisis-like crossover) reboot incarnations of the characters and the newly rebooted team featured in the current Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes series.

Page 2: “The first Crisis” refers to Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Page 3: The lightning-rod ceremony to resurrect Lightning Lad (from Adventure Comics #312, as noted in the previous set of annotations) is exactly as Superman describes it. Lightning Lad died in the Silver Age fighting Zaryan the Conqueror.