Today, we look at how Superman has left a question unasked for forty years from an old Justice League/Justice Society crossover.
In Left Unresolved, I spotlight storylines that have been, well, left unresolved.
My pal Alan wrote me a while back to ask, "Was reading the JLA/JSA/All Star Squadron crossover to my son, and Huntress’ unfinished question still bugs me nearly 40 years later. Any theories what she might’ve been about to ask? And/or did this ever get addressed later?"
Let's take a look!
The 1982 Justice League and Justice Society crossover was the TWENTIETH crossover between the two teams after they had famously first teamed up way back during the Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky Justice League of America era back in Justice League of America #21. Then longtime writer Justice League writer, Gerry Conway, worked out a massive plotline with his former Marvel Comics colleague, Roy Thomas, who had moved to DC in 1980, and the two came up with a crossover that spilled out of Justice League of America into the pages of Thomas' All-Star Squadron series, as well, which was set in 1942. The five-part crossover started in Justice League #207 then went to All-Star Squadron #14, back to Justice League #208 then back to All-Star Squadron #15 before it all came to a close in Justice League #209, with stunning covers by George Perez on the Justice League issues and Joe Kubert on the All-Star Squadron issues.
Things kick off with the Justice Society heading over to the JLA Satellite for their annual celebration (in Justice League of America #207 by Conway, Don Heck and Romeo Tanghal) when things took a turn when the Justice Society members were diverted elsewhere...
In their place was the Crime Syndicate of America, the villains who were part of the second ever Justice League/Justice Society crossover!
It is soon clear that the whole deal has a lot more going on than simply a Crime Syndicate plot. The Justice Society escape from being trapped in time limbo and find themselves on Earth-Prime, which is OUR world, where the heroes are all comic book characters (this was used in past stories to tell adventures starring actual comic book writers like Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin and editor Julius Schwartz interacting with the DC Universe). They find this world destroyed by a nuclear holocaust that had clearly decades earlier and it was all a plot by the villainous time traveler (who debuted at the end of the original Justice Society of America stories in the 1940s, when John Broome took over writing duties on that early series after original writer Gardner Fox stopped writing the book), Per Degaton!
The Justice League visit Earth-2, which has also been conquered by Per Degaton at some point in the distant past! Things are so bad that just SEEING superheroes start to freak out the citizens of this altered reality, since they are so totally under Per Degaton's thumb.
So the Justice League head back to 1942 to see what altered this timeline to cause this awful new present and finds that the Justice Society aren't around back then, either, and the All-Star Squadron arrive at the Justice Society's headquarters and think that the Justice League are the bad guys!
After a traditional confused identity superhero battle, the Squadron realizes that the Justice League are heroes from the future, it quickly turns into one of those classic split-up and take care of different tasks adventures (which the Justice League and Justice Society have been rocking out ever since those early Fox/Sekowsky tales from the early 1960s), in this case, various destructive bombs throughout history and alternate realities, which gets so complicated that there is even a scene on a chalkboard to keep us all on topic...
What happened is that Per Degaton realized that he could not just travel through time, but he could also travel through different realities, so he visited Earth-3 and teamed up with the Crime Syndicate. They manipulated the Cuban Missile Crisis in OUR reality so that it turned into a nuclear holocaust and then the Crime Syndicate stole nukes from 1962 to go back to Earth-2 in 1942 to conquer the world then, which is why Per Degaton now ruled Earth-2 in the present day. So the combined might of the Justice League, the All-Star Squadron and the future Justice Society must team up to take down the various bombs.
Once Per Degaton was defeated, the timeline was going to reset (which is a good thing, since of the destroyed timelines was, well, OURS, so the superheroes actually saved us!), and as a result, none of the superheroes were going to remember anything about what actually happened during this adventure since none of it technically DID happen (the exception to this is the Crime Syndicate, who remember it but they are trapped in limbo outside of time itself, so there's nothing that they can do with their extra knowledge), but before the heroes were wiped back to their original reality (where they were about to have their yearly celebration), Huntress begins to ask Superman a question...
As you can see, it is cut off and the issue ends with the heroes not remembering anything about what happened during the five-part story...
So I asked Gerry Conway about it and Gerry doesn't remember it at all, so it will sadly just remain a mystery, Alan! I can't even fathom a guess based on the context of the story, really. How about anyone else who has read this adventure? Can you at least try to figure out what Huntress COULD have been asking about?
Thanks to Alan for the question and thanks to Gerry Conway for trying to remember about a really old comic book plot point!
If anyone has a suggestion for an unresolved comic book plot, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!