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. They find the world destroyed by a nuclear holocaust 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), Per Degaton!
The Justice League visit Earth-2, which has also been conquered by Per Degaton at some point in the distant past!
So the Justice League heads to 1942 to see what happened and finds that the Justice Society aren't around back then, either, and the All-Star Squadron think that they are bad guys!
After a battle and 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, in this case, various destructive bombs throughout history, which gets so complicated that there is even a scene on a chalkboard to keep us all on topic...
Once Per Degaton was defeated, the timeline was going to reset, 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, but before the heroes are 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!
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