JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #208 DC COMICS, 1982

You can tell by the cover that this comic kicks total ass.

OK, to be honest, Justice League of America #208 doesn't kick total ass, but the George Perez cover certainly does. The cover alone is worth the price of the comic. I'm a huge sucker for the whole floating-head-roster motif on display here, with all three super-teams collectively gasping at the scary face nuclear explosion. When I was a kid I remember just staring at this cover, absorbing the superhero goodness like some sort of awesome radiation. And as a kid I probably had the same question then that adult Dave has today: Look at the left hand side of the inset picture. What the hell are Firebrand and Liberty Belle swinging from? They're out in the middle of the ocean! Maybe it's The World's Longest Flagpole.

Justice League of America #208 was part three of Crisis on Earth-Prime! an epic seventeen-hundred part dimension-hopping extravaganza uniting heroes from different parallel Earths and time periods against the time travelling madman Per Degaton.

You see, back in the day DC Comics had a number of parallel universes populated by different groups of heroes. For instance, the Justice League of America (aka the Super Friends) existed on Earth-1 while the Justice Society of America (Dr. Fate, Power Girl, et al) existed on Earth-2. So did the All-Star Squadron (Robot Man, some other losers), but they were in the WWII era on Earth-2. Incidentally, you and I exist on Earth Prime.

Here, let's listen while Superman explains the whole concept to Commander Steel from the All-Star Squadron in a really condescending way:

"You poor backwards people live on Earth-2, or Earth Poo as we like to call it. Ha ha!" Superman is a dick.

Speaking slowly and using small words so the Earth-2 primitives can understand, Superman tells them about the Age of Wonders he comes from, the Eighties...

I'd be pissed if I found out I lived on Earth-2. I mean, who names these things? It's so arbitrary. Maybe I live on Earth A-1, how about that? Or, since we're making up Earth names, maybe I live on Earth Dave. Welcome to Earth Dave everyone. I've long suspected that you were all robots or holograms and that I was the only real person in the world. So welcome to Earth Dave hologram people who disappear when I'm not there!

Okay, let's get to the story. The Justice League and their allies are trying to stop Per Degaton (rhymes with "Hair Megaton"), a time-travelling fascist red-haired villain who is sort of like Saddam Hussein as played by David Caruso. The JLA, consisting of Superman, Hawkman, Aquaman, Zatanna, and Firestorm travel back to 1940 on Earth-2, where they team up with the Golden Age heroes of The All-Star Squadron.

Of course, the two teams must fight before they team up. It's a rule.

Superman doesn't like conflict, it freaks him out and reminds him of when Ma & Pa used to fight in the kitchen. He screams really loud and stamps his feet and shakes his head and just basically has a tantrum:

Yowtch! That'll get your attention, being on the business end of a Super Hissy Fit. Everybody stops dancing.

The only hero not affected by the Super Shout is Robotman, the lone cool member of the otherwise lame All-Star Squadron. What's up with that name, BTW? All-Star Squadron? I guess it's better than All-Winners Squad or All-Protestant League.

After their hearing returns to them the All-Stars and the Superfriends compare notes and formulate a plan against Per Degaton - a plan that involves lots of flying and hitting.

Meanwhile, the Justice Society of America, that group of heroes from Earth-2 in the 80's, is trapped on your typical post-apocalyptic wasteland, complete with mutants. Dr. Fate, who has the 9th Coolest Costume Ever, figures out that Per Degaton is responsible for nuking this earth while his teamates take on a pack of sad, deformed monstrosities with skin like leather whose numbers give them strength, or so Power Girl and Huntress tell us:

Back in the 40's, the All-Star Squadron and Justice League stand too close as Per Degaton detonates one of the nuclear missiles he stole from the future. Inexplicably, Superman doesn't even try to stop the missile, he just kind of wigs out and screams. What is wrong with him this issue? If I didn't know better I'd say Superman has been drinking. Again.

Luckily Zatanna and Firestorm are both more than powerful enough to absorb that silly nuclear blast. Zatanna wins a quick rock/scissors/paper match and gets to whip up a huge wall of water to absorb the heat and shockwave from the blast.

Zatanna is an insanely powerful sorceress who casts her spells by saying them with the words backwards but the word order forwards. This would be hard. She basically has to come up with a backwards freestyle rap on the spot. Sure, Zatanna would have some of her more common spells memorized, like "Nrut snug ot oop!" or "Nummos azzip!" But what about those one-off situations, scenarios where you have to come up with some fresh backwards lyrics on the fly? You try pronouncing the word "meteor" backwards while a huge flaming space rock is bearing down on you. Zatanna has to trust in her freestyle skills and just flow. She rules, although I prefer the top hat and fishnets look.

The story continues in the pages of All-Star Squadron. Will Per Degaton make the Allied forces of WWII surrender before the threat of nuclear annhilation? Or will the combined might of our heroes kick that ginger-haired bastard's ass back into the time stream?

While the interior pages of this comic by the legendary Don Heck (no relation to Dick Hell) may not live up to the promise of the Perez cover, Justice League of America #208 still delivers wall-to-wall superhero goodness in the mighty DC manner. Dna s'taht on eil!