All-Star Comics #5

All-Star Comics #5 (1941)
by Gardner Fox & Sheldon Moldoff
cover by Howard Purcell

You can see that the Justice Society is already popular enough to get the cover.

But let’s focus on the Hawkman story. Oddly enough, since this is all supposed to feel like a continuation of the JSA story… even though it most definitely isn’t… there is no teaser or title page, jumping straight into the first panel.

Compared to his first appearance or even the JSA founding, Hawkman feels more like he’s reached his final form. His mask still needs some work, but other than that, it’s Hawkman.

Some criminals are out to get Hawkman, and they decide to do so by making sure his love interest Shiera hears about an upcoming crime.

As a hint of things to come, though, she doesn’t limit herself to calling Hawkman: she’s going to be there.

She looks pretty useless at first…

…but she does save Hawkman’s life.

Now, if this was the Silver Age, we would get Hawkman doing everything to keep Shiera out of danger and she’d have to prove herself again and again.
But the Golden Age was ahead of its time in some things, and he’s the first one to suggest she should become a superheroine!!!

Complete with what I assume is the 1941 version of fanservice.

So, uhm, are those gangsters blind? Because if the plan is to make them think Shiera is Hawkman, I don’t think it’s going to work.

It’s cute that he’s involving Shiera, sure, but it’s also kind of lame that Hawkman needs help to deal with a couple of regular thieves.

Not that she’s doing any better, considering she IMMEDIATELY gets shot!

Hawkman then punches out the thieves with so much ease that I’m really questioning why he needed any help.

That was one of the most underwhelming fight scenes I’ve seen in the Golden Age.

He then brings Shiera to the hospital and goes on to pretend this is really the same Justice Society story.

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Historical significance: 8/10
Shiera is not even called Hawkgirl, but she’s going to become the co-protagonist.

Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Ah, magic bullets that hurt you without leaving any visible wound, where would the Golden and Silver Ages be without you?

Does it stand the test of time? 1/10
It’s just seven pages, and yet it feels like two: barely anything is happening!
As mentioned, giving Shiera any sort of active role is ahead of its time, but it’s not helped by the fact she doesn’t accomplish anything. Or by the fact that Hawkman really, REALLY didn’t need her to get involved.
The artwork is good, but not spectacular like other Hawkman stories of the period.

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How close is this to the modern character? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  /
Shiera gets her superhero name and becomes the co-protagonist in Flash Comics #24 of the same year. Although at first she calls herself Hawkwoman, but as far as I can tell it’s only on that occasion: she then moves to Hawkgirl.

As Hawkgirl, she’s then a stable part of the Hawkman comics, providing both action and some fanservice.

But being tied to Hawkman means that when he swaps his awesome helmet for a terrible mask, she gets a downgrade as well.

Unlike Hawkman, who was the only consistent member of the Justice Society during the Golden Age, Hawkgirl never actually joins the team.

For what happens next, I went through MOST of Hawkman’s incredibly convoluted history in his own review, and Hawkgirl matches him for the most part… but there’s some interesting tidbits.

First of all, when Hawkman is reintroduced in the Silver Age as an alien, Shiera (or rather Shayera) is immediately there as both his wife and as Hawkgirl.
I will eventually cover their Silver Age origin story since they’re basically completely different characters.

It took me a bit of research to find when she switched to Hawkwoman, and it’s REMARKABLY late. It’s in World’s Finest #272 of all places, in 1981.

But maybe it’s not THAT late: it’s 4 years before the Invisible Girl does it, in Fantastic Four #284.

I am not going through all the various Hawkman history of retcons, because it’s COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY INSANE.

But I have to mention that I’ve always been fond of the Hawkworld interpretation of the franchise, and that Hawkwoman looked amazing.

No matter if we’re talking about the reincarnated Egyptian princess or the alien cop, Hawkgirl was under the shadow of Hawkman until DC realized that NOBODY could keep Hawkman’s story straight, so they started with a new reincarnation… and Hawkgirl got to do her own thing with the Justice Society.

That was in 1999. Her surge in popularity might be one of the reasons why in 2001 she was chosen as one of the core members of the Justice League in the eponymous DC Animated Universe series.

One reason for this was to have a second girl in the team besides Wonder Woman, or more likely because her role in Season Two couldn’t be taken by a more established hero.
I won’t spoil it because it’s a great plot twist, and Hawkgirl was AMAZING both in that series and in the follow-up Justice League Unlimited.

I’m not a huge Hawkman fan, and to this day my absolute favorite version of Hawkgirl is still the animated one.

At DC Comics I think that at the moment the alien version is dead, and the main version is the human reincarnation? That is reincarnation of both the alien and of an Egyptian?
I really can’t gather enough interest to trying to make sense of it.
To put this into perspective: even as a Legion fan set on reviewing every single incarnation of the team… I just gave up on Hawkman.

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What else was in All Star Comics #5 ?

A letter from none other than First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt !!!

As mentioned, the comic pretends like most of the issue is one continuous Justice Society story. The framing device is that they’re all after master criminal “Mister X” that is behind all the individual stories. Not a bad framing device, even if the result is quite disjointed.

So we have a Flash story, where he extinguishers a fire by using a fire hydrant. You’d think super-speed would be enough.

He also does the “pretend to let a criminal fall to his death to get information” trick.

Then there’s a Sandman story, where HIS love interest is put in danger. It’s immediately before the Hawkman story, so there’s a bit of a theme.

Especially when Doctor Fate also has his love interest in danger.

His adversary is just pretending to be a magician. Never try that with Doctor Fate, it REALLY upsets him.

Whereas Hourman… oh for crying out loud, man, can you PLEASE stop sucking!?

Even the Atom is more impressive, and he’s just exposing a gym racket!

You would think it’s hard to tie the Spectre into any of this. And he agrees, considering how utterly bored he is.

Good thing he runs into a gambling racket, otherwise I can’t imagine what else could possibly interest the incarnation of God’s wrath in 1941.

Things are complicated by the fact that one of the guys working for Mister X has a ring that can nullify the Spectre’s powers.
Wait, WHAT!?!?

But he gets out of it when the criminals think they’ve killed him, not knowing that the Spectre is already dead.

I still find it AMAZING that the Spectre is dealing with regular criminals.

And finally we have Green Lantern, with the other running theme of the issue: he’s bored.
Once again, NOTHING INTERESTING was happening in 1941.

You would think that by now heroes would have to deal with worse stuff than racketeering… but remember that racketeers can BLOW UP WHOLE BUILDINGS in this period!

What is it with Golden Age Green Lantern always being tied up to a chair!?

In the end, the bumbling man that has been stumbling around in every single story is revealed to be Mister X. So he politely surrenders himself to the authorities.

Sounds legit.

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Alright, to be fair, there IS a legitimate effort to make this entire issue feel like a whole continuous story. It doesn’t entirely work, but it’s a much better framing device than the first Justice Society meeting.
Allegedly Garner Fox wrote all the stories (with various artists). It really does feel like it.

The format also means that, for the first time since I’ve started this retrospective, this is a book with ONLY superhero stories. There’s nothing else, besides a Johnny Thunder prose story and the ads.
A good show for this is a two-page ad which only shows superhero comics.

Flash must’ve been pretty popular; not only he has his own comic book, but he’s hyped as high as Superman and Batman. Which makes me think: if Wonder Woman hadn’t debuted later the same year, would the Flash have been the third member of the DC Trinity ?