Friday, November 27, 2009

Classic Comics - The Young All-Stars #1

This was a game attempt by DC (and writer Roy Thomas) to recover from the world-changing events after the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series.

Crisis changed the Justice Society completely, taking away the original concept of Earth-2 and placing all those heroes on one Earth - which meant the team's most famous modern-day members - Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (among others) - were not around during World War II.

The Young All-Stars was an attempt to keep the All-Star Squadron series going (the cover date is June 1987).

Considering the mess the creative team inherited, it wasn't a bad fix. Writer Roy Thomas worked with three artists - Michael Bair, Brian Murray and Vince Argondezzi - to kick things off.

This issue starts in the middle, and quickly gets down to the business of introducing the new heroes who will replace (or approximate) the heroes "lost" during the Crisis.

So instead of Superman, we have "Iron" Munro, who owes a lot to the book Gladiator. Wonder Woman is replaced (eventually) by Fury, and Batman by the Flying Fox.

This issue barely gets the story going - it took six issues to cover the complete "origin" of the new team - but it was a solid attempt at keeping DC's original team in the spotlight.

The Young All-Stars would never reach the heights of the original All-Star Squadron - or the Justice Society of America - but it made for an entertaining read.

It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was a solid comic and kept those WWII adventures going - so it gave fans something to be thankful for.

Grade: B+

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