Panel Vision - All-Star Squadron #38-40

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As we enter the middle point of January, depictions of racism and marginalized races, especially black people, has become something of a running focus in the popular discourse.  This particular subject has been at the forefront for a while, ever since the Internet-enabled marginalized fans to demand greater representation on panel and behind the scenes in superhero comics, but this is somewhat unique.  

With both Black Lightning and Black Panther poised to remake the superhero genre in their own image, DC Comics has announced plans for screenwriter John Ridley (12 Years A Slave, Let It Fall) to write a new comic chronicling the stories of DC’s marginalized entitled The Other History of the DC Universe.  This is a great idea and it’s got me thinking about the VAST number of DC heroes who fit this dynamic and I settled on one story, in particular, that’s unique even among the annals of DC comics: All-Star Squadron’s Detroit is Dynamite.

Before digging into the comic proper you need a bit of background on the All-Star Squadron, as I suspect they’re a group most fans aren’t terribly familiar with not to mention the man who wrote the story, Roy Thomas.  The All-Star Squadron is a team populated with heroes from the so-called Golden Age of comics, a period during World War 2 when the first initial wave of superheroes was created.  DC has always maintained a large catalog of such characters but after superhero comics fell out of vogue in the late ‘40s they didn’t really have much use for them. 

That was until 1963 when author Gardner Fox, who had worked at DC through the ‘40s and ‘60s, brought the Golden Age back in a story called ‘Crisis on Earth-One.’  Crisis on Earth-1 basically INVENTED a whole subsection of comics as we know it: this is where the Multiverse comes from, the whole idea of “crisis” as an event comic, and the Justice Society’s long-lived success.  It basically launched the idea of summer “event” comics, kicking off annual JLA/JSA crossovers for the next decade plus, with the last of this era coming out in 1977.

1978 brought big changes to DC Comics, mainly because they’d overextended themselves in the marketplace and were forced to cancel around 24 of their ongoing comics due to low sales and lack of interest.  Changes were coming and this is basically the first domino that singled the inevitable company-wide reboot in 1986 but in the meantime, it was decided the Golden Age heroes of Earth-2 should get their own ongoing series to sort of fill the gap if you will. 

This book became All-Star Squadron and encompassed nearly 50 members of a rotating cast.  Published in 1981, the comic was set in the 1940s and followed the adventures of this vast superhero community during the outbreak of World War 1 and would include various real-life events, which brings us to our story.

‘Detroit is Dynamite,’ a name that first originated in a 1942 photo essay from Life magazine, is about the real world race riots that hit Detroit in 1943.  If you’ve never heard about these events well, neither did I till reading this comic so don’t say funny books never taught you anything.  In the real world, the riots were due to white hatred and resentment at black families being afforded subsidized housing as part of an effort to increase the workforce in Detroit to support the war effort. 

That’s the same plot in the comics only here because it’s a comic book, the white people have their own super-racist costumed cretin calling himself ‘The Real American.’  The Real American is opposed by Detroit’s own black superhero Amazing Man, a former acquaintance of the All-Stars with the power to turn into anything he touches.  As the black families clash with the white supremacists the heroes try to keep the peace and stand for justice as the very same racist ugliness that engulfed Europe breaks out on the home front. 

To say this comic is “harsh” is putting it mildly, it very much throws down the gauntlet on how it will treat these issues right from the first cover: Amazing Man being burned on a cross by the Real American.  Thankfully, the book has the guts and facts to back-up its very angry viewpoint and is honestly an incredibly refreshing read.  For one, there’s no chickening out on the nature of the conflict, it’s established Real American has some vague mind control powers that he can use to make people agree with him by talking but that’s more about demoralizing the black families and trying to sway the heroes than anything else- the angry racist mob got here all on their own. 

If anything, it feels like a thoroughly modern idea for the Real American’s threat, in that his greatest strength comes from people trying to debate him instead of just punching his hooded face.  Speaking of, I absolutely love the design of the Real American in that it manages to be evocative yet completely ridiculous.  He’s wearing what looks like a stylized confederate flag with a Klansman hood and cape so it’s 100% clear who he’s meant to represent here…but it also looks really dopey, which nicely undercuts his actual power- he’s a threat but still a pretty pathetic guy. 

While Real American serves as the stand-in for power-mad racist dorks who’re actually far more pathetic and dangerous than you’d think, Rachel Lindsay, Amazing Man’s fiancée, serves as the voice of righteous black anger.  Seriously, it’s amazing to see a comic from nearly 30 years ago positioning this black woman as the voice of moral authority and completely taking the heroes to task- both philosophically and with fact enforced noise. 

To be sure, the comic is 100% on Rachel’s side, specifically the side that the US is far too eager to use black people as a disposable workforce with World War 2 as, at best, a justification to avoid dealing with any racial issues and at worst an excuse to strip away even more freedoms from the marginalized.  The book even comes down on the Roosevelts, citing A. Phillip Randolph’s proposed march on Washington that was derailed by Eleanor Roosevelt as well as FDR’s “Fair-Practices Commission,” which was meant to curb racism but actually did very little- often claiming they couldn’t because it would hurt the war effort.  President Roosevelt himself actually appears in the book for a cameo in which he basically just throws the entire black community under the bus. 

Incidentally, if you’re wondering who the writer of this is, as I was at the time, it’s one Roy Thomas, one of those guys who basically invented comics.  He was Marvel’s second Editor-In-Chief, succeeding his mentor Stan Lee, and is co-creator of characters like Wolverine, Ultron, Carol Danvers, Valkyrie, Vision, and Ghost Rider.  More pertinent to this discussion though he’s always had a stripe of social justice in his paint box, as he was the first author to address Japanese internment camps during World War 2 when he was writing Marvel’s WW2 superhero team The Invaders. 

Sadly, the three-issue story can’t be all shaming our heroes for their racial apathy and Amazing Man beating the tar out of racists, which is to say there are a few problems with it.  Mainly this comes from the artwork, which is serviceable but also can get pretty cluttered.  This is one of the few books I’ve seen to feature 2 artists: Rick Hoberg and Bill Collins.  The two are exactly the kind of workhorses that populated the DC and Marvel stables for decades and, together, they can pull off some really great full-page tableaus. 

The problem comes in the tighter panel work, where things tend to feel clumped together and claustrophobic, making the book a bit of a pain to follow sometimes- there’s just too much on these pages.  Colorist Gene D’Angelo does a superb job though making everything crisp and popping, it’s the kind of solid work you don’t notice but can easily elevate comics. 

Additionally, the book can get a little TOO deep lore, especially in the first issue of the story.  This was growing to be a running sore at DC at the time, another reason they rebooted in ’86, but there’s a bit too much screwing around with the multiverse in the opening before we start the story proper.  Like the heroes find out about the trouble in Detroit because they’re showing newsreels to their friend Hourman, who is from Earth-2 but left for Earth-X to try and prevent Pearl Harbor and even then they needed Green Lantern, not Hal Jordan of Earth-1 but Alan Scott of Earth-2, to come back from London where he was fighting Shazam from Earth-S.  There were WAY too many Earths in that sentence for it to be possibly worth deciphering. 

Still, that’s not a huge part of the story and wants it gets going it really nails everything it sets out to do.  Our heroes pass through this ugliness and come out more understanding and aware on the other side, with Amazing Man joining their ranks as an equal and eager to keep them honest.  I like that it isn’t a story about how the heroes just beat-up a bad guy and ended racism forever but rather a story about the need to listen and trust the marginalized and for constant vigilance, to always take a stand against bigotry and racism most importantly our own.  Sadly, Amazing Man, along with A LOT of the obscure Golden Age heroes, hasn’t really done much since the end of All-Star Squadron but he remains one of those great DC black superheroes we’ll hopefully be seeing a lot more of him in the pages of The Other History of the DC Universe. 

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