The Stop Button

Even leaving aside the delightful implication Green Lantern and the Flash are sharing a bedroom as part of GL’s rehabilitation (Joan does not appear, wink wink), this issue of All-Star once again succeeds thanks to the absence of the Justice Society.

The issue opens with Huntress, Star-Spangled Kid, and Wildcat fighting the Strike Force at Gotham Stadium. We’ll get a little about Earth-2 Gotham City’s political shenanigans and—apparently—continued crime problems in the exposition, but writer Paul Levitz is just filling out the text boxes before the big reveal about the Strike Force. They’re financed by a large private family fortune, with a familiar name attached to it, and it’s going to change All-Star Comics forever.

Presumably.

Before that character’s declaration of a new dawn at the end of the comic, Levitz has to get us through Huntress’s unmasking and Star-Spangled Kid’s rescue. Huntress and Wildcat leave Kid to go off and get more help from the Justice Society. Too bad literally all of them are too busy to answer the call. The comic checks in on the aforementioned Green Lantern and Flash, as well as Superman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Power Girl, Dr. Fate, and Dr. Mid-Nite. Levitz acknowledges there are, like, ten other heroes they could be checking in on, too, who are also too busy to save the world.

Because even without Psycho Pirate brainwashing them all into being jerks, the Justice Society all still feel like they aren’t responsible for the safety of the planet they’re sworn to protect. With great power comes little responsibility.

Anyway.

Wildcat and Huntress will try to get a rescue squad together and fail. Along the way, Wildcat will notice—it takes a while because he’s a blockhead—Huntress knows way too much about Justice Society policies and procedures to just be a random superhero. She reveals her secret identity to him, along with some implications about her backstory rather than information, and they get back to the task at hand.

Huntress is going to figure out the solution to their problems thanks to good old-fashioned comic book detective work—meaning noticing something amiss and it turning out to be the singular clue—but it’s a nice change from the normal bickering fifty-somethings. Don’t worry—despite over a dozen issues working with Power Girl, Wildcat still doesn’t like headstrong young women, so the issue retains some of that series flavor.

Outside of him being a lacking (but far from the worst, actually) sidekick, the Huntress and Wildcat Hour is fine. Penciller Joe Staton, somewhat assisted by inker Bob Layton, has a handful of decent action panels. The artists put the work in on the emphasis panels and hurry through the medium- or long-shots (they’ll go from the issue’s art highlight immediately to a proportionally challenged splash page). But, again, it’s relatively fine superhero comics. Levitz is engaged with the Huntress, and the artists are flexing (as much as they can).

The Strike Force is still embarrassingly silly for all involved, of course, between their origin and their gadgets (laser tanks and such). It’s an okay comic, which isn’t bad for All-Star.