All-Star slightly improves from last time, mainly because Wildcat has fewer opportunities to be a sexist prick. There’s a huge one at the beginning, so much of one the Flash comments on it (internally) and assumes his friend is upset about the disasters threatening the world when it’s just because a Power Girl is stronger than him.

But Wildcat, Flash, and Power Girl are away most of the issue, on a rocket to intercept Brainwave’s spaceship.

Instead, the action checks in with the other heroes—Robin, Green Lantern, and Dr. Fate; they get their scene, which reveals the villain is hypnotizing the heroes into believing regular people are his evil henchmen. In the very next scene, Hawkman, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Star Spangled Kid beat the ever-loving shit out of a bunch of henchmen. So either the bad guy had some real henchmen and some fake henchmen, which seems like a lot of extra work, or our heroes beat up a bunch of civilians.

Because despite writer Gerry Conway’s inability to stop with the superhero worship thought balloons of most of the characters—and then the general exposition, too—he underwrites the book’s action. But still somehow paces it really well. The issue’s nowhere near a success, but it’s got some good art (Ric Estrada and Wally Wood again).

It’s also got some not-good art, and it’s still weird how Estrada contorts Power Girl’s cleavage and gams into every panel. Even when she’s saving the world. Conway’s going on and on about how it’s so much more heroic because she’s not Supergirl of Earth-One, and Estrada’s drooling on the page.

Then there’s the villain, Brainwave. He’s got googly eyes. Googly eyes had been a craze by the time this comic came out; the creators must’ve known, yet still, they did googly eyes.

Much of the issue is spent with Brainwave. We get his recent backstory, just how it pertains to the current event, and then he’s around a lot. When the action gets to him after the hero check-ins, it stays with him, which makes Conway’s plotting even more successful.

The finale’s way too purple in the exposition, but it’s dramatic enough. It’s mostly Dr. Fate talking, and Conway doesn’t give Fate any personality, which makes him likable because everyone with personality seems like a dick.

Of course, Estrada and Wood have problems with Fate’s helmet.

Baby steps.

The issue opens with the JSA reading their email—no joke—and an anonymous sender telling them there will be disasters in three major cities: Seattle, Capetown, and Peking. The heroes split into pairs to investigate.

Seattle is Dr. Mid-Nite and Hawkman, except the action there begins with Star-Spangled Kid foiling a bank robbery. Once we get a bunch of Kid’s thought balloons about his cosmic rod (literally a cosmic rod, not his… anyway), it’s time for an earthquake. Hawkman and Dr. Mid-Nite see him trying to save people from above; Hawkman wants to help, but as Kid’s psychiatrist, Mid-Nite, says if they help, it’ll give Kid a complex.

So they just watch as maybe people die because one superhero isn’t enough for an earthquake.

In Capetown, Dick Grayson—oh, right, JSA is Earth-Two, which means everyone’s older… kind of like they’d kept aging after WWII but not really because Dick Grayson’s in his twenties, not his late forties—Dick Grayson’s a UN envoy and he’s there when a gas attack occurs. Dr. Fate and Green Lantern show up and do most of the work, with Green Lantern whining the whole time about how he’s not very smart and he wishes he were smart.

Finally, in Peking, we get Flash and Wildcat arriving just in time to stop a newly appeared volcano. Power Girl gets there after a page, sealing up the volcano and explaining the conceit of the comic to the heroes—writer Gerry Conway has already laid it out at least once for the reader, so he’s really hammering it in with Power Girl’s exposition. What if there were three disasters and three young heroes who really did all the work while the JSA was powerless? Wouldn’t that make a great concept for a comic?

Having read the comic, no, not really. Especially not since Conway’s wordy exposition oscillates between vapid superhero worship and redundant griping. Wildcat, for instance, spends most of the comic throwing in some asinine remark. But the rest of the heroes are still at least a little pissy about… being superheroes. Maybe some of the disconnect is all of them ostensibly being grown-ass men in at least their forties, yet still utterly feckless. Or Conway just doesn’t have a comic so much as an idea for one.

Ric Estrada and Wally Wood are on art. Lots of weird body poses, particularly with the flying (and not just Power Girl, who Estrada makes sure to get her cleavage and her leggy legs in every panel), but it’s such a rushed story, it doesn’t really matter.

All-Star Comics—returning after a twenty-five-year hiatus (sort of)—is off to a soggy start.