| All-Star Squadron | |
|---|---|
 Cover ofAll-Star Squadron #31 (March 1984), art byJerry Ordway. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Preview: Justice League of America #193 (August 1981) First full appearance: All-Star Squadron #1 (September 1981) |
| Created by | Roy Thomas Rich Buckler Jerry Ordway |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Trylon and Perisphere |
TheAll-Star Squadron is aDC Comicssuperhero team that debuted inJustice League of America #193 (August 1981) and was created byRoy Thomas,Rich Buckler andJerry Ordway.[1] Although the team was introduced in the 1980s, its self-titled series took place in the 1940s, retroactively inserting their narratives into the fictional history of the DC Comics superheroes. The team included many of DC's Golden Age era characters, new characters, and otherWorld War II superheroes which DC did not own during the 1940s but later acquired. The name "All-Star Squadron" was creator Roy Thomas' reference toAll Star Comics, the series that introduced the Justice Society of America, the first comic book superhero team.
According to the seriesAll-Star Squadron, USPresident Franklin Roosevelt creates a "superhero draft" calledArticle X during World War II. Article X asks all active American masked crime-fighters and superhuman adventurers to join forces as a single war-time organization, just as many American labor organizations did during World War II. In the canon of DC Comics, theAxis Powers used the mystical Spear of Destiny to create a "sphere of influence" over their occupied territories and surrounding areas during most of World War II. This sphere of influence caused superhumans, magically empowered people, and magic-users to fall under Hitler's control and take on some of his personality traits. For this reason, the All-Star Squadron focused its activities on protecting the US from invasion, super-villains, spies, and sabotage rather than risk their minds being controlled by the Axis Powers if they operated overseas in Europe or Asia.
After their introduction in Justice League of America, the team starred in the seriesAll-Star Squadron which ran from 1981 to 1987. At different times, the organization's chairperson wasLiberty Belle orHawkman. A spin-off series entitledYoung All-Stars began in 1987 and published 32 issues.
During theGolden Age of Comics (roughly 1935–1951), several comic books featured crime-fighters, "mystery-men", adventurers, and superheroes. DC Comics began publishing the anthology seriesAll Star Comics (sometimes referred to asAll-Star Comics) in 1940. In issue #3, DC had many of their superheroes join together for dinner and share stories, declaring the gathering to be the first meeting of theJustice Society of America. The JSA was the first comic book superhero team and became the main feature ofAll Star Comics until it was canceled with issue #57 in 1951.
WriterGerry Conway revived theAll Star Comics series in 1976, continuing the original numbering by starting with issue #58. By this time, DC had established that its modern day adventures took place in the universe of Earth-One, whereas DC's Golden Age stories during the 1930s and 40s occurred in a parallel reality calledEarth-Two. While the Golden AgeSuperman, introduced in 1938, had lived through World War II, the Earth-One Superman had not even been born until long after the war was over. While the modern-day Earth-OneWonder Woman was a superhero in her prime, new stories revealed that the Golden Age Wonder Woman of Earth-Two had fought Nazis during World War II, then later semi-retired, married her dear friend Steve Trevor, and had a daughter named Hyppolyta Trevor (who became a hero called Fury and joined a team of heroes known asInfinity, Inc.).
The 1970s revival ofAll Star Comics involved some flashback stories, but most of the issues took place in the modern day, showing the Justice Society members as older heroes decades after World War II. Conway also included younger heroes in the group, such asPower Girl (an Earth-Two version ofSupergirl). His hope was to later have the younger members star in a spin-off series of their own, forming a team that could be called the All-Star Squadron. Management at DC worried that the team's name would be abbreviated as A.S.S., and so the group's name was changed to the Super Squad.[2]
A team known as the All-Star Squadron debuted years later in aspecial insert inJustice League of America #193 (August 1981).[3] The team's official seriesAll-Star Squadron then began the following month[4] with the creative team of writerRoy Thomas, with artistsRich Buckler andJerry Ordway.[5] The comic book series lasted 67 issues from September 1981 to March 1987,[6] with three annuals published as well.[7]
InAll-Star Squadron #1, series writer Roy Thomas published "An Open Letter to the Readers" wherein he described the impetus for the series. Namely, DC wanted a comic book telling tales of theJustice Society of America (JSA). The last series to do so was the second volume ofAll Star Comics, which lasted only seventeen issues from 1976 to 1979. Roy Thomas said that DC management gave him "a chance to write a return of the JSA". Instead of writing stories in the modern era of Earth-Two, Roy Thomas chose to set the series during World War II. Roy Thomas decided to include other Golden Age era characters that were not published by DC Comics during the 1930s and 40s but were acquired by the company in later years, such as theQuality Comics characters.All-Star Squadron established that most of these characters co-existed with the Golden Age DC heroes on Earth-Two.
In a nod to the original JSA adventures inAll Star Comics, Thomas tried to include at least a cameo appearance by the Golden AgeHawkman in every issue, since he was the one hero to appear in every Golden Age issue of the originalAll Star Comics series, including the two issues that predated the formation of the Justice Society of America. Although Hawkman did not appear in every issue of the secondAll Star Comic series, Roy Thomas wanted to create a new streak for the character inAll-Star Squadron. The artwork for issue #49 was printed without Hawkman's cameo included, making it the only issue of the series where he does not appear.
The All-Star Squadron is an example of "retroactive continuity" or "retcon", since the team was retroactively inserted into the history of DC superheroes and the series rewrote portions of DC canon published during the 1940s. The first known use of the term "retcon" was by Roy Thomas in theletter column ofAll-Star Squadron #20 (April 1983). Several story lines ironed out continuity errors, fleshed out characters' origins, explained inconsistencies in character development, and resolved lingering questions and plot threads. Roy Thomas had used the Marvel Comics seriesInvaders in a similar way to address and revise official Marvel fictional history. Several issues of the series offered detailed origin stories of various characters, sometimes with revised details. Characters who had origin issues dedicated to them includedAmazing-Man,[8]Starman,[9]Doctor Fate,[10]Liberty Belle,[11][12]Robotman,[13]Johnny Quick,[14] and theTarantula.[15] The story arc in issues #32-33 detailed how theFreedom Fighters traveled fromEarth-Two toEarth-X, an event indicated in an earlier Justice League story.[16][17]
With so many characters to choose from, the creative team decided to concentrate on "quite promising characters who have been ignored or underplayed for years", instead of only those Earth-Two characters who had popular counterparts on Earth-One.[citation needed] For examples,All-Star Squadron did not focus much on the Earth-Two versions of Superman and Wonder Woman, nor on the Golden Age version of the Flash, Jay Garrick, whose counterpart Barry Allen was very popular as the Flash of Earth-One. Roy Thomas wrote: "If we lost the originalGL, we gained the Earth-TwoRobotman; if we droppedJay (Flash) Garrick, we picked up onJohnny Quick;Liberty Belle could stand in forWonder Woman till more super-powered ladies came along. We even tossed in an Earth-Two version of the venerablePlastic Man, whose series inAdventure Comics was just folding..."[citation needed]
When Rich Buckler left the series after the fifth issue, editorLen Wein hired artistAdrian Gonzales as a replacement and notified Roy Thomas with a note stating "You're going to like Adrian Gonzales".[18] He drew the series for 13 issues, during which the team had a crossover with theJustice League of America.[19] Jerry Ordway, who had inked the series since its start, became the series regular penciler starting with issue #19 (March 1983). He and Thomas then co-created theInfinity, Inc. team, introducing it inAll-Star Squadron #25 (Sept. 1983).[20]
All-Star Squadron #31 (1984) featured the group's first "full roster" general meeting, taking place at their headquarters. The All-Star Squadron HQ was depicted as theTrylon andPerisphere, actual structures inFlushing Meadows, Queens, New York, constructed for the1939 New York World's Fair. The Perisphere contained the Squadron meeting hall, while the Trylon was retrofitted as an aircraft hangar/vertical launch platform. The All-Star Squadron had a robotic butler namedGernsback, based on theElektro robots from the fair and named after science fiction publisherHugo Gernsback.
During the 1985-86 seriesCrisis on Infinite Earths, Earth-Two and Earth-One, along with some other realities, merged into a new, unified reality with a revised history. The heroes of World War II now existed in the same timeline as modern heroes, simply operating at an earlier time. While it was not a major problem to establish that certain characters such as the Golden Age Flash (a man named Jay Garrick) and the later Flash (a man named Barry Allen) could co-exist and both operate during different time periods, this explanation did not work for heroes with direct counterparts. Golden Age heroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman,Batman,Robin, andGreen Arrow all of whom had the same secret identities, same basic origin stories, and largely similar supporting casts as their modern day counterparts. For this reason, these particular Golden Age heroes, and some others, had to be removed from the history of the new, unified timeline. This also meant the canon of several recentAll-Star Squadron stories was now questionable, since the Golden Age versions of those same heroes made multiple appearances in the series.
To clear the slate afterCrisis on Infinite Earths and re-launch the franchise,All Star Squadron ended with issue #67 and the series was succeeded byYoung All-Stars.[21] Since then, the All-Star Squadron has appeared in sporadic stories published by DC Comics. Article X was used again during the crossoverFinal Crisis when Earth's superheroes needed to unite against the forces ofDarkseid and the evilNew Gods.
In a 2025 interview, Thomas said ofAll-Star Squadron that "I always say two things. One is that was my favorite comic of all time to write, aboveConan,Avengers, or anything, because it combined the superheroes and the history, two of my great passions. And the other thing is that ... there is a possibility that if it hadn't been for that damnCrisis on Infinite Earths ... we might have kept going, we'd be right up to three or four hundred issues by now."[22]
On the day of thebombing of Pearl Harbor, PresidentFranklin Roosevelt gathered available superheroes—including members of theJustice Society of America,Freedom Fighters, and solo heroes—at the White House.[21] He asked them to band together for the war as the All-Star Squadron to battle sabotage and keep the peace on the home front duringWorld War II.[23] The rationale for not using the Squadron in combat situations in theEuropean orPacific Theaters of War was thatAdolf Hitler had possession of theSpear of Destiny, a mystical object that gave him control of any superheroes with magic-based powers or a vulnerability to magic (includingSuperman,Green Lantern,Doctor Fate and others) who crossed into territory held by theAxis powers.
At the time, many of the Justice Society members had been captured by the time-travelling villainPer Degaton with the help of JSA foes he had pulled back in time, but the available heroes were asked to first guard against a potential attack on theWest Coast of the United States. Degaton himself used some stolen Japanese planes with hypnotized troopers to launch such an attack on San Francisco, hoping to change history by making the United States fight to a stalemate against Japan, enabling him to take over the world, so the new Squadron's first major mission was to stop the attack and rescue the captured heroes, who also became part of the new group. Due to Per Degaton going back in time after the JSA were freed they forgot his involvement, though the events were not wiped. America's entry into the war caused several of the members of the JSA to enlist, or be drafted in their civilian identities. These includedAlan Scott,Starman,Hawkman,The Atom andJohnny Thunder.
In the pages of "The New Golden Age", the Prime-Earth version of the All-Star Squadron is revealed to exist as the bio for theGolden Age Aquaman mentions that he was briefly a member of this group.[24]Mister Terrific also mentioned that the All-Star Squadron was once helped out by the Golden Age Legionnaire (later revealed to be a younger version ofMordru who wants to avoid the path of evil).[25]
| Title | Material collected | Published date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Showcase Presents: All-Star Squadron Vol. 1 | All-Star Squadron #1–18, Annual #1 and material fromJustice League of America #193 | April 2012 | 978-1401234362 |
| Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 6 | All-Star Squadron #14–15 andJustice League of America #195-197, 207-209 | June 2013 | 978-1401238223 |
| Infinity Inc.: The Generations Saga | All-Star Squadron #25-26, Annual #2 andInfinity Inc. (vol. 1) #1-4 | September 2011 | 978-0857684325 |
| Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition Vol. 1 | All-Star Squadron #50-60,DC Comics Presents #78,The Fury of Firestorm #41-42,Green Lantern #194-198 | November 2018 | 978-1401274597 |
Calling the resulting group the 'Super-Squad' was intended to differentiate it from the JSA. Also, while I wanted to use the All-Star name for the comic, I knew that, in fact, none of these characters were what readers of the '70s would consider to be 'stars'. Hence, 'Super-Squad'. Which also avoided the acronymic problem presented by the alternative 'All-Star Squad'.
All-Star Squadron, DC's new World War II-era superhero series debuts in May in a 16-page preview insert inJustice League of America #193.
The creative team of writer Roy Thomas and artist Rich Buckler onAll-Star Squadron offered readers a nostalgic glimpse back in time, albeit through the slightly distorted lens of Earth-2's history.