DC Comics
Jen Van Meter, writer
Patrick Olliffe, Ruy Jose and Drew Geraci, artists
Anthology series are often a hard sell, due in part to the rotating characters, stories and creators involved. That can make for very uneven quality from issue to issue in the eyes of some readers and fans. Such was the case with JSA Classified, published by DC between 2005 and 2008, but by and large, there were a number of great stories loosely based around the characters in the Justice Society of America. Today, I'd like to bring two of those to your attention.
In this first three-issue story arc, the members of the Justice Society are mostly background players; the focus of the narrative is on the Injustice Society, the JSA's villainous evil counterparts. And the entire story — quite an interesting read, by the way — plays on the concepts often used in superhero team dynamics and explores them from the perspective of a group of villains.
The narrator for this tale is the Icicle, and this story takes place around the time of Infinite Crisis, so there is some crossover in the setup. Icicle gathers the old Injustice Society back together to help former teammate, the Wizard, explaining that it is not just the heroes who band together out of friendship and loyalty to each other. These two call upon Rag Doll, Solomon Grundy, Gentleman Ghost, the Thinker and a villainess named Tigress — who I believe is an updated version of the Golden-Age villain Huntress, renamed to avoid confusion with the then-current heroine named Huntress.
The action of this story is gripping and could easily hold a reader's interest on the surface plot alone. But it was an ingenious stroke to use this venue to tell a superhero story from the point of view of the villains rather than the heroes. That flip adds another level of interest that almost has the reader rooting for the villains as they try to steal the Cosmic Key from JSA headquarters to free their friend and colleague, the Wizard, from enslavement to another, deadly villain, Johnny Sorrow.
JSA Classified Nos. 26-27 (2007)
DC Comics
Frank Tieri, writer
Matt Haley, Jerome Moore and Gordon Purcell, artists
This second, two-issue arc features Ted Grant, Wildcat of the JSA, in a solo story. I've always liked Wildcat as a non-powered, scrappy hero, but I suspect at least some of my appreciation for the character stems from my earliest exposure to him when I was very young and thought he was just an incorrectly colored Batman.
This story begins with Wildcat handing a beat-down to the classic Golden-Age villain, Sportsmaster. Quickly apprehended, Sportsmaster confesses that he only took on Wildcat in an attempt to pay off his gambling debts by betting others that he could defeat the pugilistic hero. He further explains that there is an entire underground gambling operation based around wagers placed on the outcomes of hero-villain slugfests.
Of course, Wildcat wants to shut down such an operation, but his disgust at the gambling is at least partially due to his father's own gambling problem. I must confess that I am not that familiar with Wildcat's history beyond his being a former boxing champion. But in this story at least, Ted's parents were reportedly killed in a car accident when he was in college. Years later, Ted learned of his father's gambling problem, and that only his mother died in the car crash, which was no accident. It was a warning to Ted's father to pay his debts or else.
The resulting story gets a bit preachy at times, but is still a solid read. And it offers glimpses into the motivations and habits of villains, similar to the story arc discussed earlier.
Both of these and several other story arcs from JSA Classified are worth seeking out and reading! Give 'em a try; I think you'll be glad you did.
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