Random Back Issues #101 - JSA All-Stars #11

Another victim of the insidious "volleyball stuffed with talcum powder" gag.

JSA All-Stars! Because DC got it in their heads the market would support two JSA books! The team is trying to deal with a bunch of orphaned children who had been cared for by Brainwave Jr. in the nation of Parador. Except the kids have merged/evolved/been possessed by some ancient gods and come to Los Angeles to build a new temple. Power Girl tried to fight the lot of them by herself the issue before.

It did not go well. I know, a Kryptonian fighting magic, and it ended poorly? Go figure. Citizen Steel's attempt to come to the rescue got him smacked towards the ocean. Fortunately the rest of the team's able to catch him in their jet while Atom Smasher gets big and tries his hand at god-fighting.

Right about the time he's getting pummeled, Cyclone shows up, throwing whirlwinds around. She'd been feeling sick lately, which I think would be resolved in a few issues, and involve clones. The team's not really getting anywhere like this, and citizens at risk of being crushed as they rush to pray to these gods for the restoration of things they lost.

So Brainwave asks everyone on the team to think of something from their past they need to let go, and just, you know, do that. He takes the effect and somehow spreads it among the crowd, and it breaks the gods' hold. They shrink back down, but when Brainwave demands they return the kids, he finds out they are the kids. There's no going back. Uh-oh, sounds like someone's got a regret they need to let go of, but it's time for beach volleyball!

This was during the stretch when DC was doing back-up features in some of their books, and JSA All-Stars' involved Liberty Belle and Hourman chasing some "staff of life." They started in competition with Injustice Society members Tigress and Icicle, but they'd teamed up by this point.

There was someone else after the staff too, who could transform into a blue cloud? Blue flame? (Man, I do not remember any of this storyline.) Anyway, he turned solid long enough to try and stab Tigress, but Hourman took the hit instead. The blue cloud's guy dad has similar powers and manages to get the staff away, although the effort kills him. But the staff keeps Hourman alive to get treatment, and he sneaks it away later on to make sure Tigress doesn't have any complications having her and Icicle's kid.

[6th longbox, 70th comic. JSA All-Stars #11. "Apostasy: Glory Days Part 4", by Matthew Sturges (writer), Freddie Williams II (artist), Richard & Tanya Horie (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer). "The Inheritance: Pass It On", Jen van Meter (writer), Travis Moore (penciler), Dan Green (inker), Allen Passalaqua (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #86

"The Rare Appearance of the Spider-Corset" in Black Cat (vol. 2) #2, by Jen van Meter (writer), Javier Pulido and Javier Rodriguez (artists), Matt Hollingsworth (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

This was the second mini-series Felicia Hardy had gotten (the first coming back in the mid-90s). This one was tangentially tied in to the Spider-Man storyline "The Grim Hunt", which involved Kraven's family resurrecting him via some process that required targeting people with spider-related powers. Or something. I bought some of the issues of Amazing Spider-Man that led up to it (as part of "The Gauntlet"), but I didn't pay attention to the main show.

Here, all the Spider-Man stuff is running in the background. Spidey and Felicia interact for most of the first issue, and a few pages each issue after that, but they don't have much time for each other. Spidey doubted her, which wasn't smart, and later, he's worn down and just trying to survive. So neither one is in a position to help the other.

A guy whose family has served the Kravinoffs (but I'm assuming not related to The Chameleon) for generations is infatuated with Ana Kravinoff, and decides to reacquire every piece of art of treasure the family lost when the tsar fell. He's not a good enough thief to manage it, so he frames Felicia for a botched heist and murders a security guard to try and draw her in. At which point it turns into a cat-and-mouse between him and Felicia and her crew. You know how that goes. The bait-and-switch, the times where one side appears to have outsmarted the other, but it was really all part of the plan. 

It's enjoyable because Felicia's able to read her opponent and figure out what he's really after, and how to turn that to her advantage. Pulido draws the guy as very wide-eyed and eager anytime he's around Ana. There's one panel where he's showing her pictures of the items he's planning to recover from a book, and she's moved close enough to put a finger on the page, and the dude is actually sweating he's so excited. Visions of how his dream might come true if he can just get all these things.

Pulido draws most of the mini-series, but Javier Rodriguez steps in for a few pages in this issue and one other. Pulido's figures are a bit exaggerated - I think that panel up there is one of the few times I've seen Spider-Man with a narrower waist than Felicia - but he and Rodriguez both have a knack for the scenes where Felicia is stealing things. Hollingsworth tends to use a lot of blues and blacks in those scenes, so the red for any laser defenses really pops. Felicia's face is usually entirely shadowed, with just her hair and the white parts of her costume for contrast. It all looks very cool, and I'm always here for stories where Felicia is shown as taking her craft seriously. I'm not sure van Meter ever references the bad luck powers, and there's no point where we're told she's making conscious use of them. Definitely not during heists.