THE CAPTAIN'S JUSTICE LEAGUE HOMEPAGE

SECRET ORIGINS #32
"All Together Now"

Cover date: November 1988
Cover price: $1.50 US
Credits

Plot: Keith Giffen
Story: Gardner Fox
Dialogue: Peter David
Art: Eric Shanower
Letters: Gasper
Colours: Gene D'Angelo
Editor: Mark Waid

Featuring:

Aquaman I, Black Canary II, Flash II, Green Lantern II, Martian Manhunter

Villains:

Seven Appellaxian aliens in synthetic elemental battleforms.

Guest stars:

Superman

Other characters:

Appellaxian judge (overseer of the contest for Kalar)
Officers Cohen and Tecker and the people of Middleton, USA
A Scientists at the Institute for Oceanographic Studies
Inhabitants of Star City, USA and Croydon, England
US Military (sealing off the Florida meteorite)

Comments:

This story is heavily rewritten from its first appearance in JLA (first series) #9 (1962). In the original version the first meeting of the JLA is recalled to Snapper Carr on the third anniversary of the formation of the League. However this telling is the first time that the story has been told without a framing sequence.
In this issue and the original story the Appellaxians are not given individual names. However in JLA (first series) #200 (March 1982) they are given the names Wood-King, Crystal Creature, Mercury Monster, Glass-Man, Fire-Lord, Stone-God and the Golden Roc. The locations of some of the battles have been changed in the retelling, such details are contained in the annotations.
The most significant alteration to the original story is the replacement of Wonder Woman with Black Canary II. This is because Wonder Woman now did not appear until years after the other Leaguers.

Synopsis:

On the distant planet Appelax their ruler, the Kalar, had been assassinated. By law the person who slew the Kalar would become the new leader. However seven came forward to claim the responsibility. It was decided to hold a trial by combat on the planet Earth. Each combatant had his mind placed inside an artificial battleform that would allow him to mentally and physically dominate the native population. Finally each battle form was placed inside a travel pod and shot towards the battle ground.
The Stone-God landed in Middleton, USA, the Mercury Monster landed in the Indian Ocean, the Glass Man landed in Star City, USA, the Golden Roc landed in Africa and the Fire Lord landed in Croydon, England. However before they could engage each other they were individually defeated by five heroes, the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Black Canary, Green Lantern and the Flash. Separately each hero heard about a sixth pod landing in the Florida Everglades. Unfortunately as each hero arrived they were turned into wood by the pod. When all five had arrived the Wood-King exited the pod and revealed his plan. He would allow the other combatants to defeat each other then, he fresh to the battle, would defeat the survivor.
The heroes were unable to resist the Wood-King's control as they began to march toward the seventh alien far away in Antarctica. Working as a team Aquaman found enough mental control to bump the Manhunter into the path of Green Lantern. The Manhunter was then able to slowly knock away the wood covering Lantern's ring. Once a small hole had been created Lantern was able to send out a weak narrow beam and free Canary's vocal cords from the wood. She then used her sonic cry to jump start the vibrations of the Flash. He was then able to vibrate himself free of the wood and reduce the Wood-King to splinters in a matter of seconds.
The five heroes decided to go after the seventh alien as a team. However when they arrived they found that Superman had already destroyed it. Agreeing that they all worked well together the five heroes decided to form a permanent team called the Justice League of America.

Quote:

"You are the best Appellax has to offer. If any Earth inhabitant defeated one or more of you, it would be unthinkable. If they defeated all seven, we'd never go near Earth again." - Appellaxian judge.

Annotations

Page/panel Notes

4/1
The text of J'onzz's thoughts tell us that this is quite possibly his first public appearance. It is known from guest appearances that he was active behind the scenes for some considerable time and that his fight with the Appellaxian alien is his highest profile case so far.

6/1
Here we establish a major difference between this retelling and the original text. originally the various forms of the aliens were their own bodies. However here the "battleforms" are synthetic bodies animated by the powerful conciseness of the Appellaxian mind. We could conclude that his change was made because in the more humanitarian 1980s killing your foe, even a would be alien conqueror, is not something that true superheroes would do. Even in the original text there is a line close to the end that says "We returned such meteor-beings as we could to their own world, keeping the pile of splinters as a souvenir." That pile of splinters is still a dead body, but the aliens are treated as "second class" characters and their sentience/right to life is side stepped. By introducing the synthetic forms and by showing the alien's minds returning to Appellax when defeated the writers show us that the heroes stay on the moral straight and narrow while preserving the process of the battles as original written.

7/3
The source of the fire in the original story was a lumber yard that the giant set on fire with a street lamp.

9/1
In the original text the Manhunter knocked the alien unconscious by hitting a "weak spot" on the temple of the creature. However as they have established that the alien's mind survives the defeat of the battleform then the narrative is free to have the alien destroyed in spectacular fashion.

10/1
The text here establishes that Aquaman has only recently discovered the city of Atlantis. However in the 1989 LEGEND OF AQUAMAN one-shot (also by Keith Giffen) is revealed that Aquaman finds Atlantis quite by chance and is taken prisoner by the totalitarian regime. He later manages to escape and his next chronological appearances are team-ups alongside Flash II and Superman. The Flash-Aquaman team up in AQUAMAN:TIME AND TIDE #1 (1993) by Peter David is also established as his first public appearance and is when he is dubbed Aquaman by the media. Therefore at this stage Aquaman had escaped from the Atlantian prison an undetermined time ago and in the intervening period had already encountered the Flash.

10/4
In the original story Aquaman fought the Glass-Man and the Mercury Monster was fought by Wonder Woman on Paradise Island. Aquaman defeated the Glass-Man by using the fish of the sea to generate loud sound to shatter the alien. With the introduction of Black Canary as a founding member it makes sense to have her fight the Glass-Man with her sonic powers and have Aquaman fight the liquid alien in a liquid environment.

15/3
It was established in the original story that the underwater battle happened in the Indian Ocean and there is nothing here to contradict that. Aquaman also learnt of the Wood-King from the "Indian authorities" so we can conjecture that this is the Indian Institute for Oceanographic Studies.

16/1
The aim of the writers here seems to be to try and have as many of the heroes on the "first case" as possible. The original Black Canary (the mother of the one depicted here) was a member of the Justice Society and one of the last heroes to make their appearance in the Golden Age. By having the daughter of the original Black Canary in the League the writers generate a generation link between the two teams. While not picked up on here it is one of the major sub-plots to the JLA YEAR ONE series.
Originally this sequence was where Wonder Woman battled the Mercury Monster on the shores of Paradise Island. The Monster was turning the Amazons to mercury and Wonder Woman defeated it by capturing it the Golden Lasso and spinning it around her head fast enough for friction from the air to vaporise the Monster. This however does not answer the question of how they got rid of the deadly mercury fumes. With the removal of Wonder Woman from the League it made more sense for Aquaman to fight the Mercury Monster and have Black Canary fight the Glass-Man.
The city depicted in the background is unidentified. The original Black Canary operated in Gotham City while the second traditionally operated in Star City with Green Arrow. However it is not clear which city she operated in before she moved to Star City. The JLA YEAR ONE series establishes her as operating in Star City at the time of the JLA formation. Few stories from this period in her life have been told due to a complicated Silver Age world jumping chronology that no longer exists. For the purpose of these annotations we will assume that his is Star City.

20/1
Canary is shown near a red car however her preferred method of transport is more often show as a powerful motor bike.

20/4
This could well be the only, or at least one of the very few, appearance of the Martian written language. It is more normally represented as Anglicised words such as J'onzz.

21/1
This is again represented as one of the first cases of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern. Historically Jordan appeared four months before the League's first appearance in BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28 (February 1960). Given that the League origin would have happened before that then the time is fairly correct. Except that modern retellings of his origin include a 90 day prison term for drink driving shortly after he became Green Lantern and a few early guest appearances. It is therefore best to consider that all of this happened before this story and that this happens at least several months after the end of his jail term.

22/3
The meteor crash site was identified in the original texts as being in Southern Rhodesia, which is currently known as Zimbabwe. However locations in the original story refer to Victoria Falls and the city Livingstone which is actually in Zambia (formally Northern Rhodesia), therefore we can pin this story down quite accurately to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border east of Livingstone.

23/4
Yellow is the one colour that the ring of the Green Lantern Corps will not work on. This is due to a necessary impurity within the main power battery.

24/5
This waterfall was identified in the original version as Victoria Falls.

26/1
In the original version Flash encountered the Fire Giant on the Lombardy Plane near Lake Como in northern Italy and he heard about the meteor while Barry Allen attended a conference in Paris, France. The reason to move the adventure to England is unknown.

28/3
The Croydon Sand and Gravel Ltd has replaced the Sahara as the source of the sand in used by the Flash against the Fire Lord.

32/1
This splash page is a direct homage to the cover of JLA (first series) #9 with the five figures all being in more or less the same positions (except for Canary replacing Wonder Woman). Another difference is that the meteorite was coloured green in the original because they were made from Green Kryptonite, however in the modern version they are formed from a different rocklike substance.

35/1-37/2
The difference between the classic and modern version of this sequence arised from the replacement of Wonder Woman. In the original Aquaman knocked into Green Lantern to free his ring, Green Lantern then freed the head of the Martian Manhunter who used his super breath to push the Flash into Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman then cannoned into the beam from Green Lantern's power ring freeing her left-hand side and her lasso. She then reduced the alien to splinters via the lasso.

36/2
The last section quotes the alien as saying the remaining alien landed in Antarctica however in the original version the meteorite landed in Greenland.

37/1
Here Green Lantern reveals his name to the Martian Manhunter, however is has been established that the Leaguers did not reveal their names to each other until Barry Allen revealed his to promote trust during a low period (JLA YEAR ONE).

37/4
Here we see Superman just finishing off the Crystal Creature. In the original version Batman and Superman teamed up to fight the Creature. Superman was felled by the Kryptonite casing of the meteorite so Batman used the Batplane to hook the meteorite and tow it out of harms reach. Superman then turned the diamond alien in coal. Snapper Carr (who was familiar with Superman's trick of rubbing coal with great pressure to create diamond) questioned how Superman managed this and Kal-El quipped that he "rubbed the diamond being - the wrong way.

40/3
Aquaman makes the comment about the Flash having read too many comics. After gaining superspeed Barry Allen decided to take up the name the Flash because he had read comics about the exploits of Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash.

40/5
A lot of this sequence has been replaced by JLA YEAR ONE #2 where the name the Justice League is coined by the group at a press conference in Gotham City.

41/1
The floating heads are (top row) Vixen, Gypsy, Vibe and the Phantom Stranger; (middle row) Steel, Firestorm , Batman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl; (bottom row) Elongated Man, Zatanna, Snapper Carr, Red Tornado, Green Arrow and the Atom.

Back to JLA the Early Years]

Page/panel	Notes
4/1	The text of J'onzz's thoughts tell us that this is quite possibly his first public appearance. It is known from guest appearances that he was active behind the scenes for some considerable time and that his fight with the Appellaxian alien is his highest profile case so far.
6/1	Here we establish a major difference between this retelling and the original text. originally the various forms of the aliens were their own bodies. However here the "battleforms" are synthetic bodies animated by the powerful conciseness of the Appellaxian mind. We could conclude that his change was made because in the more humanitarian 1980s killing your foe, even a would be alien conqueror, is not something that true superheroes would do. Even in the original text there is a line close to the end that says "We returned such meteor-beings as we could to their own world, keeping the pile of splinters as a souvenir." That pile of splinters is still a dead body, but the aliens are treated as "second class" characters and their sentience/right to life is side stepped. By introducing the synthetic forms and by showing the alien's minds returning to Appellax when defeated the writers show us that the heroes stay on the moral straight and narrow while preserving the process of the battles as original written.
7/3	The source of the fire in the original story was a lumber yard that the giant set on fire with a street lamp.
9/1	In the original text the Manhunter knocked the alien unconscious by hitting a "weak spot" on the temple of the creature. However as they have established that the alien's mind survives the defeat of the battleform then the narrative is free to have the alien destroyed in spectacular fashion.
10/1	The text here establishes that Aquaman has only recently discovered the city of Atlantis. However in the 1989 LEGEND OF AQUAMAN one-shot (also by Keith Giffen) is revealed that Aquaman finds Atlantis quite by chance and is taken prisoner by the totalitarian regime. He later manages to escape and his next chronological appearances are team-ups alongside Flash II and Superman. The Flash-Aquaman team up in AQUAMAN:TIME AND TIDE #1 (1993) by Peter David is also established as his first public appearance and is when he is dubbed Aquaman by the media. Therefore at this stage Aquaman had escaped from the Atlantian prison an undetermined time ago and in the intervening period had already encountered the Flash.
10/4	In the original story Aquaman fought the Glass-Man and the Mercury Monster was fought by Wonder Woman on Paradise Island. Aquaman defeated the Glass-Man by using the fish of the sea to generate loud sound to shatter the alien. With the introduction of Black Canary as a founding member it makes sense to have her fight the Glass-Man with her sonic powers and have Aquaman fight the liquid alien in a liquid environment.
15/3	It was established in the original story that the underwater battle happened in the Indian Ocean and there is nothing here to contradict that. Aquaman also learnt of the Wood-King from the "Indian authorities" so we can conjecture that this is the Indian Institute for Oceanographic Studies.
16/1	The aim of the writers here seems to be to try and have as many of the heroes on the "first case" as possible. The original Black Canary (the mother of the one depicted here) was a member of the Justice Society and one of the last heroes to make their appearance in the Golden Age. By having the daughter of the original Black Canary in the League the writers generate a generation link between the two teams. While not picked up on here it is one of the major sub-plots to the JLA YEAR ONE series. Originally this sequence was where Wonder Woman battled the Mercury Monster on the shores of Paradise Island. The Monster was turning the Amazons to mercury and Wonder Woman defeated it by capturing it the Golden Lasso and spinning it around her head fast enough for friction from the air to vaporise the Monster. This however does not answer the question of how they got rid of the deadly mercury fumes. With the removal of Wonder Woman from the League it made more sense for Aquaman to fight the Mercury Monster and have Black Canary fight the Glass-Man. The city depicted in the background is unidentified. The original Black Canary operated in Gotham City while the second traditionally operated in Star City with Green Arrow. However it is not clear which city she operated in before she moved to Star City. The JLA YEAR ONE series establishes her as operating in Star City at the time of the JLA formation. Few stories from this period in her life have been told due to a complicated Silver Age world jumping chronology that no longer exists. For the purpose of these annotations we will assume that his is Star City.
20/1	Canary is shown near a red car however her preferred method of transport is more often show as a powerful motor bike.
20/4	This could well be the only, or at least one of the very few, appearance of the Martian written language. It is more normally represented as Anglicised words such as J'onzz.
21/1	This is again represented as one of the first cases of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern. Historically Jordan appeared four months before the League's first appearance in BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28 (February 1960). Given that the League origin would have happened before that then the time is fairly correct. Except that modern retellings of his origin include a 90 day prison term for drink driving shortly after he became Green Lantern and a few early guest appearances. It is therefore best to consider that all of this happened before this story and that this happens at least several months after the end of his jail term.
22/3	The meteor crash site was identified in the original texts as being in Southern Rhodesia, which is currently known as Zimbabwe. However locations in the original story refer to Victoria Falls and the city Livingstone which is actually in Zambia (formally Northern Rhodesia), therefore we can pin this story down quite accurately to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border east of Livingstone.
23/4	Yellow is the one colour that the ring of the Green Lantern Corps will not work on. This is due to a necessary impurity within the main power battery.
24/5	This waterfall was identified in the original version as Victoria Falls.
26/1	In the original version Flash encountered the Fire Giant on the Lombardy Plane near Lake Como in northern Italy and he heard about the meteor while Barry Allen attended a conference in Paris, France. The reason to move the adventure to England is unknown.
28/3	The Croydon Sand and Gravel Ltd has replaced the Sahara as the source of the sand in used by the Flash against the Fire Lord.
32/1	This splash page is a direct homage to the cover of JLA (first series) #9 with the five figures all being in more or less the same positions (except for Canary replacing Wonder Woman). Another difference is that the meteorite was coloured green in the original because they were made from Green Kryptonite, however in the modern version they are formed from a different rocklike substance.
35/1-37/2	The difference between the classic and modern version of this sequence arised from the replacement of Wonder Woman. In the original Aquaman knocked into Green Lantern to free his ring, Green Lantern then freed the head of the Martian Manhunter who used his super breath to push the Flash into Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman then cannoned into the beam from Green Lantern's power ring freeing her left-hand side and her lasso. She then reduced the alien to splinters via the lasso.
36/2	The last section quotes the alien as saying the remaining alien landed in Antarctica however in the original version the meteorite landed in Greenland.
37/1	Here Green Lantern reveals his name to the Martian Manhunter, however is has been established that the Leaguers did not reveal their names to each other until Barry Allen revealed his to promote trust during a low period (JLA YEAR ONE).
37/4	Here we see Superman just finishing off the Crystal Creature. In the original version Batman and Superman teamed up to fight the Creature. Superman was felled by the Kryptonite casing of the meteorite so Batman used the Batplane to hook the meteorite and tow it out of harms reach. Superman then turned the diamond alien in coal. Snapper Carr (who was familiar with Superman's trick of rubbing coal with great pressure to create diamond) questioned how Superman managed this and Kal-El quipped that he "rubbed the diamond being - the wrong way.
40/3	Aquaman makes the comment about the Flash having read too many comics. After gaining superspeed Barry Allen decided to take up the name the Flash because he had read comics about the exploits of Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash.
40/5	A lot of this sequence has been replaced by JLA YEAR ONE #2 where the name the Justice League is coined by the group at a press conference in Gotham City.
41/1	The floating heads are (top row) Vixen, Gypsy, Vibe and the Phantom Stranger; (middle row) Steel, Firestorm , Batman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl; (bottom row) Elongated Man, Zatanna, Snapper Carr, Red Tornado, Green Arrow and the Atom.

SECRET ORIGINS #32 "All Together Now"

SECRET ORIGINS #32
"All Together Now"