Roll Call
The Mighty Atom! The Enigmatic Doctor Fate! Flash, the Fastest Man Alive! Green Lantern, Beacon of Justice! The Winged Warrior, Hawkman! The Sixty-Minute Cyclone, Hourman! Sandman, Master of Dreams! Jovial Johnny Thunder and his Magnificent Thunderbolt! And the Amazing Amazon, Wonder Woman! With special guest-stars: the World's Mightiest Mortal, Captain Marvel! The Feathered Fury, Hawkgirl! The Rough and Ready Wildcat! The Master of the Macabre, the Shadow! and Starman, the Master of Gravity!
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The vile Wotan continues his dark ritual in the face of heroic opposition! With Wonder Woman's shield Aegis reflecting the primeval forces of the Gundestrup Cauldron, and the magical energies of Doctor Fate, Green Lantern and the Thunderbolt bound by his spells, Wotan's power increases, and the world rattles under the attempt to remake himself the center of reality! Now, gallant mystery men and women spread thinly across the country to battle the magical entities called down by the ritual, and a valiant last stand is launched by...The Justice Society of America!"Axis Power! Part 3"[/center][/color]
“THE POWER!” Wotan roared as he began to enlarge, filling out to fifteen feet tall, his crazy titter further haunting the bizarre scene. “Oohh...delightful order!” he laughed as he tugged on the wooden bonds that crushed Green Lantern on the left. “The beautiful chaos!” He clutched the golden bonds that wound around Doctor Fate, and made the hero cough and gasp. Hovering before his chest, the Amulet of Anubis sparked and flickered like an angry eye. “So...close...”
“Can't run through the vertigo,” Flash grumbled as he staggered to one side, desperate to get his balance. “I don't suffer vertigo anymore...not since my speed! How come?”
“It's not vertigo, it's literally the world lurching under your feet, speedster!” Paula von Gunther explained as she pulled out a pair of vials from her purse. She lay in one place, protectively over Johnny Thunder, who began to stir now, and squinted as she added a drop of some dark greasy smear in one vial to the pearlescent vapor and watched it collapse into a purplish liquid. “Try this, and pass it to Her Majesty!” She tossed the vial to Jay Garrick, who caught it and sipped then raced to Wonder Woman. “A simple solution that should help you ignore the churning of reality!”
“Okay sure, whatever you said,” Jay replied as he sped away from the Amazon and started to spin a cyclone around one of Wotan's legs, desperate to knock him over, try to slow his plans.
Wonder Woman sipped the rest of the mix and stood now, her sword reclaimed and she snarled. “You are a great loss to the side of righteousness, sister,” she said to Paula and then charged at Wotan as well, her blade battered into his other leg now.
“My side is righteous, Hippolyta,” Paula muttered as she watched the losing battle.
“R-really? Ya think?” Johnny sat up now, supported by Paula and he gave her a goofy grin, distorted by the bruised side of his face. “That how a smart lady like you explains the book burning? Or the whole Aryan bushwa he's selling to the Germans? Or--?”
“Thunder, shut up, and help your friends,” Paula cut him off, not able to hear anymore. The mix-up in her head, staying to help the irritating man, helping the Society, not fleeing for her own safety, all of that confusion Johnny tried to get into her head, that was all part of the world being tossed out of order by Wotan, she assured herself.
“Fools! This is like battering toys now!” Wotan laughed as he kicked Hippolyta several dozen yards away, while a sweep of his hand caused a curtain of magenta flames licked up in front of Flash and forced him to dive away from the sorcerer. “Too easy! The world is mine, and I want more challenge for my ascension!”
“I think he's about to get his wish,” Johnny chuckled as the thunder and lightning raged in the sky, a golden stroke starting to slice through the clouds. “Can you get me to that big snake? I think I know how to get T-bolt back?”
“You want to go after Uktena?” Paula stared with a pale face as she glanced off at the distance, the quarter-mile long horned worm tearing up a town into splinters. “And what do you mean challenge?”
“The lightning!”
“But it's not yours, it's Thunderbird's, and he's possessed by Wotan,” Paula countered as she helped the young man to his feet and started to guide him toward the monstrous beast.
“Not the golden lightning. That belongs to a friend of ours. And I think,” Johnny glanced up and pointed to a golden tear in the mad mage's skies. “Yup, here he comes!”
With the speed of lightning and a roar of thunder, there came a scarlet blur that tore down through the darkness above and smashed into Wotan's jaw, staggering him as it swept back up with that same speed and struck again, and then once more. “I'm guessing this is the person responsible for things being wonky in my time?” Captain Marvel asked as he stood in the air, arms akimbo, squinted black eyes and broad grin cutting through the miasma of evil.
“Told you,” Johnny teased Paula as the pair continued to dash across the topsy-turvy landscape after Uktena, the Horned Serpent.
Gotham CityThe golden sphere popped like a soap bubble as it touched down in the airfield where the Justice Society kept their aircraft. Hawkman quickly led the other heroes toward their hangar, from his height, he could see the nearby Gotham's Oceanside beaches, and the strange reptilian creatures that emerged from the depths. “Forget the plane, we have work to do here!” he called back down to his allies.
A maintenance worker beckoned to the ground-based members, and Sandman responded, to be handed a phone. “It's for you guys, some dame down in Metropolis, said you should be here soon,” he explained. Sandman stared at the phone through his gas mask and sighed.
“Hourman, Atom, someone talk to Ms. Belmont,” Sandman said as he passed the phone to Atom.
“Hiya, Ms. Belmont, how are ya?” Atom asked eagerly, remembering his time on the rally tour. “Uh huh. Okay, makes sense. Got it. Whoa, really? Neat. Okay. Right. Bye, take care!” He hung up the phone to see the other two men staring down at him. “The Shadow's in this too. She said that Hawkgirl and Starman are up in the air fighting some kind of big birds. Thunderbirds, I think she said, but I'm not sure. Shadow and Wildcat are fighting off the Uckta...Unktee...these strange lizard-things coming up out of the ocean. And some other mystery men out there too, doing what they can in their home cities. He wants Hawkman to join Hawkgirl and Starman up in the air.”
“You tell the bird man, I'm on my way to the fight!” Hourman shouted as he raced away, leaping with his powerful legs to enter the fray against Uktena's children, the unktehila.
Atom rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Man's got a problem, that's for sure. Listen, Hawk's gonna listen to you over me, so you tell him.” He then turned and borrowed a motorcycle from another maintenance man and road off to the fight.
Sandman managed to get Hawkman's attention, and explained about the call.
“Hawkgirl and Starman are in the air, and it sounded like they could use some back-up.” The master of dreams was surprised to see the reaction on Hawkman's face to the news.
“I see,” Hawkman growled. “I'm on it, believe me!” He shot up high into the air with all his speed, and left Sandman to stare up into the skies, alarmed at the fury.
Hourman stood in the midst of the creatures, humanoid reptiles, or reptilian humanoids, it made no difference to the man of the hour. He pummeled at them; he threw two into emerging crowds, tore off a wooden beam from a nearby dock and swept it like a baseball bat, before chucking it lengthwise against another group. The bizarre creatures kept surging up though, and even his speed and strength couldn't contain them all.
“Wow, these things are nuts!” Atom exclaimed as he reached the fight and started to slug at them with his fists. “And they have scales! Ow! Man, that's not fair!”
“Oh? I hadn't noticed, short-stuff!” Hourman replied with a look of glee on his fast as he battered the hordes back.
“Yeah, yeah! You wanna share me one of those wonder pills of yours then, show-off?”
“They'd tear you up without the special treatment, buddy, sorry,” Hourman answered as he watched Atom struggle against three of them, but even his strength couldn't get him through the crowd to help him. “Atom! Hang in there!”
“Fear not, Hourman. I have his back,” Sandman said as he finally appeared, and fired his gas gun to help clear the way to the diminutive hero.
“Just glad your sleepy-smoke works on them, Sandman,” Atom said as he fought the three creatures off and prepared for the next wave.
Back in OhioThe ground heaved and roiled under their feet, but Baroness Von Gunther kept a strong grip on Johnny's hand, and used her own mystic awareness to keep them grounded. She'd used all of the other serum on Flash and Wonder Woman, and without it, Johnny suffered the imbalance without her help. They closed up to Uktena, and narrowly avoided the the tail as it whipped through the nearby hills and lopped off the tops.
“What are you hoping to achieve, John?” Paula asked as they reached the beast.
“I'm not sure you really want to know, Miss Paula,” Johnny said as they took a moment to rescue a family trapped by the beast's attack. “I don't think you're gonna like it. I don't think I like it, really. The others would call it one of my hair-brained schemes. Less I think about it, less likely I am to bail out on it.”
Paula shrugged as they drew closer to the front of the beast. Johnny jumped onto a tractor and started the old machine up, revving the engine to life as best he could. “Listen, you let the other JSAers know what's up, where I've gone. All goes right, I'll see you all later. If not, thanks for the help, and I hope you...” He paused and shrugged. “I hope you find something good after this stupid war's over, how's that?” He then started the vehicle rolling forward, toward the monster as Paula watched.
“What's that idiot up to?” She watched as he maneuvered the tractor into the monster's side. The metal crumpled against it's hard hide and Johnny was flung off as he cried out a garbled noise. She wasn't sure, but as he lifted a thumb's up from the ground as the beast lowered its head toward him, she got the sinking feeling in his stomach that his plan worked, and then he was gone from sight, swallowed by Uktena.
“You are powerful, but nothing will be mightier than I!” Wotan raged as he righted himself. His body reached twenty feet in height, and continued to grow as he unleashed a curtain of flames at the World's Mightiest Mortal. “Reality is mine!”
“Not yet it's not,” Captain Marvel replied with an easy grin. The flames cascaded over his form harmlessly and he dropped back down to unleash another storm of blows against Wotan. “Get as big as you like, I'm still going to help my JSA buddies chop you back down to size!”
Wonder Woman crawled back over to where Jay Garrick lay still. “Flash, wake up!” She shook him and lightly smacked his cheeks. “Wake up, man! Are you going to sleep out the entire fight?”
“Hm? Oh, c'mon, Joan...I'm studying, really I...” His eyes fluttered open and stared up into the beautiful, if stern, Hippolyta. “Oh! Well, hi there. Not the usual vision of loveliness, but still nice to wake up to.”
“Men! Get on your feet, Flash. Captain Marvel has joined the battle, and I will not have us take the front lines alone, even if he is the champion of the gods!”
“I know, I know, you're right, but I think the battle needs to be focused on other areas, while his attention's diverted,” Jay mused as he settled his metal hat back onto his head. “He seems to get tunnel vision, and that might be our key to stopping him.”
“What have you got in mind?” Wonder Woman asked as she saw him gaze over the battlefield. “I can try to cut the chains from our allies.”
“Maybe, but we need to know more about what all this is about. Where's the Baroness?”
“She led Johnny toward the beast at his request,” Wonder Woman answered. “That wa--”
Before she could finish the two words, Flash had returned with Paula Von Gunther, who only now could realize she'd moved and reacted at last. “Put me down! I'll not be manhandled!”
“Sorry, but we've bigger issues that propriety. How do we hamstring his spells?” Flash pointed to the field as Captain Marvel engaged the now-thirty foot giant Wotan, neither man able to gain an edge over the other.
Paula looked at the bound heroes to either side of the tableau, and then to the cauldron set on the shield at the center. She gazed with a special awareness of the mystic, watched the magical chains that fed the power to Wotan, watched how he made himself the center of the ritual. “There's one chain that's unfinished,” she said. “It...it leads away from here. Eastward. Another artifact that was supposed to give him one more anchor. It's probably why the ritual's taking so long to complete.”
“Fine, eastward, I'll see what the rest of the team's found, and be back in a jiffy,” Flash said and vanished in a blast of air.
“Meanwhile, you do what you can for Green Lantern and Doctor Fate, while I join Captain Marvel in battle,” Wonder Woman ordered and then leaped into the fray. Paula stared after her and then along the path that Flash had taken.
Johnny was gone, swallowed by Uktena; she'd done her bit, given what advice she could. Hippolyta expected her to run away now, and she knew she had to or never get away. She sighed and angry at herself, dashed toward the tree-bound Emerald Gladiator.
High in the skies above the eastern seaboard......Hawkman arrived in a rush of wind as Hawkgirl and Starman darted around, battling a dozen vicious birds, black-feathered eagle-like creatures with wingspans of ten feet, eyes sparking with power, and roaring thunder cascading from their swooping attacks. Their screeches sounded like horrific agony, but they battled in a rage all the same. Hawkgirl struck out with the tenth metal dagger, while Starman's gravity rod unleashed beams of celestial light that drove the birds back.
“Starman!” Hawkman roared as he brought his mace down on the back of one thunderbird's head and stared at the red-and-green garbed hero.
“Good to have you here with us, Hawkman,” Starman said without realizing the fury directed at him. “How's things on the ground?”
“In great danger, but not as much danger as you, Ted Knight,” Hawkman snapped back, and spun in the air, his muscled arms clutched tight on his weapon. He swung it in a brutal arc and tore the head off another thunderbird that dove toward the two heroes. “I am here to fight at Hawkgirl's side, now! Feel free to find your own enemies to battle, and your own woman to fight beside!”
“Whoa! You get this jealous often?” Starman replied in shock, as he released cosmic energy to form a shield that stopped a diving bird from hitting the two of them.
“Carter! Behave yourself, he's a friend, and he's been a big help!” Hawkgirl said as she caught some of the vicious words from her partner.
“You're hurt! You let her get hurt?” Hawkman accused Starman as he saw her hastily bandaged leg, and the open wound on her side.
“He wasn't around for that, that was something else and that's not the point,” Hawkgirl snapped back. “Focus on the monsters, and not on owning me, Hawkman! This ain't no ancient Egypt now!”
“Of course,” Hawkman growled as he pummeled another thunderbird, but as he gained control of his anger, he noticed the sounds the creatures made. “Sorry, Knight.”
“No problem. Not now,” Starman answered with another blast from his weapon. “I think someone's trying to get your attention,” he added as he caught the sight of blurry red letters on the ground, that read
talk to me, J.
“These creatures are trying to say something, I can't spare the time now, you go,” Hawkman said as he flew into the midst of several creatures. They buffeted him with their thunder and their talons, but he restrained himself and listened to the noises. “They're in pain, forced to work for Wotan. They
want to fight their enemies, the evil dragon creatures from the seas, the unktehila, but have to work with them.”
“Can we break the control?” Hawkgirl asked as she winced with each blow Hawkman suffered. She soared up to join him, her weapon used to drive off some of the birds.
“I don't know, but we'll try to find a way,” Hawkman assured her.
Starman dropped down from the sky to find the blurring letters turn into the fastest man alive. “Flash! It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Starman!” Ted said as he held his hand out.
“Good to meet you too, but I have to know, is there an artifact in Hawkgirl's possession?” Flash asked in a hurried voice. “Wildcat and Shadow said she took it, is it up there?”
“Yeah, it is. Why?”
“We think it can help stop Wotan! You have to get it from Hawkgirl and fly it out to Ohio as fast as you can!”
“Who's Wotan? Why Ohio?” Starman looked confused as he watched Flash speed off. “Why bother explaining, I'll find out when I get there, I guess.” He pointed the gravity rod upward and soared into the skies to try and explain himself to the Hawks.
Back in UktenaJohnny Thunder tumbled down the dark space inside the great beast; jostled, bounced, and squeezed, but he finally came to a thudding stop within its center. The darkness of the beast was broken up by the purplish glow of the Thunderbolt, pulsing with its boundless energies as it was sapped by Uktena, to fuel its rampage.
“Master John! It's good to see you, but how did you let yourself get swallowed up by Uktena? he asked as he reached down to help his descendant and master to his feet.
“I had to, T-bolt. You risked yourself for me and got stuck in here, I had to come in and try to rescue you,” Johnny said. “I figured that I couldn't control you because you couldn't hear me in here, so how else could I?”
“You're a brave fella, Master John. But now what? We're still trapped, and with it leeching off of me, I don't think I can escape even with you telling me to. The more I tried to break free before you got here, the meaner it seemed to get,” the genie said in dismay.
“I'm betting we don't need to, pal,” Johnny answered with a grin. “You're giving this creature energy trying to escape, hm? Say, you don't suppose if you stopped doing anything it'd get energy from you, do you?”
“Master John, I don't believe I'd ever say this, but you're a genius,” the Thunderbolt said with a grin. The two beings sat down in Uktena's stomach and did nothing, nothing at all. Thunderbolt's light dimmed as he put his focus into containing his might, denying it to the beast.
“Nice to know that lesson about the old guy getting eaten by the whale actually taught me something,” Johnny chuckled.
“You read about Jonah and the Whale?”“Hm? No, no, that movie with the puppet that wants to be a boy,” Johnny said with a louder laugh.
“Right, of course. You reading a book. You know, Pinocchio was a book first.”“Neat! When we're out of here, we should check it out.”
Meanwhile......Wotan thrust his arms forward, and hammered Captain Marvel back under a hurricane force of wind, his eyes blazed murderously as he struggled to regain control of the battle. “I will not be denied now, not now!” he insisted as the scarlet-clad hero tumbled back end over end under the gale.
“You're losing control, Wotan, even I can see it,” Hippolyta said with a mean laugh at the wizard. “Slowly we're taking your precious ritual apart, piece by piece!” She emphasized her words with a mighty heave of her shoulders that dislodged some of the rubble beneath the giant villain and watched him tumble backward.
“Relying on the ghost to kill one flying woman was a mistake, but I have not lost control!” he said as he released bolts of black lightning at Wonder Woman, who leaped for cover under the assault. “And Uktena may now be paralyzed momentarily, but I have not lost control! Even if I must manipulate the strings personally, my puppets will still dance!”
From above, the massive Thunderbird swooped down toward Wonder Woman with vicious talons glinting in the blasts of lightning that rocked the area. Captain Marvel swooped down to intercept it though, his muscled shoulder battered the monster's chest and shoved it away, while offering the queen a salute. “Good to see you again, Your Majesty!”
“And you as well, good Captain!” she called back as she stood up, only to notice what seemed to be a star hurtling in her direction. She gripped her sword and prepared to receive Wotan's newest attack, but instead saw a man garbed in red and green, a magic wand in one hand that lowered him from the heavens, and a wicked dagger gleaming in his starlight in the other hand.
“Hi there, Wonder Woman. I'm Starman, and what an honor it is to meet you,” Ted Knight said as he landed. “Flash said I should get back here with this? He seemed to think it was important.”
“It is, Hippolyta,” Paula called out from where she applied what salves she could muster from her handbag on the wounded Green Lantern, the branches binding arms, and puncturing flesh to pin him in place. “Destroy it! Then, Starman, give that piece of technical wizardry everything it's got at Wotan!”
“Who's Wotan?” Starman asked the baroness as Wonder Woman didn't hesitate. “Why Ohio?” he asked as well, while Hippolyta's blade sliced the curved blade neatly in half.
“NO!” the giant roared as he got to his feet and pointed at Wonder Woman, unleashing more black lightning that crashed into her, burning flesh under the attack.
“Never mind, I got it figured out,” Starman answered as he leveled his gravity rod at the villain and unleashed a beam of starlight that tore into Wotan's chest.
“Don't hold back man of the stars!” Paula demanded. “Leave not an erg of power untouched!”
Starman shrugged and his thumb tapped more controls; the stream of cosmic energy brightened, the rod started to hum, and power tore into Wotan's form as he staggered and cried in pain. Wotan shuddered and turned black eyes on Ted Knight, fury and agony wrapped into his expression. “Not...now...!” Cosmic force burned away Wotan's giant size slowly but surely, as Ted heard a worrying hum from his gravity rod. But he didn't relent, not with such obvious success.
“And now the dominoes fall, my old enemy,” Doctor Fate declared as he erupted in silver fire that tore the golden links that held him bound. His arms tore away the bonds and he flung a silver and red Eye of Horus at Thunderbird with one hand as the other beckoned his Amulet of Anubis back to him.
The mystic symbol crashed into Thunderbird and the black on its eyes shattered to reveal the stormy blue instead and it roared in fury as it soared into the skies. It cried to its children and as one, they dove down away from Hawkman and Hawkgirl to swarm over the reptilian humanoids at the coasts, again waging its ancient war against the enemies of humanity.
Captain Marvel, no longer needed to keep Thunderbird at bay streaked to Green Lantern. “Time to get you out of this so you can help the others,” the World's Mightiest Mortal said. Powerful hands ripped at the wooden bonds, but it wasn't enough. “Sorry about this, but it will probably hurt me more than it will hurt you,” he said. He hugged Green Lantern tight to him, and then called,
“SHAZAM!The lightning ripped down from the skies and blasted into the two men. Wooden shackles crackled and burned away under the powerful force, and when it had passed, a bloodied Green Lantern stood tall and free, and stepped between Billy Batson and the battle. “Right, time to do my part.” He lifted his power ring up and unleashed a fiery green ax at Wotan, who struggled to keep control of the energies, struggled to resist the blasts of starlight. He lifted a hand up to block the Lantern's attack but it diverted at the last second, splitting into two beams that neatly streamed around the wizard and became scissors, large green scissors that cut the Gundestrup Cauldron from Aegis.
Wotan's face contorted into rage for seconds as the ritual came to a crashing end. The world lurched under the heroes one more time, as it righted itself, as reality corrected itself, and then Wotan's body, reduced to it's normal proportions, flung back to crash into the ground from Starman's attack. Then the gravity rod sputtered, wisps of smoke curling up from it, and Ted was forced to drop it from heat.
Slowly the members of the Justice Society came together in the aftermath of the battle; Uktena had vanished, the Great Serpent Mound coiled along the grassy park in serene silence, as if nothing had happened. Wotan lay stretched over it, slender green chest singed by the battle, the enemy unconscious. The storm slowly abated as the Hawks dropped down from the skies, Thunderbolt swooped in with Johnny in its arms, and Flash raced back up to announce that the thunderbirds and unktehila were both gone from sight.
“Another win by the Justice Society,” Flash announced with a smile and a clap on the back of Hawkman. “Who's the kid?”
“Shazam! The bolt of lightning crashed into Billy Batson as he waved at Flash, and the wave was finished by Captain Marvel. “Good to see you all again, glad I could help out.”
“Done...thank God..” Green Lantern grunted and then collapsed, to be caught by Flash in the blink of an eye.
“Say, you need to get all of us back to headquarters, T-bolt! We got people needing help!” Johnny said as the genie nodded. With a tip of his stetson, the genie released a burst of purplish energy and the group was indeed back in Gotham City. In the conference room stood everyone who had battled Wotan's machinations. The Shadow, Wildcat, Hourman, Atom, and Sandman had all been pulled from their stations as well by Johnny's broadly-worded command.
Doctor Fate groaned and sank into his chair, as he yanked the Helmet of Nabu from his head. Underneath, Kent Nelson looked pale and drawn, blond hair hung about his head in sweaty clumps. “Good work, friends. We beat a great foe, but we can't just leave him out in Ohio to wake up, Johnny.”
“Right, of course, wasn't thinking. T-Bolt, go lock Wotan up someplace where he can't be a problem anymore.” Johnny snapped his fingers at his genie who nodded his head and vanished.
The Amulet of Anubis shimmered as Fate lay on the chair, and breathed hard.
“Hawkman, I have an ally, Doctor Mid-Nite. An extremely able practitioner of medicine. We should get Green Lantern and Doctor Fate to him quickly,” the Shadow said in that eerie voice of his.
“I'll take care of Doctor Fate, fellas,” said Inza Kramer. Her form shimmered into view at the call of the Amulet and she gave him a hug. “Oh God, what did you do to yourself, Kent?”
“What was necessary to protect the world, Inza.”
“I've got you, don't worry,” she said as she reached out to pluck the helmet up in her fingers. She stared up icily at the assembled heroes. “I'm hearing whispers, probably Nabu's helmet, and I can take care of Kent. But he's going to need rest, and don't a one of you even
think of calling on him before I give the okey-dokey, got it?”
With that, the two figures shimmered from sight, swept away on mystical winds back to Fate's Tower in Salem.
“I'll take Lantern to your friend, Shadow,” Captain Marvel said as he hefted him up in his arms. “Hang on, and point the way, then it's home for me. See you all again soon, I'm sure.”
“Thanks for your help, both of you. And you as well, Queen Hippolyta,” Hawkman said as he watched Captain Marvel lift off with the other two, and then looked to Wonder Woman. “You did your reserve status great credit. Sure you aren't ready to step up to full time? We're going to need the manpower.”
“No, I'm not interested,” she answered simply and sharply, then turned to Paula, her sword pointed at the baroness. “You, I am interested in. You should have run when you had the chance.”
“I know,” Paula said as she stepped to Johnny's side. “I have a lot to think about though, so...so I guess I stay and receive my punishment, like a true noble. It's not like I can't plan for my escape at a later time, anyway. But for the record, I'm turning myself into the one person here that's treated me as a person in all of this.”
Johnny blushed and tugged at his collar as the team turned toward him. “Say, you should've just gotten to go home, you saved the world with all of us after all. I didn't mean for you to get stuck in a cell. That's no way to think about whatever it is I gave you to think about, after all. While you're getting all grumpy with prison life.”
“Your wish is my command, Master John, but you do need to pay closer attention to what you say,” Thunderbolt sighed as he reappeared at Johnny's side.
“You better appreciate this, sister, 'cause Master John here's a really decent guy. Make this count.”“No, Thunderbolt, don't--” Hippolyta called out as she realized what was about to happen, but the genie snapped his fingers and violet sparks rippled over the Baroness and sent her back home.
“Sorry, Majesty,” Johnny said sheepishly as he grimaced.
Hippolyta sheathed her sword and shrugged those strong shoulders. “Perhaps you've done a better service to justice with your words and kindness, John. We'll just have to wait and see now.”
“Okay, okay, that's enough. We're just standing here getting in each other's way now,” Hawkman announced as he banged his mace on the table like a gavel. “We're all hurting and tired. I'm calling an emergency meeting of Justice Society members for two days from now, to discuss the case, and our losses.” He looked over Wildcat, Hawkgirl and Starman and added, “We might be needing new blood. Until then...go home and good work, everyone. We deserve the rest.”
“Wow, me in the Society?” Starman said softly to Wildcat and Hawkgirl. “That'd be so cool. Um, well, if you could convince Hawkman not to slug me with his mace,” he added with a wink to Hawkgirl.
“Then, sugar, you'd better stop winking at me,” she replied with a giggle and caught up to her partner as they soared off into the skies.
“That's a helluva dame there, pal,” Ted Grant said to Starman with a clap on his shoulder. Starman nodded as the two Teds walked out the door and into a night littered with stars and a cool, refreshing breeze.
