by Libbylawrence
The next stop on Alan Scott’s quest was one other alternate timeline. He noticed this time that the year was 1975, and the team was headquartered in the Brownstone he knew so well. He was met by a flying woman with long blonde hair and a costume of an amazingly short — by 1943 standards — red skirt and blue blouse.
“Mr. Scott?” she gasped. “You look so young!”
“I am from the past,” he began. “I’m not necessarily the one you know. Miss…?”
“Mary Kent — Supergirl — the daughter of Clark and Lois Kent,” she said with concern in her blue eyes. “Come inside where the others are.”
Green Lantern admired the power and command this young girl possessed. “Superman’s child! Amazing!”
He saw many odd and unknown faces assembled in the headquarters. Then he smiled in relief at a costume he knew well. “Batman! Glad to see you!”
Batman smiled and took back his cowl. “Alan?” said an older Dick Grayson. “How’d you make yourself so young? And to think they used to call me the Boy Wonder!”
“I — I am not your G.L. I mean I may be, but not yet. I’m time-traveling,” he stammered at the sight of the laughing boy he knew as Robin grown to manhood and filling his old mentor’s suit so well.
“Robin, come here,” he said. “This is Green Flame’s father!”
A lovely young woman with long black hair appeared. She wore the famous Robin shorts and red shirt, and she looked like Bruce Wayne. “Helena Wayne — Robin — this is Green Lantern,” said Batman II.
She smiled and shook his hand. Her athletic grace and fabulous figure showed she had all her father’s moves down pat. “Nice to meet you,” said the young woman. “Dad often mentions you and his generation of heroes.”
Supergirl brought in a sultry blonde woman in fishnets with an emblem of a lightning bolt on her black bustier. “Black Canary, right?” Green Lantern said, recalling the girl from the previous timeline.
“No, sir,” she said. “I’m her daughter, Thunderbolt! You knew my dad Johnny Thunder, too, I believe?”
“Johnny — married that lovely woman?” he said. “I mean–”
She smiled. “He and mother are retired now, but are very happy.”
A pretty girl with long green hair wearing a green and white costume that revealed a lot of skin appeared. “Daddy?” said Jennie-Lynn Scott, alias the Green Flame. “Are you OK? They said you’ve come from the far past when you were young.”
He gasped. This lovely girl with his power innately in her body was his future daughter. “I am from the past, honey,” he said, searching for words.
“Magic will solve your problems,” said a second woman in fishnets. “I am Zatanna,” she said. “My dad was another mystery-man of the 1940s — Zatara. He never joined the JSA, but I did, as you can see.”
A cute blonde in a blue miniskirt and red top appeared with an iced tea. “Just as you like, Uncle Alan, or should I just call you Godfather with that film out so recently?” she said, smiling.
“Joan Williams?” he gasped.
“No, that’s mom,” she said. “I’m Joannie Garrick, the Flash.”
A woman with a British accent and shiny golden armor and a sword walked up. “I am Lady Vic, or Lady Victory to be formal. My father was Sir Justin, the Shining Knight. I believe you knew him as well, sir.”
Green Lantern nodded. He then saw two faces he knew well. “Carter, Shiera!” he gasped. “You look so young!”
“We are,” said Clayton Harris. “I’m eighteen, and Shay is sixteen.”
“I’m his girlfriend, Shiera Saunderson,” said the teenage girl.
“They are the reincarnations of the Hawks you knew,” explained Zatanna. “They died a few years ago, and the kids here awoke to their past-life memories after receiving a glass dagger in the mail. Your friends live on, so to speak. Just as they were once Egyptian rulers, now the golden-age Hawks are these teens.”
This can’t get any more bizarre! thought Alan when he faced a young woman wearing a cheetah-inspired costume.
“I am Prissy Grant,” said the young woman in the cat costume. “My folks are the reformed Cheetah and your buddy, Wildcat. I can tell by your expression that you only know my mother as a criminal, but she did reform and marry your pal, Ted Grant.”
“Actually, I was just surprised by your costume,” said Alan. “I’ve never heard of anyone, man or woman, calling themselves the Cheetah.”
The Cheetah II smiled and said, “You will.” (*)
[(*) Editor’s note: The Cheetah’s first appearance would take place later this year, in “Wonder Woman and the Cheetah,” Wonder Woman #6 (Fall, 1943).]
As Alan tried to take it all in, he saw a familiar if distorted face. “Ted Knight, is that you?” he asked a glowing figure.
“Yes,” said the brightly glowing humanoid. “Alan, I absorbed so much stellar energy from the cosmic rod — that’s the more advanced version of my old gravity rod — over the years that it finally became part of my metabolism. Let me turn human again so you can see me better.”
The features and costume of Starman flickered into view. “Guess this is a shock to you and all,” said Ted Knight. “The stellar power keeps me young.” He then whispered, “Poor Al will shock you, too.”
A man in a yellow radiation suit appeared from the rear. “Alan, good to see you,” said Al Pratt, the Atom, from within the yellow containment suit. “I wish I could shake hands without this thick protective suit, but if I touch anything without the coverage, I give off high radiation.”
Alan frowned at the pain in his old friend’s voice. Al Pratt looked older, but it was obvious the energies within his body had added vigor as well as an explosive touch.
“Greetings, Alan Scott,” said a voice from above.
He looked up to see the ghostly Spectre. “Jim! Good to see you have not changed,” he said.
“Ah, but I have, for I can no longer touch the material world in any way,” said the pale figure. “I do, however, have the ability to possess others to use as my instruments of justice.”
“No more growth or transformation powers?” asked Green Lantern.
“Those are in my past, I fear,” said the Spectre.
“Who is beneath that helmet?” he asked as he turned to Doctor Fate.
“That secret is mine for the keeping,” said the weird figure.
“He never takes it off anymore,” whispered Starman as he started to glow again. “We don’t know if he’s Kent or someone else altogether.”
“I suppose you had not met me when you left your era,” asked a beautiful blonde girl in the famous Wonder Woman costume.
“No. Diana in a wig?” he said, laughing.
“Mother is Queen Diana now,” said the half-Amazon. “She passed her Wonder Woman role to me. I’m Lyta Trevor.”
“I see,” said Alan.
Supergirl spoke up, “You need us, and we’ll be glad to help. Let’s go!”
“You lead the team?” asked Alan. In his time, the only female member of the JSA, Wonder Woman, was only a secretary.
“Sure! Mary, here, is chairwoman,” added Thunderbolt.
Alan turned away to gather a final group. As he left, Miss Terrific showed up.
“Lysette!” said an excited Cheetah. “You missed the Green Lantern!”
Lysette Sloane smiled. “I was late because of the Fair Play Club charity dinner. We were honoring Captain Triumph on his recent victory over the Secret Society of Injustice.”
***
Green Lantern’s mind reeled at the implications of the futures he witnessed. “In one timeline we don’t age, yet we’re still the JSA in 2000. In the other, our kids take over around the 1970s! What will this final timeline Mr. Weed insisted I use going to show?”
He stopped in the Brownstone and smiled. “It’s 1986, and it’s the same headquarters. Good sign.” He entered the room to see a hulking figure in red and blue. “Al Pratt?” he asked.
“No, I’m his godchild, Albert — Atom Smasher. Al died at the hands of Extant, remember?” he said. “Hope Mr. Scott’s not going the way poor Johnny Thunder did,” he muttered to himself.
A blonde in a gray and blue uniform sat with her legs crossed at the table. “Thunderbolt?” he asked, remembering the girl from the last timeline.
“No, I’m Black Canary,” she said. “Alan, you know me. Dinah, Jr.”
“Right!” he said. “I’m from the past, as my youth should show you.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “You’ve been younger ever since that Starheart incident, Sentinel.”
The Flash said, “No, Al is right. This G.L. is from our past.”
“Glad to see you have not changed,” sighed Green Lantern.
Hawkgirl entered sullenly. “Shiera?” he asked.
“Nah!” said the girl. “She was my great-aunt or something. It’s confusing.”
A blonde with the Star-Spangled Kid’s uniform then ran in, followed by a seedy-looking guy with a modified cosmic rod. “Sentinel, whassup?” said Jack Knight.
“Starman! Ted’s boy, is it?” he guessed. “And you, Sylvester’s grandchild?”
“Like, what are you talking about? I’m Courtney — stepdaughter to Pat ‘Dufus’ Dugan!” she said.
Green Lantern then saw Hourman’s cloak. He turned his friend around and gasped as a weird robotic face stared back at him. “I knew you were destined to arrive at this precise hour,” replied the android called Ty. As Alan Scott took a step back, he heard voices from behind him.
“Green Lantern, if you need us, we’re there for you,” said two women in unison. One was decidedly the Helena Wayne who had been Robin when he met her, but now she wore a bat-like purple outfit. Her friend was a busty blonde with a white costume. “Batgirl and Supergirl?” he guessed.
“Power Girl and the Huntress!” snapped Power Girl. “Will I ever get free of that Kryptonian shadow?”
“Easy, Kara,” said the Huntress soothingly. “He doesn’t know.”
Wildcat and Alan’s own double Sentinel walked in. “Ohh no! More time-and-space weirdness,” whined Wildcat in mock disgust.
“Let’s go,” Green Lantern said. “We have the past to save!”
***
Alexei Luthor’s pawns left his laboratory in 1943 on Earth-Two and soon arrived in 1974 on Earth-One with Dr. Doome. It took little effort to steal the engine from Rip Hunter’s Time Sphere, since Hunter was asleep at the time. Rip Hunter and his crew, having recently traveled from 1965 into the near-future year of 1974, would awake to find themselves unwittingly stranded a decade ahead of their time. And by the time they were able to rebuild the Time Sphere’s engine, they would discover that they could not return to their own decade, as history showed they had disappeared in 1965. Just after they finally did fix the engine, Rip Hunter and Jeff Smith would even end up fighting off a military group they believed was attacking them, not realizing at the time that they were actually the famed Blackhawks, accompanied by Plastic Man, as well as a Daily Planet cub reporter named Jimmy Olsen, who were tracking down a group of dangerous white Martians in an adventure that would eventually give birth to the Justice League of America half a year later. (*) After a brief trip to the Civil War era, they would end up traveling to the year 12,000 A.D. in the far future, where they would remain as prisoners of the Sunset Lords until they could be rescued by the Challengers of the Unknown of 1982, who brought them back to remain in that era nearly two decades from their time of origin. (*)
[(*) Editor’s note: See “The Origin of the Justice League, Minus One,” Justice League of America #144 (July, 1977), “The War at Time’s End,” Challengers of the Unknown #86 (April-May, 1978), and “Twelve Million Years to Twilight,” Challengers of the Unknown #87 (June-July, 1978).]
As for the heroic pawns under Doome’s control, they obeyed his commands perfectly, and he relished seeing the JSA greats do his bidding. “Now even Luthor will admit my genius!” he said smiling as they began to journey home.
Then the craft lurched to a sudden and complete stop. Nothing Doome could do would get his beloved time craft to move again, either backward or forward. “What has happened?!” he cried.
The entranced heroes stood silently. Then a costumed man appeared and said, “I am a mere holographic projection. I have taken over the controls of this craft. I am the Lord of Time, and if you travel my time-stream, then you pay the toll.”
Doome raged at the nerve of this chronal highwayman. “What toll?” he said, fuming.
The Lord of Time said, “Simple. You have a strong team there. I have enemies. Send them to slay my foes, and I’ll free this ship afterward. Deal?”
“Fine,” sighed Doome. “When do we find them?”
“I’ll send you to the days after they first started their team,” said the Lord of Time. “They were fewer in number back then.”
Doome agreed. “Anything! Just be quick. Oh, who are they?”
The Lord of Time laughed. “You’ll recognize some of them individually, but collectively they’re called the Justice League of America.”
Continued in Justice League of America: Times Past, 1975: The Forgotten Crisis