FRIENDS of JUSTICE: Freedom Fighters in Justice League of America #107

Justice League of America #107 (Sept/Oct 1973)
title: Crisis on Earth-X!
writer: Len Wein
penciller: Dick Dillin
inker: Dick Giordano
editor: Julius Schwartz

letter column: Martin Pasko
cover: Nick Cardy

Overall Summary:
This is the debut of the Freedom Fighters! It all starts HERE! 50 Years ago THIS WEEK we met The Freedom Fighters for the FIRST TIME!!

Order of Appearance: Uncle Sam, Black Condor, Phantom Lady, Doll Man, The Ray, Human Bomb

Guest Stars:
(Although *technically* the Freedom Fighters are the guest-stars here, on the predilection that everyone is the main character of their own story let's give the FFs the spotlight, okay?)
Justice League of America: Red Tornado, Batman, the Elongated Man, and Green Arrow in active roles; Green Lantern, Black Canary, and the Flash in inactive roles.
Justice Society of America: Dr. Fate, the Sandman, and Superman in active roles; Hourman, the Flash, and Starman in inactive roles

Supporting Characters:
Blackhawk and Plastic Man make cameo appearances as fellow Quality Comics (Earth-X) characters who have been killed by the Third Reich

Opponents:
Nazi Germany's Third Reich

Plot Summary:
The Justice League and the Justice Society have succeeded in creating a method to travel between their two separate dimensional Earths called the Transmatter Cube. Red Tornado, who is a recent addition to the JLA from the Justice Society world named "Earth-2", wants to use the Transmatter Cube to return to his world. However, Green Lantern refuses his request to try the machine on the basis that tests were done on inanimate objects and living things, and Red Tornado is somewhere in-between those. The Justice League doesn't want to risk it. Red walks off.

A few moments later, at the assigned time three members from each team enter their individual Transmatter Cubes to be transported to the others' Earth. Unknown to each team, however, Red Tornado is vibrating inside the JLA's Cube invisibly, stowing away in an attempt to return to Earth-2. Unfortunately, his vibrations upset the delicate balance of the machinery, causing it to send all seven super-heroes to another dimensional world entirely.

They appear on a world where they immediately realize there are Nazis in an American city! Confused and angry, the JLA and the JSA attack the Nazis.

Although the heroes put up a good fight, they are eventually defeated by the German military's mental weapon called The Cerebro Gun, which saps the heroes' will to fight.

Suddenly, the Freedom Fighters arrive, and the Nazis are terrified! They hold the Nazis at bay long enough to whisk the seven other super-heroes away to safety.

They take the JLA and the JSA back to one of their nearby secret sanctuaries, where Uncle Sam explains to them that after President Roosevelt died, the power transfer in the US was not smooth, and the US did not develop an atomic bomb before Germany had one, too. Both sides agreed not to use it, so the war kept on until 1968. That was when the Nazis came up with their Cerebro Gun, a weapon that turned everyone on the planet into their slaves, and they quickly took control of the entire world.

Because the mind-control machines' locations are hidden by a world-wide mental block, the Freedom Fighters have been unable to locate and destroy them. Dr. Fate uses his mystical powers to locate them.

After Uncle Sam vouches for the visiting super-heroes to a suspicious Black Condor, all agree to team-up to go to the machines to destroy them. Dr. Fate using his sorcery to send teams to each location, leaving Red Tornado alone at the sanctuary as reluctant liaison.

The Human Bomb, The Ray, Batman, and Dr. Fate appear at the Eiffel Tower in Paris to find the mind-control machine for all of Europe. They locate the machine, which is actually a sentient robot. When attacked, it creates specialized android guards to protect itself.

The heroes are initially stymied by their foes, until Dr. Fate inadvertently switches his foe with that of the Human Bomb's, and then they all switch their specialized foes in order to defeat them. They are then attacked by the robot itself, which puts them under its control. However, all four of the heroes manage to destroy the machine by heroic sub-conscious.

Review:
This is the story that started it all, and it's a doozy! The idea of another dimensional world where things are similar but different hadn't been used since the classic Crime Syndicate on Earth-3 story, waaay back in JLA #29-30. The idea of a world where the Nazis had won World War Two is almost too ghastly to imagine, which is why the Freedom Fighters came across so vibrantly here. They really pop off the page! Uncle Sam is the undisputed leader, but all of the Quality Comics characters look great. Because this is a two-parter, only two of the members get extended spotlights, but each member still gets to do a little bit of something.

I only have two bits I want to criticize, one on plot and one on characterization. First, the way the story ends is a bit of an anti-climax. The four super-heroes are put under control of the Nazi Robot, yet still somehow manage to destroy it...?!? Now. even if we ignore the fact that Batman and the Ray "smashing" the robot wouldn't have done ANYTHING to hurt it, how do we get around the idea that the mental control simply didn't work? That was a real head scratcher.

The other major criticism I have is for the characterization of the Justice Leaguers towards Red Tornado. At the beginning he simply wants to go home. Even just assuming that the JLA are correct in not wanting him to risk using the Transmatter Cube, are you telling me that the JLAers can't come up with some OTHER method to get him back to Earth-2? I mean, the Flash and Green Lantern specifically have years of experience going back and forth between the dimensions. Instead of being such a jerk, Green Lantern could have been a bit more sympathetic. And what if they HAD tried the Transmatter Cube on Red Tornado, to see if it worked? What would have been the problem with that? If Red Tornado was willing to risk his life to go back home, the JLA should have respected that. And lataer, when the seven heroes arrive on Earth-X, the Elongated Man wouldn't allow Red to have any type of real reunion with his former friends; granted, they were about to be attacked by Nazis, but still. Hopefully Red did get a few moments to chat with Dr. Fate, Sandman, and Superman.

Black Condor Moment

Black Condor is not featured in a chapter in this issue, so all he really does is fly around

and fight Nazis in one panel. However, when the JLA and JSA volunteer to help

defeat the Third Reich, he does have the following moment,

where he shows he is a pretty good leader and not afraid to face off against Dr. Fate!

(even if he isn't a great judge of character!)

Doll Man Moment

Doll Man is not featured in a chapter in this issue, so all he really gets to do is knock out some Nazis, especially as shown here.

Human Bomb Moment

The Human Bomb has a few explosive moments in this story, but none as cool as this one, as he calmly steps up and destroys a six-inch reinforced steel wall. Yeah, Roy!

Phantom Lady Moment

Phantom Lady does not get a spotlight in this issue, so the best we get is her roping up some Nazis, all on her own. Note Black Condor in action here, too.

The Ray Moment

The Ray rides the spotlight the Nazis are projecting from the top of the Eiffel Tower

to reach its summit. How cool is THAT?

Uncle Sam Moment

Uncle Sam has a few cool moments in this issue (like telling Black Condor

that the JLA & the JSA are their allies) but nothing compares to picking up a

Nazi tank and smashing it. Awesome!

Best Moment

This time out the best moment belongs to the Batman,

who literally scares the crap out of a bunch of Nazis

in this excellent panel by Dick Dillin & Dick Giordano

Worst Moment

Red Tornado's wish to return to his native world is a good

excuse to start the action, but later he is played for either

laughs or angst (I can't tell which). This awful characterization

lasted for years.

Freedom of Information

Although no dates are mentioned in this story, Uncle Sam tells the others that the Nazis won the war "five years ago." In 1973, that would have placed their victory in 1968. Another reason that historically speaking, that year can be considered one of the worst.
The appearance of fellow Quality Comics characters the Blackhawks and Plastic Man as fellow Earth-X heroes who died fighting the Nazis is a nice touch. However, we have already seen the Blackhawks on Earth-1 meeting the Justice League in Blackhawk #228-230 and Plastic Man met Batman in The Brave & The Bold #76 (and others). In JLA #144, both the Blackhawks AND Plastic Man meet the Justice League, on Earth-1. Therefore, it seems that there were Earth-X versions of these characters. Of course, this is all later to be ret-conned, first by Roy Thomas and then by CRISIS, but for the next 15 years or so it was canon.
Dr. Fate references the world-famous Mount Fuji as Fuji-yama, which is not correct in Japanese (it's Fuji-san.)
None of the Freedom Fighters have appeared in public over the last thirty years, except Doll Man, who, oddly enough, had just re-appeared in WANTED #5 (Jan 1973) in a reprint battle against Iron Mask! Did DC editorial know that this Freedom Fighers story was coming up, or was this re-appearance by Doll Man just a weird coincidence?

Regardless, the last *new* stories featuring these characters were as followed: Black Condor last appeared in Crack Comics #31, October 1943; Doll Man last appeared in Doll Man #47, October 1953; the Human Bomb last appeared in Police Comics #58, September 1946; Phantom Lady last appeared in Police Comics #23, October 1943; the Ray last appeared in Smash Comics #40, February 1943; Uncle Sam last appeared in National Comics #45, December 1944.

Freedom Fanmail

Letters about this issue appeared in Justice League of America #110, with comments from then-new Editorial Assistant Martin Pasko. Click on the pages to enlarge them to help you read them.

Reprint Rundown

This story has been reprinted a few times, both in Justice League reprint collections and in "Crisis" Multiverse Collections. Here's a list in reverse chronological order. If you're interested, you can find some of these on kindle. For actual print copies, I suggest trying instocktrades.com for the new version, or abebooks.com or hpb.com for the older editions.

Crisis on Multiple Earths 2: Criss Crossed (2022)