Infinity, Inc. Annual #2

 

Comic: Infinity, Inc. Annual #2

Where Purchased: Online - DMosco via Atomic Avenue

When Purchased: October 8, 2024

When Read: November 7, 2024

One of the first comics I ever bought off the newsstand was a Justice League of America issue.  It was part of what I later learned was an annual team up of the JLA from Earth-One and their counterparts from Earth-Two, the Justice Society of America.  This time, they were also teaming up with the All-Star Squadron, another group from Earth-Two to fight a group of evil beings from Earth-Three.

I am probably not the best person to explain the whole Earth-One/Earth-Two situation but I will try.  The first superhero comics came out in the 1930s.  This was when Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and other heroes hit the scene.  They eventually became embroiled in World War II.  

When The Flash #123 was published in 1961, Earth-Two was created to explain differences between the original Golden Age and then-current Silver Age versions of characters.  It shunted the versions who had fought in World War II off to Earth-Two and the modern versions now occupied Earth-One.  This also allowed both versions of the same characters to appear in stories together.

All-Star Squadron retroactively introduced new stories into DC's Golden Age history, mainly during World War II.

All of this fascinated me.  I gobbled up the All-Star Squadron back issues and started collecting it in earnest.  I loved stories that took place on alternate Earths.

Once the multiverse concept became unwieldly, DC Comics made an effort to clean up their continuity, resulting in the multiple universes combining into one during 1986's Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series.  With that, the All-Star Squadron series had to end.  It was succeeded by a series called Young All-Stars.

I am not doing any of this justice (no pun intended) but it is background for this issue.  Infinity Inc. first appeared in All-Star Squadron #25.  The group is assembled when a number of JSA protégés were denied admission to the JSA and instead formed their own group.

Infinity, Inc. was a direct sales only title so it wasn't easily available to me when it first came out.  It became another case, recently, of a series that I had enough issues of that picking up gap-fillers were an easy way to make a sympathy buy at a comic shop that didn't have much for me otherwise.  Now I am trying to finish it off.

And that is how I discovered that there was a second annual issue!  I was psyched because the bad guy on the cover, Per Degaton, was one of the villains in that first JLA/JSA crossover I picked up!

The title page of this issue indicates that it is the sequel to Young All-Stars Annual #1, which is in my collection but I am not sure if I read it.  See, Young All-Stars was one of those series I bought out of habit.  Even after I stopped enjoying the writing or the art, I kept buying it because of the "completist" mentality.  I did stop shortly before the series was cancelled but it never made it onto my "must complete" list.

This issue...is not very good.  The writing is a bit stilted and the art is stiff.  I tried a few times to get into it...setting it down, walking away, and starting over.  But it's just so disappointing.

There is a back up story called "The Private Life of Wildcat" which isn't any better.  There are quite a few embarrassing cheesecake shots and a story that is so "80's" it is painful.

Alas, this whole thing gets a 2 out of 10.

I do not buy many comics online anymore.  I really like the thrill of finding issues out in the wild.  However, if the FOMO creeps in on something, I will snag them if I find them online.  That was the case with a bunch of issues of a different series recently.  I had stopped at a few stores on the way home from a work trip and hadn't found everything I had been looking for so I logged into Atomic Avenue and found a few books at a decent price.  I threw this in to lower the overall shipping cost because I hadn't had any luck finding it in the wild.

Oh...and I am only missing issue #16 of Infinity, Inc. to complete the whole run.