I Promise to Get Off Your Lawn Posthaste, Sir, but Could I Please Have Your Autograph First?

Got my new debit card yesterday, so I went comics shopping today. Bought my weekly issue of Booster Gold, Flash #233, and that Green Lantern shirt I told myself I wouldn't buy last week. (I realized that I owned black pants and could therefore use it as an excellent basis for a Halloween "costume." I also live in southern California. So if I die of heatstroke, it was totally my fault.) I also Byrne-stole the Superboyman Special. ...Mostly to see if Booster did anything particularly noteworthy in the background. (He caught Miss Martian, for the record. Totally important.) Additionally, my copy of JLQ #1 arrived in the mail today, so it's a pretty good comics day for me. :3 Expect a rant about JLQ #1 at some point, because that's pretty much everything great about Booster concentrated. But I'mma talk about Flash right now. Or, more accurately, a tangent off of Flash.

There was a back-up by John Rogers (writer of Blue Beetle), you see, which is, incidentally, why I bought the issue. It featured Jay Garrick. Which is where I go off on my tangent.

So, I'm a big fan of the Badass Old Dude type. Honestly, I'm probably reading JSA more for Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, and Ted Grant than I am for any of the younger characters. I harbor a great deal of <3 for Peacemaker over in Blue Beetle. There's something really charming about that, y'know? These guys could retire. I mean, they're old; it's not like anybody would really hold it against them, right? They've fought the good fight since WWII or thereabouts, you can't say that they haven't done enough. But they keep fighting anyway, because they're just that great.

Like the Flash back-up with Jay. Technically, of course, Jay is still rather young at this point. Still courting his lady love, even, but you can still see a lot of the foundation that makes him a Badass Old Dude. The guy's just been teleported from his lady love's front porch, mid-conversation, by an alien dogosaurus, and while he's trying to get an explanation, these crazy aliens break in screaming about murder and rape and the like, and what is Jay's response? "I know bad guys when I see them." And even "Where I come from, you knock before barging in!" It's kinda hokey and cheesy, but that's kind of the point. Even Gorflack (the aforementioned alien dogosaurus) narrates that "Yes, he really said that." Jay is old-fashioned. That's his charm. He's all about the "yes, sir" and "no, ma'am" and church on Sunday and Ma's apple pie, straight from the oven. In JSA #1, Wildcat says that "polite" describes Jay in one word, and this is very much the case.

Jay so very much encapsulates what it is to really be a hero that he manages to inspire an entire planet, whose society was on the very brink of destruction, to fight back and repel their invaders. Freedom, justice, and family. That's the JSA, right there. It's just plain pure heroism. I love it.

And, y'know, Jay's the heart of it. That's what makes this story specifically a Jay story. It's all about the heart. Of the JSA's Big Three, Alan's the brains, Ted's the brawn, and Jay's the heart. So, when these guys finally retire or die or whatever it is DC decides to do with them when having folks who fought in WWII still be active just isn't feasible anymore, I really do hope that the three of them get to go together. I'm not sure it'd feel right to have it any other way.