All-Star Squadron

On Earth-Two in January 1942, in Per Degaton's control room, he gets the news that the Justice Society has come after him, from forty years in the future. It doesn't faze him at all. On a huge video monitor, Degaton and at least five henchtroopers are observing a U.S. battleship steaming in the North Atlantic, via aerial TV camera. On the main deck are fifteen colorful figures from three super teams: Aquaman, Commander Steel, Doctor Fate, Firebrand, Firestorm, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Huntress, Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Power Girl, Robotman, Starman, Superman, and Zatanna. Degaton's sensors reveal that five of them are from a future decade of a parallel world, which still doesn't bother him. But he's able to eavesdrop on them, and the heroes don't seem to know they're being observed, so Degaton's mad overconfidence may not be completely unwarranted. Degaton's demonstrator nuke had radioactively contaminated the area, until Doctor Fate and Zatanna had magically cleaned it up. Robotman and Commander Steel are curious about how this time travel business is working out, so Firestorm and Doctor Fate and Green Lantern (all from 1982) recap the adventures and travels that have brought them to this particular time and place. And once they have their story straight, they return to the White House and report it to President Roosevelt. Degaton has been eavesdropping this whole time, and now knows everything they know. Degaton now transmits a new warning, to FDR, and to Churchill and Hitler and Stalin and Tojo, with a five-hour deadline and an ultimatum for all of them: He's now the dictator of the world, or else. Roosevelt, who had just days earlier defied Anton Hastor's takeover demands, now decides that the risk of mass civilian fatalities is too high. The Justice teams have got five hours, but after that, he's determined to resign. They form five sub-teams and get to work. Doctor Fate, Robotman, and Superman fly into Earth orbit, intercept Degaton's space satellite, and start ripping it apart, when they encounter a kryptonite boobytrap, which takes out Superman almost instantly, and then are attacked by Ultraman. Doctor Fate magically counterattacks; Ultraman shrugs it off and punches Fate out, then partially disassembles Robotman, and flings him toward Earth. Doctor Fate rallies and reattacks, then Superman does so also, and Ultraman is soon punched into outer space, and Robotman is quickly rescued and reassembled. Aquaman, Liberty Belle, and Starman fly across the Pacific towards a spot, a few hundred miles south of Japan, where Starman's Cosmic Rod has detected radioactivity. Aquaman dives into the ocean while the other two land on a small island. They find a Japanese military post with all the troops unconscious, then the radiation trail leads them down a cave, to an underground missile base, manned by at least six Degaton troopers, plus Superwoman. The troopers are quickly dispensed with, but Superwoman knocks Starman unconscious (lariat snap to the back of the head), and punches Belle almost unconscious. She runs her mouth enough for Belle to figure out the amount of distrust existing between Per Degaton and the Crime Syndicate, which is considerable, then grabs Starman's Cosmic Rod and gets ready to kill the two heroes, except that just then Aquaman and some blue whales smash their way into the under-island base, bringing a big bunch of the Pacific Ocean with them. Seconds later, as the base is rocked with explosions, Starman flies his two colleagues plus trussed-up Superwoman, safely out of range. The whales also escape. The six or more troopers manning the launch station, and the unconscious Japanese garrison aboveground, not so much. Hawkman, Huntress, and Johnny Quick, equipped with a hastily-rebuilt geiger counter, are criss-crossing the central USA in search of high levels of radiation, and eventually find some, concealed in grain silos, somewhere in the Midwest. Before they can do anything about it, they are attacked by Power Ring, who by the way has already treacherously mowed down all the Degaton henchmen who had been guarding and operating this site. He easily ensnares Quick and Hawk in some green coils of ring-energy, but the Huntress knocks him out with a batarang. Still, before he falls down, he manages, accidentally or not, to launch one of the ICBMs. Before it can reach full speed, Johnny Quick launches himself onto it from Hawkman, and very rapidly disassembles the missile, managing also not to detonate it in the process. One safe landing later, Quick spends the next few minutes dismantling the remaining unlaunched missiles. Degaton has been observing these encounters, and is having a fit about it, but he's still got a final ace up his sleeve, and if anybody is insane enough to use it, he'd be the guy. So before today is over, either he will have conquered Earth or there will be no earths anywhere.