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"...That Earths May Live!": February 23rd 1942: On Earth-Two, off the coast of California, Liberty Belle and the unconscious Johnny Quick are about to be squashed under an onrushing tidal wave, sent at them by Tsunami. Starman and Firebrand arrive; he blocks the wave with stellar ene

Quote1 I've got nobody back there – just a fake life as a dead senator – so THIS America's as worth fighting for as any, to the Black Condor. Quote2
Black Condor

All-Star Squadron #35 is an issue of the series All-Star Squadron (Volume 1) with a cover date of July, 1984. It was published on April 26, 1984.

Synopsis for "...That Earths May Live!"

February 23rd 1942: On Earth-Two, off the coast of California, Liberty Belle and the unconscious Johnny Quick are about to be squashed under an onrushing tidal wave, sent at them by Tsunami. Starman and Firebrand arrive; he blocks the wave with stellar energy, and she chases Tsunami away with some fire bursts. Quick, Brandy, and Belle exchange some sharp words, then head for shore. Meanwhile deep beneath the surface, Tsunami rallies herself up for a second, more ambitious tidal wave attack, but suddenly is herself attacked by Neptune Perkins. That doesn't work out well; she can breathe underwater and he can't. She's also stronger and much faster than him, as she proves by speeding away after punching him around briefly.

Meanwhile, in the void between universes, the sheer psychic might of The Spectre continues to keep these two Earths from colliding, and thereby being destroyed. Inexorably the worlds draw ever closer.

On Earth-X, on the deck of a Japanese warship, Baron Blitzkrieg has defeated the Freedom Fighters (Black Condor, Doll Man, Hourman, Human Bomb, Phantom Lady, the Ray, Uncle Sam), and he drags them away, and chains them up in the ruins of an old stone fort, on one of the Channel Islands, off the coast of Santa Barbara. The Red Bee is missing and thought to be dead. The Baron does some explanatory gloating:

In an earlier encounter with the All-Star Squadron[1], he had been psychologically blinded, but just hours earlier, he had psychically sensed an energy surge, caused by Uncle Sam's inter-parallel-universe traveling. Blitzkrieg had managed to latch onto that surge and vanish himself from Berlin (E-2) to Berlin (E-X). In the process, he had regained his vision. Learning that masked men were now appearing among the many enemies of the Nazis, he inferred correctly that some Earth-Two mystery men had likewise crossed between universes, and set out to hunt them down. In Paris he encountered Midnight and the Doll Man; they were lucky to escape alive, but he couldn't pursue them back to Earth-Two without risking blindness. He had by luck encountered this Japanese naval attack group and had joined forces with it to attack California, and by even greater luck, found that these Imperial military were holding Hourman prisoner. Blitzkrieg still wants the recipe for his Miraclo pills, but Hourman tells him truthfully that he's altered the formula so that it won't work on anybody's metabolism but his own. Also Hourman is sweating and twitching and generally displaying withdrawal symptoms, and in passing, he mentions "black light," thus giving the Phantom Lady, and the Ray, an idea.

The Baron has her Black Light device in his hand, but drops it a second later, because just then, the Red Bee leaps into the room and whomps Baron Blitzkrieg on the head with a four-by-four. This fight is very short and at the end of it, the Red Bee is dead, from a snapped spine. But while The Baron's attention is diverted, the Ray manages to activate the black light and shine it on Hourman, and this activates the residual Miraclo in his system, restoring his superhuman strength; Hourman snaps his chains in one move, then leaps in to fight Blitzkrieg. Strong and fast as he is, Blitzkrieg is stronger and faster, and Hourman is just about to be killed, when Uncle Sam really rallies up and bursts his own chains; suddenly the fight is much less uneven. Uncle Sam mops up the room with Baron Blitzkrieg while Hourman set free the Freedom Fighters, one broken chain at a time. Three well-armed German stormtroopers rush into the room, shooting, and the Freedom Fighters are kept busy while Blitzkrieg concludes his bout with Sam, by fleeing from Earth-X back to Earth-Two, and taking his three gunmen (Earth-X natives) with him. He waves his hands and a transparent bubble appears around them, then they vanish.

While all this has gone on, weird Aurora Borealis style effects have been lighting up the sky overhead, and Uncle Sam now begins to worry that this has something to do with the interdimensional travel that's been going on. The gigantic face of The Spectre appears, over this ruined castle on this island off Santa Barbara, and confirms Sam's suspicion, also informing the Freedom Fighters that three of them must stay behind, to maintain the balance between worlds, while the rest must return to Earth-Two. Uncle Sam, Black Condor, and the Ray agree to stay behind on Earth-X, as the now officially named Freedom Fighters, and The Spectre conveys the other four heroes back to Earth-Two.

Arriving on Earth-Two, on the Santa Barbara shore, very close to where Liberty Belle and Rick Cannon are having a difficult conversation, Baron Blitzkrieg almost immediately goes blind again, and he flips out. A blinding white light appears and he's gone, taking his three gunmen with him. Firebrand, Johnny Quick, and Starman arrive just seconds too late to stop him. Liberty Belle breaks up with Rick and hooks up with Johnny, right in front of the others. Then Doll Man, Hourman, Human Bomb, and the Phantom Lady materialize on the scene, then The Spectre flies in through a hole in the sky, and briefly eulogizes the late Red Bee.

Appearing in "...That Earths May Live!"

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JLA v.1 21
Multiversal Crossover
The events from this issue or series involve a Multiversal Crossover between Pre-Crisis worlds and characters. This template will categorize articles that include it into the Pre-Crisis Multiverse Crossover category.
See also Post-Crisis Multiverse Crossovers.



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