- They were only Nazis! You'll be mowing them down like crabgrass by the end of the year! But let's talk about you and me.
DC 2000 #1 is an issue of the series DC 2000 (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 2000. It was published on July 12, 2000.
Synopsis for "Two Thousand"
FLASH BACK TO 30 June 1941, little Tommy Morrow, age 5, is playing in his yard with a magnifying glass, sadistically burning ants.
FLASH FORWARD TO 30 June 2000, 36 hours into the reign of Morrow the First: T. O. Morrow is zooming around in a futuristic city on a hover platform, lording it over the downtrodden and intermittently-starving populace, who worshipfully clamor for food, the supply of which he controls, as he controls all things. He then spends some time gloating over four publicly-chained up captives of his regime: Star-Spangled Kid (Courtney Whitmore), Atom Smasher (Al Rothstein), Flash (Jay Garrick), and Hawkgirl (Kendra Saunders), all of whom have received severe injuries and are dying.
FLASH BACK again ...
On the very early morning of June 30th 1941 at the Hotel Keystone, the Flash (Jay Garrick) was ambushed by midwestern desperadoes Spider Slick and Fly Finn, who had been armed with automatic rifles and armor-piercing ammo from the 1990s, by T.O. Morrow. Jay Flash was momentarily unable to protect the Keystone police force from these weapons. Batman stealthily knocked out Fly Finn and stole his weapon, leaving one in Miss Slick's hands, and vanished from the scene, completely.
The previous evening, (it had to be), Dr. Charles McNider was approached by Dr. Seely, a sleazy huckster peddling genuinely futuristic medical technology: an artificial heart. The Atom (Ray Palmer) stealthily grabbed the model and the data and the notes, and shrank them to submicroscopic sizes, and ran away with them, then vanished from the scene, completely. But McNider and Hooty his owl had both definitely seen him. Doctor Mid-Nite wired this info to the Justice Society of America, on whose behalf The Flash then invited him to an emergency meeting.
At dawn on 30 June 1941, at a northeastern military base, Nazi-looking attackers, piloting an Apache chopper attacked, while the Atom (Al Pratt) was on the scene, striving to save lives, while Green Lantern (Alan Scott) and Hawkgirl (Shiera Saunders) and Hawkman engaged the aircraft. Before they could strike, a fiery ray from above sheared off the chopper's tail, then a gigantic green-plasma tentacle snagged up the falling chopper, and vanished into the clouds, incompletely. Green Lantern and both of the Hawks flew into the cloud bank, and met Wonder Woman and Superman and Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), all of whom immediately and VERY rapidly fled, with the helicopter. Kyle provided a KISS-concert's-worth of distraction, in larger and louder than life green plasma, much to the horror of the three pursuers; then they vanished, completely.
Meanwhile on the ground, The Spectre (1941 Jim Corrigan) arrived, while the Atom beat some information out of the Nazi pilots: the names and addresses of their fifth column agents in Greenwich Connecticut, to which location The Spectre instantaneously transported them both: a large house containing some 1940s radio equipment, some swastika banners, half a dozen dead Nazis, and a laptop computer. And T.O.Morrow 2000, who had just that moment rubbed out the Nazis with a futuristic machine gun. Then he vanished, completely. The Spectre figured him to be a time traveler, but didn't know how to pursue him.
Shortly later that same day, the entire Justice Society plus Dr Mid-Nite (with an uncharacteristically self-aggrandizing demeanor), plus Hourman, who was still around after the previous day's adventure, plus Starman, who would soon replace him on the team, plus Hawkgirl, convened at their round table. Green Lantern dismantled and reassembled Spider Slick's machine gun while Hourman 1941 marveled at the teflon-coated ammunition and the Spectre poked at the laptop. The members debated whether two hostile agencies were at work here or just one. Doctor Fate clouded the issue, but the Spectre cleverly used the "Informatio-Scope" to find T.O. Morrow's address: 243 Arlington Avenue Greenwich 7 Connecticut.
One JSA team went to Greenwich, while Green Lantern and the Spectre, communicating telepathically, followed up another clue, searching Earth orbit for an artificial satellite, which had been there but had already vanished, incompletely, and they found some energy traces, which they were able to follow to the Moon. There they found a cache of green-plasma treasure chests and crates, containing many confiscated items of future technology. Based on the fact that invisibility is a form of deception, which he had the supernatural power to dispel, The Spectre suddenly detected the presence of the Martian Manhunter, and abruptly shined Green Lantern's light on him, exposing him to plain sight. Telepathically discerning J'onn's vulnerability to fire, he created an oxygen bubble and a spark, capturing the alien superhero.
Shortly later that same day, Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, the Flash, and Starman visited T.O. Morrow's childhood home, and met his sweet but quite daffy Mom, Mrs. Tamara Morrow, a recent widow. Tommy's father, Francis Xavier Morrow, died in a jet-pack accident. Tommy Morrow 1941, age five, was apparently already a sadistic ant-burning little creep, on the path to super-villainy.
Soon, the Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, the Flash, the Sandman, and the Spectre were interrogating J'onn J'onzz, who was manacled to a coal furnace in the basement of JSA HQ. The Martian Manhunter's superhuman mental blocks were thwarting the Spectre's telepathy, and Sandman's aptitude at perp psychology wasn't working any better. Suddenly the very irritated Justice League intervened, seven of them, now including Aquaman and the Flash (Wally West), and they set the Martian Manhunter free. JLA Chairman Batman cautioned JSA Chairman Flash against taking action from a position of ignorance. From a careless remark of Wally Flash, Jay Flash began to figure out that these JLA people were visitors from the future.
The JLA huddled amongst themselves, and decided to come clean: they were indeed here from the year 2000, in pursuit of T.O.Morrow's time-displaced technology, to prevent history from being changed in ways that nobody present would like, and that the JLA wasn't really free to talk about. Jay Flash suggested lunch, and the conversation moved upstairs. But just as the first bits of inter-team bonding were taking place, Starman noticed that the Martian Manhunter was missing. Sure enough, he'd grabbed the green plasma chests and crates full of dangerous future tech, and was absconding, and gave the telepathic signal for the whole JLA to split. Melee time: Batman punched out Sandman; Aquaman punched out Hourman; Superman threw Starman at Hawkman; a precision-teamwork escape was under way, when The Spectre put a magic whammy on the JLA, enclosing them in a transparent sphere plus shrinking them down to about one foot in height.
The JSA's internal argument continued, about the intentions of these strangers, but the Spectre telepathically extracted and displayed, from the memories of his prisoners, a VERY slanted view of the life and culture and recent history of the JLA's America in 2000, then mades a guilt-by-association argument against the JLA. Starman bought into it; Jay Flash and Kent Fate were quietly unconvinced.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Appearing in "Two Thousand"
Featured Characters:
- JLA
- Aquaman
- Atom (Ray Palmer)
- Batman
- Flash (Wally West)
- Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)
- Hourman (Behind the scenes)
- Martian Manhunter
- Steel (Behind the scenes)
- Superman
- Wonder Woman
- Justice Society of America (past and present)
Antagonists:
- T.O. Morrow
- Fly Finn (Single appearance)
- Spider Slick (Single appearance)
- Fifth Columnists
Other Characters:
- Dr. Seely
- Hooty
- Keystone City Police Department
- Myra Mason
- Ronald Reagan
- Tamara Morrow
- United States Army
Locations:
- 1941
- Earth's Moon
- United States of America
- Connecticut
- Greenwich
- 243 Arlington Avenue, young T. O. Morrow's house
- Greenwich
- Kansas
- Pennsylvania
- New York
- Connecticut
- 2000
- Atlantis
- Morrow City
Items:
- Batrope
- Gravity Rod
- Green Lantern Ring
- T.O. Morrow's M.O.R.R.O.W. computer
Vehicles:
Concepts:
Notes
- This adventure takes place on 30 June and 1 July, 1941, just one day after the Justice Society's battle with Ian Karkull of 28-29 June 1941, described in All-Star Squadron Annual #3, which in turn took place immediately after the events of All-Star Comics #7.
- This adventure doesn't take place at all, according to the Martian Manhunter (page 63, panel 1, DC 2000 #2).
See Also