Per Degaton, Part 6: 1957/"Dazed But Still Intact"

Green Lantern arrives at Per Degaton's Colossal Caves hideout on his stealth mission to steal the Time Machine back so the JSA can reverse the damage P.D. did at the Battle of Arbela, which will then reverse The Change (which has been causing technology to vanish).

Alan's "ninja mission outfit" has a matte lining cape, rather than sateen.

"Just like at The Crew Club (a men's private health facility)!"

Did he... phase through the mountainside? Who knows?  The Golden Age operates on the Principle of Inverse Explainability: the Less Something Requires Explanation, the More It Is Discussed; the More Something Requires Explanation, the More We Pretend That It's All Perfectly Obviously And Nothing Needs To Be Said.

Note that, due to the Principle of Inverse Explainability, Alan continues to be dumbfounded by the concept of 'echoes', while unblinkingly nodding about time-travel and disappearing technology. And what is that echo he hears? It is the voice of reason!

And the voice of reason belongs, of course, to KALE.

Kale is trying to convince his shallow, short-sighted boss not to destroy the Time Machine, Humanity's Greatest Invention.  I'm not sure why Kale is surprised: Per Degaton's destroyed EVERY OTHER INVENTION (including pavement) .  He's not a scientist; he's just a brute.

OH MY GOD IT'S, IT'S SOME KIND OF ECHO, IT'S LIKE MAGIC

IT'S LIKE A HALL OF MIRRORS BUT MADE OF SOUND I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING MAD!

Poor Alan. If only he some non-technological device, immune to The Change, that magically could accomplish whatever he wanted. It might help him defeat the power of the Echo Chamber. It's like a maze on a children's paper restaurant placemat: "Can you help Green Lantern find his way through the Mountain Maze to the Time Machine?"

NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT.

Are we SURE Dr. Mid-Nite is the blind one?

So many things to say, but I'm just gonna go with:

DANG, Kale is FINE.

Somewhere in the multiverse there is an Earth where Kale just quietly shanked P.D. when no one was looking, and finished taking over the world and the JSA lived out the rest of their days, hunted in the woods and wastelands like an animals, and no more heroes (or villains) were ever born, and Kale led the world --forcibly at first but eventually through gratitude -- to everlasting peace and prosperity and personal fulfillment, and men still wear hats today.  

But, no, I am wrong; on any Earth, Kale is too supporting, too full of love and life, for such a betrayal. 

YES, Alan, I see, you found the Time Machine. Now, stop playing with your placemat and eat your French toast before it gets cold.

Or, Per, you could blow it up...now.  Because if a JSAer just shows up magically when it reappears they could stop it from exploding -- both of which are the kind of improbable things they do in between fistfights with thugs-- they'd have the machine and could come back and kick your butt (or more likely just FIX the Battle of Arbela).  But P.D. is a drama queen, and sending something 10,000 years into the future is more dramatic.  Speaking of drama queens...

Ladies and gentlemen: Alan Scott, Master of Stealth

Per Degaton, who is only good for hurtful things like undoing inventions and tearing down society, has to turn IMMEDIATELY to competent Kale for help when he needs anything constructive done.

Like machine-gunning people to death.

I'm sorry, Alan... did you just call Kale an UNDERLING?!  Look, I realize that you're repressing a lot of feelings in this decade but that's DANGED pompous and dismissive for someone who can fly and yet just TRIPPED ON AIR.

Hal Jordan did not start the fire, people.

Ah, whimsical Professor Zee! Sure, a Time Machine is cool, but he had to add fun, stylish touches like Compressed Air Shoots like a funhouse has and a solid wooden handle, because metal would be just too cold and impersonal.

"WE'RE running this city from now on."
Okay, P.D. can definitely be verbally abusive but... as a couple they are WAY more functional and mutually supportive than, say, Wind Pirate and Bosun.

Fortunately, Alan's Giant Head shaved 9,990 years off the journey into the future and pops out of the Time Machine 10 years later.  

"Dazed But Still Intact"-- The Green Lantern Motto

In the interest of story efficiency, the JSA are RIGHT there to greet him.  They tell him they defeated Degaton immediately after Alan got out of their way, then hired Kale as their manager, and therefore the world has been crime-free ever since, so he can finally take off that hideous costume.

"Your costumes look as though they haven't been dry-cleaned in YEARS!"

Oops.

Psych!  Without Alan Scott's absurd good looks (and magical wishing ring), they got their butts kicked and have been hunted, living in the woods and wastelands ever since.

But Johnny did NOT lose that bowtie.

Yes, it's a dystopian heckscape!  The world is completely conquered except for SIX PEOPLE:

• a chemist who USED to be fast;
• a guy who flies;
• Wonder Woman;
• a 5'1" 20-something with no college degree;
• a doctor; and
• a congenital idiot who happens to have a magic genie that could fix everything with one or two wishes, which is the premise for his being in the JSA to begin with, but we must completely ignore that, as we do for ALL stories, because it would end all stories immediately.  

No, really.  Our favorite criminal couple, now FULLY functional and happy as the world's rulers, have been pioneering minimalist decorating and occasionally remembering "heroes" and "opposition".  

DANG: ten years and Kale STILL looks that good,
just like Anthony Carrigan.
Oh, Per; did you ever realize, on your mad path to global domination,
that you had the whole world all long...?

And, sure enough, in 1957 (which would have been the year of Alan's return) there was no JSA and as result the DCU had gone to heck:

No more evidence, your honor; I rest my case.

BUT, with Alan's return of the Time Machine, the JSAers now have the power to fix everything!

Of COURSE you can, Wonder Woman!

Oops.

Oh. Yeah.  I forgot: the bomb.  And maybe if Alan had been a little more focused, he wouldn't have forgotten. But he's very pretty!  It's good reminder that the real reason we make fun of Hal Jordan so much is because: Alan Scott's not around.

"SAY, YOU have a magical genie that can whisk us back to the Battle of Arbela, don't you, Johnny?"

Remember, it's just like I said; JSA stories are cleverly planned, it's just the way YOU expect.  The three heavy-hitters were saved to the end. Green Lantern, who did get the Time Machine, but to no avail, which gives Johnny Thunder, who can now use the Thunderbolt to take them to the battle of Arbela, where Wonder Woman, being in her element will win the ancient warfare battle. Observe, my insightful analysis of Golden Age plotting logic in action:

Oops.

Oh. Um. Okay.  So, they... could have done that... from Zee's hospital room?  And just ... didn't try? And the JSAers have been living in a hunted heckscape for a DECADE with the world under Degaton's thumb, because this didn't occur to Alan before?   Well...  that gives me a NEW theory:

Green Lantern rings, past and present, may be directed by willpower, but they are fueled by temporarily burning I.Q. points.  It explains much about GL behavior and why the more powerful they get, the stupider they seem to be. Their oath is the Guardians' litmus test: if you're stupid enough to recite that oath aloud, then there's no chance you're going to be generate enough power to be a threat.

Tomorrow (phew): The Battle of Arbela (331 B.C.E).