Friday Night Fights: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Wildcat

When I was a kid, I was a sucker for team books, and one of my favorites was the revamp of All-Star Comics in the late 70s, starring the Justice Society of America. However, the series had one drawback for me: it focused too often on Wildcat, a character I didn't care about at the time.

Now, the reasons I didn't like Wildcat were pretty clear: his costume was boring, he was powerless, and he was constantly written with this punch-drunk dialogue, with lost of "dems" and "ders."

But then I read All-Star 68 (1977). In this story, the Psycho-Pirate has used his emotion-influencing power to control the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern. The rest of the Justice Society tracks Psycho-Pirate down, but the heroes are quickly dispatched by the villain and his two slaves.

Psycho-Pirate prematurely declares victory, however, when he discovers that one JSAer is still standing: Wildcat. As the bad guy says, "It appears least has been saved for last!"

Wildcat then calls Psycho-Pirate out by laying down the smack.



At this point, 8-year-old Dr. K was weeping in the face of the sheer awesomeness of this scene.
The mind-controlled heroes then collapse once the Pirate is out.

From that scene on, I was totally on board with Wildcat, and since then, Wildcat has always been a part of the Justice Society through several revamps, and even through several cullings of Golden Age heroes. Ever since then, too, I've been a sucker for the comic plots where the weakest member of a team is left standing, and the villain dismisses him or her to his regret.

Bahlactus declares a knockout!