JSA: The Novel, Part 3

In 2005 I wrote a novel, JSA: Ragnarok, which was to be published by Byron Preiss' iBooks. Byron's tragic death in an car accident ended iBooks and, while the company's assets were bought by a new owner, the fate of Ragnarok remains up in the air. I've run an excerpt or two here in the past. Here's another, from a chapter set in May 1945:

JSA: RAGNAROK

JSA and all related characters and elements © DC Comics

Sandy Hawkins, in blue slacks and a white shirt with rolled up sleeves, turned the corner onto the Coney Island side street where Wes had parked and now waited by the car after ditching his Sandman get-up and Sandy’s Golden Boy costume.

Wesley closed the trunk of his 1936 Duesenberg SJ coupe. He checked the knot of his tie in the gleaming chrome bumper, then waved at Sandy.

“I brought you something,” said Sandy, handing Wesley a hot dog covered in mustard and sauerkraut. “I ate mine on the way over, I was starving.”

“It’s...what is it? A hot dog?” Wesley asked, scrutinizing the assemblage of foods in his hand.

“It’s not just a hot dog. It’s a Nathan’s.”

Wesley looked at him.

“You never heard of Nathan’s?”

Wesley shook his head.

“You’ve been to Coney Island before, right?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ve never had a Nathan’s hot dog?”

“We usually catered our little jaunts.”

“You’re trying to tell me that in your entire life, you’ve never had a Nathan’s hot dog?”

Wesley shrugged.

“You’re that rich?”

“I am that rich,” Wesley grinned and took a massive bite of the frankfurter and kraut. “And you are that gullible, my friend. I’ve been downing Nathan’s dogs, only the best frankfurter in the known world, since I was a third your age.”

Sandy laughed. “I knew you had to be kidding me.”

“No you didn’t. Listen, kid, just because I happen to be filthy, stinking rich doesn’t mean I’m not human. What’d you think, they fed me lobsters and caviar when I was a kid?” Wesley took another bite of the hot dog. “And if you know so much about fine dining, how could you even think of coming back here without any of their french fries?”

“I couldn’t carry it all and eat at the same time. Guess we’ll just have to go back for them.”

“Let’s go, kid,” Wesley said, popping the last bit of hot dog in his mouth. “The next round’s on me.”

* * *

Several hot dogs, fries, cotton candy, rides, popcorn, attractions, and ice cream later, Wesley and Sandy found an empty bench on the boardwalk. It was too early in the season for sunbathers and swimmers, but strollers filled the beach, many of them young and in uniform, hand in hand with wives or girlfriends, watching younger siblings or their own children, gathered in groups, all celebrating the end of the part of the conflict that required they wear those uniforms.

“Wesley,” Sandy said.

“What, kid?” Wesley couldn’t remember the last time he had been this tired this early in the day. Tromping up and down the boardwalk, waiting in endless lines to mount dizzying rides and pass through goofy funhouses, eating all that food that tasted so good but was so bad for you...unless you were a thirteen-year-old boy with an endless capacity for getting dizzy and eating junk. His stomach was begging for a bromo, his pants felt too tight and his feet were hot and throbbing.

“Thanks,” Sandy said. “This was a lot of fun.”

“Well,” Wesley said, suddenly not quite so bothered by his sour stomach and aching feet, “that was the plan.”

“Sure, but you know what it’s like for guys like us.”

“Guys like us?”

“You know, mystery men guys. I mean, before we could even ride the Cyclone, which is only the best roller coaster in the world, we had to go chase after that Bullwhip goon.”

Wesley nodded. “It’s not easy, Sandy, I know. Everyone else gets to go on with their lives while we have to break off from ours to do what we do.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Wes,” the blond boy said earnestly. “I wouldn’t trade being Sandman’s partner for anything, but it’s just that me and you don’t get to spend a lot of time together, y’know, when I’m not the Sandman’s partner.”

“Just plain Sandy, huh?”

“And Wes. Yep.”

“Okay, Sandy.”

“Thanks, Wes.”

They watched the waves roll onto the beach for a while.

“Wes?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve been dating Aunt Dian for a long time now, haven’t you?”

Wesley, his eyes closed as the sun warmed his face, said, “Did your aunt get you to badger me to marry her?”

Sandy’s laugh was a short, amused bark. “If Aunt Dian was that crazy to get married, she would just ask you herself.”

“Yes,” Wesley said. “Yes, she would. And, yes, we have been seeing one another for...well, we met at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Half a dozen years. And, yes, I do love her madly and completely and, I suppose, one day we will get married but so far neither of us is in a rush. Plus, I might add, I’m rather pleased that she has a nephew who, for a pain in the neck, is otherwise a pretty swell kid.”

Wesley glanced at Sandy, who looked straight ahead, but now with a big grin on his face.

“A bunch of us in the JSA were talking earlier in the week,” the older man said. “We all agreed that with the war winding down, now would be a good time to spend less time as our costumes and more time as ourselves. I know almost everything about Sandy, the Golden Boy, but I couldn’t even tell you Sandy Hawkins’ favorite baseball team.”

“The Giants,” Sandy said.

“Ouch,” Wesley winced. “Yankees here...although sometimes, and usually in secret, I’ve been known to root for the Brooklyn bums from time to time.”

Sandy looked up in surprise. “Me, too! Even when the Dodgers play the Giants, I hate to see ‘em stomped too bad.”

“All right, then,” Wesley said, “we’ll alternate between Giants and Yankee games...and an occasional Dodgers every month or so. Agreed?”

Sandy shook his hand. “Deal!”

“Next, favorite authors?”

Sandy grinned. “Who’s the guy who writes the General Glory comic book?”

“At last,” Wesley said in mock relief, “something we can agree on!”

* * *

The Duesenberg’s 240-hp engine rumbled happily under the hood as they idled at the traffic light on Surf Avenue, parallel to the Boardwalk.

The day had, Wes thought, been a complete success. Sandy was a good kid with a lot of heart and it was high time Wes started treating him as such and not as just another tool in his crime-fighting arsenal. He should, in fact, encourage the boy to spend more time being a kid instead of saddling himself with the grown-up responsibilities of catching criminals and defeating despots. Besides, what if something were to happen to him during one of their adventures? When Sandy had first joined the Sandman just a few short years ago, the world had been such a different place. Now, the war had somehow upped the ante and made it that much more dangerous. Bad guys were no longer disposed to surrender so quickly, the weapons seemed to have gotten bigger, and the costumed villains were turning insane and seriously dangerous.

Wesley said nothing of this to Sandy. Why ruin a great afternoon with something so serious? And the kid had had a ball, that’s for sure. Sandy had no father, no big brother to look up to. And here was Wesley Dodds, bachelor, man-about-town, bon vivant...auditioning for the part. Was he a sap or what?

Wesley glanced to his left as he waited for the light to turn green. He was stopped in front of the Half Moon Hotel, a rundown fleabag with a history. “See that place?” Wes asked, pointing to the painted brick façade. “About a month before Pearl Harbor, New York’s D.A. William O’Dwyer had a Murder Inc. stool pigeon named Abe ‘Kid Twist’ Reles under police custody in the Half Moon.”

“I read about Reles,” Sandy said. “His testimony was supposed to send half the Brooklyn mob to the chair.”

“He helped get a few convicted, until someone pushed him out of the sixth floor window. They called him ‘the canary who could sing but couldn’t fly.’”

“I guess the only thing worse than a crook is a crook who turns rat, huh?”

“Like they say, Sandy, there’s no honor among thieves.” The light turned green and Wesley started to let out the clutch. He took one last glance at the old Half Moon, his gaze almost passing over the man with the carefully groomed goatee and string tie walking up the street. He hesitated a split second before putting the car in gear, looking straight at the bearded man.

He knew that face.

The man turned into the lobby of the Half Moon and was gone. Wesley frowned and then, at the urging of the horn of the car behind him, slipped into first and drove on.

Steven Sharpe III, the Gambler. Wesley wondered what brought him to town, all the way out to the farthest reaches of Brooklyn, no less. He would find out later, tonight, after he had gotten Sandy safely home.

JSA: The Novel, Part 2

The sad, sad story of my poor never-(yet)-published Justice Society of America novel JSA: Ragnarok is related here. Here's another excerpt, set in the days right after Germany surrendered, a charming little chapter that follows superheroes Ted (Wildcat) Grant and Queen (Wonder Woman) Hippolyta on a night out on the town, JSA-style:

JSA: Ragnarok

© DC Comics

Chapter 11/ May 1945

Hippolyta still wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to behave.

Back home, on the island of Themyscira with her Amazon sisters, her role was well-defined by both tradition and heritage. She was the queen and that was all there was to it. Forms of address, access to her person, acceptable comportment, all were taken care of for her. The structure was a blessing, considering her tendency towards passions that could be a considerable disadvantage to the fulfillment of her royal duties.

Those passions unchecked were always the cause of misery for her and the Amazons.

Although they had also been responsible for the best thing that had ever happened to her and her people as well: Her daughter, Diana, who grew to become the champion Wonder Woman. She had turned her passion to raising her daughter and so it seemed only natural that when Diana’s life was threatened, Hippolyta did what was necessary to save her, putting another Amazon in Diana’s place to die. Yet shortly thereafter, in spite of her efforts, Diana’s life was lost anyway. In penance for her sins, the gods demanded Hippolyta take up the heroic mantle of her fallen daughter. After traveling back to the days of the conflagration in Man’s World called World War II in pursuit of a foe, Hippolyta chose to serve out her sentence there, alongside the JSA.

And then there was Ted Grant.

Hippolyta could not deny it. Another of her passions was handsome, strong and powerful men. Heracles had been the first, and look what that had wrought! Conquered and bound, the warrior women of Themyscira, who had seen their fair share of slaughter on battlefields across their lands, had been humiliated and accepted banishment from mortality and from the world.

Of course, Ted was no Machiavellian godling on a quest to impress his father Zeus, king of the gods, with his cunning. Ted was a man. A noble and kind man, but underneath it all, just a big, sweet...lug?

“Lug?” she said. “Is that the word?”

“I dunno. You talking about a wrench or me? ‘Cause if it’s me, I ain’t no lug.” Ted Grant sat up straight and proud, pointing at himself with a thumb and beaming a brilliant smile at her. “I’m a palooka.”

“A palooka.” Hippolyta nodded in approval. Heracles hadn’t been a palooka, she decided. If Ted was a palooka, a palooka had to be sweet. Heracles had been...ferocious, a mountain of a man with enormous appetites and small honor.

“We’re here, babe,” he said. With an effortless spin of the wheel, Ted maneuvered the sleek black roadster to a flawless stop at the curb. He had cut his headlights halfway up the block.

Hippolyta took in their surroundings. The street was deserted, storefronts dark and gated for the night. Maybe a third of the streetlights worked. They got broken so regularly, the city finally just stopped repairing them. Abandoned cars were everywhere, great shadowy and menacing heaps, stripped of anything of value and left to rot here, in a piece of Gotham City that seemed to have embraced something dark and entirely unpleasant.

“That’s the little joint I was telling you about,” Ted said. There was no need to point. The only sign of life was the candy store, midway up the block. It splashed a patch of light the color of old snow across the cracked sidewalk. A green Breyers ice cream sign hung at an angle over the glass front, the counter open to the sidewalk. A newsstand rack piled with newspapers stood just outside the door.

“Can’t say much for the ambiance,” Hippolyta said. “Shall I bring any accessories?”

Ted shrugged. “Don’t think you’re really gonna need ‘em,” he said. He reached into the backseat and felt around until his fingers closed around the hilt of Hippolyta’s short sword. “But what the hell. Bring the damned thing anyway. I do love the looks on their faces when you come at them with the sword.”

Wonder Woman opened the car door and took the sword from Wildcat’s hand. “For you, dear Ted,” she said. “Shall I take the front door?”

# # #

Everybody called the place Sid’s but no one could tell you who Sid had been. No one particularly cared, either. Not even the gray men and women who worked at Sid’s, selling cigarettes, racing forms, newspapers, chewing gum, and, for customers particularly in the know, some reefer, some horse, and, if you had the price, a lot of guns.

Hippolyta had pointed out that any one of those items alone would be reason enough to shut down this establishment and volunteered to join Ted in doing just that.

She decided to go in making as much threatening noise as possible. That was often enough to paralyze the average felon, especially one who wasn’t expecting trouble. She imaged what it must be like for them, seeing a woman who looked as she did, dressed as she was in a not immodest red, white and blue costume, sword in hand, deflecting bullets off her silver bracelets, charging at them bellowing Amazon war cries. As Ted said, the looks on their faces were worth the trouble of bringing the sword.

Wonder Woman announced her arrival at Sid’s by heaving the wooden newsstand that stood outside its door through the storefront.

The sound of shattering glass and splintering wood seemed to wake the place up.

Behind the counter that cut down the center of the cramped space, a mug in a fedora with an apron over his shirtsleeves pressed against the wall. His eyes were wide with terror and he had not yet gone for a weapon.

Neither had the pair who had been occupying the last of the three small booths in the rear of the store. What Ted would call “professional muscle.” What she called mercenaries, soldiers who hired themselves out to the highest bidder. The newsstand had landed between the first two booths, but the muscle goons were already going for their guns, trying to scramble around the obstruction for a shot at her.

“You—stay put!” she warned Fedora as she ran past him, the sword up in her hand.

With a savage cry, Wonder Woman’s sword cleaved the weathered wood of the newsstand. That stopped the muscle for a moment, long enough for her to leap over the booth and knock the closest one cold. By the time the other one remembered it would prove useful to have a weapon in hand, the tip of a finely crafted Amazon short sword was pointed at his throat.

“Who’s back there?” she asked the muscle, whose eyes had doubled in size, pointing with her chin at the doorway at the rear of the store.

Slowly and carefully the muscle shrugged.

“Loyalty to your employer?” Wonder Woman said, surprised to find any honor among these thieves. “I’m impressed.” Then she slammed her fist across his chin, sending him slumping across his two companions.

Wonder Woman turned to Fedora. He still hadn’t moved. She pointed at him with the sword. “You!”

“Ye-yes ma’am?” he stammered.

“Who is back there?”

He shrugged and spoke quickly, “A guy, says his name’s Lou, ain’t never seen him other than when he comes in to work the back room there, but I don’t know nothin’, okay? I just work the counter, selling smokes and gum, see? Back room’s none’a my business. I ain’t even packin’.” He pulled off his apron, spreading his arms and pivoting like a ballerina to show her he wasn’t armed.

Wonder Woman nodded sharply, then turned her back on him. He was a non-combatant, no longer worth her attention. “Go,” she said. He went.

The door at the rear of the store opened. Wildcat stepped through it, an unconscious heap in a cheap suit dangling from the end of one of his fists. He glanced around approvingly at the destruction left behind by Wonder Woman’s entrance. “Nice,” he said. “Anyway, backroom’s packed with hot goods, from guns to drugs, plus a nice pile of cash. This one’s named Lou, but he’s just hired help manning the contraband concession.”

“Then we’ve hit a...dead end?”

Wildcat grinned, “We hit the mother lode, doll! Lou wasn’t alone back there. He had a pal visiting him on other business.”

“Which is...?”

Wildcat let his unconscious burden slump to the floor and, still grinning, beckoned his star-spangled partner into the back room. She followed.

The area behind the candy store was easily twice as large, with every spare inch filled with stacks of wooden packing crates. A wobbly card table and two folding chairs sat by the door under a single bulb dangling by a frayed wire from the ceiling.

Also dangling from the ceiling, suspended by one foot attached to a hoist used to move the heavy crates, was a second man. He was in his mid-thirties, with receding hair, and a narrow, stern face.

“Wonder Woman, meet Herr X,” Wildcat said by way of introduction.

“Herr?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. When I popped in through the back door, this one here started spouting off in German. I didn’t catch all of it, but apparently, my mother and father were never married but that doesn’t really matter, I guess, because I’m pretty much just a pig anyway. He also pulled a Luger on me, but that didn’t hurt near as much as the name calling.”

“So this is a front for a Nazi set-up?” She stepped up to the man hanging by his ankle, looking into his upside down eyes. “Is that it?” she asked in flawless German. “The master race is selling drugs and firearms to America’s children?”

“I have nothing to say,” the man answered in heavily accented English through clenched teeth.

Wildcat crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “Gosh, he’s got nothing to say. What’re we gonna do?”

Wonder Woman unhooked the glowing golden lasso that hung at her side. “Perhaps I can convince him to talk.”

“I have nothing to say to...” the man said fiercely, then stopped speaking as Wonder Woman looped the golden rope around him.

“Just relax,” she told him. “You can fight my lasso of truth but you won’t win. Its touch compels you to speak the truth.”

Muscles twitched in the German’s face.

“What is your name?” Wonder Woman said.

“St-Steiner,” he stuttered, his voice squeezing through a throat clenched tight.

“Hermann Steiner.”

“Hermann,” Wonder Woman said. “How long have the Germans been running this operation?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head convulsively. “Not ours.”

“Then what is your connection to it?”

“Operation Ragnarok.” The words tumbled from his mouth against his will.

JSA: The Novel

I finished this novel in July 2005 and it was due to be published sometime in 2006 by iBooks. The sudden death of iBooks publisher Byron Preiss caused a whole chain reaction of events that resulted in bankruptcy for iBooks and the cancellation of this—and many other—books. DC is currently in negotiations with the new owner of iBooks and there is some hope that JSA: Ragnarok will be resurrected and published...indeed, that it will even be followed by two more novels to complete what was originally planned as a trilogy.

In this excerpt, taken from the last chunk of the book, Michael Holt, aka Justice Society of American chairman Mister Terrific, is, along with his teammates, in the clutches of the bad guys and things don’t look good for them. Michael’s remembering back to his pre-superhero days, to the last time he let himself get distracted:

JSA: RAGNAROK

JSA and all related characters and elements © DC Comics

The 400 meter was the last event of the first day of the decathlon and Michael Holt felt nothing but good about his chances. The 400 was his event. He had already taken the 100 meter, the long jump, the shot put, and high jump, breaking one personal best and three Olympic records in the doing. He was well ahead in points and the odds-on favorite to take the gold. The whole stadium seemed to be on his side as he took his place at the starting line.

The closest thing he had to competition was the Kenyan, a whippet thin young man with densely corded muscles and deadly serious expression, currently in second place. He had gone over to shake the other man’s hand and wish him luck before the race, but instead of being a gentleman about it, the Kenyan had instead given him only the most perfunctory of handshakes and then turned his back on Michael.

Well.

If that didn’t call for some serious butt kicking, Michael didn’t know what did. He glanced over at his competitor, but the other man had his eyes fixed on the tape, 400 meters, just a shade under 361 feet down the track. The Kenyan was giving away nothing. He had to know he was up against a superior athlete. Any other year, he would have been a cinch for the gold medal. Just his luck to qualify the same year as the one competitor in the world who outclassed him.

Michael took his position, steadying his breathing. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the Kenyan. The Kenyan ignored him. He only had eyes for the finish line. Too bad Michael’s back was about to block his view.

The starting gun barked and the runners pushed off.

Michael Holt sailed into an easy lead, legs and arms pumping in perfect rhythm, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth. Every bit of technique he had ever learned and had trained into himself so deeply that it was as natural as the beating of his heart came into play. He wasn’t just running, he was flying, fractions of seconds ticking off in his head with the accuracy of a Swiss timepiece. The world record in the 400 belonged to Michael Johnson at 43.18 seconds. Michael’s best in competition was 43.32. The Kenyan’s was 43.55.

He needed to shave only .14 second to tie, .15 to beat it.

And teach the Kenyan a lesson.

He allowed himself a glance at the Kenyan’s lane to his left. He saw the African was matching him, stride for stride. There was nobody between them. It was down to just them. The damned Kenyan was running the race of his life.

And the spectators knew it. Suddenly, the cheers were no longer for Michael Holt but for the Kenyan.

And then Michael stumbled, not much, just a half-step, nothing anyone but another runner would even notice, but enough to cost him less than a tenth of a second. Less than the blink of an eye.

But enough to lose him the race and cost him the world record.

The Kenyan broke the tape at 43.21.

Michael was right behind him at 43.26.

The stadium went wild. And just before he took his victory lap, the Kenyan turned his head and caught Michael’s glaring eyes, giving him an almost apologetic half-smile and a minute shrug.

Michael Holt went on to win the remaining five events the following day, giving him nine out of the ten and setting a still-unbroken Olympic record for the decathlon. Nine out of ten. The Olympic gold. But what he remembered most about his victory was that .05 of a second loss, all because he got cocky and allowed himself to be distracted by something else, taking his eye off the prize, off the finish line where it belonged.

Losing your focus. That’ll kill you every time.