Crazy to think that we haven't seen Jay or any of the real JSA heroes in almost a decade. Wow. Didio's New 52 really did a lot of long lasting damage.
Oh well. I'm currently getting a nice dose of Jay and his JSA buddies reading All Star comics and plan on continuing to read up on the JSA apearences beyond that.
My name is Wally West. I"m the fastest man alive. I"m the Flash.
Favorite Heroes - 1-Flash/Wally West, 2-Superman, 3-Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, 4-Nightwing, 5-Hawkman, 6-Firestorm, 7-Supergirl/Linda Danvers, 8-Zatanna, 9-Robin/Tim Drake
My name is Wally West. I"m the fastest man alive. I"m the Flash.
Favorite Heroes - 1-Flash/Wally West, 2-Superman, 3-Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, 4-Nightwing, 5-Hawkman, 6-Firestorm, 7-Supergirl/Linda Danvers, 8-Zatanna, 9-Robin/Tim Drake
Seems a waste not to give such an iconic hero the occasional solo mini or one off. Hell, even new guys like Signal or the Batman Who Laughs gets minis, never mind all those doomed solo titles from that New Age of Heroes line.
What would you say are the best Jay appearances then, his supporting stuff with the Flash family or his JSA stuff?
Yeah, Jay has not had an on-going since the golden age. As far as best appearances in the modern era, you mentioned probably the two best, which were The Flash from the 90s with Wally and then later JSA and Justice Society of America by Johns. Those are two of my favorite runs and Jay had significant roles in each run.
Here are some good one shot appearances that I would recommend:
Flash 134- A Day in The Life of The Flash- great issue where Jay helps one of his former rouges who is on his death bed with one last request.
Flash 161- Honeymoon in Las Vegas- Great and entertaining issue! Jay is on his honeymoon and his JSA friends show up and ask for his help.
Aquaman 44 by Peter David- Jay and Alan are on vacation with their wives when a sea monster shows up. It’s a fun story!
Wonder Woman by John Byrne 130-133- Time travel shenanigans, thats all you need to know.
Any of The Flash 80 page giants that came out during the 90s -00s usually featured a Jay Garrick story, specifically the 1997 special which was a follow up to the John Byrne story mentioned above.
There was a short lived 1990s revival of The Justice Society by Len Strazyinski (spelling ) that was quite good. The first issue featured all of the JSA and then the following issues featured certain members.
I am still working to collect and discover other appearances, but any of these would be fun stories if you are interested! Hope this helps!
AKA FlashFreak
Favorite Characters:
DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.
Current Pulls: Not a thing!
AKA FlashFreak
Favorite Characters:
DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.
Current Pulls: Not a thing!
Jekyll got you as far as where to find solo Jay stories but as far as which is better, his appearances in Wally's Flash or JSA goes I would say he had more of a quantity consistent role in JSA as he was a permenant member but in Flash he had more of a quality role. Jay had an impactful presence in there as a symbol and as an emotional support.
Although I haven't read too much of JSA so Jekyll could probably help.you out more with that.
My name is Wally West. I"m the fastest man alive. I"m the Flash.
Favorite Heroes - 1-Flash/Wally West, 2-Superman, 3-Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, 4-Nightwing, 5-Hawkman, 6-Firestorm, 7-Supergirl/Linda Danvers, 8-Zatanna, 9-Robin/Tim Drake
My name is Wally West. I"m the fastest man alive. I"m the Flash.
Favorite Heroes - 1-Flash/Wally West, 2-Superman, 3-Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, 4-Nightwing, 5-Hawkman, 6-Firestorm, 7-Supergirl/Linda Danvers, 8-Zatanna, 9-Robin/Tim Drake
I would tend to agree with Wally's statement about Jay having more of a quality role in The Flash. Wally was of course the star but Jay definitely added a lot of heart and emotion to the book.
In the JSA run, which is fantastic by the way. Jay serves as one of the core 3 members. So he has more of a leadership and mentoring role to the younger heroes. He also has several stories where he flat out kicks ass and it's fantastic! There is a larger cast to juggle during this run so as the story deepens Jay starts to become more of a background character.
To me he is always at his best when he is mentoring a younger hero and you see that in both The Flash and The JSA.
AKA FlashFreak
Favorite Characters:
DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.
Current Pulls: Not a thing!
AKA FlashFreak
Favorite Characters:
DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.
Current Pulls: Not a thing!
Was cool to see that as Waid was building the Flash family he made Jay and even Joan the backbone of it. I think Bart had a special relationship with Joan as well if I recall correctly.
I just finished All Star comics from the 70's. So im.slowly building my way to Johns JSA. I just know Johns likes to brilliantly weave the past iterations of a franchise into a cohesive mythology so I thought I would read the past JSA stuff before I get to his to fully appreciate it.
Jay had some cool moments in All Star. Beating Power Girl in a race. Taking Joan out on vacation. I'm guessing Alan Scott is the second core member of the JSA. Who is the third?
Jay is really a mentor to the whole DCU. There was an issue of Superman during the triangle years where they meet up to stop some tornadoes and SUPERMAN showed a lot of respect to Jay.
He must have something over the head honchos. He has driven DC into the ground several times and he's still here. Meanwhile guys like Axel Alonso who lost Marvel a lot of fans and money was fired years ago.
I think this might be DC's last chance to wake up.
My name is Wally West. I"m the fastest man alive. I"m the Flash.
Favorite Heroes - 1-Flash/Wally West, 2-Superman, 3-Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, 4-Nightwing, 5-Hawkman, 6-Firestorm, 7-Supergirl/Linda Danvers, 8-Zatanna, 9-Robin/Tim Drake
AKA FlashFreak
Favorite Characters:
DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.
Current Pulls: Not a thing!
Jay's costume appears in the Flash Museum in this week issue.
Did you guys have the chance to read Justice League #31 ?
I highly recommend it because I think Scott Snyder shows he could be a fantastic writer on a Jay Garrick book !
One can only hope ...
AKA FlashFreak
Favorite Characters:
DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.
Current Pulls: Not a thing!