3 out of 5

Quality.  Times were different, man.  Writers today still take on like 20 books at a time – Roy Thomas was writing a million, editing a million more, hence his gifting dialogue on this ish over to Mike Baron – but back in the 70s and 80s, there was this weird feeling like writers owned little corners of the universes in which they were dabbling.  Sure, people would cycle on and off titles, but it was a little rotating crew of backstabbers / back-patters, nursing shared worlds to life.  Was it better?  Eeeh, I don’t know how to answer that.  It was an extreme boys club; reach was limited.  It was different.  But am I much more accepting of the cheeky heroics and poetic narration from that era than I am of people attempting proxies of that now?  Yeah.  I guess it felt more sincere.

All-Star Squadron – Firebrand, Liberty Belle, Robotman, Starman, Tarantula, and Guardian, in this issue – debate amongst themselves on how to rescue the kidnapped Belle from some bad guys.  A classic inter-group scuffle results in a divided team, mirrored in a divide on the antagonists’ side as well, so that some exciting allegiance switch-ups can happen in the concluding battle.

Baron zips through this stuff pretty well, but there are a lot of details to shuffle, and everything feels a bit rushed and sloppy toward the end.  Arvell Jones’ pencils and Bill Collins’ inks are really tight, though, achieving clarity even when the physics of what’s happening (within comic-book reason) don’t make a whole lotta sense.

Fun for what it is, and what it was.