I know that the new issue hits the shelves tomorrow, but I am a new reader to JSA, and I must say-This was one of the greatest story arcs I have ever read.

I like the Mordru/Obsidian/Eclipso team up-though Mordru seemed to carry the trio. I hope to see a clix version of this version of Mordru, aside from the old futuristic Gandalf version we have now. His power potential in clix terms ,is incredible.

I love the way Hector came into his own as Dr. Fate (and it was a great lead-in to his mini-series, which also has #2 hitting the shelves tomorrow). I am a big Dr, fate fan, and forsee him as being the greatest.

I'm not too up on comics, and am getting into the groove of things after 10 years off.

The whole Dr, Fate -is the son of Hawkman thing was...weird to me.

But them again, the whole Fate legacy is a bit weird to me.

So let me get a few things straight:

The First Dr. Fate was Kent Nelson
Then it was Eric Strauss. Next it was his step-mother Linda, and even later it was them in conjunction?

Then Dr. Fate's amulet, helm, and cloak were transformed into (what exactly?) and given to Jared Stevens who simply became known as Fate.

Then He was murdered by Mordru??

Meanwhile Hector Hall (Son of Carter Hall) is killed as Silver Scarab and his soul is in limbo awaiting for the proper child to be born. This child must be a child that is produced under the Order and Chaos=enter Hawk and Dove......

Thus Dr, Fate IV is born????

Please let me know if I'm anywhere near the bullseye on this.

I was cool to see Alan Scott go back to using Green lantern as his name again.

This arc definitely sold me on not only the series, but Johns and Goyer. I already like Johns, because of his work on the Blitz story arc in Flash, but this was great stuff.

Also, what is up with the whole Hawkman thing? Is he Karter Hol or Carter Hall?

Are there still two versions of Hawkman? An earthling with special Egytian wings, and the Thangarian?

Also, was that the Kingdom Come Hawkman with Black Adam and Atom Smasher there at the end, when Black Adam pulled Kobra's heart out of his chest? Or was it Karter Hol???

Whooah boy, everything you said is right, but there's a few details that will help flesh out the story.

When Hector Hall first 'died' as the Scaraab, his soul was captured by two dream creatures named Brute and Glob. They transformed him into the protector of their realm and called him the "Sandman" (This was all modeled after the Kirby Sandman, who in the intervening years had apparently died). Hector brought his pregnant wife Lyta (Fury) to the Dreamspace with him and they remained happily there for an undetermined time (certainly longer than it would have taken for the baby to come to term, but everything seemed to remain the same as when Lyta got there).
Eventually Morpheus, AKA Dream of the Endless, re-appeared having been trapped for decades on Earth. He quickly took stock of his realm and noticed his servants Brute and Glob were missing. He located them and the Halls locked up in the dreams of a boy named Jed in a fantasy world of Brute and Glob's creation. Morpheus unceremoniously banished the dream creatures, "killed" Hector and released Lyta back to the waking world with the warning that the child she was carrying was by default his to claim because of the time he spent in the dreaming. (All this in the second arc of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman").

Eventually (and obviously unknown to Hector) Lyta had her baby and named him Daniel (actually Morpheus named him, but that's another story).

There came a time when Morpheus (who was the Prince of Stories) wanted to be part of a story himself which involved obviously and ending. He put into motion a huge scheme which involved Daniel being kidnapped by Loki and Puck, who seemingly killed him (in fact they had only burned away his mortality). Lyta went crazy and blaming Morpheus called down the real Furies to destroy all that he loved. In order to stop the chaos, Morpheus sacrificed himself but not before passing the mantle of Dream of the Endless on to Daniel. (All this in Sandman: the Kindly Ones. Note their are varying interpretations as to why things unfolded as they did but they fact you need is that Daniel became Dream).

Daniel then put a mark of protection on Lyta and sent her back to the real world, essentially abandoning her. She drifted for a while and had some more dealings with the furies (The Furies HC) but appears to be healing mentally and getting on with her life.

This doesn't gel with Nabu telling Hector she's "beyond his reach" but presumably Lyta's so entrenched now in the Vertigo Universe that they've put her off limits to the rest of the DCU. Don't expect to see her anytime soon.

I'll come back later on my break and fill-in some more gaps.

Ok, on to the Fate stuff.

Technically the first wearer of the mantle of Fate (although he was never called that) was the Lord of Order/Egyptian Wizard Nabu. He's been shown serving with Khufu (Hawkman's first incarnation) and the Pharaoh from the Exodus story (as seen in Spectre).

For whatever reason he went away for a while until in the 40's Kent Nelson found his helmet. Nabu charged him with using it to fight for order. Thus Dr. Fate was born. Kent eventually realised that Nabu *was* the helmet and that it was slowly taking him over. He abandoned it for a time and wore a half face mask. He still retained the powers of flight, super strength and some basic spell casting abilities (this was a back story created to account for the half-masked version of the character who was more 'super-hero' that mystic midway through the golden age). Eventually Nelson and Nabu struck a deal and Nelson returned to wearing the helmet.

Eventually Nelson died/went away/evolved and the Strauss family got saddled with the Fate legacy. Yes it was both of them at one point, kind of like a mystical Firestorm. Sometime around here Fate switched from "Lord of Order" to "Agent of Balance" although s/he never really did any chaotic stuff to my mind so go figure. Nabu hung around (separate from the Helmet this time) as their advisor, at one point inhabiting the corpse of Kent Nelson.

The Strausses didn't last too long and Jared got the helmet, melted it down and turned it into a sword and something else I think (can't remember). This was the post-Zero hour "Book of Fate", adored by many, reviled by just as many.

Anyway as your newfound copy of JSA#1 relates, Mordru killed Jared and other agents of Order and Chaos in an attempt to get the Fate artifacts (which turned back into the helmet and amulet) which ended up with the mystery child who was actually Hector re-born.

Hector spent a long time believing the woman who gave birth to him was Lyta (making him his own father), but it was later revealed to be Dove. I think you've got the rest.


Up next... Hawkman.

Hawkman:

First off, the current Hawkman, in both JSA and his own series, is Carter Hall, the golden age Hawkman reborn.

Now offical current history goes like this:

Carter Hall still found the Nth metal in the 40's an made his wings to become Hawkman. Doing so triggered the memories that he has been re-incarnated over and over again with his true love since the time that they were royalty in ancient Egypt and found the Nth Metal in a crashed Thanagarian ship (they were both later murdered with a knife made from the metal which is what partly got this whole re-incarnation thing going).

Hawkman served with the JSA for a long time. Eventually, the Justice League was formed. He was asked to switch teams and act as the liaison to the JSA on the JLA. This means that any Satellite Era JLA stories featuring the silver age, space-faring Hawkman, have now been re-written to feature the Carter Hall Hawkman instead. (I still think it stinks but i'm learning to live with it).

Eventually Katar Hol did arrive on Earth and take the name Hawkman (while Carter and the others were in limbo). This only happened relatively recently though (in post-Crisis timelines). This Katar Hol is the one from the Truman Hawkworld mini, so he was a lot more high-tech and armoured than his Silver Age counterpart.

Are we good so far?

OK, now Carter and the JSA eventually got released from there limbo. During Zero-Hour Carter, Katar and the golden age Hawkgirl were combined into one "ultimate" Hawkman for reasons that defy all logic. This amalgamated HAwkman really didn't win any fans, quickly went insane and then was banished to some phantom Zone type dimension.

While there, the three parties somehow managed to separate. Hawkgirl and Katar died, but Carter floated around until he was "reborn" on Thanagar with the help of the new Hawkgirl (See the "Return of Hawkman" JSA story arc). He's still Carter but has absorbed some of the characteristics and memories of Katar.

The Hawk-person with Black Adam is Norda, Carter's godson, who served in Infinity Inc. He recently appeared in the last issue of Hawkman, but my store shorted me on it ( ) so I don't know the story of why he looks like that yet.

Whewwww. Hope that helps.

Yes it does, and I thank you for that history lesson! Sometimes trying to read that stuff on websites, and the books themselves is a bit too much.