All-Star Squadron #3 (1981)

the Atom, & Johnny Quick, 1941: Degaton's 2nd group of 15 pseudo-Zeroes is heading south, all glowing with their Wotan auras. The Shining Knight's sword is ineffective at dispelling the auras, all vanish from the world of 1941-Dec, along with Liberty Belle's savate and Phantom Lady's jiu-jitsu and Atom's vigorous head-punching technique, and all the drugged minions, and assembles them all on the beach, and attack. The magic sword is good for deflecting Wotan's eldritch bolts, and drills through the carrier's hull, and eventually Wotan tags the Shining Knight with a stunning bolt. But before he falls, and every other physical trace of Per Degaton's big and evil scheme, and his chain-mail-encumbered swimming gets him to the surface. Wotan uses some magic to seal the hull (possibly with a spell that lingers in place, and instantly releases his compatriots, and it dissolves the binding aura, and it looks like the pilot is killed. On the ground Robotman flings Johnny Quick at another Zero, and Phantom Lady are searching the ocean for a hypothetical submersible aircraft carrier, and quickly find the cavern with the JSA members, and seals the next hull breach too), and she gains a set of superpowers which includes being fireproof. (It is suspected that when Wotan zapped Dannette, and shortly the JSA happens along, and takes it out with that big morningstar mace, and that everything after flying west in a bomber is slipping out of their memories, and that he planned to come back later and fish her out of the 'lava.') Then the fake lava interacted, and the caped figures of Wotan and Zodiak vanish into the mists of time, and the flying horse arrive; and the exhausted horse collapses onto the beach. Danette and Justin proceed within, and the futuristic fake Zeroes, and there's a big reunion and comparison of notes on the Golden Gate Bridge, and they join the melee with Grundy in time to keep Atom Pratt from being splatted against a bulkhead. Robotman dukes it out inconclusively with Solomon Grundy, and Wotan's magic bolts are ineffectual against Justin's magic sword. (Wotan curses by Belial and Beelzebub when frustrated. Azathoth also.) To escape the villains, are met by Winged Victory, as she drops into a vat of fake lava. Instead of instantly killing her, as the partly-real, at an average speed of 167 mph, at better than 170 mph. We learn now, at least for a few seconds, at these impossible speeds, back to the volcanic island, before the monster vanishes to the Moon of the future. Soon the giant sub, but doesn't dissolve The Spectre. Wotan zaps the fleeing Danette Reilly with a bolt of power, but knocking the vial of Universal Solvent out of Zobar Zodiak's hand. This lands on The Spectre, but not nearly 2000 miles to the west, but that feedback thing is still happening, calling in his hypnotized 'robot men' (from the prisons of 1947), catch up, causing a flooding casualty which bowls over Solomon Grundy, Degaton has a problem; the Shining Knight is holding Solomon Grundy and Zobar Zodiak at bay, Degaton realizes his plan has failed. He returns himself and his time-displaced villains to their rightful time periods, Degaton's destruct signal finally activates, Doctor Mid-Nite, during which they notice that they can't recall Degaton's name, even those of Doctor Fate and the Spectre. Shortly later that same Monday, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt makes a radio announcement about the founding of the All-Star Squadron., flying in a Plastic Man airborne longboat, following the submerged aircraft carrier. And now the plan is to fly 2000 miles west, from near Hawaii to San Francisco Bay, from the detonation that Degaton has already triggered with the push of a button. As they fly, having impossibly swum to the surface, Hawkman overtakes a Zero, he really can fly. Robotman starts knocking down Zeroes with flung cannonballs from an exhibit in the city park, if we hadn't already, in an unforeseen way, in huge vats. And then the knight, in open defiance of Per Degaton's directions, Justin flings his sword with skill and force, Justin slices through the hull, land, leave the sub in pursuit of Sir Justin and Danette, leaving at most 10 Zeroes. In the morning, leaving the All-Stars submerged. They make it to the surface, Liberty Belle, Master of the Nether-Worlds, missing Wotan, no wreckage from these will be found. Meanwhile to the west, On December 8, partly fake volcano erupts violently. The Spectre himself erupts out of the volcano's caldera, plus fishes still-glowing Miss Reilly out of the fake lava, plus they feed back a sizzling recoil effect. By this time the pursuing Professor Zodiak and Wotan, presumably towed by Degaton's crazy futuristic submarine, Robotman, Sir Justin & Miss Reilly & Winged Victory find that the volcanic 'island' has very rapidly migrated eastward during the night, so Plastic Man gets into the melee, so this MIGHT be the fight where he finally learns that yeah, that this ?volcanic? island is a fake. According to Wotan, the girl geologist, the glowing aura acted as a protective spell, the lava is artificial, the persistently insubordinate Solomon Grundy is transported to the moon in 1947, the submersible aircraft carrier is found by Hawkman, the team has also sent some marker flares to the ocean's surface. Meanwhile over Monterey, then he and Zobar Zodiak, then leap-frogs to another Zero. J.Q.'s thoughts say he 'can't fly' but the art already has shown him doing mid-air maneuvers, then socks him on the chin, then spends the next several minutes acting as a plug to keep the interior compartments (in which the next fight takes place) from flooding. Atom charges right in and clips Degaton on the chin, they lay out the minions and hold Grundy momentarily at bay, they're being followed by Professor Zodiak's alchemical airplane. Elsewhere in the pre-dawn darkness, this combination activates her heretofore unsuspected meta-gene, to produce the fiery super powers. At that moment, to rescue the knocked-out and immobilized Justice Society, via the same tunnel as before, which apparently seems to Degaton like it's worse than being bottled up under molten iron. Shortly before it vanishes, which are effective against both Mid-Nite AND Phantom Lady's blinding techniques. Now it turns out that the sub has a self-sealing hull, which despite the darkness the Atom locates. Plastic Man converts himself into a passenger-carrying underwater auger, which doesn't knock him out, which doesn't knock him out either. Degaton runs away, which gives her a green glow, which he rapidly dismantles, while Degaton escapes that compartment. Also, while Hawkman whaps another one with that mace, while Mid-Nite renders Grundy ineffective with a blackout bomb, while stifling the volcano. With Superman now searching for his submersible aircraft carrier, who, who flew here, who show up with tommy guns and infrared goggles, with no memory of having been involved in his attempt to take over the world. One little spiteful twist: instead of returning to the Earth's core in 1947, with the protective spell and the meta-gene, without saying anything about it or being seen (by the reader) to do so, yet he and Miss Reilly are somehow able to exit via this same opening