‘JSA’ #7 offers a much-needed break from the chaos

The JSA get together to mourn one of their own.

May 7, 2025

Good night, champ. Rest in peace.

After the finale of “Ragnarok” resulted in the death of Ted Grant aka Wildcat, writer Jeff Lemire and guest artist Rafael de la Torre devote JSA #7 entirely to the fallen hero. Gathered at the memorial service for Jay Garrick’s eulogy, the various members of the Justice Society do their own introspection about their beloved comrade. They don’t just ruminate about their relationship with Ted, but two of his successors also get opportunities to reconsider their place in his legacy.

Since the fast-paced “Ragnarok” storyline delivered high-octane action and raised the stakes for DC’s oldest heroes, JSA #7 offers a much-needed breather. Rather than following multiple storylines where the heroes are pressured into taking quick action (complete with bickering among themselves), it’s actually refreshing to experience a down-beat issue. For the entirety of the story, the Justice Society heroes sit down and relax, while offering each other emotional support. This not only allows the heroes to unpack in a healthy way, but it also affords them moments of vulnerability that feel organic to the story’s events.

The best moments in the issue arrive in the interactions between the mourning characters. One of these excellent moments sees Power Girl (apparently still called “Paige”) attempting to comfort Yolanda Montez at the end of Ted’s funeral to offer her words of comfort. However, despite Power Girl’s best intentions, Yolanda isn’t truly feeling it. Lemire and de la Torre do an excellent job at portraying the complexity of emotions Yolanda is feeling, both in the script and in the artwork. Given how she impulsively killed a member of Kobra in JSA #6, she’s left feeling far from worthy of the Wildcat mantle.

Yolanda experiencing something of an existential crisis following the events of “Ragnarok” leads to another excellent moment in JSA #7: her brief interaction with Ted’s son, Tom Bronson. Though this is Tom’s first appearance in Jeff Lemire’s JSA run, he was a member of the team during the Justice Society of America run of the 2000s, and was also featured in JSA All-Stars and JSA vs. Kobra in that same decade.

What stands out about this brief interaction, however, is Tom (referred to as “Tommy” here) establishing that he has no interest in continuing his father’s legacy as Wildcat, citing that it just isn’t for him. This is significant, because in just a few panels, Lemire and de la Torre establish the kind of toll superheroics has on the people who partake in it, with some deciding that it’s simply not worth the risks.

Another fantastic moment in JSA #7 is Khalid Nassour (Doctor Fate) coping with the death of Ted Grant, especially as the character who was hit the hardest by his loss. A good chunk of the “Ragnarok” storyline was devoted to Khalid not feeling worthy of the Helmet of Fate and lacking the confidence to wield its powers. Despite getting a boost of confidence from Ted during their battle inside the Tower of Fate, Khalid is back to where he started, but now feeling much worse than before.

This is an excellent showcase of Khalid’s humanity from both Lemire and de la Torre, and one that affords the character with a greater degree of depth that hasn’t been previously seen. The fact that Lemire and de la Torre continue this momentum with Khalid promises an exciting future arc for the character. While Lemire and de la Torre maintain an excellent balance of depicting emotional character moments without making the story feel cumbersome, one thing that continues to be a dead weight in the series is the bickering between certain characters, namely the one between Rick Tyler (Hourman) and Jesse Quick.

While it’s understandable that Lemire and de la Torre are attempting to explore the complexities of superhero marriages with the couple, and the toll that their shared lifestyle has on their relationship, at the same time, there’s very little context for Rick and Jesse’s conflict. The fallout from the events of the 2024 event Absolute Power provides some context, but it doesn’t begin to explain what actually caused the rift between them. At best, that might be a storyline Lemire could expand on in a later storyline, but for now, it’s an unnecessary conflict that isn’t adding to the story.

One last thing that’s becoming a bit tiresome is the rivalry between the Justice Society and the Justice League. Ironically, this is not actually an issue with Jeff Lemire’s writing as much as it reveals the much bigger problem with having the Justice Society on the same Earth as the Justice League. Apart from the fact that it creates major continuity holes in the Justice Society’s history, the other problem that arises from this is that it gridlocks the team into the status quo of being “the old guys that came before the Justice League.”

This has also led to a pattern of the older Justice Society heroes constantly reminding the Justice League that they’ve “been doing this longer” than they have, which is on full display here. This similarly prevents the Justice Society from experiencing any meaningful progression as a team, especially in the case of Infinity, Inc. Despite being the actual successors to the Justice Society, in many ways, the Justice League renders this second generation team irrelevant. It additionally relegates the Infinity, Inc. characters to just being the kids of the older JSA heroes, and not having much significance beyond that.

All in all, JSA #7 is a solid issue that focuses more on character and their internal conflicts, but future issues could benefit to drop the rivalry between the Justice League and Justice Society, and better contextualize the rift between Hourman and Jesse Quick.