You’ll Never Believe Who the JSA Is Fighting (& It’s Kinda Awesome)

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The JSA have been facing some heavy challenges lately, thanks to the Injustice Society. The team’s had to deal with a traitor in midst, all while the team’s heavy hitters were trapped battling Surtur and the Injustice Society, a battle that ended in the death of Wildcat. The team is only just now starting to come back, but with Obsidian, Jakeem, and the Thunderbolt trapped in the Fifth Dimension, the JSA is missing some of their heavy hitters. However, what makes the whole situation great for readers is who trapped them in the Fifth Dimension — Qwsp, a Fifth Dimensional imp with an interesting history in the DC Multiverse.

Qwsp First Battled Aquman Before Being Instrumental in the Return of the JSA

Fifth Dimensional Imps have played an important role in the history of the DC Multiverse. The first one that we can point to is Mr. Mxyzptlk, who first appeared in 1944’s Superman (Vol. 1) #30. Mxy came to the Earth because he was bored and decided to use his reality-altering powers to mess with Superman, because it entertained him. He’d show up, wreak havoc, and Superman would have to figure out how to get him to go back to the Fifth Dimension, sometimes by making him say his name backwards. Mxy proved to popular, and Batman got his own version in Bat-Mite in 1959’s Detective Comics #269. Unlike Mxy, Bat-Mite was a huge fan of Batman and would try to help his hero, causing chaos every time. Eventually, Nightwing would get his own version of Bat-Mite in Night-Mite, as would the entire Justice League. However, decades before that, the next major DC hero to get a Fifth Dimensional Imp was Aquaman. Quisp first appeared in 1962’s Aquaman #1, where he would mess with Aquaman and Aqualad. However Aquaman was never as popular as Superman or Batman, so Quisp would eventually get forgotten as the years went by. However, some creators remembered he existed.

Grant Morrison’s JLA is the best DC comic of the ’90s for a lot of reasons. One of them is that Morrison laid the groundwork for the return of the Justice Society to prominence with the story “Crisis Times Five”, a story based on the old Justice League/Justice Society crossovers of the Silver and Bronze Age. The Justice League and the Justice Society ended up battling the forces of the Fifth Dimension, all because of Quisp, and it was revealed during this story that the Thunderbolt, the genie that gave Johnny Thunder his powers, was a Fifth Dimensional imp named Yz. However, the Thunderbolt wasn’t the only old school character that was changed to a Fifth Dimensional Imp — Quisp was as well, his name changed to the vowel-less Qwsp to fit the Fifth Dimensional Imp naming conventions. By the end of the story, the Justice Society would be back together, and Jakeem Thunder would take the elderly Johnny Thunder’s place as the keeper of Yz (later, Johnny and Yz would be combined, and Johnny would become Johnny Thunderbolt, although I’m not sure if this is still canon). Qwsp was a big part of this whole situation, which is why JSA writer Jeff Lemire brought him into this book.

Qwsp Showing Up Again Shows That JSA Is Telling the Ultimate Justice Society Story

As a longtime Justice Society fan, JSA has impressed me from the beginning. Lemire not only nailed the character dynamics of the book, using what came before to inform the current story, but also did a great job of using the team’s history with its villains to make the battle against the Injustice Society that much better. Qwsp is a DC deep cut and there’s a good chance that even most JSA fans don’t know just how important he was to the return of the team in the late ’90s.

Even the fact that Qwsp trapped Obsidian, Jakeem, Johnny, and the Thunderbolt in a Fifth Dimensional maze is a throwback to “Crisis Times Five”, as Qwsp was thrown into a maze as punishment for his actions in “Crisis Times Five”. Seeing Qwsp again is awesome, and it gives me even more faith than I already had in JSA.

JSA #9 is on sale now.