The Halls of Fate, Part One
(yes, I know, bad pun, shut up)
Anyway.
After the events of Gaiman's Sandman, it's revealed in JSA Secret Files and Origins that Wesley Dodds, the man who fought crime under the name Sandman in the 40s, still retains the "gift" of prophetic dreams that he gained in his encounter with Morpheus. And so our story begins with a death, a murder, and a reincarnation.
Thirty two total pages from Secret Files, and JSA #1-4. So very not dialup friendly.
And from the end of the story...
The new Justice Society of America series begins, and we find out what Sandy's first dream from his inherited ability was.
The still-surviving former members of the JSA, and some newbies, gather for Dodds' graveside, where Jay Garrick gets a vision of the first Doctor Fate right before everything goes chaotic.
They're interrupted by a horde of zombies in ancient Egyptian clothing rising up out of the ground, and after beating them down, the costumed heroes discover that Fate's artifacts have disappeared. Scarab shows up, claiming to know what's going on, and everyone reconvenes at the old brownstone.
Everyone splits into three groups to go find the infants in question. Those who went to Tibet and Venice strike out, but the crew that went to Vancouver has better luck. Sort of.
After the prerequisite fight, Hourman identifies this new Hawk as Kendra Saunders, grand-niece of Shiera. And things go from awkward to very bad, very quickly.
After flattening the heroes who come to the rescue, Mordru goes to Fate's tower, where Scarab (unknowingly followed by Courtney Whitmore) has found Fate's artifacts.
Courtney interferes to protect the kid (which amuses the hell out of Mordru), and the rest of the arriving heroes are quickly dealt with. But during the decidedly-one-sided battle, she hears a voice out of the artifacts.
The new Fate and Mordru begin magically battling it out, warping the reality around them in the process, until...
After tending to the body of Scarab and looking after the other scattered heroes, Hector teleports them all back to the brownstone for explanations.
I love how he's so casual about the reincarnation thing, like it's freckles or blue eyes.
"...But just beginning."
Tune in next time for Part Two, in which Extant raises temporal hell and Hector finds out a big secret from Mordru.