Warning! Spoilers to DC Infinite Frontier #0 below!
With the launch of DC's Infinite Frontier, Pat Dugan, the former sidekick known as S.T.R.I.P.E, received a call that his old team The Seven Soldiers of Victory have reformed and need his help. With this call, one of DC Comics' oldest superhero teams following the Justice Society of America has returned, likely thanks to their prominent presence in CW's Stargirl series. This team of mostly non-powered superheroes has struggled to find their place in a modern world much different than the one they debuted in. However, their presence may set the stage for the next phase of DC stories, contributing to the companywide goal of making all previous characters and stories intertwined and relevant.
Created by Mort Weisinger and Mort Meskin for Leading Comics #1 (1941), the Seven Soldiers of Victory followed the JSA with their characters chosen from various DC anthology series at the time. With an unconventional roster including sidekicks and (mostly) no real powers, they joined together to stop the machinations of the sinister Iron Hand and continued their adventures until they disappeared. This absence was later retconned having been due to a battle with the Hand and his creation, the Nebula Man, which saw the victorious heroes scattered through time and space as a result. Although the combined effort of the Justice Society and Justice League was able to find and retrieve these heroes, the Seven Soldiers went their separate ways and never reformed despite one or two other different incarnations of the team being formed. Although some of the heroes continued to be active, others had their legacies passed on or adopted by a new generation of upcoming heroes.
One of those legacies was Sylvester Pemberton aka the Star-Spangled Kid, currently carried by Courtney Whitmore, the teenage hero known as Stargirl. In the story by writer Geoff Johns and artist Todd Nauck, the young JSA member is running late due to a supervillain battle. When S.T.R.I.P.E. flies in to end the conflict, Courtney's inner monologue and summary include a flashback to her stepfather's past including his time in the Seven Soldiers alongside Green Arrow and his sidekick Speedy, the Star-Spangled Kid, the Crimson Avenger, and his sidekick Wing, Vigilante, and the Shining Knight. After Pat helps Courtney get out of trouble at school, he gets a call from his old teammate Vigilante who cryptically says " Pat....The Soldiers. We need you...," before hanging up.
This reappearance is definitely due to Dugan's presence in the Stargirl series which not only included a photograph of the entire team in their prime but also featured the return of the Shining Knight who helped his old teammate and the young heroes under his tutelage before leaving to locate the other members of the Seven Soldiers. Not including Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers series in 2005, Stargirl creator Geoff Johns takes the opportunity to not only tie-in the television show with her comic book counterpart but also pave the way for the Golden Age heroes to make a comeback. This is likely due to the new rules of the DC Omniverse which states that all stories, past and present regardless of genres, are not only connected but influence each other.
Although it's a brief introduction, that cliffhanger ending means that Pat and Courtney will likely get to reunite with Stripesy's old teammates and assist them on whatever mission or villain was important enough to get the band back together. Although the Seven Soldiers of Victory were some of the less famous heroes of DC Comics at the time, its nice to see Infinite Frontier acknowledge DC's rich history by having its past and present stories standing at equal ground as they move to a new era of storytelling, brimming with creative possibilities.
