Who's This? An All-American team.
The facts: One of Mike Barr's patented "themed" antagonist teams, first appearing in Batman and the Outsiders Annual #1 (1984), the Force of July was a misguided (or at least misled) group of fanatical super-patriots operating under the leadership of the fictional American Security Agency. They clashed with the Outsiders a number of times, but for the most part died during the Janus Directive crossover event at the hands of the Suicide Squad. Those that survived were press-ganged into the Squad and - aside from Major Victory who would continue with the team for a while - died on their first suicide mission.
How you could have heard of them: Members of the Force of July have recently appeared in the Penguin series.
Example story: The Outsiders #23 (September 1987) "...And the Rockets' Red Glare" by Mike W. Barr, David Ross and Bob Smith
On the 100th Anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, the unhinged Soviet hero(es) Fusion (three dudes in one!) plans to blow the celebrations up, so Gorbachev sends the People's Heroes to team up with the Force of July to protect the statue. And the latter team couldn't be more pleased with Glasnost.
A flash of personalities here. Major Victory hates it, but will still follow orders. Sparkler is a teen who shouldn't be mentioning his buns on an open panel. Lady Liberty is a French national (so much for All-American) so she says some random nonsense in French. Silent Majority is a man of few words (on brand). And Mayflower might be British (again, why are they so fiercely patriotic to the USA?!), and you know that because she calls someone Ducks. Given their reaction, it's no surprise the People's Heroes are the more adult about this task than the Force of July is.
To date, I'm with Bolshoi on this. How about some action? The Outsiders, invited to the ceremony through Prince Brion of Markovia (AKA Geo-Force), notice the People's Heroes and think, yeah, we should start a fight here. Major Victory tries to explain (although saying this is a "secret mission" when everyone's in costume always makes me smirk), but the Force doesn't have a great track record with the Outsiders either. He gets punched for attempting to defuse the situation and the battle begins.
That's Looker who first sensed the People's presence, but nevertheless can't use her mind powers to validate their claims. Sigh. Also, Lady Liberty's bad French continues to grate on my nerves. So we've got a bit of Poison Ivy, a bit of Green Lantern, and of course Major Victory is a tank. Just perhaps not as much of a tank as Geo-Force is.
And of course, Sparkler is Jubilee. (He's got zero chance. What is a "young boy" doing in a paramilitary government operation?)
Silent Majority is the Multiplex, but the artist just doesn't want to drawn multiples of him, it seems. He's just a guy in a black suit, the least complex character in the whole book. What's the problem? Anyway, Fusion and their terrorist group gas the whole lot of 'em and they have to escape together. More or less off-panel.
They beat the terrorists and then enjoy the Statue of Liberty celebrations.
Like, I don't know what kind of authority the A.S.A. has, but yeah, the Outsiders almost ballsed everything things up by thoughtlessly barging in. And this is how they recount the events to BATMAN? The ONE GUY who's probably more down on the Outsiders than I am?! The story cuts out before he tears them a new one, unfortunately.
But as for the Force of July, I think their best showing is that beautiful Jerome Moore Who's Who entry. They were never as cool than they are there, and in fact, were NEVER cool at all EXCEPT on this page. Sad.
Who's Next? Space hippies.
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