A super criminal named Nardo was serving a lengthy prison sentence, begun one year earlier, after he had imprisoned super heroes from many worlds, including a number of members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. He had three eyes and incredible super powers of his own, which had made him unbeatable to the captured Legionnaires, until Mon-El and Ultra Boy had turned up to stop him.

It had also been difficult to defeat Nardo, because Nardo had a spy among the male super heroes in the boys prison camp, named Weight Wizard. What nobody knew is that Nardo had covered his bases well, and kept a second spy among the girls in the girls camp too. The girl had no super powers, and was not actually a super heroine, but an ally of Nardo’s whom he paid well to pretend to be his prisoner. As Nardo had strictly forbidden any of his captives from using their super powers against him, his female spy never needed to demonstrate the non-existent growth powers she claimed to have.

Yet Duo Damsel and Light Lass had used their powers so subtly, that Nardo’s female spy, going by the name Growth Girl had not observed their escape plans and never been able to report them.

As soon as Nardo was captured by the Legion, Growth Girl subtly made off with Nardo’s most significant scientific inventions and fled to her home. In June 2967, she visited Nardo in prison and asked for his instructions.

“If my own powers can’t get me out of here, I do not believe it wise to expose you in an attempt to aid me in doing so. However, it may be possible to prevent this outcome from happening in the first place. Do you have the Force-Gun I used to temporarily shrink Invisible Kid?”

“Yes, it’s at home now?” said Growth Girl.

“Good. The Force-Gun has another setting that will reduce size permanently. Invisible Kid automatically grew back to full size after six hours. I want you to use the time machine,” said Nardo, “It’s at my other complex, the one the Legion of Super-Heroes never discovered.”

“But it won’t work both ways. It’s only good for one trip, and then it burns out and strands the user at the other end of the journey. Only Brainiac Five has any idea how to make a more reliable one,” said Growth Girl.

“I know, but if my plan works, you’ll be better off, and so will I,” said Nardo, “Take the Force-Gun into June 1943. I have researched the secret records kept by a distant ancestor of mine, named Despero. He also had three eyes and the power to take on a whole team of super powered heroes. Some time around the late 1950s or early 1960s he challenged the Justice League of America. Yet he was beaten more than once over the years. He pondered his defeats and the history of the planet where he’d met them. Despero formulated a theory that the resolve of earth’s previous generation of super heroes (the Justice Society of America) could have been broken in the 1940s, if its subsidiary Junior Justice Society’s boys (about whom the adult team cared very much) were to be taken from them. I thought his idea was of limited merit, when I first read it, but my own plan to make war on all lawmen throughout the galaxy has failed. If history can be sufficiently changed, I might never end up in here. After you have done what I asked, you will have enough future knowledge to make an easy life for yourself in the 1940s, so long as you don’t invent anything significant ahead of time and really upset the timeline too much.”

“Wouldn’t a man with scarlet red skin and three eyes have stood out on earth in the 20th Century?” asked Growth Girl.

“He was purple skinned, but I did inherit his three eyes,” said Nardo, “And he only stood out when he actually went to earth.”

Growth Girl and Nardo finalized their plan, and then Growth Girl made the journey to June 1943.

June 1943…

Growth Girl checked on the movements of Wonder Woman, and learned that she had announced that she would be going back to her home for a few weeks. Knowing that the real Wonder Woman wouldn’t be around, Growth Girl then left a letter at the large club house where the many members of the Junior Justice Society of America (JJSA) would meet.

Attention: Junior Justice Society of America.

Dear Members,

We are honoured by your efforts of support over the last few months, and would like to send some of our members to pay you a special visit one evening, specifically the night of June 28th at 7:30pm.  We hope that as many JJSA members as possible will be there.

Yours sincerely,

Wonder Woman (Secretary for the Justice Society of America)

The current chairman of the JJSA, Mick Caryco was thrilled. After discussing it with Ames Grayder, Bob Sayle, Tim Scribener and Cubby Joseph (the other members currently on the management committee), he decided to extend an invitation to two other teams of young boys as well: The Newsboy Legion and The Boy Commandos. Invitations were sent out promptly.

The Boy Commandos (Andre Chavard and Jan Haasen and Alfy Twidgetts and Brooklyn) were all unanimously in favour of accepting the invitation. So far the only adult hero they’d worked with was Captain Rip Carter. To meet the Justice Society was the opportunity of a lifetime. They had been operating for 12 months now, and this was their biggest break.

The Newsboy Legion (Gabby, Big Words, Tommy and Scrapper) who had been active since April 1942, two months longer than the Boy Commandos, were also very keen to come. They’d seen their friend the Guardian in action a few times, but never a whole team of super heroes.

On the evening of June 28th, the members of all three teams were seated in the large club house by 7:15, all eager for the arrival of the Justice Society members.

“I wonder which ones are coming,” asked Alfy.

“I hope it’s Dr Mid-Nite and the Flash,” said Scrapper.

“We’ll know soon enough,” said Ames.

Suddenly they felt a strange movement, and ran to the window to look out. Standing on the front lawn in front of their club house was a woman they didn’t know. It certainly wasn’t Wonder Woman. Before they could react, the woman fired a blue coloured gun at them, and the entire club house, with all three teams of boys inside it, shrank to tiny size. Looking out the window, they saw the woman come over and pick up the club house and carry it off, with all of them inside it. She took it to a jeep, put it into a wooden box, and put the lid on it tightly. They now found themselves in darkness. They pulled out their mats and pillows used for past sleepovers, and slept for several hours.

From the sounds they occasionally woke up and heard, they guessed correctly that the woman had driven to a private plane, loaded the box on board and flown it off into the night. The woman reached an island about an hour before dawn, and used a torch while she took the club house out of the box and set it down on the grass in a suitable part of the island well in from the shore. There was plenty of moonlight as well.

“You can come out now, my little Junior JSAers,” said Growth Girl, “This will be your new home.”

Big Words and Andre ran out first to represent their teams.

“What are we doing here?” asked Big Words, “We ain’t part of the JSA. We’re the Newsboy Legion.”

“And the Boy Commandos,” said Andre, “You have to take us back.”

“So you spread the word. That’s a delicious outcome,” said Growth Girl, “I hadn’t planned on taking three teams of boys away from America. The Justice Society will be truly demoralized. I leave you to live out the rest of your lives, forgotten on the first island I could find in the middle of nowhere, now and always reduced to tiny