All-Star Comics #30

In "The Dreams of Madness [Introduction]" from All-Star Comics #30, Hawkman presents a mysterious newspaper ad to the team, leading them to Forest Malone’s lab where they witness a revolutionary dream recorder—capable of translating thoughts into images. As the heroes prepare to test the device, their trust is shattered when Malone reveals himself as the Brain Wave, turning the experiment into a sinister assault on their minds.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Chapter 1" from All-Star Comics #30 (1946), Hawkman awakens in a surreal city of iceboxes, trapped among cold people preparing to fight their ancient foes, the Fire People. As he struggles to escape his frozen prison, he discovers a fragile empathy in one of his captors—one who worries for the suffering birds caught in the crossfire. With the fate of all in the balance, Hawkman’s desperate attempt to mediate plunges him into a torment of shifting temperatures, leaving him questioning his own sense of self.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Chapter 2," Dr. Mid-Nite awakens in a surreal realm where germs rule as sovereigns, encountering a society of humans who claim his past life is nothing but a delusion. As he struggles to reconcile his memories with their reality, he devises a noxious gas to fight back—only to see it fail, deepening his doubt. When a Germ Person accuses him of spreading plague, Mid-Nite is left questioning whether he is truly the disease he’s been made to believe.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Chapter 3," Green Lantern finds himself caught in a surreal dream where a simple 4th of July sparkler ignites cosmic wonder—astronomers believe the sparks are newborn stars, and even the Emerald Crusader can’t convince them otherwise. When crooks steal the sparkler, he gives chase through a shifting, illogical world, only to realize, in a dizzying moment, that the astronomers below are holding three balloons by strings—and he suddenly feels like the Sun, with them as his planets.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Chapter 4," the Flash finds himself trapped in a surreal dream world where talking animals rule over enslaved humans—except the Flash, who alone can hear human speech. When the animals challenge him to a race to prove humanity's worth, he’s forced to confront not just their absurd laws, but the unsettling truth that his own body is betraying him. As the race unfolds and reality distorts, the Scarlet Speedster is left questioning everything he knows—his speed, his identity, and whether he’s truly the hero he believes.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Chapter 5," the Atom stumbles through a surreal world where people wear umbrellas for arms and clocks for heads, only to confront a gang of crooks robbing a bank. As rain begins to shrink him, he dives into a puddle, only to emerge towering over the city—now so large he reaches for the clouds, pulling a chain to summon sunlight in a desperate bid to return to normal.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Chapter 6," Johnny finds himself in the Land of Already Equipped, a place where everyone’s appearance is delightfully bizarre—like an artist with a brush for a hand and a palette for a head, painting a woman whose head is a bowl of fruit. While the T-Bolt insists Johnny’s losing his mind, Johnny sees nothing strange in the world’s oddities, especially when crooks use magic to force others into “normal” appearances, prompting him to send the T-Bolt on a mission to bring them down.

In "The Dreams of Madness, Conclusion," the JSA awaken from Brainwave’s hypnotic trance, still reeling from their shared nightmare—Johnny, ever the leader, calls for the T-Bolt to help restore them. As Brainwave returns with his gang, the heroes, still disoriented, are caught between memory and fury, until Johnny and the T-Bolt charge in to break the spell and reclaim their minds.