The black arrow on the cover was originally meant to read "Introducing FIRE-BRAND! The hottest new heroine of all!" Chemical Color, DC's color separators, misplaced the extra words. (Roy Thomas promised the responsible party would be replaced as well.) The letters page in the next issue talks about the error and includes an image of how the arrow was supposed to read.
Danette Reilly becomes the new Firebrand. Per Roy Thomas, he considered using the Quality Comics character Wildfire, but likely decided to create a sister for Rod Reilly to take over the Firebrand name in part because of the Legion of Super-Heroes character by that name. (Suggested by Anthony William Durrant via the GCD Error Tracker.)
Story continues in part from All-Star Squadron (DC, 1981 series) #4 (December 1981); story continues in All-Star Squadron (DC, 1981 series) #6 (February 1982)
Letters reviewing All-Star Squadron #1 from Mike Gallagher, Shepherd Siegel, Steven Utley, Jerry Bails, and Andrew MacLaney.