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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2019 9:05:28 GMT -5
rberman ... Enjoying your reviews about the JLA ...
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Post by rberman on Oct 9, 2019 7:23:34 GMT -5
rberman ... Enjoying your reviews about the JLA ... Thanks! It's always nice to get some interaction going.
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Post by rberman on Oct 9, 2019 7:26:18 GMT -5
JLA #151 “The Unluckiest League of All” (February 1978)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: At the Atom’s bachelor party, all the male heroes show up in uniform and debate the pros and cons of marriage. On the satellite, the three female JLAers (Hawkwoman, Black Canary, and Wonder Woman) complain about monitor duty. Wonder Woman gets hypnotized by a blast of lightning that comes from nowhere. She teleports down to earth, flies her invisible plane to a strange island, fights a robot, and is captured in the process of defeating it. She awakens helpless, her wrists chained by Amos Fortune. He channels energy through her body, causing beams of luck-light to shoot out and home in on seven civilians around the world. It will imbue those seven with super-luck… what will be the consequences? Later, seven JLAers find their powers mysteriously malfunctioning and fading. Their powers have been transferred to these seven humans. Each of them has a talisman of luck which was the conduit through which they gained their abilities. Also, they all have costumes, some with capes. Convenient! The trick is that these humans don’t have the respective powers themselves. Rather, they have the ability to imbue others with those powers. Amos Fortune uses mind control to turn the seven lucky humans into his minions. They use their powers on each other and civilians, and the members of the JLA start falling right and left in a series of scenes. Wonder Woman is able escape by hypnotizing her captor, forcing him to end the threat of his hypnotized minions. My Two Cents: Well, this is as pretty high concept issue, almost enough to make us forgive Wonder Woman being made into a dangling damsel, displayed helpless in many panels. At least she rescues herself. At one point, Wonder Woman’s preposterous high heeled shoes nearly result in her capture. Kudos to Conway for pointing out this absurdity, which I suppose he isn’t allowed to change. Conway tries to keep Engelhart’s conflict-ridden JLA alive. He even titles the argument chapter “Conflict.” The other chapters are Contact, Capture, and Challenge. So alliterative! First The Key, and Now Amos Fortune. Gerry Conway is resurrecting golden oldies from the JLA case files.
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Post by rberman on Oct 10, 2019 7:49:01 GMT -5
JLA #152 “2,000 Light Years to Christmas!” (March 1978)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: Three cosmic travelers encounter space turbulence and accidentally drop their satchels on Earth. Playing cards in their satellite headquarters, the JLA see the three objects plummeting Earthward but assume they are just meteors. They ignore them at first but later Superman feels “guilty as hell” for not paying closer attention to what are clearly alien artifacts falling to Earth. Three of them, so the JLA get to split into three teams to track them down. In Peru, would-be revolutionary Major Macabre has tracked the three meteorites. His computer is smart enough to know that possession of these three objects would bring immortality. Site #1: In British Columbia, a stag flees from hunters, a glowing stone in its mouth. The stag transforms into a giant centaur, more than a match for poor Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Major Macabre is on hand to seize the alien stone, gaining mighty powers. Site #2: In the war-torn Middle East, a street urchin of unclear ethnicity (she has orange skin) finds a glowing orb in the ruins. Red Tornado stops an airstrike on her city. Then he and Superman have to protect the fighter pilots in turn from an attack emanating from the city, where the urchin sits cradling the orb in her lap. Red Tornado talks her down, but it’s all for naught, as Major Macabre shows up and uses the power of the first stone to incapacitate “Superhombre” and Red Tornado, then claim the second stone. Site #3: In Georgia, the Ajax Chemical plant is spewing pollution into a river. The citizens get turned into mudmen who attack Batman and Elongated Man when they come to look for the meteorite that fell into that same river. Batman is temporarily tied to an active printing press but escapes. The heroes find the source of the trouble, alien goo in a bottle in the river, but Major Macabre takes it off their hands. Finale: The JLA lick their wounds, find Major Macabre’s fortress in Peru, distract him while Reddy steals the three alien items, then returns them to the three alien magi, who beat up Major Macabre. The issue closes with some theological musings from Red Tornado. Lettercol: The readers’ ranking of their favorite heroes generates some surprising results: Quite a blowout! Congratulations, Green Lantern! My Two Cents: It’s a serviceable, middling sort of issue with a forgettable villain and an attempt at social relevance. The environmental and political themes of this issue hearkens back to JLA issues from the O’Neil and Friederich eras several years prior. One throw-away scene even shows Katar and Shayera cleaning their wings. Stupid polluting humans! The Ajax Company has a long history as a scapegoat in superhero comics, going back at least to Daredevil #1. Wonder Woman appears prominently on the cover but is absent from the interior. This generates numerous enraged letters in a future lettercol.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2019 8:25:33 GMT -5
I voted for Green Lantern in the Lettercol poll. JLA 151 is one of those stories that I really remembered so well; and I read it in my Senior Year during Spring Break.
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Post by zaku on Oct 10, 2019 9:39:44 GMT -5
I know almost nothing about pre-crisis Atom, but did he have to stay "miniaturized" all the time? Sometimes these panels feel a little stupid (but they still have a certain charming quality)...
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Post by badwolf on Oct 10, 2019 9:47:18 GMT -5
Man, they sure had some gimmicky villains. I did like Fortune's tarot card scheme from a future issue, though.
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Post by rberman on Oct 10, 2019 10:02:01 GMT -5
I know almost nothing about pre-crisis Atom, but did he have to stay "miniaturized" all the time? Sometimes these panels feel a little stupid (but they still have a certain charming quality)... No, it was just a weird way of showing what his super power was. Makes just as little sense as Hawkman wearing his wings to a stag party.
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Post by zaku on Oct 10, 2019 10:37:24 GMT -5
I know almost nothing about pre-crisis Atom, but did he have to stay "miniaturized" all the time? Sometimes these panels feel a little stupid (but they still have a certain charming quality)... No, it was just a weird way of showing what his super power was. Makes just as little sense as Hawkman wearing his wings to a stag party. Thank you . So, there wasn't some bizarre limitation, like he couldn't use his costume when he was full-size or something similar? He just liked remaining "small" all the time..? What a strange fellow...
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Post by badwolf on Oct 10, 2019 10:39:23 GMT -5
I know almost nothing about pre-crisis Atom, but did he have to stay "miniaturized" all the time? Sometimes these panels feel a little stupid (but they still have a certain charming quality)... No, it was just a weird way of showing what his super power was. Makes just as little sense as Hawkman wearing his wings to a stag party. I remember being confused for a long time about whether his wings were a part of him or not as a kid.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 10, 2019 10:47:32 GMT -5
JLA #152 “2,000 Light Years to Christmas!” (March 1978)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. ............................... Site #2: In the war-torn Middle East, a street urchin of unclear ethnicity (she has orange skin) finds a glowing orb in the ruins. .............................. Trumpassyrian; a very small offshoot. Noted for small hands and bizarre writings.
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Post by rberman on Oct 11, 2019 7:43:28 GMT -5
JLA #153 “Earth’s First and Last Superhero” (April 1978)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by George Tuska (gasp- not Dillin!) and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: On Earth-Prime, a hero named Ultraa defends kangaroos from poachers. He’s the last survivor of a doomed world and was raised by Aborigines. A mysterious force calls five JLAers (Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern) to this Earth on which they are only comic book characters, and JLA #151 is the most recent issue. They seek counsel from DC editor Julius Schwartz. Batman, Flash, and Green Arrow are felled by Maxitron, a mesmerized human inside a machine exoskeleton which self-assembled from long-buried parts of the spaceship that brought Ultraa to Earth. When Ultraa attempts to greet US fighter planes, they attack him. Superman and Green Lantern see the battle and choose the wrong side in what becomes a three-way Misunderstanding Fight until everyone calms down. Maxitron shows up to threaten Ultraa, in a really nice panel from Tuska. Can he do this book full time? No? Superman, Green Lantern, and Ultraa foolishly split up to enter Maxitron’s ship through three different entrances, allowing Conway to kill several pages with deathtraps keyed to their respective weaknesses. But the heroes were smart enough to disguise themselves as each other, so each deathtrap fails, and Maxitron is defeated. Ultraa thinks he’d better come with the heroes to Earth-One, lest his very presence call more super-villains to trouble Earth-Prime. My Two Cents: This issue is one of the best we’ve seen in a while. It’s significant for a couple of reasons. Firstly, its five JLAers were determined by the top five vote-getters in the poll published last issue. A story with only five heroes has less silly “splitting into teams” action. Second, the story of Ultraa is a crucial link in the evolution of Grant Morrison’s meta-textual musings. Julius Schwartz says it all in the first panel below: Earth-1 is a real place, and comic book writers are gods who shape its history. Ultraa will be around for a while in upcoming issues of JLA, not as heroic as he is here. By 2015, Grant Morrison is using Ultraa's metatextual backstory heavily when he appears as a villainous maniac in Multiversity: Ultra Comics #1, facing off against a hero named Ultra Comics, the living embodiment of superhero comics. Before the dimensional caper, Ollie Queen goes on one of his insufferable and clichéd activist tirades and offends his teammates by calling Red Tornado a “machine.” Dude, quit it!
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Post by zaku on Oct 11, 2019 9:33:36 GMT -5
I know almost nothing about pre-crisis Atom, but did he have to stay "miniaturized" all the time? Sometimes these panels feel a little stupid (but they still have a certain charming quality)... I answer myself here. His costume (at least in pre-Crisis comics) appears only when he shrinks...
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Post by rberman on Oct 11, 2019 9:59:17 GMT -5
I answer myself here. His costume (at least in pre-Crisis comics) appears only when he shrinks... Convenient! Sort of like Colossus' magically disappearing pants, Bruce Banner's stretchy shorts, etc. Marvel just said "unstable molecules" and somehow that explained how, for instance, Wolvesbane's clothes disappeared and reappeared when she transformed, or how Storm could change out of her civvies in a flash.
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Post by rberman on Oct 12, 2019 12:49:23 GMT -5
JLA #154 “I’ll Kill You in Your Dreams!” (May 1978)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: Doctor Destiny lives in the harbor, on an island, on top of the Skyscraper Hotel, in a castle, surrounded by a moat. Sure, why not? The JLA attend the grand opening of the hotel in civilian clothing. Black Canary is still miffed that she wasn’t invited to Atom’s bachelor party. Really she should be miffed at not being invited to Jean Loring’s bachelorette party. Going to sleep in the hotel that night, all the heroes have horrible nightmares thanks to Doctor Destiny. The next day, their nightmares start coming true! The heroes escape their various deathtraps and jointly confront Doctor Destiny, even playing a prank by using his own magic ruby to give him a dream that he won the battle. He boasts about knowing their secret identities. What should the Justice League do? Erase the villlain’s memory, obviously! (cough) Identity Crisis (cough) My Two Cents: Another fun issue, another bit of evidence that Bronze Age readers had no problem at all with heroes mindwiping villains. For the first time in JLA, Black Canary gives out a “canary cry” instead of a “sonic whammy.” Mark the date! The Batmobile has airbags! I didn’t realize that was a thing in the 1970s. Don’t you think Marvel’s villain The Taskmaster looks like a cross between Doctor Destiny and Deathstroke the Terminator?
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