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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 15:57:49 GMT -5
We have a general Hulk thread, and a general FF thread, and even a general Punisher thread which is getting a lot of traffic from people who don't seem to like the Punisher too much.
So I think it's time for a general JLA thread, so that DC can get in on the action!
I'm probably not the best guy to start a JLA Appreciation thread, so it's a good thing that this isn't a appreciation thread so much as a discussion thread. I'm sure most of the discussions will be positive or at least good-natured (I mean, you can love the JLA and still admit that it has frequently and persistently sucked during its long history. Right?) but the JLA has had some tough times and I don't think it would be inappropriate to acknowledge that.
I didn't read the JLA when I was a kid. I mostly read Marvel. I wish I could remember what specific DC comic book stories turned me away so forcefully from Green Lantern and Superman and the JLA when I was 11, but I just can't bring forth those memories. Nowadays, when I read DC comics from 1971 to 1975, I see the kinds of general story problems that I used to find repellent. (Scott Harris's Bronze Age Superman thread is full of descriptions of terrible stories from this era that remind me of why I didn't like DC back then. But none of them are stories that I remember reading as a kid. (Although he did mention Terra-Man, who I do remember as being terrible, but I don't remember much about the story.))
I have learned to appreciate these early Bronze Age stories - maybe not all of them - in the intervening years.
I did read some DC comics, like The Joker and The Secret Society of Super-Villains. And I also liked the Justice Society! I had a reprint of the JSA story from the 1940s where they fight Solomon Grundy, and a friend of mine had the over-sized reprint of All-Star Comics #3, and I still love those two comics! So I was a little interested in the JSA/JLA team-ups.
So I did have one issue of the JLA in the 1970s when I got JLA #136. The two great super-teams were going to fight a crisis of some kind on Earth-S, the dimension where the Fawcett characters reside. I don't remember too much about it. Pinky, the sidekick of Mr. Scarlet, had hair made of glass. King Kull and the Earth-S Joker were in it. It was very confusing. I don't even remember if it ended or if it continued in the next issue.
I skipped the JLA/JSA team-ups for a few years, but I started getting JLA semi-regularly around #203. (Because I remembered the Royal Flush Gang from The Joker #5 and I love the Royal Flush Gang!) And I also collected the All-Star Squadron almost from its first issue, so I was sucked into the JLA/JSA/All-Star Squadron jamboree of 1982. It was a five-part story called "Crisis on Earth-Prime," and it's still my favorite JLA/JSA team-up. What's not to like!? Roy Thomas! Gerry Conway! Covers by Kubert and Perez! Interior art by Don Heck and Jerry Ordway! Liberty Belle and Johnny Quick! Power Girl and the Huntress! Zatanna and Aquaman! Per Degaton! A horde of classic DC villains!
So I bought JLA from time to time for a few years. And then came Justice League Detroit! I don't know why I loved (and still love) Justice League Detroit, but it's true! It was partly the art and partly that Gerry Conway writing style I was so used to. And there are some really good issues! But I noticed the last time I read through it (about a year ago) that some of the material I thought was pretty good is actually kind of dire. But I still like it! And I don't think the members of Justice League Detroit deserved those last four awful issues. (But I love those too, in a way. Justice League Detroit is always interesting, no matter how bad it gets.)
Following the Detroit-era JLA, the only time I collected any JL comics for more than a single arc was when I got Justice League Europe for about a year. I think it was from around #40 to about #55. Roughly. I read those again last year and there is no need to ever read them again. They aren't bad comics, really. Just boilerplate. Those issues have the start of the "Power Girl is pregnant" storyline. So, you know, not the most memorable period of the JLA.
I've read the early JLA stories in the JLA Archives and I've read two of the volumes (#1 and #3) of the JLA/JSA team-ups. Right now, I'm struggling through Showcase: Justice League of America, Volume 5, reprinting #84 to #106. (I'm also up to the special "Origin of the JLA" story in JLA #97! So exciting!)
So that's where I am on the JLA. Where are you? I'll be back in a bit with a topic for discussion.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 23, 2014 16:02:20 GMT -5
I thought this was about Lou Reed getting inducted into the JLA
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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 16:18:36 GMT -5
I thought this was about Lou Reed getting inducted into the JLA Hey, Black Canary. Take a walk on the wild side. Hey, J'onn J'onzz. Take a walk on the wild side.
Diana came from out on Paradise Island. With her Lasso of Truth she was everybody's darling. You know she never lost her head Even when she killed Max Lord dead.
Hey, Diana, take a walk on the wild side.
Somebody needs to write a verse for Kyle Rayner. But not me.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 23, 2014 16:37:26 GMT -5
But seriously,my introduction to the JLA would be with #13 the Aug 1962 issue where they fought their robot duplicates.At that time I was a Superman fan due to the George Reeves TV show and was also buying Batman and Detective.So I must have thought the JLA was a great bargain to get exposed to the rest of the DC heroes for the price of just one comic.I might have skipped a few issues over the next year (money was tight for an 8 year old) but remember really liking # 19 where they were banished from earth due to the actions of their evil doppelgangers.And of course with #21 and #22's Justice Society team-up, I was hooked. I remained a faithful reader for many years.The JLA wasn't my favorite book,I was more a Marvel fan,but as an insatiable reader I put up with the Gardner Fox formula of writing,the barrel chested Sekowsky art and the insipid Snapper Carr to be rewarded by the yearly JSA meetings.On past the Batmania year (yes it was Batman and his pals then),The Royal Flush gang,#57's feel good brotherhood issue,the Denny O'Neill relevancy issues (pollution is bad, people)Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman quitting and feeling rewarded again by the decent Len Wein books. I bailed out somewhere around #120 as i did all comics for about 2 years.I didn't read JLA again until Giffen DeMatteis Bwa-ha-ha era.Quit again after a few years,read the Morrison issues and then left for good
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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 16:56:47 GMT -5
Here's an easy topic for discussion, something most of us can answer in a few sentences.
What's the worst of the JSA/JLA team-ups?
I haven't read them all, so my reasoning for my candidate might not be that well informed. But I choose the one from 1971, JLA #91 and #92. The two issues are titled "Earth - The Monster-Maker!" and "Solomon Grundy - The One and Only."
An alien and his dog-like pet are separated, with one going to Earth-1 and the other going to Earth-2. The JSA and the JLA to the rescue! (But it takes a while for anybody to figure anything out.) No matter what Earth he is from, Hawkman is always a condescending dick, and the Robins of two worlds are the targets. Solomon Grundy complicates an already badly muddled situation. Somehow, things turn out all right despite everyone being so stupid.
(I hope none of the other team-ups are as bad as this!)
I forgot to mention: Grown-up Earth-2 Robin has one of the worst costumes ever!
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Post by Cei-U! on May 23, 2014 17:38:53 GMT -5
The worst of the JLA/JSA team-ups was in Justice League #123-24. Not only did it feature co-scripters Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin as major characters (I really, truly hate it when creators inject themselves into the story) but it also features the tragic-but-temporary deaths of six JSAers, resurrected via a literal deus ex machina: the Spectre convinces God to bring them back to life.
Cei-U! Awful, awful, awful!
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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 17:54:18 GMT -5
The worst of the JLA/JSA team-ups was in Justice League #123-24. Not only did it feature co-scripters Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin as major characters (I really, truly hate it when creators inject themselves into the story) but it also features the tragic-but-temporary deaths of six JSAers, resurrected via a literal deus ex machina: the Spectre convinces God to bring them back to life. Cei-U! Awful, awful, awful! I remember, from the very early, early days when I was reading super-hero comics, reading a comic book at a friend's house that had the writer in it, and I think his name was Cary Bates! I thought it was pretty stupid. And I didn't read very much of it.
For some reason, I always thought it was a Flash comic. (My brother read Flash for a while in 1975 to 1976, and I used to read them because I like the Rogues even if I don't like Flash that much.) Did Cary Bates put himself in his comics very much? I'm still not sure I read an old JLA/JSA comic and then forgot about it.
I don't remember very much about the story I read. I think Cary Bates was in a van, and he drove through the fog and went from Earth-Prime to Earth-1. (Or maybe Earth-2.) Was that in JLA?
(And thanks in advance for taking your valuable time just to indulge my attempts to sort out my 40-year-old memories.)
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 23, 2014 18:10:49 GMT -5
The first issue of JLA I bought off the stands was #250. I ended up buying a few more before it was cancelled, but I am sure I wouldn't have if my first issue hadn't included appearances by real JLA members and not just the Detroit League.
I currently own maybe 25 issues of the original Justice League of America series. Most of them are not very good. I get the impression that the best period was probably in the #140-200 range, when all the people alienated by Marvel started working on the title. But I might be wrong.
Post-crisis, my first issue of the Bw-ha-ha team was #3; I happened to get one of the variants off the newsstand. I then bought #5, with the infamous "one punch" scene and was hooked. For awhile, anyway. I gave up on the book around #35, as the jokiness took over the title and it got pretty tiring. I've only read a few issues here or there since, and none of them were particularly interesting.
JLA is a concept that should be relatively easy to pull off, but the actual stories seem to be surprisingly mediocre to bad throughout its run. They can't hold a candle to the stories in Avengers, even though the basic concept of the two books is the same.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 18:34:54 GMT -5
JLA is a concept that should be relatively easy to pull off, but the actual stories seem to be surprisingly mediocre to bad throughout its run. They can't hold a candle to the stories in Avengers, even though the basic concept of the two books is the same. I think the JLA's early success made it seem like a surefire concept to DC upper management. And when you compare it to what else was on sale on the spinner racks, it probably looked like comic-book crack to the under-10 crowd in 1960.
Marvel wasn't doing any super-heroes at all yet (although maybe Dr. Droom had appeared by then?). DC had Superman in a bunch of comics every month, Batman was still doing OK, Flash had just started his own book, etc. The other companies (and DC) were doing funny animal, romance, teen humor and watered-down horror.
JLA did well because it was unique, not because it was good.
Since it lasted way into the 1980s, it must have sold reasonably well, even if it dipped down into marginal territory. I think it was pretty safe as far as sales went, even when it wasn't very good.
But it must have been hard to write because there were so many restrictions. Nothing could change for the characters because they were all in their own solo series. The writers would get a cover and be told to write a story with that scene in it. (That was how DC worked, wasn't it?) A lot of the time, they could only do one-issue stories, and that had to be very hard for writers working with such a large cast! By the time you set up the story, you had used up four or five pages! And then you had to divide them up into teams! (This was the set-up from the JSA stories, but they had more pages to work with in the Golden Age and, to be honest, a lot of those JSA stories barely worked even in the 1940s.)
And with JLA selling well anyway, why change it? It took a long time for the sales to get that bad. Who knew anybody would be looking back at those stories from 50 years in the future?
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 23, 2014 18:46:12 GMT -5
It's funny, if someone asked me what my favorite comics are, no JLA would likely be on it. yet I have a long box plus of their comics, so I guess maybe they are I enjoyed the Giffen era pretty much through Breakdowns.. then it got a bit repetitive. I mostly skipped the Wonder Woman-led 'anyone can join' era, and have the entire run on the Morrison-started version. I think the interactions between Kyle, Wally and J'onn are my favorites.. I didn't love the last pre-new 52 incarnation, though I didn't read a ton of it. As to the orginal, I've read most of the Detroit era (which is OK), and scattered other ones... I looking forward to reading them in the omnibus
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 23, 2014 18:52:47 GMT -5
You're absolutely right with your assessment Hoosier.Here you had all these uber-powerful heroes together-the villian's methods of challenging these god-like characters issue after issue would drive many writers nuts.Plus the individual editors at DC were very protective in how the heroes they were responsible for were used in other editor's titles.I'm sure Mort Weisinger gave Schwartz alot of grief over how Superman should be portrayed.Just look at all the panels where Sekowsky had to cram in all the JLA members together-you can tell he was under orders to handle the art that way.The only continued stories were the JSA teamups,and thats where you would have double the amount of heroes.I'm sure there were many writers and artists who wanted to stay clear of working on this title
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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 19:01:01 GMT -5
You're absolutely right with your assessment Hoosier.Here you had all these uber-powerful heroes together-the villian's methods of challenging these god-like characters issue after issue would drive many writers nuts.Plus the individual editors at DC were very protective in how the heroes they were responsible for were used in other editor's titles.I'm sure Mort Weisinger gave Schwartz alot of grief over how Superman should be portrayed.Just look at all the panels where Sekowsky had to cram in all the JLA members together-you can tell he was under orders to handle the art that way.The only continued stories were the JSA teamups,and thats where you would have double the amount of heroes.I'm sure there were many writers and artists who wanted to stay clear of working on this title Fortunately, the art is always very strong. Sekowsky's early 1960s JLA stories are always solid, and Dillin kicks ass every issue for a billion years. That's a saving grace no matter what kind of dumb-ass shenanigans are going on between the covers.
So, come on, Ish. What's your least favorite JSA/JLA team-up? I voted for JLA #91 and #92, and Cei-U! picked #123 and #124. What would you pick?
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Post by Cei-U! on May 23, 2014 19:07:45 GMT -5
I remember, from the very early, early days when I was reading super-hero comics, reading a comic book at a friend's house that had the writer in it, and I think his name was Cary Bates! I thought it was pretty stupid. And I didn't read very much of it.
For some reason, I always thought it was a Flash comic. (My brother read Flash for a while in 1975 to 1976, and I used to read them because I like the Rogues even if I don't like Flash that much.) Did Cary Bates put himself in his comics very much? I'm still not sure I read an old JLA/JSA comic and then forgot about it.
I don't remember very much about the story I read. I think Cary Bates was in a van, and he drove through the fog and went from Earth-Prime to Earth-1. (Or maybe Earth-2.) Was that in JLA?
(And thanks in advance for taking your valuable time just to indulge my attempts to sort out my 40-year-old memories.)
Your memory has not failed you, Hoos (can I call you Hoos?). The story you're thinking of is "The Day I Saved The Life Of The Flash" from Flash #228 (July-August 1974). The crossover in JLA #123-24 is a sequel, of sorts, to that'n. And you're welcome! Cei-U! I summon the nostalgia on demand!
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2014 19:25:17 GMT -5
The worst of the JLA/JSA team-ups was in Justice League #123-24. Not only did it feature co-scripters Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin as major characters (I really, truly hate it when creators inject themselves into the story) but it also features the tragic-but-temporary deaths of six JSAers, resurrected via a literal deus ex machina: the Spectre convinces God to bring them back to life. Cei-U! Awful, awful, awful! The first part of that was the first issue of JLA I ever got off the racks when I was a kid. My intro to the concept of the JLA was the Super-Friends cartoon really, and while I was an avid Avengers fan from early on, I only sporadically picked up issues of JLA, I can remember each one vividly though, by cover at least--the JLA/JSA x-over in 123, 126 with a Weaponer of Quward throwing a lightning bolt scattering the JLA, 129 with some kind of monster atop the Eiffel tower and 158? I think, a Whitman edition I got in a 3 pack that had Ultra or Ultraman or some such in it. Those 4 issues were the entirety of my JLA collection as a kid. I had a couple appearances of them in Secret Society of Super-Heroes, and a JSA appearance in All-Star Comics as well, but that was it. It wasn't until I was in high school that I started buying it regularly, and that was during the war with Mars featuring the return of the Martian Manhunter that led to the JL Detroit era. During this time, I also discovered the Official Index to the Justice League of America put out by ICG (a brand for another indy publisher at the time) that featured George Perez covers for the first few issues, and read through the synopsis of every issue of the run (and the B&B issues), immersing myself in JLA lore. I wanted to read a lot of the actual issues, and I started buying back issues, starting with the Perez era and moving backwards. I had almost completed 150-up when I stopped, but I did pick up a few random issues much lower as well. I was buying new issues regularly through the Detroit era, through the dismantling of the League in Legends and the launch of the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire era, until, like Scott, I felt the jokiness overwhelmed the story. I returned a few times after that, the Death of Superman/Funeral For a Friend brought me back for a short time, I checked out the Morrison/Porter JLA for a few years (Howard Porter lived near me and was a regular at a local shop in CT, so I got to see him a few times during that era and that fueled my excitement for it, but it eventually fizzled after the intro of Zauriel and others diluting the big 7 concept. Tried the relaunch with Meltzer, but that was less than enjoyable and even gave the new52 a look when I found out they were introducing the Phantom Stranger in #6, but yeah, the less said about that the better. I still pick up an occasional classic back issue of the original run (I had a #22 at one point and sold it, I think 29 is the earliest I have now but I would have to look. I love the concept of the JLA, I like the characters, and there have been some very good stories featuring them, but I don't think there has ever been a sustained run of great stories for the book. Brief peaks, but no golden age of greatness like you can point to with FF, Spidey, etc. which is a shame. -M
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 23, 2014 19:49:17 GMT -5
Its hard for me to remember a particular JLA/JSA teamup I didn't like after all these years.I know I liked the first 5 and the ones centering on the 7 Soldiers of Victory .I also liked the ones with the All Star Squadron and The Legion of Superheroes. The two I read and have no memories about were #82 & 83 (something about the Red Tornado) and #91 & 92 (totally drawing a blank here). I'll have to say #91 & 92 since I completely purged it from memory.
I seem to recall #62 Panic From A Blackmail Box as being a giant dud. Any confirmation?
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