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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 20, 2022 21:46:02 GMT -5
I finally got around to reading the JLA reprint in JLA #115. It’s JLA #44, “The Indestructible Creatures of Nightmare Island.” I’ve read about half of it and I’m liking the premise so far.
I kind of wish this had been the basis for the JLA movie.
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Post by Commander Benson on Mar 24, 2022 9:11:36 GMT -5
The [JLA/JSA team-up] I just read is pretty good! It's sort of a locked-room mystery where the locked room is the JLA satellite. And the murder victim is Mr. Terrific! I respectfully disagree. The "Death of Mr.Terrific" Justice team-up from JLA # 171-2 purely illustrates why it's virtually impossible to write a valid mystery for a book with so many super-powered characters. Unless the writer wants his head to explode, in crafting a mystery involving the Justice League and/or the Justice Society, he has to choose the members participating much more carefully than Gerry Conway did for JLA # 171-2. With the line-up Mr. Conway did use, there is no reason why Mr. Terrific's murder shouldn't have been solved in five minutes. Superman could travel back through time, and as an invisible phantom could observe the events leading to Mr. Terrific's death. Either of the Green Lanterns could order his power ring to "rewind" time so the heroes could have observed what happened to Mr. Terrific. Dr. Fate's magic could probably accomplish the same thing. Hawkman or Hawkgirl could have used the absorbascon to glean the necessary information from the guilty mind. Once suspicion turned to the members of the Justice teams themselves, it would have been a simple matter to have each member submit to a brain scan by both GL's and Dr. Fate. (Multiple scans, in case the murderer was one of the Lanterns or Fate) That's not to say that a true mystery could not have been fashioned, even taking these factors into account. But the story as written failed to do that. I remember when I read it, I began to scoff over the scenes of the Batman and the others trying to solve the mystery without resorting to any of the techniques I just mentioned. It's difficult to appreciate a writer's mystery when I can fathom solutions far quicker and using obvious methods that didn't occur to the writer.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 24, 2022 10:34:09 GMT -5
The [JLA/JSA team-up] I just read is pretty good! It's sort of a locked-room mystery where the locked room is the JLA satellite. And the murder victim is Mr. Terrific! I respectfully disagree. The "Death of Mr.Terrific" Justice team-up from JLA # 171-2 purely illustrates why it's virtually impossible to write a valid mystery for a book with so many super-powered characters. Unless the writer wants his head to explode, in crafting a mystery involving the Justice League and/or the Justice Society, he has to choose the members participating much more carefully than Gerry Conway did for JLA # 171-2. With the line-up Mr. Conway did use, there is no reason why Mr. Terrific's murder shouldn't have been solved in five minutes. Superman could travel back through time, and as an invisible phantom could observe the events leading to Mr. Terrific's death. Either of the Green Lanterns could order his power ring to "rewind" time so the heroes could have observed what happened to Mr. Terrific. Dr. Fate's magic could probably accomplish the same thing. Hawkman or Hawkgirl could have used the absorbascon to glean the necessary information from the guilty mind. Once suspicion turned to the members of the Justice teams themselves, it would have been a simple matter to have each member submit to a brain scan by both GL's and Dr. Fate. (Multiple scans, in case the murderer was one of the Lanterns or Fate) That's not to say that a true mystery could not have been fashioned, even taking these factors into account. But the story as written failed to do that. I remember when I read it, I began to scoff over the scenes of the Batman and the others trying to solve the mystery without resorting to any of the techniques I just mentioned. It's difficult to appreciate a writer's mystery when I can fathom solutions far quicker and using obvious methods that didn't occur to the writer. Well, that was almost five years ago, so I don’t remember exactly what I liked about it. Aside from the JLA/JSA cross-overs, I’m not such a big JLA fan, and one of the reasons is that it frequently makes no sense and is often horribly contrived and silly. So when I read a JLA story, I try to appreciate it while realizing the restrictive parameters that the writer has to cope with. With this in mind, sometimes the JLA works for me and sometimes it doesn’t. This one worked for me.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 29, 2022 8:56:04 GMT -5
I’ve got the first Showcase volume of the Justice League from the library and I am reading selected stories. It reprints the three tryout issues and JLA #1 to number #16.
These are pretty bad. I have no intention of reading all of them. The tryout issues and JLA #1 to #6 are reprinted in the first volume of the Archives, and I’ve had that out from the library a few times. I will probably re-read the first Amazo story and the first Amos Fortune story.
Because the stories are so dire, I decided to restrict myself to a few selected issues among those that I’ve never read before. So I read the two-part story with the demons Abnezegar, Ghast and Rath (which is also the first Felix Faust), the first appearance of Dr. Light and the one where they are auctioned off to the gangsters.
I also read the story where Amos Fortune turns out to be the mystery villain, and he’s gathered together some former foes of the JLA members. Hector Hammond and the Pied Piper are OK, but the Green Arrow’s chosen villain is a guy named Dr. Davis and for Aquaman, they chose the Sea Thief, who I’m not sure ever actually appeared as an Aquaman villain outside of this story. They don’t even have a villain for the Martian Manhunter. I guess his rogues gallery was pretty slim.
Yeah, these are really bad.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 29, 2022 10:35:32 GMT -5
I’ve got the first Showcase volume of the Justice League from the library and I am reading selected stories. It reprints the three tryout issues and JLA #1 to number #16. These are pretty bad. I have no intention of reading all of them. The tryout issues and JLA #1 to #6 are reprinted in the first volume of the Archives, and I’ve had that out from the library a few times. I will probably re-read the first Amazo story and the first Amos Fortune story. Because the stories are so dire, I decided to restrict myself to a few selected issues among those that I’ve never read before. So I read the two-part story with the demons Abnezegar, Ghast and Rath (which is also the first Felix Faust), the first appearance of Dr. Light and the one where they are auctioned off to the gangsters. I also read the story where Amos Fortune turns out to be the mystery villain, and he’s gathered together some former foes of the JLA members. Hector Hammond and the Pied Piper are OK, but the Green Arrow’s chosen villain is a guy named Dr. Davis and for Aquaman, they chose the Sea Thief, who I’m not sure ever actually appeared as an Aquaman villain outside of this story. They don’t even have a villain for the Martian Manhunter. I guess his rogues gallery was pretty slim. Yeah, these are really bad. The title was still trying to find its land legs.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 29, 2022 10:41:36 GMT -5
I’ve got the first Showcase volume of the Justice League from the library and I am reading selected stories. It reprints the three tryout issues and JLA #1 to number #16. These are pretty bad. I have no intention of reading all of them. The tryout issues and JLA #1 to #6 are reprinted in the first volume of the Archives, and I’ve had that out from the library a few times. I will probably re-read the first Amazo story and the first Amos Fortune story. Because the stories are so dire, I decided to restrict myself to a few selected issues among those that I’ve never read before. So I read the two-part story with the demons Abnezegar, Ghast and Rath (which is also the first Felix Faust), the first appearance of Dr. Light and the one where they are auctioned off to the gangsters. I also read the story where Amos Fortune turns out to be the mystery villain, and he’s gathered together some former foes of the JLA members. Hector Hammond and the Pied Piper are OK, but the Green Arrow’s chosen villain is a guy named Dr. Davis and for Aquaman, they chose the Sea Thief, who I’m not sure ever actually appeared as an Aquaman villain outside of this story. They don’t even have a villain for the Martian Manhunter. I guess his rogues gallery was pretty slim. Yeah, these are really bad. The title was still trying to find its land legs. It’s not entirely without its charm, of course. I find it very amusing all the panels where they’re trying to make sense of Snapper Carr. And then there’s those Sekowsky crowd panels, where everybody is looking over each other’s shoulders and right into each other’s faces. And those panels where they’re all running toward the reader. Those are hilarious. And I find Amos Fortune very interesting, even if his earliest appearances leave a lot to be desired. He should’ve been the villain in the first Justice League movie.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 29, 2022 14:07:29 GMT -5
I think I have to read both of the Kanjar Ro stories. They crack me up. The attention to detail for the names of the dictators of each planet… That is hilarious.
Kanjar Ro is the Delon of Daltath
Hypatia is the Lulon of Flewell
Kromm is the Zota of Magsteel
Sayyan is the Dingdork of Flapjack
I’m doing these from memory. That’s pretty close, right?
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Post by tonebone on Aug 29, 2022 15:57:37 GMT -5
I know early on in this thread, the question arose as to why it sold well.
As a kid, If I saw a team book, I would think "Well, I could buy Superman for .35, Batman for .35, Flash for .35... Wonder Woman, pass. OR I could buy Justice League for .35 and get all of them together!"
Kid logic. But, seriously, I think that was a factor in it's sales.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 29, 2022 18:33:25 GMT -5
I’ve got the first Showcase volume of the Justice League from the library and I am reading selected stories. It reprints the three tryout issues and JLA #1 to number #16. These are pretty bad. I have no intention of reading all of them. The tryout issues and JLA #1 to #6 are reprinted in the first volume of the Archives, and I’ve had that out from the library a few times. I will probably re-read the first Amazo story and the first Amos Fortune story. Because the stories are so dire, I decided to restrict myself to a few selected issues among those that I’ve never read before. So I read the two-part story with the demons Abnezegar, Ghast and Rath (which is also the first Felix Faust), the first appearance of Dr. Light and the one where they are auctioned off to the gangsters. I also read the story where Amos Fortune turns out to be the mystery villain, and he’s gathered together some former foes of the JLA members. Hector Hammond and the Pied Piper are OK, but the Green Arrow’s chosen villain is a guy named Dr. Davis and for Aquaman, they chose the Sea Thief, who I’m not sure ever actually appeared as an Aquaman villain outside of this story. They don’t even have a villain for the Martian Manhunter. I guess his rogues gallery was pretty slim. Yeah, these are really bad. I bought the black and white Showcase and it was quite boring. I then bought the Omnibus that's in color to see if it was a little better. The color helped it but it doesn't compare to the Silver Age Avengers from the same time. Consider this- this title was bi-monthly until the mid 70's. That tells you that it was never a good seller.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 29, 2022 19:13:55 GMT -5
Not to be a jerk, Icctrombone, but JLA went to eight times a year (like Batman) as of issue 9 in 1961 and stayed that way till issue 105 in 1973, after which it did indeed go bi-monthly, during the 100-page era, but only for 12 issues, when it went monthly.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 29, 2022 19:20:25 GMT -5
It still supports my point. With that many characters, it should have monthly.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 29, 2022 19:32:58 GMT -5
It still supports my point. With that many characters, it should have monthly. Many Dc books, with major characters, were published eight times yearly back in the day, including Flash, GL, Batman, Superboy and Superman.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 29, 2022 19:33:48 GMT -5
DC comics that were published 8 times a year through most of the 1960s:
Superman Superboy Jimmy Olsen Lois Lane World’s Finest Wonder Woman Flash Green Lantern
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 29, 2022 20:28:48 GMT -5
Meanwhile Detective Comics, which was allegedly on the verge of cancelation in 1964, didn’t miss a month until 1973.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 29, 2022 21:21:53 GMT -5
Meanwhile Detective Comics, which was allegedly on the verge of cancelation in 1964, didn’t miss a month until 1973. I think the only other monthlies in the early-to-mid-sixties were Action, Adventure, Our Army at War and Strange Adventures.
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