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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 13:59:39 GMT -5
"Alternate timeline" is not quite the same as "alternate dimension," but Chris Claremont wrung lots of angst from the "Days of Future Past" when Rachel Summers found herself in a world which diverged from the familial history she knew.
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Post by dbutler69 on Oct 30, 2019 14:18:40 GMT -5
JLA #171 was one of the first JLA issues I bought, and it brings back a lot of memories for me. I remember getting it at the local Convenient Food Mart. I still think #171-172 is a great JLA/JSA team-up!
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 30, 2019 15:02:31 GMT -5
That's Mr Terrific, not Mister Miracle. Right you are! Correction made. I'm willing to bet Levitz had no idea about Terrific being killed and had to have that dialogue pasted in at the last minute. As for Conway, it doesn't surprise me; he wasn't big on continuity over the issues, especially the JLA/JSA crossovers. He wasn't alone in that, as DC never seemed to care. bring back villains, yes; but not carrying storylines past their intended issues. Heck, Star-Tsar and the Privateer probably got the most mileage. From all evidence, Levitz had no knowledge or consent. I'm surprised Conway's editor let him kill a JSA member without consulting the JSA editorial staff. That would be sort of like Sue Storm dying during an FF crossover into The Avengers, and all that happens in the Fantastic Four book is a word balloon "Too bad about Sue! Now let's go have an adventure..." Not that Mister Terrific was integral to JSA. Looking back over this JLA issue, it seems that Flash-2 didn't take the teleport tube to Earth-1. He took the teleport device to Earth-2, and the JSA followed him there. That's why the JLA are standing around (without the JSA) in the last panel, realizing that they have to dismantle the force field they erected around the station, before they can return to Earth-1. I still doubt they would have been laughing about it so soon after Mister Terrific's death at the hands of a still-possessed Flash-2, though. Ross Andru was the editor on the series, according to GCD, with Joe Orlando as Managing Editor. I kind of had the impression that, outside of Superman, Conway was pretty much editing himself, as was Roy Thomas, when he came in (and Marv Wolfman, probably). Or at least, had minimal editing being done on their work. In regards Mr Terrific, I don't think anyone, including Levitz, cared about the character, as he was barely used in the crossover, or for anything else. If it had been Flash, Hawkman or Green Lantern, they probably would have raised a stink; maybe with Starman, Atom or Johnny Thunder. Doubt anyone would touch Dr Fate and the Spectre was already dead.
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Post by zaku on Oct 30, 2019 17:26:43 GMT -5
From the point of view of "the road not taken" I don't think they did a lot of interesting Earth1-2 stories. The only two ones I found quite stimulating are Brave And Bold #182 and DC Comics Presents Annual #1. The rest of them were just variation of the "Hi Doppelganger from another Earth! Let's put aside any existential question and beat the crap out of our respective enemies!" theme. Seems like fertile ground for a story. The only one that comes to mind immediately is Morrison's Animal Man in which the pre-Crisis Buddy Baker (no kids) and the post-Crisis Buddy Baker (who has a kid) compare notes. I'll see whether I can recall others. Well, this is quite meta ! They did a lot of pastiches with similar concepts (like Alan Moore's Supreme), but unfortunately very little of interesting was done with the original Pre-Crisis Multiverse.
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Post by rberman on Oct 30, 2019 19:04:39 GMT -5
Seems like fertile ground for a story. The only one that comes to mind immediately is Morrison's Animal Man in which the pre-Crisis Buddy Baker (no kids) and the post-Crisis Buddy Baker (who has a kid) compare notes. I'll see whether I can recall others. Well, this is quite meta ! They did a lot of pastiches with similar concepts (like Alan Moore's Supreme), but unfortunately very little of interesting was done with the original Pre-Crisis Multiverse. Yeah, Animal Man was pretty much Grant Morrison's coming out party as the king of metafictional comic books. You may recall that the story ends with Animal Man gaining the power to see his readership, and Grant Morrison showing up on-page to take responsibility for Animal Man's suffering.
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Post by zaku on Oct 31, 2019 6:50:07 GMT -5
Now I remember, in WW 300 Wonder met again her Earth-2 counterpart, who had married Steve Trevor and had had a daughter with him. Diana wasn't particularly fazed by the "roads not taken" thing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2019 21:31:09 GMT -5
JLA #166 “The Long Way Home” (May 1979) I read a lot of Batman and JLA back in the 70's and this 3 part JLA story was one of my favorites.
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Post by rberman on Nov 1, 2019 21:47:07 GMT -5
JLA #173 “Testing of a Hero!” (December 1979)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: The JLA realize that all their members are white. They go looking for a token minority with an on-the-nose name, and find Black Lightning. Flash calls out this uncomfortable fact, which Green Arrow unconvincingly denies. The JLA members pretend to be a series of fake super-villains to test whether Black Lightning has what it takes to join their club. He is surprisingly low-key when they reveal their trickery, but he still turns down their offer. Maybe he’s afraid of acting too angry toward Superman. Meanwhile, a villain attacks S.T.A.R. Labs with a horde of rats… My Two Cents: Ugh, This issue was probably painful to read back then and is certainly moreso now. I thought we’d left this sort of “heroes disguise themselves to test a member candidate” plot behind in Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes (as here from Adventure Comics #305). The outcome is that the JLA remains as white as ever. Furthermore, why does Superman need to test Black Lightning’s mettle, when the two of them teamed up just a month prior in Tony Isabella’s Black Lightning #5? Superman even gave BL a “fastball special.” Black Lightning begins to regret having chosen jive talk as part of his in-costume character. I concur. Hey, it's the end of the 1970s! So that's the end of this thread. Perhaps at some point in the future we can start a new "JLA in the 1980s" thread to see the conclusion of this Black Lightning team-up.
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Post by zaku on Nov 2, 2019 3:38:02 GMT -5
The JLA members pretend to be a series of fake super-villains to test whether Black Lightning has what it takes to join their club. He is surprisingly low-key when they reveal their trickery, but he still turns down their offer. Maybe he’s afraid of acting too angry toward Superman. My God, this trope still survived until the late 70s?!? I'm so happy that it is dead and buried. It was wonderfully lampshaded in Savage Dragon #3 (1992! Even almost thirty years ago it was considered idiotic)
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Post by tarkintino on Nov 2, 2019 7:26:34 GMT -5
JLA #173 “Testing of a Hero!” (December 1979)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. Wow. I remember buying this one from a drug store back in 1979, and was really interested in seeing Black Lightning might be a part of the team, but... This is an era of DC where they walked an ideological tightrope in its handling of black characters, sometimes falling off in ways that deserved criticism, like the initial creation and stereotypical use of Mal in the original Teen Titans comic. While Black Lightning was a genuine superhero from the start, he too was placed on the edges of the DC universe in the sense that aside from a few team-ups, at the time, he was never as deeply connected to the main "body" of DC's superheroes as B-listers such as Green Arrow and Black Canary. Tat says much, and while I've seen some arguments that Black Lightning was written to not be a "joiner" type (to excuse his not being so well-connected in the DC universe at the time), so for analysis sake, if that were true, why would Conway (or ay of the editorial staff) think that was a good idea, since that was a retread of the personality exhibited by John Stewart when he was offered the Green Lantern role? At least it was established that he uses that kind of dialect as a cover, and its not his true self, as opposed to black characters like Luke Cage, who were ripped right from some of the worst of the "Blaxploitation" era of early 1970s movies. Great thread overall. Some around here know I was never a Dillin fan, but putting that aside, the decade of the 1970s was an important one for DC's top group book; they had a tone and character interaction that was distinct from The Avengers, often a more "adult" feel about the characters. Of course, the burgeoning, major changes to DC's core characters at the end of 1960s opened the door to the kind of characterization seen in this title, which separated it from the "good 'ol team" feel of its early Silver Age issues, and thankfully bore no influence from TV's awful Super Friends cartoon. The foundation for stronger stories was in place, but as it turned out, the JLA of the 80s was a very hit and miss period at a time when almost every other team books-- The New Teen Titans, Batman and the Outsiders, The Legion of Superheroes, etc.) were can't-miss, bold comics, an d easily among the decade's best from any publisher. Why that happened to the JLA...who knows, but its probably worth examining one day.
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Post by rberman on Nov 2, 2019 8:53:35 GMT -5
This is an era of DC where they walked an ideological tightrope in its handling of black characters, sometimes falling off in ways that deserved criticism, like the initial creation and stereotypical use of Mal in the original Teen Titans comic. While Black Lightning was a genuine superhero from the start, he too was placed on the edges of the DC universe in the sense that aside from a few team-ups, at the time, he was never as deeply connected to the main "body" of DC's superheroes as B-listers such as Green Arrow and Black Canary. Tat says much, and while I've seen some arguments that Black Lightning was written to not be a "joiner" type (to excuse his not being so well-connected in the DC universe at the time), so for analysis sake, if that were true, why would Conway (or ay of the editorial staff) think that was a good idea, since that was a retread of the personality exhibited by John Stewart when he was offered the Green Lantern role? DC arguably has a bigger problem here than Marvel since they had already rebooted in less inclusive times, replacing the white male characters of the Golden Age with the white male characters of the Silver Age. Grant Morrison appears to be on the vanguard of efforts to redress this problem. His Seven Soldiers and Multiversity stories were specifically crafted to showcase a world (we.. a Multiverse) in which almost no one was a white male. The current Legion of Super-Heroes reboot follows in the same footsteps.
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Post by rberman on Jun 15, 2020 18:17:14 GMT -5
JLA #167 “The League That Defeated Itself” (June 1979) I'm belatedly discovering that this "A team of super-Villains swaps visages with the JLA" three-parter was a replay of JLA #61 (1968) in which a team of super-villains, well, swapped visages with the JLA. With the added complication that the heroes were all disguised as Green Arrow at the time, for added confusion.
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Post by badwolf on Jul 21, 2021 12:43:43 GMT -5
JLA #148 “Crisis in Triplicate!” (November 1977)Creative Team: Written by Martin Pasko “with an assist from Paul Levitz”; Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin The Story: The Demons Three argue about what to do now that they’ve won. Abnegazar wants peace on Earth; Rath wants piles of money; Ghast wants to destroy the world. Each demon chooses a hero team to be his champions: the Legion, Justice Society, and Justice League, respectively. This leads to a massive fight that goes on for many pages in the form of a zillion brief conflicts between various combinations of heroes. (The JSA and JLA were not so destroyed as they seemed last issue.) The details would be tedious to summarize, but the three teams fight here and there, with the JLA only semi-mesmerized by Ghast. Since their boss is the one who wants to destroy the world, the JLA deliberately lose battles to forestall disaster. Finally, Abnegazar and Rath get frustrated by the apparent heroic stalemate. The two demons fight and destroy each other, and their combined energies are absorbed by nearby Doctor Fate. Doctor Fate uses this power to construct the JLA satellite with the three demonic relics (bell, jar, and wheel) inside it. This imprisons Ghast within. The JLA and JSA then return home. Lettercol: Everyone loved loved loved the cameos from classic characters in JLA #144. Two pages worth of adulatory letters. My Two Cents: Right up to the last couple of pages, this was a boring slugfest. “Mind controlled heroes fight each other” makes for a good pin-up but rarely a good story; it’s much better for characters to have legitimate grievances they are trying to settle. Pasko knows it, too. Anyway, the ending at least gets credit for going bonkers on two fronts. First is the notion that Ghast, like Dharlu, is now embedded within the JLA satellite. Is this meant to be the origin story of the satellite? I thought it was made by Superman using Thanagarian tech. We’ll see whether Pasko or other writers follow up on this. My money is on “no.” Next issue, people are hanging out on the satellite like it's no big deal. Second: You might think the JLA would want to know that Ghast is embedded in their satellite. Nope! Green Lantern erases their memories of this entire story. Even Superman’s memory. Even his own. I don’t understand the in-story or meta-textual reason for this turn of events. They didn't learn anything about "their own personal futures." This is surely the kind of story that Identity Crisis was homaging and didn’t anticipate receiving a different reaction from modern audiences. The Demons Three are arbitrarily strong yet lack the ability to fly. Does anyone buy that? Mordru’s body is said to have been placed in “Doom Crater” during an “as-yet-untold Legion adventure.” As far as I know, that story has never been told. The Mordru element gets dropped from the story halfway through; last we see, his astral body is lying on the ground somewhere near the Doom Crater which contains his physical body. Levitz ignores every bit of this when Mordru next appears as the secret instigator of the Earthwar in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241-245 (late 1978). P.S. Isn't the Legion art better than the JLA art? Black Canary gets a simultaneous kiss from Batman and Superman when she has a good idea. Ooook… Note that the word balloon has three tails. The third one points to off-panel Green Arrow, who was not close enough to smooch his girl, or stop the other two from doing so. Pasko’s potty-mouth Green Arrow is here in full force. Wash your mouth out with some soap, mister! I'm just reading these issues now. Why didn't either Canary or Arrow use their talents to break free from the hourglass before?
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Post by badwolf on Jul 21, 2021 12:49:50 GMT -5
JLA #150 “The Key or Not The Key” (January 1978)Creative Team: Written by Steve Englehart. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. I thought the Star-Tsar story was ludicrously convoluted. The Star-Tsar is Snapper, the Key, AND Mark Shaw? Englehart was making this up as he went along.
And no one noticed Privateer popping in and out?
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Post by badwolf on Jul 21, 2021 12:56:38 GMT -5
JLA #151 “The Unluckiest League of All” (February 1978)Creative Team: Written by Gerry Conway. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. This was a very silly issue. Luck glands?? How to the "lucky" people all become minions of fortune? And why not just let them have the powers, rather than bestowing them on others? Seems a weird and unnecessary extra step. Gerry would become one of my favorite JLA writers, but it would seem not till later... when he would again bring back The Key, Amos Fortune, and T.O. Morrow.
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