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Post by JKCarrier on May 22, 2016 9:48:38 GMT -5
Actually, all the JLAers had series at the time they joined the team prior to Hawkman, just not their own titles. I think Green Lantern had just wrapped up his SHOWCASE run, and hadn't yet started his solo series when the JLA debuted. |
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Post by Cei-U! on May 22, 2016 10:19:34 GMT -5
Actually, all the JLAers had series at the time they joined the team prior to Hawkman, just not their own titles. I think Green Lantern had just wrapped up his SHOWCASE run, and hadn't yet started his solo series when the JLA debuted. You are correct, sir, but the decision to grant GL his own title had been made by the time B&B #28 saw print. Cei-U! I stand partially corrected! |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 22, 2016 10:38:45 GMT -5
I'm skipping around in Showcase Presents: The Justice League of America, Volume Two, which reprints JLA #17 to #36. I haven't read any of the Hawkman stories yet (he joins in #31). They have nine full members (and they sometimes include Snapper Carr on the roster, making it ten!). It's a mess a lot of the time! Sometimes, they focus on smaller groups and just have the missing members show up at the end (because they were busy on other missions) and have a barbecue and talk about their separate adventures. Sometimes, there's several panels at the end where they run into each other, say hi, pat each other on the back and then they're sitting in the break room at HQ with Snapper serving cake. And then a final panel indicating time has passed while they all told their stories. When they try to include too much of the membership, it's a narrative mess. That's why I'm skipping around. I read the first two stories; one of them ("The Triumph of the Tornado Tyrant") was pretty good but "Journey into the Micro-World" ... well, I'm not going to say it was awful because I don't remember it. I read it a week ago and I recognize the art but I never really got interested enough to read every caption and figure out what was going on. I started skipping through, focusing on the villains I recognize. (There are two Justice Society team-ups in this volume but I've read them both a bunch of times. In color, no less! I don't know if I'm going to read them in this format.) So I read the story with Kanjar Ro. (What a nutty fellow. Love him to pieces.) And Doctor Destiny. (Again, I barely remember the story. And I just read it a few days ago.)  To me, the highlight of what I've read so far is "Drones of the Queen Bee" in JLA #23. I adore Zazzala the Queen Bee! OMG! She is hilarious! One of my top JLA stories is the one where she shrinks the JLA and mind controls them to attack Batgirl. (That's JLA #60.) JLA #23 is her first appearance. And she wisely only uses her mind control powers on five members of the JLA - Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Flash, J'onn J'onzz and Wonder Woman. So this story doesn't go off the rails with too many Justice Leagues running around and bumping into each other. (At least, not until the end. This is the story where they hang out at the end and Snapper Carr serves cake. Did you think I was joking when I said that? Not if you've ever read Silver Age JLA!) |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2016 12:35:20 GMT -5
Kanjar Ro and Zazzala the Queen Bee ... are two of my favorite JLA Villians and having said that I find the stories in JLA #17 to #36 entertaining and quite different and I consider the first appearance of Queen Bee in JLA #23 one of the better stories of the Justice League of America. Kanjar Ro was a master villain and one of the most dangerous one ever ... 
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Post by Action Ace on May 22, 2016 19:15:59 GMT -5
I'm skipping around in Showcase Presents: The Justice League of America, Volume Two, which reprints JLA #17 to #36. I haven't read any of the Hawkman stories yet (he joins in #31). They have nine full members (and they sometimes include Snapper Carr on the roster, making it ten!). I started skipping through, focusing on the villains I recognize. (There are two Justice Society team-ups in this volume but I've read them both a bunch of times. In color, no less! I don't know if I'm going to read them in this format.) So I read the story with Kanjar Ro. (What a nutty fellow. Love him to pieces.) And Doctor Destiny. (Again, I barely remember the story. And I just read it a few days ago.) If the Joker was in the Dr. Destiny story, it was issue #34. If not, it was #19. I love both issues myself and Dr. Destiny is one of my favorite JLA villains. Kanjar Ro's story would be issue #24, another favorite of mine. Sadly, his next appearance wasn't until 1975. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 2, 2016 19:24:26 GMT -5
OK,I'm definitely going to have to do some JLA next week... today though, I'm out of town, and what I have with me is...  Atom #8 Fox/Kane/Anderson 'Lockup in the Lethal Lightbulb' I ask you, how can you possibly make a silver age story more compelling than with that title and cover? Man, that's a classic. We start with Dr. Light in jail, but he pulls a Looney Tunes escape by drawing a door on the back wall and walking through it (with the help of a 'special' lightbulb'. No explanation of how he built it in prison, since he's show in a one cell lockup, but whatever. Ray Palmer happens to come by that day.. he's accompanying Jean to free the guy from the B-story (nice tie-in!), and he assumes it had to do with the lightbulb, so he takes it back home and is able to make a tiny one with the left over filament... as the Atom, he goes into the 'Sidreal World' Dr. Light escaped to, but he's of course ready for him. (incidently, we get a recap of JLA #12, where Dr. Light took on the whole JLA, which is really cool, during his villainous monologue). After Dr. Light uses an array of DC scienced light gimmicks, he traps Atom in a light bulb and solders his belt controls, ready to try out his death trap for the Justice League... apparently it will turn them into gas as it heats up. He then goes off to our world to lure out the JLA. The JLA doesn't come... but Atom does use the oppertunity to escape using some sort of weird heat trick that sure doesn't work in real life, and manages to shrink out of the light bulb and break the solder and pursue. Dr. Light is taken by surprised and defeated.. starting his slide from JLA arch nemesis to Teen Titans punching bag and all around joke. Atom checks in with Snapper at JLA HQ to find they were in Outer Space (adventure coming soon! I wonder if it ever did?) and missed the whole thing. Great issue, even if it starts the sad decline of Dr. Light (who I like)... and I haven't even got to the back up yet... The back up is a rather pedestrian story where Jean Loring needs the Atom's help to solve a crime of stolen art that a security guard was framed for. Not that it was bad, but just kinda boring. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 2, 2016 20:51:25 GMT -5
The mission the JLA were away on was depicted in Justice League of America #23, which specifically references the Atom story.
Cei-U!
I summon the answer!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 3, 2016 7:59:37 GMT -5
Is that the Spaceman X story? I've actually read that before (I have really beat up versions of the actual comics)... seems like it would be about the right time...
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 3, 2016 10:13:44 GMT -5
Is that the Spaceman X story? I've actually read that before (I have really beat up versions of the actual comics)... seems like it would be about the right time... No, it's the first Queen Bee story. Cei-U! I summon the sexy stinger! |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 3, 2016 12:34:41 GMT -5
You mean the one Hoosier just posted, where if I just opened my eyes I could have seen the issue #? *sigh* Sometimes I'm dumb.
Spaceman X is #20, apparently (just checked)
Definitely more JLA reviews next week!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 11, 2016 8:38:24 GMT -5
 JLA #9 Fox/Sekowsky/Sachs Wait, I'm not starting with perhaps the most iconic cover in JLA history? No, because seeing the JLA cleaning up their clubhouse for a party FOR THE CLUB like they were 10 year olds in a Little Rascals episode is too priceless for words. The story is that one the 1 year anniversary of the formation of the league, the 'old' members tell Snapper and Green Arrow the story of their first mission. It's about the same as all the other missions... aliens that we've never seen before or since head to Earth and must be stopped! This time, they're having a contest to see who can take over Earth first, so we get all different ones (which is nice). Wonder Woman gives us a Chemistry lesson while we ready and she fights a Mercury Monster.. GL fights yellow(Of course) bird people, etc. Each member in turn defeat their alien, but then head to the one that hasn't attacked yet, and is instead turning them into tree people (as on the cover):  When it comes time to battle, it turns out out heroes aren't transformed, but just covered in tree-ness... so Aquaman helps free GL's ring, who free J'onn for Super Breath, who free Wonder WOman to use her Lasso for the win  They then head to the Arctic, where Batman and Superman are teaming up against the last one (which Martian Manhunter points out they do often), and the newly formed JLA watch SUperman turn the diamond monster into coal by 'rubbing it the wrong way' (yeah, they went there). Pretty much a perfect specimen of the Silver age JLA. |
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Post by Farrar on Jun 11, 2016 15:22:12 GMT -5
Thanks for including an actual page here--I love Sekowsky's work esp. on faces (that last panel).
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 11, 2016 18:58:15 GMT -5
I agree...while he makes Hal look like a slightly overweight ballerina (especially from behind) the faces/expressions are top notch!
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 11, 2016 22:18:49 GMT -5
I agree...while he makes Hal look like a slightly overweight ballerina (especially from behind) the faces/expressions are top notch! I resent that. I'm not even on that cover. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 27, 2016 21:54:24 GMT -5
JLA #10 'The Fantastic Fingers of Felix Faust' Fox/Sewkosky/Sachs I think the 'finger thing was just for alliteration (or perhaps a cool cover).. Felix Faust (making his first appearance) summons 3 demons, who set up spells that will allow Faust to control the Justice League if each of them touch something weird. Through a series of logic stretching puns, that happens, and Faust is able to send the Leaguers to get the 3 artifacts needed to really free the demons (who apparently aren't free and have no power.. except for brainwashing the JLA). The usual small groups ensue, and the JLA brings back the stuff... but wait, they aren't THAT brainwashed:  Who says Aquaman is lame.. super powerful evil sorceror? No problem, we can throw fish at him! Victory! Or is it... the demons DID get loose.. so to be continued! This was felt really phoned in.. it's the basic DC Silver age story line.. but somehow it manages to be quite notable...first appearance of Felix Faust... a rare Batman and Superman showing where they are actively part of the team, and a two parter. Still, such a blah story. Too bad.  |
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