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Post by Hoosier X on May 20, 2014 13:34:39 GMT -5
That's one of the no-Stern issues, that ruin the omnibus for me. In any case, starting with #55, you get to the 5.4 to 6/10 stuff. Always leaving out of consideration the fill-ins. 5.4-6/10? I hope the material gets better than that at some point. Also keep in mind that, under Ozymandias's system, none of the Ditko issues rate above a 5.5. |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 20, 2014 13:58:46 GMT -5
You're right, Hoosier, about the early Bronze Age Justice League. Pretty much everything between Gardner Fox's last issue (#65) and Len Wein's first (#100) is, to say the very least, uninspired. That's when it's not dreadful. His JLA run is Denny O'Neil's worst work (you can tell he didn't feel comfortable writing a team book). Robert Kanigher's issue is the typical hackwork he produced when obviously writing for the paycheck. Then there's Mike Friedrich. Oh lord, the first half of Friedrich's run includes some of the crappiest comics I've ever read. However, things pick up with his last four issues (#96-99) with #99 being the stand-out. I'm not quite the Dillin fan you and others here are but once Joe Giella takes over the inks from Sid Greene, he produces some of the best art of his career. That balances out the bad writing somewhat. So good luck plowing through that Showcase volume. I hope you enjoy it more than I did. Cei-U! I summon the humbs down! I found the Heroes of Angor to be a little intriguing. They kind of suck, yes, but there was the germ of an interesting idea there. They're in #87, where the JLA fights a robot and the robot makes Batman think he's a king and he tries to kill the JLA. And Zatanna guest stars!
It's really terrible, but at one point, the truncated JLA - Green Lantern, Flash, Atom and Zatanna - are attacked by the heroes from the planet Angor. These heroes have been troubled by the same villains behind the robot, and they've all followed the clues to the same planet, but the JLA and the heroes of Angor both think the other group is behind the evil plan. So they start fighting! (Like it's a Marvel comic or something.)
The heroes of Angor are some pretty clumsy Marvel counterparts. The Silver Sorceress is the Scarlet Witch, Jack B. Quick is Quicksilver, Blue Jay is Yellowjacket and Wandjina is Thor. It seems to be a response to Marvel's Squadron Sinister in Avengers #70.
The Marvel imitation of the JLA was so much better than this. And they really amped it up with the Squadron Supreme.
The fight lasts five pages! And then they all make up and the heroes of Angor (who I don't think ever have a formal name) disappear to their planet, where I assume they have a bunch of stupid, really short adventures with bad writing and weird subplots that all look like they were written by Mike Friedrich. I assume they've been brought back at some point, but I'm not aware of it.
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2014 14:11:37 GMT -5
You're right, Hoosier, about the early Bronze Age Justice League. Pretty much everything between Gardner Fox's last issue (#65) and Len Wein's first (#100) is, to say the very least, uninspired. That's when it's not dreadful. His JLA run is Denny O'Neil's worst work (you can tell he didn't feel comfortable writing a team book). Robert Kanigher's issue is the typical hackwork he produced when obviously writing for the paycheck. Then there's Mike Friedrich. Oh lord, the first half of Friedrich's run includes some of the crappiest comics I've ever read. However, things pick up with his last four issues (#96-99) with #99 being the stand-out. I'm not quite the Dillin fan you and others here are but once Joe Giella takes over the inks from Sid Greene, he produces some of the best art of his career. That balances out the bad writing somewhat. So good luck plowing through that Showcase volume. I hope you enjoy it more than I did. Cei-U! I summon the humbs down! I found the Heroes of Angor to be a little intriguing. They kind of suck, yes, but there was the germ of an interesting idea there. They're in #87, where the JLA fights a robot and the robot makes Batman think he's a king and he tries to kill the JLA. And Zatanna guest stars!
It's really terrible, but at one point, the truncated JLA - Green Lantern, Flash, Atom and Zatanna - are attacked by the heroes from the planet Angor. These heroes have been troubled by the same villains behind the robot, and they've all followed the clues to the same planet, but the JLA and the heroes of Angor both think the other group is behind the evil plan. So they start fighting! (Like it's a Marvel comic or something.)
The heroes of Angor are some pretty clumsy Marvel counterparts. The Silver Sorceress is the Scarlet Witch, Jack B. Quick is Quicksilver, Blue Jay is Yellowjacket and Wandjina is Thor. It seems to be a response to Marvel's Squadron Sinister in Avengers #70.
The Marvel imitation of the JLA was so much better than this. And they really amped it up with the Squadron Supreme.
The fight lasts five pages! And then they all make up and the heroes of Angor (who I don't think ever have a formal name) disappear to their planet, where I assume they have a bunch of stupid, really short adventures with bad writing and weird subplots that all look like they were written by Mike Friedrich. I assume they've been brought back at some point, but I'm not aware of it.
Didn't Silver Sorceress and Blue Jay at least appear in the Giffen/DeMatteis era Justice League-I vaguely remember them in the early issues by MAguire and perhaps having a role in Justice League Europe at some point, but I may be wrong.... -M edited to add...here's the cover I remember...  |
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Post by Ozymandias on May 20, 2014 15:41:19 GMT -5
5.4-6/10? I hope the material gets better than that at some point. Also keep in mind that, under Ozymandias's system, none of the Ditko issues rate above a 5.5. The opinion I have on those is system independent. |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 20, 2014 15:53:53 GMT -5
edited to add...here's the cover I remember... I wasn't a big fan of the bwaa haa haa League (as I've heard it called) so I had no idea they brought back the heroes of Angor in the second issue. (I only recently read #1 because it was in the "Greatest JLA Stories Ever Told" volume.)
Two things on that cover stand out as reasons why I stayed away: 1) Guy Gardner. 2) Black Canary's costume. That headband just shrieks: "Late 1980s! Stay away!"
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 20, 2014 16:05:57 GMT -5
Canary's costume was hardly the fault of the League.
I love the early issues of that incarnation. Probably my favorite League.
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Post by Ozymandias on May 20, 2014 16:14:20 GMT -5
#8 was one of the few comics to actually make me laugh, not just smile.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 20, 2014 16:20:17 GMT -5
Canary's costume was hardly the fault of the League. I love the early issues of that incarnation. Probably my favorite League. I would never judge anyone for which version of the League they like best. My favorite is Justice League Detroit.
I know it was often terrible. I knew then it was often terrible. I look at the very best issues and wish it had been that good all the time.
I still like it. There's some indefinable quality at the end, where it gets so bad that it seems to transcend all subjective views of what "good" or "bad" means, that I find fascinating.
It's like the comic book version of "Manos, the Hands of Fate" or "The Violent Years."
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Post by Jasoomian on May 20, 2014 16:51:43 GMT -5
Marvel Chillers #1 (1975) First off, we have a a cover, per GCD, by Kane & Palmer featuring the lead feature, the origin story of Modred the Mystic. Up in the "corner box" which is actually a circle, we have a picture of Modred recycled from the splash page which opens the feature but seems to have nothing to do with the actual story. This splash page has three artists' names signed on it: "Ed / John Romita / Frank Giacoia." Starting on page 2, the art for the balance of the story is by Yong Montano, as we follow two archaeologists wandering around some caves in England somewhere. There's a cave-in, so they start walking the other way. The storywriting credits inform us that it was "inspired by Marv Wolfman" and "woven & told by Bill Mantlo." The archeologists wander into a room where some guy in a funny costume has nodded off in his chair. They quickly determine he has been buried there for centuries, and that lack of air coupled with humidity has kept him so remarkably preserved.
The fellow wakes up and informs the other two that his name is Modred, he has been napping for 1100 years, and the story flashes back to 875 AD for 8 pages or so. Back in 875, Modred was an old man married to a much younger woman. We can see that his ancient father-in-law is also a magician, because he wears a dunce cap. The father-in-law informs Modred that he has been drafted into serving in Merlin's magick corps. This upsets Modred because Merlin has been using black magic and Modred want to remain true to white magic. So he decides the only way to fight Merlin is to use an ancient spellbook which is so super-evil its evil is stronger than Merlin. Makes sense. So he does, and there's a smoke monster like on the cover. Then the book knocks him out for 1100 years and his father-in-law builds him a comfy sitting room.
Back in the present, Modred finishes his story and then uses the dark power from the evil book to clear a way out from under the cave-in and announces that it all worked out because he has great power now and no dark entitites chasing after him. Then he reminds himself that he still owes evil and evil will probably be around to collect soon, but for now he's just gonna chill out and go for a walk.
Here we're promised "NEXT ISSUE: TIGRA THE WERE-WOMAN!" In fact, Tigra had to wait 'til issue #3, as there was another Modred story in #2. Interestingly, #4 was a Tigra fill-in, as part two of the Tigra story started in #3 was late. Guess they were having a lot of deadline trouble on this title.
Then there's a 3pp back-up reprinted from Mystical Tales #7 (1957). Some guy borrows his buddy's time machine to go back 100 years in time (a journey itself which seems to have taken several months of perceived transit time). His idea was he would give his great-great-grandfather some investment tips so his already substantial inheritance would instead be obnoxiously large. Great-great-grandpa thinks he's an intruder, and the guy kills his own great-great-grandfather. He doesn't immediately fade away into oblivion, but he does decide he won't exist in the present anymore if he goes back. So he stays in the past. The end. GCD credits a Frank Bolle with the art.
I think my favorite feature of this comic-book was the sluglines in the bottom margin of even pages advertising other Marvel titles. Stuff like:
COUNT DRACULA COMES TO AMERICA WHEN HE BOARDS A "NIGHT FLIGHT TO FEAR."
MAN-THING ORDERS "DEATH ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN"
THE WHIRLWIND FILLS A "PRESCRIPTION OF VIOLENCE" IN AVENGERS #139!
FANTASTIC FOUR #162: WILL THE REAL REED RICHARDS PLEASE STAND UP?
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Post by fanboystranger on May 20, 2014 18:33:12 GMT -5
Canary's costume was hardly the fault of the League. I love the early issues of that incarnation. Probably my favorite League. That era gets cited as the hilarious "bwaa-ha-ha" era, but there were a lot of well-plotted story elements going on. Giffen was at the top of his game at the time.
People seem to only remember the laughs, though.
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 20, 2014 18:56:19 GMT -5
Keep in mind that Ozymandias' ratings seem to default to a 5/10. I was also labeled as harsh in the old CBR board, because of my "low" average rating, but it's my believe that artistic skills are distributed like many other human characteristics, and that a graphical representation of rated material (when rating on a ten point scale) should look like a Gaussian curve, with a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of 1.428571. Doesn't seem very practical. |
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Post by MDG on May 20, 2014 19:00:53 GMT -5
Canary's costume was hardly the fault of the League. I love the early issues of that incarnation. Probably my favorite League. That era gets cited as the hilarious "bwaa-ha-ha" era, but there were a lot of well-plotted story elements going on. Giffen was at the top of his game at the time.
People seem to only remember the laughs, though.
Yep. I was a big fan of 80s Giffen, and I think he had a good handle on the characters (most of the humor was character-based) and good stories. It started to get a little thin after JLE launched. |
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Post by Fan of Bronze on May 20, 2014 19:03:32 GMT -5
RE: Dick Dillin on Justice League of America:
The theory I favor is a good deal more pragmatic than that put forth by others here. I suspect it's just a matter of Dillin about to lose his Blackhawk assignment (due to impending cancellation) at the same time Julie Schwartz was looking for an artist to replace Mike Sekowsky, who was then moving into an editor's office at DC, and picking up Wonder Woman. Dillin might even have been under contract to the company, which could have motivated the publisher to "encourage" Schwartz to hire Dillin for JLA. The fact that both Blackhawk and JLA were group titles could hardly have hurt, but I think Dillin's reliability and storytelling skills were the more salient reasons for his getting the gig.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 20, 2014 19:27:34 GMT -5
Canary's costume was hardly the fault of the League. I love the early issues of that incarnation. Probably my favorite League. Same here. The first two years were a lot of fun. I later tried to read Morrison's JLA. It was not a lot of fun. Make mine bwa-ha-ha! |
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Post by DubipR on May 20, 2014 20:01:02 GMT -5
Canary's costume was hardly the fault of the League. I love the early issues of that incarnation. Probably my favorite League. Same here. The first two years were a lot of fun. I later tried to read Morrison's JLA. It was not a lot of fun. Make mine bwa-ha-ha! I like both runs. Morrison's relaunch of that title was needed desparately as DC team books were tanking like mad. Only problem I had with the run was Howard Porter didn't work for the book as the main artist. I like his frenetic style but didn't work for all the characters. I like the idea of brains over brawn Morrison laid out. And he made Batman that much more cooler than he already was with the first arc. |
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