Back Issue #58 by TwoMorrows Publishing

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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IN THE BRONZE AGE! THE SATELLITE YEARS INJUSTICE GANG MARVEL’s JLA, SQUADRON SUPREME UNOFFICIAL JLA/AVENGERS CROSSOVERS A SALUTE TO DICK DILLIN “PRO2PRO” WITH GERRY CONWAY & DAN JURGENS And the team fans love to hate — “JUSTICE LEAGUE DETROIT”!

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Spider-Man in the Bronze Age!” Drug issues, resurrection of Green Goblin and Gwen Stacy, Marvel Team-Up, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey Super Stories, CBS and Japanese TV shows, Clone Saga, CONWAY, ANDRU, BAGLEY, SAL BUSCEMA, DeFALCO, FINGEROTH, GIL KANE, STAN LEE, LEIBER, MOONEY, ROMITA SR., SALICRUP, SAVIUK, STERN, cover by BOB LARKIN!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Odd Couples!” O’NEIL and ADAMS’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Englehart’s Justice League of America, Daredevil and Black Widow, Power Man and Iron Fist, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Cloak and Dagger, and… Aquaman and Deadman (?!). With AUSTIN, COLAN, CONWAY, COWAN, DILLIN, HOWELL, LEONARDI, SKEATES, and more. New cover by NEAL ADAMS!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Greatest Stories Never Told!” How Savage Empire became The Warlord, the aborted FF graphic novel “Fathers and Sons,” BYRNE’s Last Galactus Story, Star*Reach’s Batman, Aquaman II, 1984 Black Canary miniseries, Captain America: The Musical, Miracleman: Triumphant, unpublished issues of The Cat and Warlock, BLEVINS, DEODATO, FRADON, SEKOWSKY, WEISS, MIKE GRELL cover!

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!” The final DAVE STEVENS interview, Rocketeer film discussion with DANNY BILSON and PAUL DeMEO, The Phantom, Indiana Jones, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ heroes, Dominic Fortune, Sherlock Holmes, Man-God, Miracle Squad, 3-D Man, Justice, Inc., APARO, CHAYKIN, CLAREMONT, MILLER, VERHEIDEN, and more, Rocketeer cover by DAVE STEVENS!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Dead Heroes”! JIM (“Death of Captain Marvel”) STARLIN interview, Deadman after Neal Adams, Jason Todd Robin, the death and resurrection of the Flash, Elektra, the many deaths of Aunt May, art by and/or commentary from APARO, BATES, CONWAY, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GEOFF JOHNS, MILLER, WOLFMAN, and a cosmically cool cover by JIM STARLIN!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “1970s Time Capsule”! Examines relevance in comics, Planet of the Apes, DC Salutes the Bicentennial, Richard Dragon–Kung-Fu Fighter, FOOM, Amazing World of DC, Fast Willie Jackson, Marvel Comics calendars, art and commentary from ADAMS, BRUNNER, GIORDANO, LARKIN, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, O’NEIL, PLOOG, STERANKO, cover by BUCKLER and BEATTY!

Special 50th Anniversary FULL-COLOR issue ($8.95 price) on “Batman in the Bronze Age!” O’NEIL, ADAMS, and LEVITZ roundtable, praise for “unsung” Batman creators JIM APARO, DAVID V. REED, BOB BROWN, ERNIE CHAN, and JOHN CALNAN, Joker’s Daughter, Batman Family, Nocturna, Dark Knight, art and commentary from BYRNE, COLAN, CONWAY, MOENCH, MILLER, NEWTON, WEIN, and more. APARO cover!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!

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Bronze Age Mystery Comics! Interviews with BERNIE WRIGHTSON, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, GERRY TALAOC, DC mystery writer LORE SHOBERG, MARK EVANIER and DAN SPIEGLE discuss Scooby-Doo, Charlton chiller anthologies, Black Orchid, Madame Xanadu art and commentary by TONY DeZUNIGA, MIKE KALUTA, VAL MAYERIK, DAVID MICHELINIE, MATT WAGNER, and a rare cover painting by WRIGHTSON!

“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!

“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

“Licensed Comics”! Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Man from Atlantis, DC’s Edgar Rice Burroughs backups (John Carter, Pellucidar, Carson of Venus), Marvel’s Warlord of Mars, and an interview with CAROL SERLING, wife of ROD SERLING. With art and commentary from ANDERSON, BYRNE, CLAREMONT, DORMAN, DUURSEMA, KALUTA, MILLER, OSTRANDER, and more. Cover by BRIAN KOSCHACK.

“Avengers Assemble!” Writer ROGER STERN’S acclaimed 1980s Avengers run, West Coast Avengers, early Avengers toys, and histories of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Wonder Man, with art and commentary from JOHN and SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, BRETT BREEDING, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, BOB HALL, AL MILGROM, TOM MORGAN, TOM PALMER, JOE SINNOTT, and more. PÉREZ cover!

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The Retro Comics Experience! Volume 1, Number 58 August 2012

EDITOR Michael “Superman”Eury PUBLISHER John “T.O.” Morrow GUEST DESIGNER Michael “Batman” Kronenberg COVER ARTIST Luke McDonnell and Bill Wray COVER COLORIST Glenn “Green Lantern” Whitmore PROOFREADER Whoever was stuck on Monitor Duty SPECIAL THANKS Jerry Boyd Rob Kelly Michael Browning Elliot S! Maggin Rich Buckler Luke McDonnell Russ Burlingame Brad Meltzer Snapper Carr Mike’s Amazing Dewey Cassell World of DC ComicBook.com Comics Gerry Conway Eric NolenDC Comics Weathington J. M. DeMatteis Martin Pasko Rich Fowlks Chuck Patton Mike Friedrich Shannon E. Riley Walt Grogan Zach D. Roberts Andy Helfer Philip Schweier Dan Jurgens Heritage Comics Auctions Grand Comic-Book Database

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ISSUE! BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury.........................................................2 FLASHBACK: 22,300 Miles Above the Earth .............................................................3 A look back at the JLA’s “Satellite Years,” with an all-star squadron of creators GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Unofficial JLA/Avengers Crossovers................29 Never heard of these? Most folks haven’t, even though you might’ve read the stories… INTERVIEW: More Than Marvel’s JLA: Squadron Supreme....................................33 SS editor Ralph Macchio discusses Mark Gruenwald’s dictatorial do-gooders BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: The Injustice Gang.....................................................43 These baddies banded together in the Bronze Age to bedevil the League COSTUME PARTY DEPT.: You Know You’re a Justice Leaguer When ....................46 A mirthful, MADcap look at the Monitor Duty dudes and dames FLASHBACK: Justice League Detroit .......................................................................49 The hard life of Gerry Conway’s street-smart JLA PRO2PRO: Writing Justice League, Then and Now ................................................65 Gerry Conway and Dan Jurgens compare notes BACK TALK...............................................................................................................73 Reader feedback on our Gods and Liberated Ladies issues

BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Luke McDonnell and Bill Wray. Cover characters are TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2012 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. JLA Issue

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Dick Giordano cover art for Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-46 (Aug. 1976), starring the Justice League of America. TM & © DC Comics.

Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

Michael Eury

As I write this editorial, Marvel Studios’ The Avengers is one day away from its US theatrical premiere, and I’m as giddy as a ten-yearold. The last time I was this jazzed about a superhero movie debut was … well, June of 1989, when I endured a sweaty, creeping procession that rivaled the Russian toilet-paper rationings (’80s reference!) to see the premiere of Tim Burton’s Batman. But why shouldn’t I be excited? After all, The Avengers is the first live-action super-team movie ever (“super-team” meaning a team-up of previously established heroes, as opposed to the “family” teams that have already been adapted to film: X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Watchmen). Marvel is to be commended for growing its film franchise and (judging from trailers and advance buzz) for actually pulling off this character-heavy, on-screen superhero combo. That anticipation aside, I wish that I was going to see a big-budget Justice League of America movie this weekend. With Batman and Superman as my gateway do-gooders, JLA was the first super-team whose adventures I read. As a boy in 1967, I remember coveting the Ideal Toys Justice League of America playset (still don’t own one!) in the window of my hometown J. C. Penney’s and chuckling at the strange transformations I could engineer to the Justice Leaguers by a mere flip of a panel of my Comic Book Foldees. Before long I was licking the top of my hand to apply JLA temporary tattoos and squirming in boyish anticipation over the annual summer Justice League/Justice Society crossovers. My lifelong love for the JLA was the heart that beat through each page of my 2005 TwoMorrows book, The Justice League Companion. From the JLA shorts in 1967’s Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure to the long-running Super Friends to the Cartoon Network’s Justice League series of a few years back, the JLA is no stranger to animation—but could there be a day when Henry Cavill (Superman), Christian Bale (Batman), Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern), to other actors share screen time and bring DC’s most daring to life in a live-action super-team movie? Hollywood has flirted with a live-action JLA on occasion. The first time was the pair of Legends of the SuperHeroes comedy specials pro-

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duced by Hanna-Barbera and aired on NBC in 1979. Joining Adam West and Burt Ward, reprising their roles as TV’s Dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin, were a number of unknowns cast as the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom, Captain Marvel, Black Canary, and the Huntress (see BACK ISSUE #25 for the full story). Played strictly for laughs on a low budget, these lampoons may be tough to watch for the grim-and-gritty crowd that visits today’s comics shops. Then there was the Justice League of America 1997 unaired pilot produced by CBS, kinda-sorta based on the 1990s’ incarnation of the superteam, with Guy Gardner and Fire and Ice included in the lineup. This version, for those who have suf© DC Comics/CBS-TV fered through YouTube clips, makes the 1979 Legends TV specials seem Emmy-worthy. In perhaps the worst superhero screen casting ever, pudgy David Ogden Stiers of M*A*S*H fame played the Martian Manhunter (!). Lastly, as TV’s Smallville evolved through its ten-season run and Clark Kent (Tom Welling) grew toward super-adulthood, this almost-man of steel routinely encountered other costumed crusaders (especially Green Arrow, who became a co-star), with a JLA of sorts assembling from time to time, and the Justice Society even making an appearance © DC Comics/Tollin/Robbins Productions/Millar in a spandex-loaded episode Gough Ink. penned by Geoff Johns. So, are we likely to see the real deal with Justice League: The Movie any time soon? Given Green Lantern’s less-than-anticipated box-office performance and the inevitable post–Christopher Nolan rebooting of Batman, a live-action JLA movie seems more of a fan’s dream than a coming-soon-to-a-theater-near-you attraction. Hopefully Warner Bros. will follow Marvel Studios’ franchise-building model and use 2013’s Man of Steel as launching point for a series of DC movies that will one day dovetail into Justice League of America. In the meantime, this BACK ISSUE brings the JLA to life in a different way—by exploring many of the most influential and memorable stories the series had to offer during the Bronze and early Modern Ages of Comics. And we’re happy to give the often-maligned Justice League Detroit their due with both our original Luke McDonnell/Bill Wray cover and an in-depth article. This issue is a cover-to-cover read for the JLA fan, and will help you pass the hours during your next stint on Monitor Duty.

22,300 MILES ABOVE EARTH A Look Back at the JLA’s “Satellite Years”

After years of maintaining the status quo, Justice League of America entered the Bronze Age with a renewed energy, thanks to new creators, new members, and the introduction of an orbiting headquarters. Following is a closer look at the writers, artists, and storylines that turned the Justice League into true icons.

Shannon E. Riley

KEEPERS OF THE JLA CASEBOOK JLA was fortunate to have a number of talented writers guiding the book out of the Silver Age and into the ’70s. After charting the team’s adventures for almost nine years, writer Gardner Fox left the series, making way for Denny O’Neil, who took the reins with issue #66 (Nov. 1968). Says O’Neil, “I didn’t know until about 20 years later why there were assignments available, including JLA. ([Fox] had been dumped by management over an insurance hassle.) Julie offered me the gig and there was no reason not to accept.” O’Neil ushered in significant changes fairly quickly: Martian Manhunter left in search of his people; Wonder Woman lost her powers and was given a leave of absence; Black Canary migrated from Earth-Two, joined the JLA, and gained her trademark “canary cry”; and a Joker-influenced Snapper Carr betrayed the team. Dovetailing out of the Joker’s discovery of the Sanctuary’s loca-

Going Up? The League heads north—22,300 miles north!—in the first Bronze Age issue of JLA, Justice League of America #78 (Feb. 1970). The issue guest-starred the Vigilante. Cover art by Gil Kane. TM & © DC Comics.

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The Magnificent Seven DC’s Golden Age Bteam, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, returned in the JLA’s three-part anniversary epic from writer Len Wein, commencing in issue #100 (Aug. 1972). Cover by Nick Cardy. TM & © DC Comics.

tion in issue #77 (Dec. 1969), the team brought with him a youthful exuberance abandons their Earthbound cave and the and enthusiasm for the characters, as satellite headquarters makes it first well as an acute awareness of the politappearance in JLA #78 (Feb. 1970). ical climate of the times and a strong Was O’Neil was influenced by a cersense of social justice. Friedrich tain William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy reveals that “the first [JLA] assignTV show, or perhaps the Space Race ment came at the end of August of between the US and the Soviets? Not 1970, as I was about to return to so, says O’Neil. “I don’t think I was California for my senior year of colwatching Star Trek at the time and I lege. My memory was that I was surcertainly wasn’t thinking about the prised by the assignment, since I Cold War. I just thought that a satelhadn’t worked on a regular feature lite was way cooler than a prosaic, yet. I don’t remember asking for it in MIKE FRIEDRICH earthbound headquarters.” O’Neil’s advance.” Unfortunately, there introduction of the orbiting satellite would be no guidance or mentorset the stage for unlimited story possibilities … and the ship from O’Neil, as Friedrich notes that he “didn’t writers that followed him would take full advantage. have much time to talk with Denny before I returned Mike Friedrich, then just a college student, took to California, so there wasn’t any discussion regarding over from O’Neil with issue #86 (Dec. 1970). His first storylines. He hated writing the series, while I was more story, “Earth’s Final Hour,” saw the team dealing with enthusiastic.” the threat of extinction-level global starvation. Friedrich Aside from the world hunger story noted above, Friedrich dealt with pollution in “Plague of the Pale People” in JLA #90 (June 1971), unity and understanding between different generations (and aliens) in #91–92 (Aug.–Sept. 1971), and the horrors of war in “The Private War of Johnny Dune” in #95 (Dec. 1971). In his Justice League Companion interview with Michael Eury, Friedrich touched on the age gap between himself and Julie Schwartz. As a college student in the early ’70s, Friedrich certainly had a unique perspective and outlook on the world—and it showed in his storylines. However, was it one that differed significantly from Schwartz’s? Not necessarily, said Friedrich. “Julie was remarkably supportive of my political concerns (I realize now that he probably shared them, though we didn’t have those kinds of conversations), but he was clear that they had to be part of an entertaining story.” Friedrich’s last JLA story was “Seeds of Destruction!” in #99 (June 1972), and he explained his exit thusly: “I impulsively decided to go work for Marvel and just as impulsively, DC decided I was off the book. How I made this transition is one of my embarrassing career moments.” Nevertheless, Friedrich remains positive about his experience on the book and offers, “The fun of writing JLA flowed from the fun I had of reading it as a fan earlier—having all these great characters in the same panels and the same stories was an enjoyable challenge. The few moments I was able to succeed was when the characters really worked together with their unique personalities and heroic attributes, in ways that individually were not possible.” Len Wein kicked off an influential run on JLA with the three-part “In Search of the Seven Soldiers of Victory” in #100 (Aug. 1972), guest-starring the JSA and reintroducing the Seven Soldiers—the StarSpangled Kid and Stripesy, Vigilante, Crimson Avenger, Shining Knight, and the Golden Age Green Arrow and Speedy—who had been absent from DC Comics for years. In The Quality Companion, Wein revealed in a 2011 interview with author Mike Kooiman that he had a soft spot for the Golden Age heroes, but surprisingly, they weren’t on Julie Schwartz’s radar at all. He recalls that his discussions with Schwartz about reviving the Soldiers “weren’t lengthy conversations. Julie barely remembered any of those characters. [laughs] It was my suggestion to him to bring them in. I wanted to do something special for the hundredth issue of Justice League. So, aside from

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Obsolete League Looks like the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes may be washed up in this awesome Neal Adams/Dick Giordano cover to Justice League of America #88 (Mar. 1971), guest-starring Aquaman’s wife, Mera. Original art signed by Adams and courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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Earth-Swastika?? That’s what Wein wanted to call what we know as Earth-X, in his two-parter that brought back Quality Comics’ superheroes—now known as the Freedom Fighters. JLA #107 (Sept.–Oct. 1973) cover by Cardy. TM & © DC Comics.

(Oct.–Dec. 1973). In “Crisis on Earth-X,” the JLA and JSA are mysteriously transported to a world where the Nazis won World War II. According to Wein, Earth-X was almost Earth-Swastika. As he explained to Kooiman, “When I designed it, it was a swastika and Julie said to me, ‘No book I edit will have a swastika in it.’ So he suggested just taking the ends off the swastika and making it an ‘X.’” Regarding bringing these wartime heroes into the DC Universe, Wein added, “I was a fan of the Quality characters. As a comics collector, I loved the Lou Fine artwork. It was something DC owned and I said, ‘Why don’t we make use of those characters?’” The diversity of Uncle Sam et al. was also appealing to Wein, as he noted, “I always look for a certain balance when I’m writing super-hero teams. I want different kinds of powers, different personalities, so that I have interesting stuff to write. I went through it very carefully, picking a leader, Uncle Sam (a character I always adored, I don’t know why); a ‘flyer,’ the Black Condor; a blaster [Human Bomb]; someone who fires rays [the Ray]; the sexy female [Phantom Lady]; and then the quirky power, like Doll Man.” As for the team’s sobriquet, Wein told Kooiman that “Freedom Fighters” was “an old name I’d been keeping since my fanzine days (in a publication called Aurora). I was going to create the characters when I was writing for fanzines, but that name never really got used, so I thought I’ve got this great name, why not use it here?” After their appearance in Justice League, the team would graduate to an ongoing series: Freedom Fighters debuted in 1976 and ran for 15 issues. Since then, iterations of the team have appeared off and on in DC continuity, most recently in two miniseries, 2006 and 2007’s Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters, as well as a short-lived 2010 ongoing, Freedom Fighters. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #41 for a Freedom Fighters history.] While Wein’s run is memorable for bringing back beloved Golden Age characters and expanding the team’s roster (more on that later), perhaps the biggest impact he had on Justice League of America was through his role as editor. This writer posits that the Wein-edited stories from issues #177–224 are among the series’ best: “Quest for Genesis” in JLA #192 (July 1981), which kicked off the two-part secret origin of the Red Tornado; “Targets on Two Worlds” from #195–197 (Oct.–Dec. 1981), in which the UltraHumanite and the Secret Society of Super-Villains plot to destroy the JLA and JSA; the giant-size #200 getting in every member of the JLA and JSA, I thought (Mar. 1982), featuring a bevy of Silver and Bronze about finding something else, and I remembered the Age creators; “Crisis on Earth-Prime,” a crossover Seven Soldiers. I’d read an article in a fanzine about with the All-Star Squadron and JSA in #207–209 them, so I looked them up in the office and thought (Oct.–Dec. 1982); and “Crisis in the Thunderbolt they sounded like fun.” Thanks in no small part to Dimension” from #219–220 (Oct.–Nov. 1983), which revealed that the Black Canary was Wein, the concept of the Seven Soldiers would actually the daughter of the original prove to have legs: Variations of the team Golden Age heroine. would go on to appear in numerous DC While Wein was still serving as projects, most notably in Grant ongoing writer, Martin Pasko saw his Morrison’s 2005–2006 metaseries first work on Justice League of America Seven Soldiers and in the 2006 appear in issues #111–112 “Patriot Act” episode of the Justice (June–Aug. 1974), in which he League Unlimited animated series. scripted the two-page “Wanted: There were more Golden Age The Injustice Gang!” and “Amazo resurrections to come under Wein’s and His Creator,” respectively. Pasko watch, as Quality Comics characters would then go on to script fullUncle Sam, the Human Bomb, length stories in issues #122 (Sept. Phantom Lady, Black Condor, the 1975) and #128–130 (Mar.–May Ray, and Doll Man would make their LEN WEIN 1976). He reveals how he came to DC Comics debut in JLA #107–108

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work on the series and discusses his interhad never been seen in JLA.” actions with Schwartz: “I wrote those Pasko’s JLA storylines are notable for fillers you mention while on staff at several “firsts,” one being the original DC, as Julie’s editorial assistant battle between Superman and (which, by the way, definitely wasCaptain Marvel. The cover for issue n’t the same thing as an assistant #137 (Dec. 1976) proclaims, “This Is editor). I was there as part of a new It—The Encounter You’ve All Been paid-internship program devised by Waiting For—The Big Red Cheese then-VP Sol Harrison. Julie and I had Meets The Big Red ‘S’!” The two a prior relationship—I’d been subheroes have faced off more times than mitting story ideas, which he’d this writer can count, but why does reject with detailed notes, for a few Pasko think readers find this matchyears—‘mentoring’ me, if you up so exciting? “Damned if I know,” MARTIN PASKO will—so Sol assigned me to Julie. I’d he says. “I’ll let you in on a little already been making sales to horror secret: I have always hated the whimanthologies by this time, though, so I wasn’t exactly sy of Captain Marvel, and [co-writer E. Nelson Bridwell] a total newbie. Which was how I was able to very adored it, and that was the main reason I kept lapsing quickly join Julie’s stable of writers, getting my feet into a diabetic coma while writing that thing. And, as I wet with him by writing a number of backup features think has been demonstrated by DC’s efforts to play while proofreading, auditing plotting sessions, writ- that character group ‘straight’ over the years, it can’t be ing letters columns and filler pages, etc.” played straight. I mean, a worm with eyeglasses and a The writer became familiar with Schwartz’s feel- speaker hanging from its neck? C’mon. But to give you ings about the title and the challenges the editor a more serious answer, I think you have to remember faced. “During the six months I worked with Julie, I that at the time that story was done, those kinds of learned of his various longtime concerns about JLA,” ‘meetings you thought you’d never see’ were still Pasko says. He considered it the hardest DC book to write and claimed never to have been completely satisfied with any writer on it. He even complained bitterly about how much he’d had to rewrite Gardner Fox on the Silver Age run, as well as ‘spoon-feed him’ plots. But Len Wein had just started writing the book when I came aboard and I watched their interaction very closely.” Pasko continues, “I’d become friendly with Len, and he kindly let me pick his brain about how to write JLA, because I loved what he was doing; the characters had much more personality, and their interaction was so much more fun, in Len’s hands. And he had a terrific handle on how to structure and pace the stuff (when Carmine Infantino wasn’t screwing him up by cutting the page count every six seconds). Len knew Julie’s quirks and foibles inside and out and he knew just how to ‘borrow’ the right elements of previous writers’ approaches— for example, Fox’s habit of breaking the League into smaller teams to fight smaller manifestations of the menace du jour in Act One; Denny O’Neil’s knack for Marvelesque angst, and so on. Len also knew how to defend his creative choices when Julie got cranky, pointing out that he was only doing something that Julie had claimed to like about the book in the past. To all this, Len added his great flair for snappy patter and his rich love of DC mythology, particularly characters and character groups that DC owned but which

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Mightiest Mortal Muscles in on the Man of Steel The Ernie Chua (Chan)/Frank McLaughlin cover to JLA #137 (Dec. 1976), featuring the first throw-down between Captain Marvel and Superman. TM & © DC Comics.

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AN EARTH-PRIME

My World, and Welcome to It (above) The Flash #179 (May 1968) transported the Fastest Man Alive to Earth-Prime. Cover by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. (right) Earth-Prime’s he-man Ultraa is introduced in JLA #153 (Apr. 1978). Cover by Rich Buckler and Jack Abel. TM & © DC Comics

hat if our reality—where we live, work, and sleep—actually took place on one of the many Earths in the DC Universe? That’s what famed editor Julie Schwartz posited in The Flash #179 (May 1968). In “The Flash—Fact or Fiction,” our titular hero finds himself accidentally transported to Earth-Prime and enlists the help of Schwartz to find his way back to Earth-One. During the course of the story, it’s also revealed that DC’s writers find their unconscious inspiration from the adventures of Earth-One’s JLA and Earth-Two’s JSA. A few years later in The Flash #228 (July–Aug. 1974), writer Cary Bates journeys from “our” world to Earth-One and discovers that his stories not only chronicle that Earth’s heroic exploits, but actually influence events there as well! Mild-mannered Bates becomes the most dangerous man on two Earths in Justice League of America #123–124 (Oct.–Nov. 1975), when his next cross-dimensional jaunt temporarily turns him into a supervillain. Bates kills the Justice

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Society, but a timely intervention by fellow writer Elliott Maggin saves the day and restores order. Maggin recalls penning the adventure with Bates and the subsequent reaction from readers: “The way Cary and I approached the story … came from a (possibly premature) feeling of having seen enough stories where writers and artists become characters themselves. We just thought it was self-serving and exclusionary and we decided we’re going to do the last of these kind of stories because we would make this one so silly and self-aggrandizing that no one would want to do it again. Obviously it backfired. I got more fan mail—I did, personally—than I’d ever gotten on anything I’d done. I got propositions in the mail and suggestive photos of women that, so help me, I wish I’d kept.” This would not be the last time that “ladies man Maggin” (or any other DC creator, for that matter) would appear in the comics as residents of EarthPrime. As Maggin explains, “Eventually we both did a few more stories where we or friends of ours (Julie’s 70th birthday story and Curt Swan’s flight with Superman come to mind) appear as characters. [Author’s note: Maggin is referring to Superman #411 (Sept. 1985) and Superman Annual #9 (1983), respectively.] But now here and there I’ve turned up, unannounced—notably to me—as a character in stories I have nothing else to do with. I’ve become a character in the DC Universe. You know when you play baseball as a kid and you don’t have as many team members as you need and you send an ‘invisible man’ running the bases out ahead of someone because you’ve got to get back up to bat and you’re still on base? Well, that’s what we used to do, at least. So the Elliot character wandering around the DC Universe has become my invisible man. Whenever I see him I tell people the Earth-Prime me is taller and thinner, but it’s good to see that guy anyway.”

HIS NAME IS ULTRAA JLA #153 (Apr. 1978) finds the Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Batman, and Superman perplexed as they are mysteriously pulled from Earth-One to EarthPrime. Schwartz meets with the heroes and explains that he started a contest to see which JLA members were the most popular among readers; he surmises that this acted as a magnet and drew them to “the world where the only super-heroes are in comics and TV!” Fittingly, the results of that very poll are revealed in the issue’s letters column. This same issue sees Gerry Conway introduce Ultraa, Earth-Prime’s first superhero—like Superman, an alien rocketed to Earth but raised by indigenous Australians. After so many years, Conway can’t recall

PRIMER how the character came about. “I don’t think EarthPrime in my run was as important a story stub, as it were. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember that much about [Ultraa]. I was more into the mainstream characters that were operating in the Justice League … and I think Earth-Prime was actually introduced by Gardner Fox in his original ‘Flash of Two Worlds,’ because if you think about it, Gardner, the character telling the story, is on Earth-Prime!” Murky origins aside, Ultraa would appear in Conway’s JLA run a few more times—most notably in #158 (Sept. 1978), where he takes on the Injustice Gang but nearly destroys the world in the process, and then again in issues #169–170 (Aug.–Sept. 1979), as the League is placed on trial for illegally imprisoning Ultraa (never mind that the plaintiff’s lawyer is an alien intent on destroying all humanity). His final pre–Crisis appearance in #201 (Apr. 1982) sees Ultraa taking up residence on Earth-One as Jack Grey, a lonely Atlantic City busboy. “A Hero for All Seasons,” illustrated by Don Heck, brings back smalltime crook Joe Parry, who fought the League all the way back in JLA #31 (Nov. 1964). Parry dupes Ultraa into a life of crime, but the timely intervention of Hawkman helps the isolated alien see that his life doesn’t have to be one of despair. The story ends with Ultraa living and thriving with an aboriginal tribe, harkening back to his roots on Earth-Prime.

THE RISE AND FALL OF SUPERBOY-PRIME One of the most unexpected DC Universe villains of the past several decades can trace his roots back to the Earth-Prime concept and the historic Crisis on Infinite Earths series. In 1985, DC launched the 12issue universe-changing Crisis, with titles across the entire line reflecting the changes and aligning their storylines with the Marv Wolfman-scripted maxiseries. DC Comics Presents #87 (Nov. 1985), written by Maggin and penciled by Curt Swan, introduced Superboy of Earth-Prime, who was otherwise your typical teenager until the arrival of Earth-One’s Superman. The young Clark Kent’s alien powers manifest themselves in the presence of his older namesake and he adopts the “Superboy” moniker. Maggin remembers, “I wasn’t involved in Crisis planning, but I had a pretty good idea of where it was going and it was a general rule that it was to everyone’s advantage to tie in with it as much as possible. I had worked very little with Superboy over the years and I had always wanted to, so I retold Superboy’s story as an Earth-Prime character. He’s been through all sorts of changes [since].” Changes, indeed! 2005’s Infinite Crisis shows us a Superboy-Prime who has become increasingly angry and frustrated with the heroes of the post–Crisis New Earth. With the aid of the Earth-Three Alexander Luthor, he escapes the paradise realm he had been living in since the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths and goes on a rampage, killing dozens of heroes— most notably the Earth-Two Superman and Conner Kent, the Superboy of New Earth. Says Maggin, “I’m

not quite sure how that happened. Really. The characters you create are sometimes invisible men [who] go off and have lives of their own and take turns you wouldn’t have wanted for them. I didn’t much like the idea of his being a villain—and that costume left a lot to be desired, too—but it’s not my Universe.” Due to legal wrangling between Time Warner (DC Comics’ parent company) and the Jerry Siegel estate around the “Superboy” name, the character next appeared as Superman-Prime in the 2007–2008 “Sinestro Corps War” storyline running through Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, and in the weekly Countdown to Final Crisis series. At this writing, Superboy-Prime’s most recent appearance was in the 2011 series finale of Teen Titans, where he was imprisoned within the Source Wall by Superboy and Supergirl. Given DC’s revamp and the introduction of the New 52, it is unlikely that we’ll be seeing Superboy-Prime again anytime soon.

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Prime Suspect No one suspected when DC Comics Presents #87 (Nov. 1985) was published that its innocent costar, the Earth-Prime Superboy, would one day be one of the DC Universe’s deadliest villains. Cover by Eduardo Barreto. TM & © DC Comics.

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Secrets of the JLA Sisterhood No men allowed in this Monitor Duty splash page feature three of the JLA’s loveliest, as rendered by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. From Justice League #151 (Feb. 1978), whose cover, by Allen Milgrom and Joe Orlando, is seen in the inset. TM & © DC Comics

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quite a novelty—remember, this is around the same time that all that Superman vs. Spider-Man and Batman vs. the Hulk stuff was first going on. So I think the sheer unexpectedness of it was what made it popular then. As for later, in the ’80s and ’90s, when that well had been gone to so many times that the water had begun to taste a bit stale, I’m not so sure it was all that popular.” Pasko returned to write the JLA/JSA crossover with the Legion of Super-Heroes in #147–148 (Oct.–Nov. 1977). Was he a big fan of the Legion? “Not rabidly. I mean, I liked it well enough as a kid when it was running in Adventure, but I was never gonna be signing up for the Berlitz course in Interlac, if you catch my drift. No, what happened there was, I think it was Nelson’s idea to bring in the Legion, and, having written it in the ’60s, he wanted to plot it and have me script it. I balked and told Julie that Paul [Levitz] was the resident LSH expert who understood how to do it for the then-current fan base. After all, Paul was, by that point, writing it (with Jim Sherman penciling, as I recall). But Julie had never worked with Paul, so he was wary of turning the whole thing over to him, as I’d recommended. So I agreed to script it from Paul’s plot rather than one from Nelson (with minor kibitzing from me), because at the time Paul and I were sharing an apartment and it was a simple matter to consult with each other as it was being scripted, but most of all because both Paul and Julie liked my pitch of using Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast, the three demons from ‘One Hour To Doomsday,’ as the villains.” [Author’s note: Pasko’s JLA/JSA/Legion crossover was published toward the culmination of Steve Englehart’s one-year run on JLA. For an in-depth JLA interview with Englehart, see BACK ISSUE #45.]

CONWAY ARRIVES Following Englehart’s stint on JLA, Gerry Conway assumed ongoing writing duties with “The Unluckiest League of All” in issue #151 (Feb. 1978). He explains how this came about and his working relationship with Julie Schwartz: “I worked for DC, I think, three times in sequence. The first time was how I broke into comics, I was working at DC. Then I went over to Marvel for about four or five years. And when I came back to DC, one of the first things that I did was approach Julie Schwartz about writing some stories for him and he assigned me some individual Justice League stories, which I really enjoyed because I loved the Justice League. It’s always been never my goal to get off anything, so I don’t think I one of my favorite comic books and comic-book thought about it in terms of how long I was going to groups. So I did a handful of stories for him during work on it until I got near the point where I realized the year, or year and a half, that I was at DC in this that yes, in fact, I was going to beat Gardner Fox. sort of interim period. And then when I came back to [laughs] So then it was like, ‘By God, I’m going to DC after a brief return to Marvel, one of the hold on and beat Gardner Fox.’ But that wasseries that I was offered on a semi-regular n’t the way I was thinking about things. I basis was Justice League, again by Julie, know these days, people commit to and we got along really well. He liked series for like a year at a time or for a the way I plotted, I liked the way he two-year contract or whatever it is, worked as an editor. And one thing but back then, we were given led to another, and I basically assignments that could be taken became the consistent writer on the away at any moment so it was hard series from that point on.” to like plan out your next three Amazingly, Conway would go on years of storylines because you didto beat Gardner Fox’s record on n’t know whether you were going to JLA—Conway wrote almost every have next month. I liked doing the issue from #151–255, with just a book quite a bit so to the extent few exceptions. He elaborates on that I could keep the readers interGERRY CONWAY this achievement to BI: “Well, it’s ested and keep my editors interest-

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the stakes, emotionally, hopefully, and make for a powerful story.” Mr. Terrific’s killer, the Spirit King, wouldn’t be caught until years later, in John Ostrander’s 1992 Spectre series.

THE JLA HEREBY ELECTS…

Roll Call Additions Two classic Cardy covers featuring the JLA’s new additions: issue #103 (Dec. 1972), with the Phantom Stranger, and #106, with the Red Tornado. TM & © DC Comics

ed, I was delighted to do it.” Conway’s contributions to the title are numerous, and for many fans his work is synonymous with the League’s “Satellite Years.” Conway was able to inject drama, interpersonal dynamics, and a sense of continuity where there hadn’t been any previously. Death loomed, as well. One needs to look no further than the fate of Mr. Terrific in JLA #171 (Oct. 1979). Says Conway of the story, “Killing [Mr. Terrific] off was a way to sort of raise the stakes, to make the story more interesting, and to give the characters something emotional to react to. And we hadn’t seen a lot of that in Justice League and again, it wasn’t a continuity book until I came onto it, so killing off a character who didn’t really have that much of a connection to the other characters wouldn’t have made any difference. You know, if all you see is Martian Manhunter showing up, he’s in it for five pages, he goes home, killing him off wouldn’t really make any difference. But with having the opportunity to do that with an Earth-Two character, I was able to raise

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Beyond the orbiting headquarters and the array of talented writers, perhaps the most significant aspect of the League’s “Satellite Years” was its greatly expanded cast of characters. Though the team had been acquiring new members sporadically since Green Arrow’s induction in “The Doom of the Star Diamond” in issue #4 (May 1961), it wasn’t until the series entered the Bronze Age that things really took off. Wein’s 1972–1974 run on the title introduced three new teammates in the span of four issues. The Halloween tale “A Stranger Walks Among Us!” from JLA #103 (Dec. 1972) features a guest appearance by the Phantom Stranger, who assists the League in a battle against Felix Faust. Superman offers the Stranger a place on the team at the conclusion of the story, but he quickly disappears (though he would go on to appear several more times in the title, most notably during Englehart’s run). The Elongated Man is given a signal device and access to the satellitesanctuary in the “Specter in the Shadows” story appearing in #105 (May 1973), as the team rationalizes they are operating at “less than full strength” since J’onn J’onzz’s departure and it’s high time to vote in a new member (though one wonders how Ralph Dibny could be considered a suitable substitute for the Martian powerhouse). “Wolf in the Fold” in #106 (Aug. 1973) sees the long-suffering Red Tornado get full membership privileges, but not before being put through the ringer by creator T. O. Morrow and having to weather doubts from the team about his competency. In a June 16, 2008 inter-

ROOTS OF IDENTITY CRISIS

o what lengths would you go in Kent and Superman to exist in the order to protect your loved same universe, you know, which is ones? That was the basic premthat apparently nobody has a black ise of Identity Crisis, the 2004 Magic Marker that they can use to limited series written by New York Times draw circles around Superman’s eyes. bestselling author Brad Meltzer and lavSo there are certain questions, I ishly illustrated by the team of Rags guess, that my generation of writers Morales and Michael Bair. The complex, just chose not to ask because we multi-layered drama features the muraccepted that reality … I’ve been reder of Sue Dibny at the hands of Jean reading a lot of my stuff because I’ve Loring, who stages the attack to play on had to write introductions to things Ray (Atom) Palmer’s fears for her safety and I was just reading my early issues in order to win him back. But perhaps of Thor and sort of cringing with the more shocking was the big reveal of the overwrought dialogue in it. But then I League’s history of mindwiping their think to myself, ‘Well, that was the enemies—and friends. house style, that was the era that we As the heroes gather to hunt for were writing in. I wouldn’t write that Sue’s killer, it’s revealed that Dr. Light way today but if I hadn’t written that had once broken into the team’s orbitway back then, it would have looked ing headquarters and raped Sue. The wrong and people would have said team votes to have Zatanna mindwipe you’re failing. You know, you’re not Dr. Light, turning him into a simpleton doing it right.’ If I had played out all and instantly forgetting his memories. the logical consequences of some of Batman returns to the satellite midway the conceits that we had played with through the procedure and is enraged; back in the day, we could never have panicked, the team votes to mindwipe had any stories because most of the the Darknight Detective, as well. stories would have ended with Meltzer recalls of this key moment, Superman basically knocking people “The mindwipe of Batman was the only through windows and that’s it. thing I hid from DC. I never pitched [laughs] It’s like, why does Superman them that because I was afraid they need the Justice Headline League? Seriously!” wouldn’t let me do it. And I was telling Conway continues, “Thefor brilliance Filler type [executive editor] Dan DiDio, ‘Wait till of what Brad did was that he manplacement only. you see what I’m doing to Batman … aged to both point out the absurdity you’ll be so surprised.’ And he said, of the situation and the same time, Finalatcopy to come. ‘Don’t surprise me. Tell me now.’ To his credit, he saw the emotion- explain—logically, how they would have dealt with it. And then, in Final copy toaround come. al impact immediately and let me run with it.” addition to that, layered on an emotional and moral issue The mindwiping plot point has its roots in the Secret Society of the consequences of that kind of decision. Final But yes, ‘If we had copy to come. Super-Villains (SSSV) storyline from JLA #166–168 (May–Aug. switched our bodies, the villains would have all known who we copy to come. 1979). The Gerry Conway-scripted tale sees the SSSV swapping were. If they knew who we were, oh my God,Final they could blackmail bodies with the League in order to escape being trapped in a void us and destroy our lives and kill our families and so on. So we have © 2011 ??? between dimensions. Meltzer retroactively posits in Identity Crisis to do something that is totally immoral to stop that.’ In my era, that the villains took the opportunity to discover the League’s secret there would have been no way to have brought up that kind of identities … and why not? Meltzer notes, “I read [Conway’s SSSV issue.” story] when I was young. JLA was the only comic that I tried to buy Shock deaths and controversial rape aside, Identity Crisis drew a every issue of. My comic store sold comics 25 cents apiece and had line in the sand and made readers ponder, “What would you do if a deal if you spent five dollars. I always spent the full five dollars, you knew that you had to protect your family?” Conway concurs, which was my allowance then.” The novelist’s passion for the “Absolutely. And then the horror, of course, is that you can’t ultiLeague’s Bronze Age adventures runs deep. Meltzer recalls that the mately protect people. Brad came to the same conclusion in his “first comic I ever read was JLA #150 (which had Elongated own different way that I came to with Gwen Stacy: Being Man save the day—and a Dr. Light flashback). JLA #100 a superhero means that the people closest to you are (Seven Soldiers) was my favorite. Basically, anything probably going to get hurt horribly.” from JLA #100–200, especially when Pérez came on As of this writing, it’s been almost eight years the book. [The origin of] Red Tornado story, SSSV since the series hit the shelves. Would Meltzer have story … all of them just killed me.” done anything differently? “Nope,” says the Conway’s take on Identity Crisis? “I thought it author. “The best part of Identity Crisis, for me, was was a brilliant take on an obvious faux pas. There and will always be how pure that creative process was a self-awareness of the absurdity of certain sitwas. We spoke about the story, and they let me uations and back when I did that story, there tell my story. I was just telling a ‘small emotional would have been an unspoken acceptance of the story.’ That’s all they asked me to do. If I knew how fact that yeah, if you switch bodies with these big that launch would’ve been, I may’ve been too guys, none of these guys would ever think to take scared.” their masks off and see who they were, right? BRAD MELTZER [laughs] It’s the same conceit that allowed Clark

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Let’s Do the Mindwipe Again! Despite this cover’s appearances to the contrary, the bewitching Zatanna joins the JLA in issue #161 (Dec. 1978). Cover art by Hcir Relkcub and Knarf Nilhgualcm. TM & © DC Comics.

view with Rob Kelly on jlasatellite.com, Wein noted that the infusion of new blood had nothing to do with editorial decree: “Actually, all the new members joining was entirely my doing. Julie just went with the flow.” Regarding the Phantom Stranger’s oftdebated membership status, Wein suggests that he “only sort of joined. He was offered membership but vanished, as per usual, without actually accepting the offer. Over the years, other writers have just assumed PS was a member, but in my world, he never really said yes.” Frequent guest star Hawkgirl finally ends up becoming a full-fledged member with issue #146 (Sept. 1977). Englehart explained her inclusion in his April 22, 2008 jlasatellite.com interview thusly: “I was coming in as a professional comic book writer, and as a fan. The DC Universe was all new to me, in terms of writing it, but I’d always been a fan. And there had been letter columns, asking, ‘Why isn’t Hawkgirl in the Justice League?’and the answer was always ‘well,

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we don’t have people who have the same powers’ but I was coming at it from my usual stand-point, which is characterization. I’m like, ‘These people are married. They came here from another planet, they’re living together, they’re married, he gets to be in the group and she doesn’t get to be in the group, that’s bullsh*t!’ I was trying to look at these people as who they were, trying to build them into something better than they had been, characterization-wise, at least, so I thought she should join.” Englehart lamented that following his run on JLA, Hawkgirl got little face time in the title. “It was like … ‘I don’t understand why this [woman] is not in the group.’ I brought her in and as soon as I left, they took her out again.” Zatanna, another longtime fan-favorite heroine, becomes the final woman to be inducted during the Satellite Era in issue #161 (Dec. 1978). The Conwaypenned “The Reverse Spells of Zatanna’s Magic!” sees the sorceress appear before the League to violently reject their membership offer, as Zatanna recites her incantations (though mysteriously not spoken backwards) to destroy the ballots the team has just cast. It’s discovered that the Warlock of Ys has trapped Green Lantern in an alternate dimension and has cast a spell on Zatanna to forbid her from warning her friends in the JLA. Zatanna alerts the team with her brash actions; eventually Green Lantern is freed and the Warlock of Ys is disposed of. Upon the story’s conclusion, she formally accepts membership and would remain on the team through the Detroit years. Unlike the multicultural cast of characters featured in Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men, JLA and the DC Universe at large suffered from a serious lack of diversity during the Bronze Age. There was a brief light of hope as Tony Isabella steered the adventures of Jefferson Pierce in Black Lightning, but the 1977 ongoing series was canceled as part of the DC Implosion. One of only a handful of African-American DC superheroes at the time—and certainly the only one to headline his own title—Black Lightning had a shot at being the JLA’s first member of color. Though Green Arrow brings Lightning to the attention of the League in #173–174 (Dec. 1979–Jan. 1980), the urban avenger declines their offer to join their ranks. Was this a missed opportunity? “Oh, absolutely, yeah,” concurs Conway. “I don’t really remember why we did that, other than to do a story where a hero did reject the Justice League. And I guess of any of the characters that were likely to do that, Black Lightning was probably the most likely because his attitude, given the era that he was operating in, would have been along the lines of, ‘You people have no clue about what my life is like. And why should I be helping you when the people who I should be helping, you know, are down on the streets?’ So in that sense, we definitely missed an opportunity, but I think it was probably as good an opportunity to do that kind of a story as we were going to have.” Black Lightning would ultimately join the team in Brad Meltzer’s 2006 JLA relaunch. The final member to be added to the Bronze Age lineup came as a direct result of the aforementioned DC Implosion. Lasting a mere five issues before the 1978 company-wide dissolution of 20 titles, Firestorm the Nuclear Man featured Conway and Al Milgrom’s Marvelesque creation, a brash and not-so-bright high-school football star (Ronnie Raymond) merged with an elder Nobel Prize-winning scientist (Martin Stein). While Firestorm would join the team in JLA #179 (June 1980), Conway was still greatly disappointed by the cancellation of the hero’s monthly title. In an interview with

firestormfan.com, Conway admitted, “it was a devastating blow emotionally because … I was very invested in Firestorm. I think I got the call from my editor on Firestorm, Jack Harris, to tell me about it and it was not good news. I think it was really foolish, but a lot of the decisions that got made at DC for many years were made not by people at DC thinking through what they needed to do but by corporate bean counters who said ‘you’re spending too much money and we want you to cut back.’ So they ended up cutting back and I think really damaged DC’s ability to expand their marketplace share for many years as a result.” Conway brought the novice hero over to Justice League of America and continued to chart Firestorm’s exploits as the youngest member of the team. The character grew in popularity, so much so that he was awarded a backup series in The Flash starting with issue #289 (Sept. 1980) and a new ongoing with The Fury of Firestorm (1982). Firestorm even appeared in the 1985-1986 animated Saturday morning The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians series. Still, Conway admits Firestorm was an odd match for the Justice League. “Having him in JLA is kind of weird, in a sense. It fits better now, but back then he was really odd for [the] series. Most of those characters were fairly mature, level-headed, straightforward figures and here’s this kid, you know, kind of bouncing around like Snapper Carr with a flaming head.”

Skylab (below) The JLA’s HQ, as revealed in detail by Len Wein, Howard Bender, and Roy Richardson. From Who’s Who #12 (Feb. 1986). (left) Superman nominates Gerry Conway’s Firestorm for League membership. Do you wanna argue with him?? Cover of Justice League of America #179 (June 1980) by Jim Starlin.

THE WORLD’S GREATEST ARTISTS! Illustrating all of the storylines noted above was none other than the great Dick Dillin, and his incredible 12-year run on Justice League of America

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TM & © DC Comics.

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DICK DILLIN compiled by Michael Eury

No illustrator had a Monitor Duty stint longer than JLA artist supreme Dick Dillin—but here’s a look at some of the other comic books his art graced during the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages.

Plastic Man #54 (Nov. 1954): Dillin, with his Blackhawk collaborator, inker Chuck Cuidera, illo Plas and imperiled, portly pal Woozy Winks on this Quality Comics cover. TM & © DC Comics.

Blackhawk #102 (July 1956): Dillin drew Blackhawk for Quality Comics, then continued on the title when DC Comics acquired it. Inks by Chuck Cuidera. TM & © DC Comics.

House of Mystery #92 (Nov. 1959): Dillin illustrated various covers at DC after joining the company. Washtone inks by Jack Adler. Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions

House of Secrets #66 (May–June 1964): Sheldon Moldoff inks Dillin on this HOS cover featuring DC’s Hero and Villain in One Man, Eclipso.

TM & © DC Comics.

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ART GALLERY Hawkman #26 (June–July 1968): Dillin (inked by Cuidera) enjoyed a brief stint as the artist of DC’s Winged Wonder, whom he often drew in JLA. TM & © DC Comics.

Green Lantern #67 (Mar. 1969): With frequent inker Joe Giella, Dick’s take on the Emerald Crusader. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. TM & © DC Comics.

World’s Finest Comics #228 (Mar. 1975): Dillin and writer Bob Haney’s Super Sons series was a Bronze Age fave. Inks by Tex Blaisdell. Courtesy of Heritage.

DC Special Series #1 (Sept. 1977): Inked by Jack Abel, a page from Dillin’s Aquaman tale in the one-shot 5 Star Super-Hero Spectacular. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Monitor Duty Two pages of original art (courtesy of Heritage) by the amazing Dick Dillin (inked by Dick Giordano) showing the sometimes-mundane JLA duties of world-watching. From issue #116 (Mar.–Apr. 1975), which also introduced Charlie Parker, a.k.a. Golden Eagle, who’d later hook up with the (Teen) Titans West. TM & © DC Comics.

has yet to be matched by any other penciler working It was quite a lot to get all the super-heroes in one in mainstream comics. Inheriting the title from Mike cover or one story and have them all look right. I Sekowsky with issue #68 (Aug. 1968), Dillin would know when he did Blackhawk, that was a post–war go on to pencil an incredible 115 issues until his thing, it was after World War II, and he was still fightuntimely passing in 1980. [Author’s note: The excep- ing the Commies and the bad guys, and right up tions were reprinted stories in #67, 76, 85 and 93, a until the Viet Nam era he would get mail from fans George Tuska fill-in on #153 (Apr. 1978), and a fram- that the insignias were wrong on uniforms and stuff. ing sequence for Juan Ortiz in #157 (Aug. 1978).] So he had to watch all of that kind of thing. He was The artist cut his teeth at Quality Comics, working very passionate about his drawings and his comic on such titles as Blackhawk, Love Confessions, Love books.” Secrets, and G.I. Combat. When Quality shut its doors, One can only imagine the pressure of drawing a Dillin was hired by DC and would continue penciling huge cast of characters, not to mention the frequent Blackhawk after the property was acquired. Before guest stars, JSA team-ups, and myriad villains. beginning his legendary run on the flagship Though Dillin made it look easy, Mrs. Dillin super-team title, he also had a short stint on explained that her husband would work Hawkman, and early into his JLA tenture right up until the last possible minute to he was the artist for Superman teammeet deadlines: “He would say, ‘I’m ups in World’s Finest Comics. not going to get it done, I don’t know In an interview with Dillin’s famiif I’m going to make it.’ He seemed ly conducted by Walt Grogan in stressed but he always got it done.” Alter Ego #30, Dillin’s son Richard She added, “On some days, if what elaborated on the artist’s experihe was drawing wasn’t too ence drawing JLA: “It took him detailed, he might do a page and a some time before he got to the half—usually a page and a half a point where he considered he had day. He went into the city every ten [all the characters] mastered. And days. Some of the stories were over at the end, he probably still didn’t 18 pages long. It really took him consider he had them all mastered. more than that. He really did more Dick Dillin

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Pérez in Living Color A full-color flashback of some of our favorite JLA illos by George Pérez: (top) A JLA/JSA pinup published in Justice League #195 (Oct. 1981). Note how each team’s counterparts balance each other in its composition (with the exception of the Atoms, which is a good thing for Wildcat, who would’ve had Al Pratt crouched onto his shoulder!). (bottom left) Pérez’s cover art to JLA #217 (Aug. 1983), recently repurposed onto a bookbag. (bottom right) The Batman card from the Pérez–drawn 1984 JLA postcard set. Batman was not sold with the set but was available as a convention giveaway. TM & © DC Comics.

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Fourth World Crossover Jack Kirby’s New Gods were featured in 1980’s JLA/JSA annual crossover. Original cover art to Justice League of America #184 (Nov. 1980) courtesy of Heritage. Pencils by George Pérez, inks by Frank McLaughlin. © 2011 ???

than that in a day.” Dillin’s daughter Terry described how the artist approached his work: “He always got very, very excited about it. He worked from a script, and I think I remember him saying that he never read the whole story. He would read it as he went, so that he could visualize the story unfolding kinda like somebody reading the story would. So he worked page by page. He wanted to see it in the eye of the reader.” Pasko corroborates Terry’s memories of her father’s excitement for the scripts and the editorial process at DC: “At that time, Julie’s books were done under his strict editorial control and on something of an assembly-line basis. Meaning, my JLA stuff was always full script, and Dick never knew what he was gonna draw that month until he saw the manuscript (or, at least, that’s how Julie asked me to do JLA; Julie was never very comfortable with the plot-pencils-dialogue method, and I was never a big fan of it, either). But by the time we did our first JLA together, Dick had drawn several Atom backups I’d written, and I’d had ample opportunity to see how he interpreted my 20 • BACK ISSUE • JLA Issue

shot descriptions. That’s the only way you can learn how to play to artists’ strengths and not make their job harder by asking them to draw stuff they have trouble with, by the way: trial and error; writing it and seeing what they do with it, and learning from that feedback. So when we did our JLAs together, we understood each other’s language, and the only negatives were the difficulties of trying to do a self-contained JLA story in only 17 or 18 pages, and when we met we would commiserate about that.” Pasko adds that Dillin was always affable, a true professional and gentleman, despite being ill toward the end of his career. “Dick just drew what the script called for,” he says. “And he did it uncomplainingly and pleasantly and brilliantly, which was all the more amazing for the fact that he was in poor health by that point, suffering from the gout. Yet he often came into the city to deliver pages personally, even though it was quite obvious from his flushed face and heavy breathing that he was in a great deal of pain. He was humble and cheerful to a fault, and I’d like to think DC valued him greatly; most artists find penciling group books to be a major pain in the ass, yet Dick had been doing practically nothing but, for decades—first on Blackhawk, then JLA—so you’re always grateful when a Dick Dillin or a George Pérez comes along. They don’t grow on trees. Which is why, I think, that particular run of JLA never really recovered from the losses of Dick’s death and George’s need to devote all his time to Teen Titans.” Dillin passed away at the young age of 50 while working on JLA #184 (Nov. 1980), the first issue in a three-part Conway epic featuring the entire Justice League, Justice Society, and Jack Kirby’s New Gods. Who other than Dillin could handle such a huge cast of characters? Enter George Pérez. The young superstar had been brought on board to spell Dillin whenever he needed a break; now the penciling duties fell squarely on him—much sooner than anyone anticipated. Pérez recalled that he felt prepared to rise to the occasion and complete Dillin’s unfinished work. As he explained in Modern Masters vol. 2: George Pérez, “One of the things about that time period was that I was still a comic book reader. I read the Kirby New Gods, I read the Justice League, I read all the JLA/JSA crossovers. So I was very in tune with the characters. The only restriction I was that I was working on a full script, since that

Big Storm Brewing Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions, the eye-popping original cover art for Justice League of America #193 (Aug. 1981), featuring the Tornado Tyrant, a.k.a. Red Tornado. Signed by artist George Pérez. Note that for print (see inset), the art was reduced to accommodate the border blurb touting the issue’s preview comic starring the All-Star Squadron. TM & © DC Comics.

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Starro-a-Go-Go Rich Buckler, inked here by Bob Smith and Larry Mahlstadt, on Gerry Conway’s Starro the Conqueror story from JLA #190 (May 1981). Original art courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

was the way Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin worked. So League, I don’t think, ever really had a definitive Pérez there wasn’t as much wiggle room plotwise and in look.” He continued, “The one thing I did enjoy on some cases I thought, ‘God, there’s a hell of a lot going Justice League, which I couldn’t enjoy on Titans, was on here and not that much space to put it in.’ So that getting to draw so many icons. The challenge of drawwas a bit of a challenge.” ing Batman as a mysterious character in a group setPrior to completing the JLA/JSA/New Gods story- ting, of trying to figure out how the Flash can conline, Pérez had been knocking it out of the park on stantly get knocked down when he’s the fastest person Fantastic Four and The Avengers over at Marvel, and on in the story. And with JLA, I always enjoyed being able a Firestorm backup in The Flash at DC. Though Pérez to do gigantic battle scenes. The JLA was a little more is perhaps now best known for his work on New Teen satisfying than Titans in that they were all these great Titans, JLA was the title he really wanted to work on: characters coming in for one big fighting party.” “The Justice League came as a bargaining chip origiThough Pérez may not be completely satisfied nally. I agreed to do the Teen Titans with Marv with his body of work on JLA, Conway has nothing [Wolfman] and Len [Wein]—I didn’t have any partic- but praise: “A lot of the writers at DC were ex-Marvel ular desire to do that series—only if I could get a writers and we had brought the sensibility of that crack at one or two issues of Justice League.” kind of serial storytelling and character-based Many might argue that Pérez’s early JLA storytelling, but we didn’t have artists who work is some of his best, but the artist had been trained in that to work with doesn’t necessarily see it that way: “I us. So Dick did a tremendous job of don’t think I ever found my niche with getting all the characters on the the proper inker on Justice League. I page, of making the stories work as had a few inkers—some of them did stories, but he had a certain better than others—but never really amount of difficulty getting across became a team with any of them. the emotional content of scenes Even though Romeo Tanghal and I and so, you know, he was great and over at Titans got to a point where we there was no question that you were no longer complementary—my could have continued the title with style was going one way and his was Dick’s work. But George brought a going another way—still it develwhole ’nother level of character George pérez oped a real look for the book. Justice involvement to the piece. I mean,

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Buckle Up for Action Splash page to JLA #191 (June 1981), signed by Rich Buckler and featuring longtime League foes Amazo and the Key. Courtesy of Heritage. (inset) The issue’s cover, penciled by Buckler and inked by Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

RICH BUCKLER

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LEGACY OF THE SATELLITE ERA BI asked Justice League of America writers and artists: “What do you think makes the JLA’s ‘Satellite Years’ so special to fans and creators?” Here’s what they had to say. “One of the best things that came out of the ‘Satellite Years’ was the wider use of the term ‘geosynchronous.’ Also, there’s the fact that more people understand enough about orbital mechanics to know that if you achieve an orbit at 22,300 miles above the surface of the Earth, you’ll be orbiting at the same rate as the planet’s rotation. I think the satellite is the best and most rational of the JLA’s various headquarters over the years. DC used to run little educational filler pages once in awhile with the header, ‘Science Says You’re Wrong if You Believe That…’, which we used to refer to as ‘Julie Schwartz Says You’re Wrong if You Believe That…” It was very important to Julie that the comics contained concepts that were arcane and rational, against which to place our unlikely characters and their outlandish adventures. People need to be reminded that just because a given piece of information is mind-blowing, that doesn’t mean it’s made-up. It’s called ‘fantasy-realism,’ and the world and our ever-growing consciousnesses would be better off with more of that.” ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, Writer “The appeal of super-teams, I think, is that they are comprised of [sic] champions who work together to keep the universe a safe and peaceful place for all living beings. It’s the superhero concept, only on a cosmic scale. During my time as an artist on those ‘Satellite Years,’ I had loads of fun. The creativity level was high and I got to work with some great talents in the industry.” RICH BUCKLER, Penciler

characters in their own stories, if there was continuity, that’s where you were going to find it. But in the period when I was working on it, and subsequently, the concept was that the Justice League, as a team, had its own interpersonal relationships and character arcs that existed in that book. So in that sense, that was sort of like the beginning of the modern era of the Justice League, for better or worse. Some people can argue, and I think justifiably, that the idea of a giant-sized team-up book where there is no continuity is kind of cool and fun because you’re able to get into it and out of it without any long-term commitment. But for me, as someone who’s always enjoyed writing serial storylines, finding a way to make that work in Justice League was one of my primary goals.” GERRY CONWAY, Writer “I think it was because that was the point at which the title had been around long enough that the creative teams were at pains to find new ways to keep it fresh, to break it out of formula. That was what led to things like the really-really-multiple-multiple-Earth crossovers, and the more frequent changes in—or, more accurately, additions to—the ‘roll call.’ (You might remember that in the early ’60s it was a big deal for a new hero, like, say, the Atom, to be inducted into the League; the newcomer had to prove his mettle. But by 1980, the only apparent qualification for membership seemed to be that the character had to have had its own title for 60 seconds. I mean, Phantom Stranger? Firestorm? Really? Really?) But even if it did get a little absurd at times, this sort of thing kept the book less predictable than it might have been otherwise, and I think it was those kinds of surprises that readers of those issues remember fondly today.” MARTIN PASKO, Writer

“Satellites were new, but we’d probably all heard about geosynchronous orbit at 22,300 miles, so it seemed part of the go-go ’60s that the JLA would be up there, on the cutting edge. Later, we’d all discover that the JLA only paid lip service to ‘cutting edge,’ but for the time, it seemed very majestic.” STEVE ENGLEHART, Writer

“The character work. To me, there may be better ‘action’ sequences in JLA history—but nothing touched the character work then. Barry [Allen, the Flash] and Zee [Zatanna] as a love subplot, Reddy as a love subplot, subplot, subplot, subplot. And so much of it character-driven, not fight-driven.” BRAD MELTZER, Writer

“I think part of it is that this was the era where the Justice League really expanded big time. There had been through the ’60s, you know, sort of this drip-drip-drip of additional members coming in. During the satellite period … we had a real influx of almost all of the mainstream DC characters flowing through the book. And we also had the opportunity (because a number of them were secondary characters who weren’t featured in their own titles) to develop storylines that were specific to Justice League. Before that, before I came on the book, there wasn’t a real sense that continuity from issue to issue was really something that was possible or desired even. It was sort of a glorified team-up book in one sense—and the

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“I think the satellite really established them as the world’s protectors. While they were in the cave it was sort of like a club coming together. But when they moved to the satellite, all of a sudden they were official, they were truly the Justice League. I mean, God bless Dwayne McDuffie, he and the writers on [the animated] series gave such beautiful honor to what the Justice League meant. And I think the ‘Satellite Years’ was the flagship of all that. When they [moved] into the satellite, that [signified] that they protected the entire world. They became … gods … watching down.” CHUCK PATTON, Penciler

just look at the way that his characters stood physically. You know, each character had a different way of—a different posture, a different weight. Dick’s characters all tended to feel like the same basic body mass … that’s a very subtle thing, but it can make a big difference in how a scene plays out.” As The New Teen Titans took off into the stratosphere, Pérez had little time to pencil two monthly, ongoing titles. A number of industry veterans stepped in to handle JLA interiors, among them Don Heck, Keith Pollard, and Rich Buckler. Buckler had provided a number of covers for the series over the years, dating back to JLA #140 (Mar. 1977). He explains the process of being assigned covers and working with Schwartz: “Julie would give me the gist of an idea in conversation and I would usually run with that. Deadlines were always crunching, and many times the cover was due before the story was even drawn. If that was the case, I would work up a sketch based on Julie’s description, or extract a scene based on script pages and some photocopies of art from the previous issue.” Buckler contributed interior pencils for the memorable Starro storyline from JLA #189–190 (Apr.–May 1981), “The Key Crisis of the One-Man Justice League” from #191 (June 1981), in which Zatanna’s powers are greatly diminished, and the three-part “When a World Dies Screaming!” from issues #210–212 (Jan.–Mar. 1983). Collaborating with

Anniversary Issue

Conway was a pleasurable experience for Buckler. Says the artist, “Gerry’s writing always reminded me a bit of Roy Thomas’ scripting. Good use of prose that always flowed, crisp and snappy dialogue, good characterization, and very visual storytelling. We didn’t meet up in person much for our collaborations, but both Gerry and I had a similar mindset and approach to the characters and storytelling and we always got along well personally and creatively.” History and creativity coalesced with JLA #200, a 72-page epic featuring a stunning wraparound cover and framing sequences by Pérez with interiors by a veritable who’s who of comic legends: Jim Aparo, Terry Austin, Brian Bolland, Brett Breeding, Pat Broderick, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Tatjana Wood, Adrienne Roy, and Anthony Tollin. Edited by Wein and written by Conway, “A League Divided” pits the original seven Leaguers against newer members Firestorm, Red Tornado, Zatanna, Atom, Elongated Man, Black Canary, and Hawkman in a race to retrieve seven Appellax meteors—harkening back to the League’s origin story from issue #9 (Feb. 1962). Conway addresses the challenges in putting together the issue, particularly in trying to manage so many artists: “It was a lot of work for me and for Len because from an editorial point of view, Len had to corral all these people and we had to be sure that we could get them. And then, from a writing point

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(left) The front cover (of a wraparound) of Justice League of America #200 (Mar. 1982). Art by George Pérez. (right) Original art, courtesy of Heritage, from issue #200’s Hawkman/Superman chapter, illo’ed by Joe Kubert. TM & © DC Comics.

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Let’s Get Small The Atom shrinks not from, but into duty on this spellbinding double-page spread by penciler Don Heck and inker Romeo Tanghal. From JLA #213 (Apr. 1983). Original art courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

of view, I had to write the script with it in mind that both, that the people that I wanted to have draw those individual segments were going to draw them, but also that they might not. [laughs]” He continues, “I mean, while I could hope that I would get Jim Aparo, there was no guarantee that ultimately, we would be able to get Jim Aparo, so we also had to plan the issue out, I think, months in a advance and it was a wonderful experience because it was, for me, in a way, it was a recapitulation for me of my own experiences reading Justice League as a kid. You know, that’s what I sort of wanted to make, a tribute to the whole Gardner Fox/Mike Sekowsky/Julie Schwartz era. And to this day, I still think it’s one of the best conceits to have a group of characters and then have them split up into teams and go off and combat different aspects of the same menace and then come together in one climactic battle at the end. It’s a terrific story structure that probably doesn’t get as much use as it could.”

ENDINGS … AND BEGINNINGS Don Heck assumed regular monthly penciling duties coming off of the stellar 200th issue celebration, and would work on the series until Chuck Patton came aboard with issue #217 (Aug. 1983). Heck didn’t necessarily always get the praise he deserved, especially following on the heels of Pérez. Patton recalls

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how kind the older artist was to him: “I was lucky to have met Don Heck. And I remember how Don was looked at in the industry. Because, to get into comics I always tell people you don’t get into it for money. You really can’t get into it for fame. You gotta love it. And if you’re lucky to get fame and money out of it, that’s actually a plus. But everybody I know who came into comics were fans. And there was a really strong [negative] fan opinion about Don Heck. And the thing was, was that he was just a marvelous man, you know, and really giving to me as well as joking that I was full of beans, and I’m the young punk who’s taking his job. And on the other hand, you know, he gave me a hell of a lot of advice and I always respected his work.” Patton’s work on the title brought a renewed energy, if only for a short time. The “Beasts” storyline from JLA #221–223 (Dec. 1983–Feb. 1984) allowed the young artist to up the ante in depicting brutal attacks on the team by the Ani-Men, a group of violent animal/human hybrids. Patton recalls reading Conway’s script and how he interpreted it, as well as how Wein backed him up in his approach: “I had problems with it because it was sort of trying to be a hard science story, but it was really Dr. Moreau meets Enter the Dragon. And I thought, ‘Well, why don’t we make it Dr. Moreau meets Enter the Dragon?’ It just seemed like, “Okay, we’re gonna make this dark, let’s keep it dark and creepy.’ But trying to justify it with

all this real science is like [Gerry was] trying to make it Lovecraftian. So I kind of drew it against the script. And I remember Gerry was a little rankled about that. And Len smoothed it out by saying, ‘Yeah, but I agree with him.’ That’s when I was like, ‘Okay, this is the Justice League I wanted.’ And, yeah, it was a conscious effort to make it dark and bloody.” Patton’s energy and enthusiasm aside, by 1984 JLA was languishing in sales—and losing its top-tier characters to other editorial offices. Conway recalls, “Yeah, we were experiencing weakening sales. There was a certain amount of competition between us and [The New] Teen Titans. Teen Titans was, at that point, DC’s most popular book and there was a general feeling that Justice League should be doing better than it was. There was also the fact that we were heading into the Crisis. We knew that we were going to be making major changes to the DC Universe and the question was, ‘What will the Justice League be?’ Everybody wanted to use the mainstream characters exclusively in their own stories and to develop continuity primarily with them. Batman had his continuity, Superman had his continuity, Green Lantern, and so on. So there was an increasing pressure to find a way to both reach a younger audience, to create stronger continuity, and to get the mainstream characters out of the book because they couldn’t be part of the stronger continuity. I mean it’s sort of the same impulse that turned Robin into Nightwing. So we were under a lot of pressure to come up with a creative solution to that and at that time, my feeling was maybe the Satellite Era had passed. You know, that maybe the high-tech, loftier, big-scale storylines that we had been operating in needed to be brought down to human scale in some way. So that was kind of what my impulse was and I don’t remember where exactly we came up with moving them to Detroit. My feeling was that we needed to move it downscale. I wanted to take it all the way. I wanted to take it from the cosmic level down to the neighborhood level and from the high-tech to the extreme lowtech.” Take it downscale, Conway did indeed: the threepart “War of the Worlds, 1984” storyline from #228–230 (July–Sept. 1984) brought things full circle as the Martian Manhunter returns, the satellite headquarters is destroyed, and the team finds themselves Earthbound once again. The League survived, but just barely. The ensuing “Detroit Era”—which featured new heroes Steel, Gypsy, and Vibe—never really connected with fans. Even Patton decided it was time to go after issue #239 (June 1985). Says the artist, “I just felt like I wasn’t serving a Justice League fan … that I wasn’t giving them what they were looking for in the book. I don’t think we even knew what we were looking for in the book, so I just thought,

Next Stop, Detroit Signed by the artist, original cover art for Justice League #229 (Aug. 1984), by Chuck Patton. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

‘You know, instead of continuing it’s probably better for me to move on.’” The series was canceled with issue #261, a shadow of its former self. For the duration of the Bronze Age, though, Justice League of America rose to new heights, providing a blueprint for the creators that continue to pen the tales of the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes. Thanks to Gerry Conway, Chuck Patton, Brad Meltzer, Rich Buckler, Martin Pasko, Elliot Maggin, and Steve Englehart for their time and recollections. An extra special thanks goes out to Brian Morris for transcription services and to Rob Kelly for connecting me with Chuck Patton!

SHANNON E. RILEY has been reading and collecting comics since 1978, when his dad bought him his first book, Detective Comics #475. He is an executive producer on the forthcoming Fredric Wertham documentary Diagram for Delinquents. Learn more at robertemmons.blogspot.com.

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The UNOFFICIAL

CROSSOVERS by

Michael Eury

It took a looooong time before DC’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes and Marvel’s Earth’s Mightiest Heroes crossed paths on anything other than newsstands. Efforts to produce a Justice League/Avengers DC/Marvel crossover in the early 1980s went south (see BACK ISSUE #1), and while both universes’ champions put up their dukes in 1996’s DC vs. Marvel event, it wasn’t until Kurt Busiek and George Pérez’s 2003 JLA/Avengers miniseries that your two favorite superteams were finally in one adventure together!

But did you know that as the Silver Age was giving way to the Bronze, writers at both Marvel and DC Comics conspired to produce a JLA/Avengers “crossover” so top secret that even the readers of the actual crossover issues—Justice League of America #75 and The Avengers #70 (both Nov. 1969)— probably weren’t aware of it? The idea for this go-getters’ get-together started at a 1969 party at the Upper East Side apartment of Avengers scribe Roy Thomas’ wife at the time, Jean. Among the guests were the then-current and future writers of Justice League of America, Denny O’Neil and Mike Friedrich. As Roy Thomas related to me in a 2005 interview for my TwoMorrows Publications book, The Justice League Companion (JLC), “Mike gets this idea—he says, ‘Why don’t you do some kind of crossover?’ I don’t know if we decided we wouldn’t tell our editors about it, but Mike proposed this and we thought it was a great idea. Of course,

When Titans Clash Too bad there wasn’t an official JLA/Avengers knock-down drag-out (followed by firm handshakes and a team-up) during the Silver/Bronze Age! It might’ve looked like this: (left) Detail from the cover of Justice League of America #56 (Sept. 1967), by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. (right) Detail from the cover of Avengers #70 (Nov. 1969), by Sal Buscema and Sam Grainger. JLA TM & © DC Comics. Avengers TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Secret Wars (left) The unaltered cover to Avengers #70, revealing Roy Thomas’ Squadron Sinister. (right) Justice League of America #75 is best known as the issue admitting Black Canary to the team, but it also features Denny O’Neil’s entry in this unofficial superhero swap. Cover art by Infantino and Anderson. Avengers TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. JLA TM & © DC Comics.

we’d had a couple of drinks. [laughs]” Sinister.” (For more information about the Squadron This was over a half-decade before the first actual Supreme, see the article beginning on page 33.) crossover between DC and Marvel was published, the But Denny O’Neil’s story in JLA #75 did not parrot landmark Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man Thomas’ tale. Its villains, the Destructors, dark doppeltabloid-sized one-shot of 1976, so meetings between gangers of the Justice Leaguers, were not the Avengers the two companies’ characters had been the stuff of reimagined. O’Neil doesn’t recall why he didn’t take fanboy wishes and fanzine doodles. And those dreams this crossover into the direction that Thomas did, but would have to remain just that for the time being, as Roy theorizes that “I suspect, but I couldn’t swear to it, these conspirators determined that the JLA and that [Denny] just never really found the right words or Avengers wouldn’t actually meet each other, but time to suggest this idea to Julie [Schwartz, JLA editor, instead would tangle with analogs standing in for the who was known for hammering out plots with his other team’s heroes. series’ writers]. And without doing that, it was a little And thus Thomas created the initial four members hard to work it into a story.” So instead of meeting “the of the Squadron Sinister, each a Marvel counterpart of Avengers,” the Justice Leaguers battled their own evil a DC hero: Hyperion (Superman), Nighthawk counterparts—some of whom just happened (Batman), the Whizzer (the Flash), and Dr. to employ gimmicks or use powers similar Spectrum (Green Lantern). According to to the Avengers’! For example, as Roy Thomas, “I made up the Squadron Thomas recalls, “Denny had Batman Sinister and even designed the characfighting with a trash-can lid, a little ters, drawing out sketches of what I like Captain America and the shield, wanted the costumes to look like. I and a couple of other things. It was wanted Hyperion’s cape to hang on just the most vague kind of hint of a just one shoulder, etc.—I think I even ‘crossover.’ [laughs] I don’t blame had a color guide for them, with Dr. Denny. Maybe if I’d been working for Spectrum and so forth—and I gave Julie, I’d have trouble doing it, too.” them to [Avengers artist] Sal In an interview for JLC, O’Neil Buscema. Later on, we did the admitted to me that his memories of Squadron Supreme, which was the the planning of the JLA/Avengers ROY THOMAS good-guy version of the Squadron “crossover” are lost to time, but that

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No Justice for the Avengers Is that Batman lurking atop the Statue of Liberty in that same issue? No, but Captain America’s about to meet Nighthawk in this gorgeous original-art page signed by penciler Sal Buscema. Words by Roy Thomas, inks by Sam Grainger. Original art page from Avengers #70 courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Green Goblins Instead of introducing Avengers analogs in Justice League of America #75, writer Denny O’Neil instead scripted oblique references to four of Marvel’s mightiest: Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and Goliath. Art by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella. TM & © DC Comics.

“I do remember thinking that my end of the stunt didn’t come off very well, which was probably my fault. I may have hesitated to make the Avengers parallels too obvious lest I incur somebody’s wrath.” Does Roy Thomas have any regrets about his JLA analogs, the Squadron Sinister? “If I had it to do over again, I would have done five,” Thomas says. “I should have had a Wonder Woman equivalent to go with [the other four], but for some reason, I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I was going to have four Avengers fighting them and I decided to keep it even.” Once Mike Friedrich took over as Justice League writer from Denny O’Neil, it didn’t take him long to resuscitate the crossover idea he’d recommended at that fateful party. In his second issue, JLA #87 (Feb. 1971), Friedrich introduced the Heroes of Angor (see inset), DC counterparts of Thor (Wandjina), the Scarlet Witch (Silver Sorceress), Quicksilver (Jack B. Quick), and

Yellowjacket (Blue Jay). Meanwhile, that same month, across town at Marvel, Roy Thomas brought back the Squadron Sinister in the pages of Avengers #85, in the process transforming them into the heroic Squadron Supreme. Friedrich had been quietly devising another stunt with his buddy Roy Thomas. “DC’s [titles] were produced a month or two before Marvel’s,” Mike revealed to me in a JLC interview. “I was letting Roy know the particular issue so he would therefore know what release date the book would come out, and then he timed The Avengers to be in the same month.” Justice League editor Julius Schwartz wasn’t in on the “joke.” Julie “was a little perturbed, but not totally,” Friedrich says. “The stories stood on their own. He approved them. But the difference was that Roy did the Justice League characters a lot more subtly, where I was very direct in having them be Avengers clones.” Nonetheless, like Thomas’ Squadron Supreme, Friedrich’s Heroes of Angor have had staying power. In the 1990s, writers Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis brought back Blue Jay and Silver Sorceress and made them full-fledged Justice Leaguers, and with them came other Marvel analogs including General Glory (Captain America) and Lord Havoc (Dr. Doom). And to think—it all started with three guys at a party…

The Beat Goes On DC/Marvel analogs have continued on for years, including Marvel’s Wundarr (Superman) and the Shroud (Batman), to name but a few. Here’s another sneaky crossover from the Bronze Age: (left) in Roy Thomas’ The Invaders #14 (Mar. 1977), the WWII heroes encountered the Crusaders, Marvel’s thinly disguised versions of DC’s (originally Quality Comics’) Freedom Fighters—(right) and just a few months later, in Bob Rozakis’ Freedom Fighters #9 (July–Aug. 1977), DC’s FF came face-to-face with … the Crusaders, variations of the Invaders. Invaders cover by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott. FF cover by Rich Buckler and Jack Abel. Invaders TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Freedom Fighters TM & © DC Comics.

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with Ralph Macchio SS ROLL CALL

JLA ROLL CALL by

Browning M i c h a e l nuary 12, 2012 conducted

SUPERMAN

BATMAN

GREEN LANTERN

Longtime Marvel Comics writer and editor Mark Gruenwald knew the Squadron Supreme had the potential to be so much more than simply Marvel’s version of DC’s Justice League of America. Gruenwald, who worked for Marvel nearly his entire career, was also a big fan of the JLA, so he knew that for the entirety of their published history, the Squadron had always been used just as analogs of the JLA. Up until Gruenwald came along, Hyperion was the analog for Superman and Nighthawk was for Batman. Power Princess was Marvel’s version of Wonder Woman, Dr. Spectrum was Green Lantern, and the Whizzer was the Flash. Arcanna was Zatanna. Tom Thumb was the Atom. the Golden Archer was Green Arrow and Lady Lark was his Black Canary. Nuke was Firestorm. Blue Eagle was Hawkman. Amphibian was Aquaman. But Gruenwald saw something more in the SS. He saw the potential to do a story that had never been done at Marvel. A story that predated Watchmen, Marvels, and Kingdom Come, and one that would be fondly remembered as the late scribe’s best work in his long career at the House of Ideas. It was Gruenwald’s idea to make the Squadron lineup more than just JLA rip-offs. He wanted to give each Squadroner a life and personality of their own. In the 12-issue Squadron Supreme limited series published from 1985 to 1987, Gruenwald brought a realism to Marvel Comics that had never been seen before and he used Marvel’s own concept of “What If” by asking, What if the Squadron Supreme were the Justice League of a real Earth? In the series, Gruenwald examined the goals and purposes of each member of the Squadron and saw what happens when one group gains too much power and takes away a nation’s free will. He also dealt with real-world problems like what happens when one tries to modify the behavior of another to make them better, more upstanding citizens and the costly effects that superheroes’ powers would have on their families if they lived in the real world. You know, Marvel’s version of Earth-Prime. In the groundbreaking limited series, Hyperion decides that he knows best for the people and vows to end hunger, war, and crime in a year. Each issue of the series happens in a month of that year and readers get to see the real-world consequences of superheroes taking over the United States to make it a better place—or at least their vision of a better place. Opposing Hyperion in his quest for utopia is Nighthawk, who believes that all men should have free will and that everyone should be allowed to chose their own destinies, rather than the government giving them everything they ever wanted and forcing them to be good people. The two former friends are then put on opposite sides and the struggle

HYPERION

NIGHTHAWK

DR. SPECTRUM

THE FLASH

THE WHIZZER

TM & © DC Comics.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Crisis on Earth-M(arvel) Writer Steve Englehart and penciler George Pérez—both of whom would soon be producing Justice League of America stories for DC Comics—offered this fun JLA homage on the splash to The Avengers #148 (June 1976), guest-starring the Squadron Supreme. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

When Titans Clash Writer Steve Englehart brought the Squadron notyet-Supreme into the pages of Avengers #141 (Nov. 1975), the first issue penciled by George Pérez. Cover art by Gil Kane and John Romita, Sr. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

begins. In the end, the Squadron is radically different, as Gruenwald shows that in every war there are casualties, and that changes—some good and some bad—come from conflict in the real world. Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme series has been called “Marvel’s Watchmen,” but, in truth, it’s a story about what happens when superheroes take it upon themselves to give people everything they ever wanted. It shows that sometimes getting what you want isn’t always what’s best. It’s a story about superheroes becoming dictators, and how not everyone wants paradise forced upon them. Ralph Macchio wasn’t just the editor of the 12-issue miniseries—he was also Gruenwald’s best friend and accomplice. He knew what Gruenwald wanted to do with the Squadron Supreme and he let him run with it. In this interview, Macchio talks about Gruenwald and how he made the SS into more than just the JLA of the Marvel Universe. – Michael Browning

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MICHAEL BROWNING: How did Mark come up with the idea for the Squadron Supreme story? RALPH MACCHIO: What Mark wanted to do was, he really wanted to deal with the idea of these characters really existing. I think—and I’m speculating here—but it may have been because we were involved with the New Universe, which was the idea of the “world outside your window,” and he had created DP7 for that, which was another really cool, landmark series, that he began to think in terms of “What if these characters who really were superpowered, what would it be like if they existed for real?” and “If you had a collection of characters as strong as the Squadron or the Justice League and one day they decided that it wasn’t going to be enough just to stop some crime here or there but to virtually eliminate war, famine, and poverty, what road would that take you down?” and “At what point would it get to where these people would become benevolent dictators—but still dictators—because they would be making these decisions because they had this power, even if it was in the most altruistic of senses?” He wanted to carry that forward. It was Gerald Ford, of all people, and he wasn’t one of the great philosophers of all time, but he had a line that I never forgot: Someone was talking to him about the federal government and he said, “Remember something: A government which is powerful enough to give you everything you want is also powerful enough to take it all away.” I thought

he kind of encapsulated a very, very strong conviction that Americans have in general about the government, which is that you don’t want to give it too much power because it never cedes it, and that if it can give to you, it can also take it away. I think we were kind of dealing with some of those ideas with the Squadron series that way. And Mark really, at the end, wanted to do something realistic where he wanted to kill off a lot of the characters. I am one of those guys who hates to lose any characters and I just love all the Marvel characters so much I hate to see any of them die— villains, heroes, and supporting characters. But Mark convinced me that it really would be a good thing, and that if we wanted to carry through the ideas and the concepts that he was dealing with, we would have to have a number of deaths, because you want to show that there is a cost for doing what these guys wanted to do. So, in that last issue, we lost six or seven of the characters and when I read it over, I said, “You know, Mark, this is very powerful and it brings it to the kind

Faster Than a Speeding Hammer

o f conclusion that you wanted.” And he was very pleased. We had a number of artists along the way, and I think everyone gave their all on it. But, what really carried it was that initial concept, that initial premise that Mark had, which was like a “What If?”—What if these characters really existed and they really made that decision to make the world into a Utopia, what would be the result of that and where would that carry it? BROWNING: Mark obviously had a love of the Justice League… MACCHIO: Mark certainly loved DC comics and, to some extent, I did, too, because we were basically around the same age. When we were growing up as

An original art bonanza from Thor #280 (Feb. 1979)! (left) The cover, drawn and signed by Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, pits the Thunder God against the atomic fists of gueststar Hyperion. (right) Here’s another Superman/Hyperion connection, as seen on page 4 from the story: Breakdowns for the issue were done by longtime Superman artist Wayne Boring (whose rendition of Superman is seen behind this caption). Finishes by Tom Palmer. Story by Don and Maggie Thompson (plot) and Roy Thomas (script). Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Thor and Hyperion © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

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Hero-palooza How many Squadroners can you spot on this Don Perlin/Steve Mitchell cover for Defenders #113 (Nov. 1982)? Kinda has a JLA/JSA crossover feel to it, doesn’t it? © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

kids during the 1950s, there were no Marvel Comics. Our formative years in comics were with the Justice League and Superman, Green Lantern and the Flash. Those are my earliest superhero memories because Marvel, at that time, wasn’t Marvel. It was producing horror comics. So we got into the DC stuff and I know Mark loved the Justice League and I did, too. We had very, very fond memories of those very early issues and the whole Silver Age DC thing. He was a big fan of that. Probably even more than he was a Marvel fan, he was a DC fanatic. Because he loved the whole Justice League, we were able to play around with all the characters and with the powers of the characters, because they were analogs of the JLA. [Mark] added some characters, too, like Red Stone, Haywire, and others. I was very, very proud to have been associated with it and to have worked with Mark on it. I loved [the Squadron Supreme], too—since the first time Roy Thomas introduced them, Roy was also a very big DC fan

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from the 1940s. He created the Squadron Sinister and they popped up in The Avengers and they, of course, were the analogs to Superman, Flash, Batman, and Green Lantern. And, later on, the Squadron Supreme was introduced, and then you had [analogs of] the whole Justice League. But Mark took it to a further extent than anybody did and used it as a vehicle to deal with ideas, the same thing really that they were dealing with in a different way in Watchmen. It’s amazing that they really came out at the same time. There are two other instances that I can think of where things like this had occurred in comics—one was the X-Men and Doom Patrol that came out almost at exactly the same time and were very similar in terms of ideas, and the other was Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. It’s funny, because it’s like the ideas were floating in the ether and a couple of guys were able to glom onto them and then it came time for the Squadron Supreme and the Watchmen and, basically, we’re dealing with the same ideas. BROWNING: Mark did a good job developing the characters beyond being just analogs of the JLA. He gave them lives and families and created personalities for each of the characters. MACCHIO: You’re right. Mark did give a threedimensional feel to all of them and they all became real individuals under him. They were no longer just analogs of JLA characters, they became real people dealing with real issues. They became very Marveltype characters, because there were a lot of arguments at that point. They became more like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers than the Justice League. The JLA, in the early days, never had any arguments. They all got together and fought the menace, and that was the end. It was very plot-driven. Mark also had an overall premise and an idea, but he also made it a very character-driven story, too. You had the opposition of Nighthawk and Amphibian against Hyperion and the others, who really wanted to bring about this Utopia. BROWNING: I was really surprised that Mark killed so many of the characters in the end: Nighthawk, Foxfire, Blue Eagle, Pinball, Black Archer, and Lamprey, and he left Thermite in critical condition and hanging on to a slim chance of survival. MACCHIO: I tried, at one point, to talk him out of killing these characters. I said, “Mark, look, I’m going to give you your head because you obviously know where you’re going with this and you really want to do this. I’ll always have feelings for these characters and, especially a character like Nighthawk, who you really love.” Luckily, we were able to replace him with his son, and that was cool, but what bothered me was that we were losing these guys. But yet, it was necessary, and I saw as Mark began to talk to me about it that we had to do this, we had to show there are casualties in this, and it’s just necessary. If you lose characters you care about, it means the story meant something to you, and that was good. It was a tough thing to deal with, but, in the end, it was important and it put very powerful ending on the series. I think a lot of people felt the way you did, that it was a tough thing to deal with, losing all of them in that last issue. BROWNING: The actual beginning of the Squadron Supreme series came from a three-issue storyline in Defenders #112–114 (Oct. 1982–Dec. 1982) by J. M. (Marc) DeMatteis and Don Perlin, where the villain

Overmind took control of the Squadron and had them attack America. The Defenders travel to the other Earth in the same way that the Earth-One JLA would travel to Earth-Two to have its annual “Crisis” teamup with the Justice Society of America and the two teams work together. Mark actually created several characters for the Defenders story, including Power Princess, Arcanna, and Nuke. MACCHIO: The Squadron, as characters, would pop in and out of a few books. Whether he spoke to Marc DeMatteis about it, I don’t know. Mark and Marc were buddies and certainly talked, as we all did. I’m sure, at some point, if the spark of it was ignited in Mark’s brain about what DeMatteis was doing in Defenders, I’m sure he would have called him and said, “Hey, do you have any further plans for them and can you set things up because we want to pick them up from here.” BROWNING: I always thought of the Marvel Graphic Novel: Squadron Supreme: Death of a Universe as the Squadron Supreme’s and Marvel’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. Just like Crisis, which took a small character from one book and made him into this universe-destroying villain, the graphic novel did the same with a little-known character from an earlier series. MACCHIO: That picked up on the stuff that we had in Marvel Two-in-One, the Project Pegasus story. We had the Nth Man in there, Lightner, and Mark had this idea that we had after we thought we kind of destroyed Lightner in that last issue. But it turns out we had only shunted him as the Nth Man into another universe, and from there he began to devour universes. So we were able to pick up a plot thread from the Project Pegasus storyline and go right into the Death of a Universe. Mark also did some very interesting stuff with

Scarlet Centurian, which Roy had originally created, and we were able to pick up on all of that stuff and we had a blast doing it. We had Paul Ryan on the art, who told the story beautifully and, again, we just continued to examine and play around with all these characters. The comparison to Crisis would definitely be true, because we played around with the idea of these universes being eaten up one by one and then eventually getting to the Squadron’s universe and they had to deal with it. If I remember it right, Arcanna had a son and he wound up becoming the Nth Man, trying to reverse damage to the universes. We got into a little bit of metaphysics there. Mark was able to do that and make it pretty satisfying. But, yes, I can see that being compared to Crisis on Infinite Earths, with one universe after another being eaten up. BROWNING: From the first page of the first issue, we knew right away that Mark was moving the Squadroners away from being just JLA copies, as Hyperion was trying to prevent their satellite base that had been destroyed from crashing into the Earth. The JLA’s most popular period was the Satellite Era, and Mark was showing us that this was not the JLA. Ironically, that mirrored events that happened in JLA around the same time with Gerry Conway bringing the Justice League out of the satellite and into Detroit, because the JLA satellite was destroyed. MACCHIO: That’s right! And that’s when they brought in Vibe and those other characters. BROWNING: As close as these characters came to being exact copies of the JLA, did you guys ever catch any flak from DC over the Squadron series? DC did, in the 1950s, sue Fawcett over Captain Marvel, who was deemed to be too much of a rip-off of Superman. Was there any threat of litigation over the similarities between the Squadron and the JLA? MACCHIO: You know, at one point, I think if we had done it as a regular series, there may have been some legal problems. I think there was some rumbling that if we had decided to do it as a regular book, that they might have taken a look at it. But the fact that we were able to use the Squadron and do it for 12 issues and not have any problems made it seem like we could have continued with it. I don’t think anybody made any loud rumblings — at least, I don’t recall anything being brought to my attention about it.

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Spreading His Wings One of Nighthawk’s appearances separate from his Squadron and Defenders teammates: as Spidey’s co-star in Marvel Team-Up #101 (Jan. 1981). Cover by Mike Nasser. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Hard-Traveling Heroes (right) Dr. Spectrum and Golden Archer, analogs of the JLA’s Green Lantern and Green Arrow, get personal in a scene from Squadron Supreme #1. Art by Bob Hall and John Beatty. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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BROWNING: Reading the series, it seemed like Mark was really having fun with the characters and the ideas and it didn’t seem like there was a whole lot of editorial interference. Was there anything you ever had to tell Mark he could not do in Squadron Supreme? MACCHIO: Mark and I, because we were so much on the same page with a lot of things, we would talk about it all in advance. Mark was a very organized guy. He would have everything laid out well in advance and he knew where everything was going to go. So if there were really any problems we had or places where I had questions, it would have been resolved long before anything ever saw print because Mark had it all laid out that way. That’s the kind of guy he was. I was more “fly by the seat of your pants and let’s see where this takes us,” but Mark was a very organized person and he knew just what he wanted to do with the series long

before he started it. We had discussed it and when he sat down to do it, I was pretty much aware of where he was going to go with it, and there was really no room for editorial interference. If I thought, as an editor, that a line may have been a little clumsy or he needed to introduce one of the characters a little better, as an editor, I would offer some guidance there. But 90%, he just took it the way he wanted to go. BROWNING: Who were Mark’s favorite Squadron Supreme characters? MACCHIO: I think one that he really liked was the Skrullian Skymaster, who came later. [Interviewer’s note: Gruenwald created the Skrullian Skymaster to be the analog of the Martian Manhunter, but the character never took part in the 12-issue story.] We hadn’t had an analog for the Martian Manhunter and we kept trying to figure out how to do one, so Mark came up with the idea of a Skrull who was an alien shapeshifter like J’onn J’onzz was. I think Mark had a gleam in his eye for the Skrullian Skymaster, because that was really his creation. I know he loved Nighthawk because Nighthawk became his mouthpiece for his point of view. He loved them all. I think he loved writing Blur in DP7, so I think he also liked writing the Whizzer, as well. He loved them all. BROWNING: Following Mark’s death, the Squadron popped up in several places. First, there was the Squadron follow-up oneshot New World Order by Len Kaminski, and then they appeared in the Kurt Busiek/George Pérez Avengers, and then J. M. Straczynski did the Supreme Power and Squadron Supreme series, which put an even more realistic spin on the SS. Do you think Mark would like what has been done with the Squadron Supreme in recent years? I’ve always felt the Squadron was like Master of Kung Fu after Doug Moench left—although there’s been some great attempts, it just wasn’t the same to me. MACCHIO: I was involved in what J. M. Straczynski did later on with the Squadron because I worked with Nick Lowe and Nick ended up editing that. I think Straczynski was trying to tell a different kind of story, but, truthfully, I always preferred them in costume. I liked the idea of them being Justice League analogs. It’s interesting you mention the thing with Doug Moench, because Shang-Chi was not created by Doug. But he seemed to find the voice for Shang-Chi more than anyone else. [Editor’s note: Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu, was created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin.] Mark came in with such a definite vision of want-

Making the World a Better Place? (left) From Squadron Supreme #1 (Sept. 1985), Hyperion rallies the team to undertake their utopian mission. (below) Nighthawk stands in opposition to the team’s agenda, as seen on Alex Ross’ painted cover to the SS trade paperback. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ing to do something important with the Squadron Supreme characters that he probably found the voice and the concept of them more than anyone else did. I know Len Kaminski, who was a big, big fan of Mark’s, did the story A New World Order that followed up on what Mark had done, where he brought the characters back together again. I think Mark would have been pleased with that, because Len was really paying homage to Mark in that story. To me, because I’m such a Marvel geek, I just want everybody to be together. I just want all the characters together and nobody to die and to go off on adventures. That would make me happy. I think Mark would appreciate what other people have done, but, like, if Jack Kirby took it, he would just go his own way with it and say, “Okay, this is where I’m taking it from here.” BROWNING: In 12 issues, Mark made us care about these characters and dislike some of the characters because he developed them so well. After the Squadron Supreme series ended, do you think the comparison to the JLA was still as strong? MACCHIO: No, I don’t think it was at all. They really came into their own as Marvel characters after that, and that’s largely because they became developed as characters and were in opposition to one another, which is a Marvel thing. You know, they do that in Avengers, where you have Hawkeye against Captain America. I think in Justice League, part of the problem might have been that you were dealing with characters much as you had in the Avengers where they were all in their own books. I think we

had a freer hand to play with the Squadron characters because, with the Justice League, you were limited since all the Justice League characters had their own books, so you couldn’t go too far with it. That’s why I think a lot of those groups from the Avengers to the JLA and the others wound up dispensing with the A-list characters and concentrating on the B-list characters, because those were the ones the writer could play with and do what he wanted. I think, to some extent, we were able to do that with the Squadron. What we really didn’t do was the constant wink-wink, nod-nod, like, “Okay, Hyperion is really Superman.” We had Argonite, which was an analog for Kryptonite, and there was a certain wavelength of light that Dr.

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The Adventures Continue (above) Mark Gruenwald returned to his utopia-seekers in the 1989 graphic novel Death of a Universe. Art by Paul Ryan and Al Williamson. (inset) Len Kaminski followed Gruenwald’s footsteps in the one-shot Squadron Supreme: New World Order #1 (Sept. 1998). Cover by Mike McKone and Mark McKenna.

Spectrum couldn’t deal with. But we didn’t try to emphasize that. We didn’t try to say these characters are just analogs of those characters because then people think, “What do we need them for, because they are just rip-offs and imitations.” You need to say, they’re similar, but we want to define them and make them Marvel characters because these characters have become real people, and Mark did that by creating relationships among them. That was a very, very important thing. By the time you get to the end of the series, you certainly don’t see Hyperion being anything like Superman because Superman had never conceived of doing what Hyperion and the Squadron had done, and you never had Batman dealing with the issue Nighthawk dealt with the rest of the Squadron, putting him into opposition with them. I think they really

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came into their own as true Marvel characters that were very, very definable in their own world. BROWNING: Do you think that, as well developed as Mark made the Squadron charcters, it would be possible to use those characters in costume in today’s hyper-realistic-written comic-book world? MACCHIO: I think having done this story, if Mark had continued with it, however far into the future it was, he probably would have gone back and he would have said, “This is where I left them,” and if they hadn’t really been altered as characters after he’d used them, he probably would have gone back to that story. You do see a follow-up to it because following Squadron Supreme, he did Death of a Universe. It’s really tough to say where he would have taken them as characters. I think he probably would have played more with the characters that he had created at that point—and this is strictly speculation on my part—and he’d really have had some fun with Redstone and Haywire and a couple of the others. But he might have found another one he thought was cool and wanted to play with. Or he could have come up with something completely different. The times have a lot to do with it if you’re thinking about the characters. Today, there is an emphasis on realism, so, where would we go with it? It would depend on what Mark was influenced by. You know, when Kirby was given the chance to come back and finish The New Gods [in the Hunger Dogs graphic novel—ed.], it was really 15 years after he created them, so he didn’t have the final battle between Darkseid and Orion. He went in a different direction and had the Hunger Dogs take down Darkseid, which, in some ways, kind of anticipated the fall of the Kremlin. It was kind of done to some extent from within, as one country falling after another after Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union. From that point on, the individual countries and communist governments didn’t have the backing of Moscow and they certainly didn’t have the backing of the people, so they fell, one by one. I have a hunch that Mark would probably have been influenced by some current event, something that would have happened, and he would have thought that was where he should have gone with those guys. But the only thing we really know where he would have gone after that 12-issue limited series was the follow-up Death of a Universe. BROWNING: I can remember how saddened I was by the news of Mark’s death. Here was a creator whose work I’d followed for years, but who was very young and in seemingly good health, and then was gone too soon. Then, I remember how happy I was to find the Squadron Supreme trade paperback, which reprinted the 12-issue series and the appearance the SS made in Captain America [#314], and inside that collection was an editorial by Mark’s wife, Catherine, and she said the trade paperback’s ink contained

Mark’s ashes. I thought that was a very fitting tribute. How did that come about? MACCHIO: Mark’s death was a tragedy. Mark and I were very close and I helped get him his job at Marvel. I was there a little bit before him and we became very close. We worked on Marvel Two-in-One together and we shared a lot of the same interests and we were friends outside of comics. I was up at my pool and I was swimming around and I came down to the house and someone in the house answered the phone and said to me, “It’s Marvel.” I got on the phone they said, “Mark Gruenwald just had a heart attack. We think he’s dead.” I thought it was a joke, because everybody at Marvel—especially Mark—was notorious for playing jokes. I said, “Look, if you think that’s going to get me to come in any earlier, you can forget it because I’m not coming.” The person said, “No, Ralph, this isn’t a joke. He really had a heart attack.” Mark had just bought a nice place and it was a shame, because he was really on the edge of a good part of his life. His daughter was growing up and he had gotten remarried to a beautiful woman and he was living in a nice house that he had just bought. He had his apartment in the city during the week, but he had gotten a place up in New York State with a lot of property and a beautiful home. His wife, Catherine, told me that, on Monday morning, about 9 o’clock, she shook him and he woke up and she said he sat up in bed, made noise and went back down and he was dead. What they found was that he had massive arteriosclerosis. Now, here was a guy who was practically a vegetarian, he ran all the marathons that he could, and he was never in better shape before he died. He was working on outdoors stuff up at his country place on the weekends and he told me he never felt better, that he felt great. I guess it was undiagnosed, but he had very, very high cholesterol and it clogged up the arteries and he just died. Everybody was just so stunned. We all walked around in a daze for a long time after that. You did miss something by not interviewing Mark because the truth was that at the time he was at Marvel, he really was the spirit and heart of the place. He was the guy that got everybody excited about doing things like going to conventions and doing crazy games and being a spokesperson for the company, and he was the guy that organized all the Halloween parties and birthday parties. He was the big pusher for all of that stuff. When you didn’t feel like doing anything, Mark would come in and rouse you and get you going. The place has never really been the same since he died. He was a unique guy and really irreplaceable. It wasn’t as if Mark was dying of a disease and he knew he was dying in advance. He usually talked about being buried. I never heard him mention the idea of being cremated. That was totally new to me that he went the cremation route. I think he also turned out to be an organ donor. I know that the closest we’d ever had to anyone doing anything like [mixing his ashes with ink] was when we did the KISS Marvel Super Special with Steve Gerber, where

You’ve Got Power, Power Princess (above) The Squadron’s Wonder Woman equivalent, Power Princess, repels bullets on the Hall/Beatty–drawn splash to Squadron Supreme #3 (Nov. 1985). (bottom left) If you think mindwiping was original to DC’s Identity Crisis, think again— Aquaman analog Amphibian dislikes the idea of mind control, in issue #4. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Before Watchmen Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme #1 (above, Sept. 1985) ushered in the new world order, Marvelstyle, roughly a year before the release of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen #1 (Sept. 1986, seen in the background). Squadron Supreme © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. Watchmen TM & © DC Comics.

Gene Simmons and the rest of KISS put their blood into the ink. If that was in Mark’s will, he probably, if he had any sense of impending doom or death, that was one of his last wishes. Getting the ashes in there made him an intimate part of the comic in ways no one could ever be. He would talk to me about death and things like that, but he never talked to me about cremation, and that’s why I was surprised when he was cremated. BROWNING: At first, Squadron Supreme was announced in an issue of Marvel Age as a 12-issue series with the potential to continue if sales were high enough. But when the first issue was released, it was labeled as a 12-issue limited series. How were sales on Squadron Supreme and were they good enough to keep it going past the 12th issue? MACCHIO: Squadron Supreme did not do incredible business, but it did good business and, I’m sure, if we wanted to, we could have continued from there. Again, maybe we didn’t want to antagonize DC or maybe Mark had said all he wanted to say and he wanted to go off and do other things. But the sales were good on it. I don’t think we did Watchmen numbers, but everybody was pretty happy with it. Tom DeFalco mentioned this to me at one point: He thinks that the reason the Squadron, at that time, didn’t get the attention that it deserved was because it was overshadowed by Watchmen. You had a couple of huge talents—Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons—on Watchmen, and there was no way in terms of star power were we able to compete with that. We had a guy like Mark, but just in terms of star power, he wasn’t on the level of Alan Moore. But who was?

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BROWNING: Talk to me about what the artists brought to the series. You had great art by Bob Hall, Paul Ryan, and John Buscema, in addition to the great issue of Captain America drawn by Paul Neary. I thought all the artists worked well with Mark to tell a great story. MACCHIO: You hit it right on the head. We liked all of them. We all knew Bob Hall and Paul Ryan. We were friends with those guys. Bob Hall worked on staff for awhile and I came to know him very well and respect him as an editor as well as an artist. Paul Ryan and I were old buddies and Paul had also worked with Mark on DP7, so it was like family. And John Buscema—you can’t get a better storyteller than John Buscema. I knew John very well so I was able to con him into doing one of the stories. Paul Neary did the Cap thing and he used to come over from England and he would stay with Mark at his place and they had a great time together. We loved working with all of those guys. They took a very difficult task, which was them drawing a book that has so many characters in it, and they told that story well. It wasn’t as if they were dealing with Daredevil or Spider-Man. Every one of them did a superb job and came through for us and told the story exactly the way Mark wanted. We were very happy with all of them, believe me. BROWNING: How do you think Squadron Supreme compares to Mark’s other works? MACCHIO: I think, in terms of the concentration of story, this was probably Mark’s best work. I think, in terms of what it said, where it took the characters and how effective it was, Squadron was his strongest work. You had other things that were very good, like the Bloodstone Hunt in Captain America, which was quite good, and his run on Quasar was cosmic and very cool, and the things we did on Marvel Two-in-One, which were very good, but I don’t think anything approached this. This was really Mark being a guy who was almost like a prophet, saying, “Hey, this is what could really happen.” This was going beyond the superhero genre. This was saying something about society and civilization and power and individual rights and all that stuff wrapped up in one big thing, so I would put Squadron right at the top of Mark Gruenwald’s work. I’m glad they put it into an omnibus.

Matewan, WV native MICHAEL BROWNING is an award-winning newspaper editor, writer, and photographer, and is an advisor with The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. He’s contributed to Rolling Stone, BACK ISSUE, Comics Buyer’s Guide, Comic Book Marketplace, Rough Stuff, and Charlton Spotlight, as well as his own fanzine, Comic Book Issues.

THE INJUSTICE GANG by

Dewey Cassell

It is the natural order of things. Since Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, good has always been countered by evil. As the Joker told the Batman in the motion picture The Dark Knight, “You complete me.” So it should come as no surprise that when a group of superheroes form a team, a rival team of supervillains is sure to follow. The X-Men had the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The Legion of SuperHeroes had the Legion of SuperVillains. The Avengers had the Masters of Evil. And the Justice League of America had the Injustice Gang of the World. The Injustice Gang of the World first appeared together in issue #111 (May–June 1974) of Justice League of America, although most of its members had been around for a while. The Injustice Gang was created by writer Len Wein and artist Dick Dillin, and consisted of:

Scales of Injustice Nick Cardy cover to Justice League of America #111 (May–June 1974), introducing the Injustice Gang of the World and their manipulator, Libra. TM & © DC Comics.

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Chronos – supervillain with the ability to manipulate time. Nemesis of the Atom. First appeared in 1962 in Atom #3 (Oct.–Nov. 1962). Mirror Master – one of the Flash rogues’ gallery, who uses mirrors to commit crimes and evade capture. First appeared in 1959 in Flash #105 (Feb.–Mar. 1959). Poison Ivy – female foe of the Batman who can control plants and possesses a deadly kiss. First appeared in 1966 in Batman #181 (June 1966). Scarecrow – nemesis of the Batman, possessing a hallucinogen that causes people to experience their greatest fear. First appeared in 1941 in World’s Finest #3 (Fall 1941). Shadow Thief – wields a dimensiometer that allows him to shift into a two-dimensional, intangible shadow state. Enemy of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. First appeared in 1961 in The Brave and the Bold #36 (June–July 1962).

Plucked from Limbo Readers’ first look at Libra, from JLA #111. Words by Len Wein, art by Dicks Dillin and Giordano. Decades later, Grant Morrison resurrected Libra for use in his Final Crisis series. TM & © DC Comics.

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The Tattooed Man – criminal tattooed with a chemical enabling him to mentally create actual objects from the tattoos. Nemesis of Green Lantern. First appeared in 1963 in Green Lantern #23 (Sept. 1963). Libra – organizer and leader of the Gang, and inventor of the “Energy Transmortifier.” First appeared in JLA #111.

The story in Justice League of America #111 depicts Libra equipping the members of the Injustice Gang with a “Plan B” device, just in case they are defeated by the Justice League. The device absorbs half of the energy or powers of the JLA heroes and transfers it to Libra. In the course of the story, we learn that the battle with the JLA was just a test. Pleased with the results, Libra attempts to use the device on the universe itself, with the intent of becoming a god. Instead, Libra is absorbed into the universe and his essence is spread across the cosmos—an inauspicious start for the Injustice Gang. Construct II, enemy of the Atom, attempted to reorganize the Injustice Gang, with the exception of Shadow Thief, in Justice League of America #143. Wonder Woman, her mind controlled by Construct, battles Superman while the Injustice Gang takes on the rest of the JLA, but they are defeated once again and Wonder Woman’s mind is freed. The Injustice Gang even had its own satellite in this issue, which is apparently destroyed. Then in issue #158 of Justice League of America, the original Injustice Gang returns, under the direction of a mysterious leader ultimately revealed to be Abra Kadabra, Flash’s foe from the future. The alien Ultraa has negated the powers of the JLA and plans to do likewise to the Injustice Gang, but he is thwarted and the Gang attempts to use alien artifacts to gain control of the Earth’s energy resources, operating from the old JLA headquarters in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. But when Ultraa loses his battle against the Gang, the JLA members regain use of their powers, and the Injustice Gang is once again defeated. In 1997 and 1998, in the “Rock of Ages” storyline in JLA, Lex Luthor pulled together his own version of the Injustice Gang, this time with a more “A” list of supervillains, including the Joker.

The end result was the same, though. The Injustice Gang, with varying rosters, has also made appearances in episodes of the animated Justice League and the television show Smallville. So why is it supervillain teams don’t always seem to work out well? Heroes and villains both tend to be egocentric. The notion of forming a team runs contrary to their personality. You see it in the bickering and infighting of the X-Men, the Avengers, and even the JLA. But the heroes are able to overcome their conflicts in defense of the common good. Villains often don’t seem to be able to agree on a common evil, or they suffer from poor leadership, in either case leaving them simply a collection of individuals, rather than a team. So it was with the Injustice Gang. Ironically, comic books starring supervillain teams don’t typically work out well either. Case in point— Marvel Comics’ Super-Villain Team-Up. On the surface, it seemed like an excellent idea, pairing up two popular Marvel villains, Doctor Doom and the SubMariner. But by the tenth issue, the premise had worn thin and the title began several villain pairings that included the Red Skull and Magneto. In truth, for all their daunting power, the villains could not win where it counted—at the newsstand. There were other supervillain teams that took on the JLA, but with not much more success than the Injustice Gang. They included the Crime Champions, the Injustice League, and the Royal Flush Gang. DC’s most

A Fearsome Federation of Felons

successful supervillain team of the Bronze Age was the Secret Society of Super-Villains, but their own comic book only lasted 15 issues. Recent events suggest we have not heard the last of the Injustice Gang. Supervillains, whether on their own or as part of a team, seem destined to lose to their superhero counterparts. The Injustice Gang of the World has been no exception. It is the natural order of things.

Readers of DC’s 100-Page SuperSpectaculars appreciated their bonus features like this one, from Justice League #111. Written by Martin Pasko and drawn by Pat Broderick.

DEWEY CASSELL is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE and author of the book The Art of George Tuska.

TM & © DC Comics.

His new biography of Marie Severin is now shipping from TwoMorrows Publishing.

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COSTUME PARTY DEPT. Those boring hours of Monitor Duty have driven us utterly MAD! Boisterous Jerry Boyd returns with a followup to our Avengers laff-fest in BI #56.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A

…you have the most fascinating conservations and more in common with your Earth-Two counterpart than you do with your spouse, significant other, or teen sidekick.

…you can’t find a life insurance policy that beats the lessons you learn when Batman and Mr. Miracle discuss ways to escape deathtraps

…a battle injury can come easily if you’re not a safe distance behind Hawkman’s and Hawkwoman’s wings!

…there’s no shortage of bathroom humor to be shared about your enemies, the Royal Flush Gang.

…you can tune out Guy Gardner’s big mouth just by tuning in your superhearing to your favorite radio station, miles away.

…you can tune out Guy Gardner’s big mouth just by shrinking to such a small size that you can’t hear the obnoxious jerk.

…THE BASES ARE LOADED WITH METROPOLIS’ SLAM BRADLEY UP AT BAT!

HA-HA! I’M SO SMALL, I CAN’T HEAR YOU, YOU BLOWHARD!

4 5

…you return to headquarters and it’s trashed because the Teen Titans were given permission to have their Spring Break party there.

…you have to take flu shots year ’round because you sit between Fire and Ice at meetings.

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…as a single male member, you wonder why that hottie Black Canary goes for the scruffy broke guy who can’t seem to hold a job.

WHEN…. by Jerry Boyd

10 11

…as a single female member, you realize the dating potential in the Martian Manhunter—he IS a shapeshifter, after all, and can double for Bradley “The Sexiest Man Alive 2012” Cooper if asked.

…despite the number of married couples on the team, the single guy with the green-and-black outfit has the most IMPRESSIVE RING in the room.

15 16 17

…you find yourself prone to waves of paranoia when you contemplate, “Is that Blue Beetle over there or Batman in disguise?” or “Suppose Superman’s out of town and that’s a Superman robot sitting in for him?”

…you get your jollies watching Captain Marvel and Superman PRETENDING to be friends (you KNOW they’ve never forgotten that lawsuit…).

…“friendly fire” takes on a new connotation when you’re accidentally roasted by the hormonally raging Firestorm.

…your annual team-up with the JSA— despite its dangers to the entire DC Universe—beats going on another snoozer of a fishing trip outside of Midway City with the guys at work.

MY HOROSCOPE TOLD ME I’D BE GOING AWAY FOR A LONG TIME, SO I GUESS I SHOULDN’T PANIC…

IF ONLY MY PROGRAMMING WOULD ALLOW ME TO … BREAK HIS STUPID FINGERS!!!

…you can’t wait for the day Snapper Carr gets therapy for his … habit.

…you have to remember NEVER to order seafood while dining out with Aquaman.

…your involvement in an infinite Earth “Crisis” means a long vacation with you eventually coming back with a more stylish costume, a new attitude, and hopefully—20 lbs. lighter.

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Justice League of America TM & © DC Comics.

Justice League Detroit by

Michael Browning

The 1980s saw a lot of changes happen in comics, especially at DC, where Frank Miller, John Byrne, Alan Moore, Marv Wolfman, and George Pérez revamped the DC Universe and changed it forever. Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC’s company-wide event that would simplify its confusing multiverse into one universe, was on its way, and things would never be the same for the DC Universe. But before all of that took place, changes were happening in the Justice League of America. Not only was the core group of characters slowly changing, but the tone and scope of the team’s adventures were changing, too. Gone were the universe-threatening villains, replaced with more down-to-earth menaces. The artistic reins had changed hands a few times since the death of longtime JLA penciler Dick Dillin—first to George Pérez, then, after Perez left to work on The New Teen Titans, to Chuck Patton. Also in the art mix were issues drawn by Marvel stalwarts Don Heck and George Tuska, both in the twilight of their careers. Heck and Tuska

offered dependable art, but neither carried the big-name recognition of Pérez, and that didn’t help the numbers. Sales were slipping on Justice League of America, DC’s main team book that had been popular since it first banded together its headlining heroes in 1960. What had once been DC Comics’ flagship team book was now limping along and trying to find a new audience. Longtime JLA writer Gerry Conway saw the need to make wholesale changes in the group once known as “The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes.” By the 1980s, Pérez and writer Marv Wolfman’s The New Teen Titans was almost as popular as Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men, and Conway thought that maybe following Wolfman’s and Perez’s lead would help save the JLA. Conway, who brought about the legendary “Death of Gwen Stacy” story in Amazing Spider-Man over at Marvel and created Firestorm with Al Milgrom at DC, decided he was tired of having to deal with characters that were tied up in starring roles in other books. He also wanted to try to capitalize on the trend of younger, less-powerful heroes fighting more realistic villains. He had already written Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash out of JLA and was

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Template Titans Gerry Conway followed the cues of the streamlined Avengers (a.k.a. “Cap’s Kooky Quartet”) and New Teen Titans in his reimagining of the JLA as an urban super-team. Avengers #25 (Feb. 1966) cover by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers; New Teen Titans #34 (Mar. 1983) cover by George Pérez. Avengers TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. New Teen Titans TM & © DC Comics.

focused on the B-team heroes, including Elongated Man, Aquaman, Green Arrow and Black Canary, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Zatanna, and Red Tornado, but that still didn’t bring the needed sales increases. Something had to be done.

HEROES IN THE HOOD It was 1984, and the JLA was running against the wind. The big, multiverse-changing crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, would soon be underway, with appearances by the Monitor and Harbinger— and the menacing red skies—in almost every DC book. Gerry Conway didn’t sit on his hands to wait for the Crisis. He met it head-on with a new group of heroes that were young, inexperienced, and untested, with the hopes that they, like the New Teen Titans, would catch on and be a runaway sales hit. Conway not only changed the lineup, but he also destroyed the status quo that he had written for so many years by demolishing the popular JLA satellite and kicking off a new era—in Detroit, Michigan. “It was part of wanting to change things to where we could get it down to a more manageable group of people in a different mindset,” Conway says. “And, again, I wanted to do something I hadn’t seen at DC, which was a ground-level superhero team that was rooted in a neighborhood. We tend to write these titles where the heroes are located in New York or Metropolis and that’s a big city, and it’s sort of this unformed, realistic, vague sort of big town where you don’t have a sense of neighborhood nor any interaction with the actual people who are around you. The Avengers were on Fifth Avenue, and who cared? You never got a sense of what was going on with the guy who ran the sandwich cart down on the street corner

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while these fights were going on, with the exception of Willie Lumpkin, who was the postman for the Fantastic Four. You never had any sense that there was anybody living anywhere near these people. “I tried when I was writing Amazing Spider-Man to give Peter Parker neighbors in the apartment building that he was living in,” Conway continues. “So I wanted to make these superheroes feel like they are part of the neighborhood, and my thought was to plunk them down in the middle of a city that was in deep, deep crap, a city that needs heroes. That was the driving impetus for me to relocate them from the satellite down to Detroit. I thought it was a good move, and it just didn’t set the world on fire and DC didn’t get behind it. They got behind it, but they didn’t. It was like, ‘Well, we’ll see,’ rather than, ‘Yeah! Let’s do this!’ So that’s why it came to kind of an ignominious end, because no one at DC was invested in it. There are way to move to a different storyline with books. Killing off half your cast and basically dumping on the previous year or two of storylines isn’t the most sensitive way to do it. It was sort of like saying, ‘Screw you! I didn’t like any of this stuff anyway!’ It was sort of like throwing a girlfriend off a bridge. [laughs]” The changes began in Justice League of America Annual #2 (Oct. 1984), written by Conway and drawn by Chuck Patton and Dave Hunt, and things were never the same again. The Annual picks up right after the ending of JLA #230, in which the satellite was completely destroyed during a two-part story arc entitled “The War of the Worlds 1984.” A group of angry Martians came looking for J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, and got more than they expected when the JLA showed up to take care of the invaders. But during the battle, the aliens tore through the satellite and left the JLA homeless.

Reconstruction (left) Martians mix it up in Justice League of America #230 (Sept. 1984), its cover featuring powerful pencils by Chuck Patton, inked by Dick Giordano. (right) The new, untried League bows in JLA Annual #2 (Oct. 1984), with cover art by Patton and Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

Conway, though, had a plan that he hoped would bring sales back up and excite new readers and longtime fans of the JLA. “I had been writing the book for a number of years, and there were two impetuses behind it—one was economic and one was creative,” Conway says. “The economic impetus was that JLA was no longer selling as well as it had. And the most popular book at DC at that point was New Teen Titans, so there was pressure to make the book more like New Teen Titans. And since nobody quite knew what that meant except to say that Marv Wolfman knew what he was doing with New Teen Titans. So the question became, How do you accomplish that? And this is where you get into the creative end of it: What Titans had going for it was cohesion as a team where the characters in the Titans interacted pretty much exclusively with each other, so you could develop storylines that involved the characters’ personal lives and create drama and character development in that title, so much so that in Batman, we had actually written Dick Grayson out of the book so that he would be fairly exclusive to the Titans. With Justice League, as it was constituted prior to the JLA Detroit, you didn’t have the same opportunities for exclusivity and character interaction and group dynamics. “So from a creative point of view, I was already beginning to feel that there had to be some kind of change, that there had to be some way for me to focus more on characters who were exclusive to the book,” Conway explains. “I had been trying to do that with some of the second-tier characters like Red Tornado, Zatanna, and Firestorm, giving them more room to move around and to develop stories around their personal lives because they weren’t really seen in other titles. When the time came and we were

looking at what we could do to shake up this book, the suggestion I had and other people had, because I don’t think I was the only person who thought of it, was to find some way to make a core group of characters that would be exclusive to the JLA title so we could basically develop their personalities and their storylines and so on. And the idea also was, to be honest, to skew it a little bit younger in terms of the characters we were focusing on so that they would be closer to the Titans model in that sense. “And that was the impetus—to find a way to basically move it away from an all-inclusive Justice League where any DC characters could just pop in and out of to a Justice League that had a core group that would constantly be the center,” Conway says. “One of my inspirations was the way that Stan Lee reinvented the Avengers from the group that included Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America to a less-powerful, but more-cohesive group, with Captain America, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. Those were the two things I was looking at—New Teen Titans and Stan Lee’s Avengers. I think Stan Lee felt the same constraints on Avengers. The thing that made Marvel great was the interaction of characters with each other in the sense that mattered. What happened between these two figures had repercussions in their lives and it was important. But that wasn’t the case if Iron Man was appearing The Avengers and simultaneously in Iron Man, where Iron Man was having a storyline that was going over three or four issues that had nothing to do with what was happening in The Avengers. It reduced the credibility of both books, so Stan, I think, saw what he needed to do to create a group that was as cohesive as the Fantastic Four was, and that was the way it went. I think that was a good model.”

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A LEAGUE DISBANDED Conway had been building frustration within Aquaman for several issues, setting him up to take action. In JLA Annual #2, Aquaman called the team together, called a press conference … and called it quits. That’s right. Aquaman—formerly a mild-mannered third-stringer—took charge and disbanded the JLA because he felt they were no longer effective. Aquaman tells Green Arrow: “Even if we could repair our headquarters, I doubt if we could repair ourselves.” Aquaman holds a meeting at the United Nations with Hawkwoman, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, Firestorm, Elongated Man, and Zatanna standing behind him, making his surprise announcement: “The old League is finished—and hereby disbanded.” A confrontational Firestorm, behind him, exclaims,

Familiar Faces Conway dusted off two of his earlier creations for his new JLA: Vixen, whose magazine was deep-sixed by the DC Implosion, and Steel (although the JLA’s Steel was the grandson of the WWII Indestructible Man from the late-1970s series). DC Comics Presents #68 (Apr. 1984) cover by Gil Kane. Steel #1 (Mar. 1978) cover by Don Heck and Al Milgrom. TM & © DC Comics.

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“What?” Aquaman tersely explains: “The League, as it stands, can’t do the job it’s sworn to perform. The world needs a committed fighting force—a team of full-time, active members, living together, training together—sharing a common purpose, a common duty.” When Aquaman challenges the team to make the commitment, Red Tornado, GA and Black Canary, along with the Hawks and Firestorm, all back out. “Oh, man,” Firestorm says. “I feel … like something’s died.” “Katar [Hawkman], I can’t believe it can end this way,” Hawkwoman says. “It already has, my darling. It already has,” Hawkman answers her as everyone walks away in different directions, leaving Zatanna, Aquaman, and Elongated Man standing alone. Elongated Man cries as he thinks to himself, “We should have seen this coming months ago … when the Batman quit, and Flash took a leave of absence … and the Atom disappeared in South America. Like Red Tornado says, we didn’t want to face facts … but the old gang’s been breaking up for almost a year now.” Suddenly, J’onn J’onzz appears and agrees to join up with what’s left of the League to help rebuild it. Zatanna nominates Aquaman to lead the team and they announce the formation of “the New Justice League”! As the announcement reaches around the world, several interested parties watch the happenings and plan. The Justice Leaguers move into a hotel room until a new headquarters can be found, and the new heroes start showing up to offer their services. First comes Vixen, and a battle with the JLA who thinks she’s a villain. Then comes the new Steel, who offers a new HQ, a bunker that was built beneath an old warehouse. They couldn’t turn down that offer, now, could they?

Steel takes the new JLA to a hidden base by traveling under the waters of the Detroit River and into an underground, state-of-the-art training facility, where he gives the Leaguers a show of what he can do against his old buddy, Dale Gunn, a weapons maker and scientist on whom both Vixen and Zatanna develop crushes. While out doing a little grocery shopping, Steel and Vixen, in their civilian identities, spot Vibe, a street-smart, Puerto Rican gang member with the power to create powerful vibrations. They see Vibe do battle with a rival gang and Steel goes back to tell Aquaman that they need Vibe in the new JLA. Aquaman says no and the two argue. Eventually, Vibe finds his own way to the JLA’s new base in the old, abandoned factory. Vibe shows up with his boom box in hand, talking jive to the members of the JLA. When Aquaman tells him enough is enough, Vibe gives him the business by slamming Aquaman through a wall. Vibe and Steel then run into Gypsy out in the street, and she uses her powers to hide in plain sight and to tag along and sneak inside the JLA bunker. After being captured by J’onn, Gypsy escapes and the JLA get a warm welcome from the residents of Detroit. Gypsy is shown at the end in the shadows and Zatanna says she’ll see her again. She then gives a toast “to new friends. And to the new Justice League!” The end page shows Vibe and Vixen breakdancing and the rest of the JLA mingling with the citizens at a party, while Elongated Man holds up his drink and says, “Ole!” The caption at the bottom of the page says “The beginning...” What it didn’t say was that it was the beginning of the end of the JLA as we knew it.

REBIRTH “Some of the characters I had already created in other forms, like the new Steel was based on the character from the 1970s series, and Vixen was a character I had created for a series of her own that

died in the DC Implosion,” Conway remembers. “She had had a couple of appearances [with Superman] in Action Comics [and DC Comics Presents]. She was sort of around. Then, Vibe and Gypsy were a combination of interests that Chuck Patton and I had. Chuck had come up with the idea of Vibe, who could do shockwaves and was this ethnic kid. I wanted to create this young girl, who seemed very vulnerable, but has this interesting and mysterious backstory. And I just liked the name Gypsy to evoke that. Those two were the only original characters created for the title. “We tried to sort of fit them into the structure and develop them out of the fact that they were in this new territory,” Conway continues. “I don’t think I had any specific things in mind that influenced me. Gypsy may have had some Storm in her and a little bit of Kitty Pryde, but I don’t think I was that influenced by other comics because I was trying to do things that I felt like hadn’t been done, which was the idea of a kid that was young, and Gypsy was just 13 or 14 years old, ending up in a group with these adult superheroes. Vibe was just part of a general sense that I had that DC needed characters who were more ethnically based. I was the guy who had pushed for Black Lightning. I wanted characters who were not part of the core, white, Anglo-Saxon, New York group.” The new JLA gets introduced in a four-issue story arc called “Rebirth” that showcases each of the new members, starting with Vibe in issue #233, Vixen in #234, Steel in JLA #235, and Gypsy in #236. Then-editor Alan Gold commented in the letters column of JLA #235 (Feb. 1985) that since the Annual, he had received no less than ten letters of comment a day. Gold wrote that he expected some hate mail and some letters saying they loved the new JLA, but overall, the letters were moderate in their response. He admitted that now the book didn’t qualify for the “World’s Greatest Super-Heroes” sobriquet because the heroes of the JLA Detroit were not the most powerful heroes on Earth anymore.

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Tyros Take Off Four consecutive issues of JLA— #233–236 (the latter of which appears on the next page)— trotted out the newbies in cover-featured appearances. Cover art on all four by Patton and Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

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Big Guns (center) Original JLAers Superman, Flash, and Wonder Woman return (briefly) in Justice League #237 (Apr. 1985). Cover by Patton and Mike Machlan. (right) The new kids rally to help the old guard in the next issue. Cover by Paris Cullins and Machlan.

“So to turn everything on its head, we introduced a couple of strange characters,” editor Gold wrote. “Yes, they have no track record. Yes, their powers as shown so far aren’t especially impressive. Yes, they goof around a lot and they steal apples and they breakdance and they dress funny. We hoped that readers would assume we had a couple of tricks up our sleeve—that the Annual was in some way a teaser. As it turned out, many reasonable readers thought we had shown deficient judgment—but they planned to watch our ideas take on greater definition.” The comments on the Annual were 6–2 in favor of the change, with one letter reading fairly neutral. Conway, though, didn’t read any of the fan mail to see if it was positive or negative toward the sweeping changes he had made. “When I killed off Gwen Stacy, I pretty much stopped reading fan mail because I didn’t get a lot of positive feedback on the stuff I was doing,” he says.

TM & © DC Comics.

The “Rebirth” saga started off with two pretty tame introductions and then shifted gears and the JLA went toe-to-toe with the Overmaster and the Cadre, a group of new villains that have been mostly forgotten today. Still, those four issues served as vehicles for the four new members to showcase what they bring to the team. “I wanted to focus on the individual characters as much as I could,” Conway says. “But the problem with that, to be fair, it weakened the structure of the book, because by focusing on one character, you’re giving short shrift to the other characters for that issue and the whole idea of a team is to show the interactions of the team. So I don’t know if that was a mistake, but it didn’t contribute to the fan interest as I’d hoped it would have.” Conway brought Flash, Superman, and Wonder Woman back for issue #237’s battle against the Maestro, a musical villain who uses a “keytar” for a weapon to trap the newly returned members of the JLA. Then, in JLA #238, the JLA Detroit save Superman, Wonder Woman, and Flash from the Maestro’s clutches to prove their worth. At the end, Gypsy exhibits a bizarre new power, one that allows her to make people see visions that leave them paralyzed in fear. JLA #239 (June 1985) opens with Superman argu-

Torn from Today’s Headlines… …but it would’ve been torn ligaments if ye ed had tried to slide to the Electric Bugaloo. For those of you born after the Reagan presidency, here’s tangible proof of the Big ’80s’ breakdancing fad that gave birth to Vibe: a poster for the 1984 movie Breakin’. © 1984 MGM/UA.

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ing with Aquaman over his decision to disband the old League and gives readers a recap of JLA history. The two super friends finally shake hands and everyone gets along just fine. One of the subplots started in the Annual comes to the fore in issue #239 as Zatanna has her hopes for a relationship with Dale Gunn dashed as she spies Vixen and Dale kissing in the monitor room. Vixen goes out to face her uncle, the Gored Ox, the man who killed her father. She gives the Ox her totem, the source of her powers, and it changes him into a real ox and he starts trashing his place until Vixen lashes out in fury. She knocks the Ox onto metal left from his rampage, which stabs him through the chest and kills him. “Am I all right,” Vixen says to her friend. “I’ll let you know. Tomorrow.” Through scenes like these, Conway was trying to show the personal lives of the new team members: “When you’re dealing with a smaller, less powerful group, you can get more personal, like the storyline with Vixen, where you’ve got this backstory of her family and her terrorist, Idi Amin-uncle, where it can become more emotional than situational.”

BIG SHOES TO FILL Justice League of America #239 was artist Chuck Patton’s last. Conway praises the work Patton did on the title, which he drew during a difficult time in the book’s history. Conway also liked the art by Patton’s successors, George Tuska and Luke McDonnell. “Chuck and I worked closely together,” Conway reveals. “We talked on the phone and pretty much developed the plots together. Then, when he left, I basically stepped back from that direct collaboration and went back to doing full scripts. So my interactions with Luke were not as extensive as they had been with Chuck. “We had a couple issues in there where George Tuska filled in. For years, I had worked with Dick Dillin, where I was doing full scripts. Then, when George Pérez was

Beast of Burden (top left) Vixen vs. the Ox, in JLA #239 (June 1985). Cover by Patton and Machlan. (bottom left) Original art by Marvel transplant George Tuska, inked by Mike Machlan, from JLA #241 (Aug. 1985). Courtesy of Heritage. (bottom right) That issue’s cover, featuring the new League battling the old League’s foe, Amazo. Cover by Chuck Patton and Romeo Tanghal. TM & © DC Comics.

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Sea King to the Rescue Aquaman seems out of his depth in his fight with Amazo on story page 17 of issue #243 (Oct. 1985). Original art page signed by penciler George Tuska; inked by Mike Machlan and courtesy of Heritage. (inset) The Patton/Machlan cover to #243, gueststarring Mera. TM & © DC Comics.

on the book, we went to a little bit more of the [plot first] Marvel style, which I continued when Chuck came on. It felt more comfortable to do the full script method after Chuck left. At that point, I was writing scripts because we didn’t know who the artist was going to be and I just kept doing it that way. “It’s hard to follow someone like George,” Conway says. “If they had followed Dick [Dillin], people would have been much more impressed with Chuck’s and Luke’s art. Dick was great, but he wasn’t a stylist in the sense that his style was flashy and intense the way George’s was. Dick was very much a storyteller and a good designer and a good artist, but following somebody like Dick with somebody like Chuck Patton would have looked terrific, but going from George Pérez to Chuck, even with the inbetween by Don Heck, it just doesn’t make it. The audience’s expectations had already been raised and whoever was going to follow George was in a terrible position. It’s like following Neal Adams. George Tuska and Don Heck did solid, professional work, but it wasn’t up to the standards and it was a letdown. 56 • BACK ISSUE • JLA Issue

There were a lot of compromises that were made and there just were not a lot of great artists [available]. Even today, look at DC’s New 52 and I’d say half of the books are drawn by really good artists and half are drawn by people who are okay.” Justice League of America #240 (July 1985) is a flashback tale told by Kurt Busiek, original JLA penciler Mike Sekowsky, and Tom Mandrake. It was great to see Sekowsky back doing JLA art, and Mandrake’s inks really gave his pencils a heavy, retro feel. It’s really too bad that Sekowsky didn’t get to stick around to draw the JLA Detroit. Conway returns to write JLA #241, with Tuska on pencils in an issue that largely focuses on the homelives of the new JLA and showcases Aquaman. Amazo returns to cause some trouble for the new JLA then flees with the League in tow, while Aquaman goes MIA as he begins his search for his missing wife, Mera. The two Aqua-lovebirds are reunited in JLA #242, again with beautiful pencils by Tuska and inks by Mike Machlan, and the team battles Amazo. This three-issue arc concludes in JLA #243, with Mera teaming up with the JLA in the Canadian Northwest, where the team beats Amazo through a clever ruse by the Martian Manhunter. At the end, Aquaman announces his intention to resign when the team returns to Detroit so he can spend more time with his wife as they rekindle their love for one another. Martian Manhunter becomes the team’s new leader. “I felt that both Aquaman and Martian Manhunter were both underused characters,” Conway says. “They both had been, at one point in my reading as a kid superhero fan, a couple of my favorite characters. In the case of Martian Manhunter, not as he was developed over the years as this bald, Superman clone, but in his original conception in the first couple of stories that had appeared in the 1950s, he was clearly this strange, alien presence from another world whose ethos and mindset was different than ours, and that could be kind of challenging. The idea of being a telepath was something I wanted to play around with. How does that work in terms of your relationships with people if you know what they are thinking and feeling? How do you interact with them? That was intriguing to me. “I was actually a big fan of the Steve Skeates/Jim Aparo years on Aquaman, which I thought showed the potential of the character in a way that just hasn’t been developed since then,” Conway notes. “Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis are trying to do a little of that with the reboot. But it just felt like there was more to this guy than we had been allowed to see. And, additionally, they were two of the main characters who were available to me who didn’t have their own series, so I could focus on them and not have to worry that something was going to happen in Aquaman’s own title that was going to interrupt my storyline. I could break up this marriage. I could create this stress in it. I could make

him a guy who wasn’t the most sympathetic in the world and bring him back from that. He was a character who was a part of the DC pantheon that I was free to do stuff with.”

impact on your titles, but how can you do that? You can only do that if you basically require all the titles to do the same thing at the same time because you are directing it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean A LEAGUE IN CRISIS you’re going to get the best creIn JLA #244 (Dec. 1985), the Crisis ative work. Where the best creative finally begins in this tale called “The work comes from is from individual Final Crisis.” Joining Conway for this passions of the artists and writers Crisis crossover are artists Joe who are working on the titles, and Staton and Mike Machlan, who do they may have their own individual an excellent job drawing the JLA thoughts that have nothing to do Luke McDonnell Detroit’s first and last crossover with where you’re going, and with the Justice Society of America you’re just interrupting them and and Infinity Inc., from Earth-Two. throwing a monkey wrench into the middle of it.” The issue is a continuance of Infinity, Inc. #19, in which the new Leaguers are kicked out of their new HOMELESS HEROES base by Steel’s grandfather, who was also known as But in issue #246, Steel, with his new convertible-top Commander Steel during World War II, and Infinity Inc. mask, is right back in Detroit with the JLA as they come Steel confronts his grandpa for putting him home to find they’ve been evicted by Grandpa Steel through the surgery that made the younger Steel the from their warehouse base. The younger Steel goes to hero he is. The JLA Detroit travels to the old satellite visit his dying grandfather, who explains why he had to save Steel and the three teams join together to the JLA evicted from their new home. The issue is inked battle the menace of Mekanique. Steel battles beautifully by Bill Wray, who gives the women of the Commander Steel and takes his grandfather down, JLA very beautiful eyes and features. It also sets up but is shown crying over his grandpa’s body on the Zatanna’s major story arc and takes the team to New York, where they begin to look for a new HQ. final page of the issue. In JLA #247, the team finds a new home in the first “I didn’t like this JSA/JLA crossover that much,” Conway laments. “What made the original Crisis base of the original JLA—the old cave. Conway also crossovers interesting was the idea that these were begins the Despero rebirth in this issue’s subplot and the two archetypical teams, and you had an equality Gypsy battles a creature that is really a large, alien between the JSA and the JLA, where you had two child they name “Junior.” JLA #248 features a solo tale of John Jones [J’onn Supermans and two Wonder Womans and so on. And that got all messed up and I didn’t think it J’onzz], private eye, and continues the story of worked out that well with the new characters, which Despero and the JLA’s new life in New York. Junior, it was a shame, because that was always one of the seems, feeds on the JLA’s animosity toward the creathings I looked forward to doing each year.” Artist Luke McDonnell takes over the artistic reins in JLA #245, another Crisis crossover issue that features Steel as he tries to get home from outer space. The battle-damaged Steel is rescued by a woman named Olanda, who turns out to be the daughter of an old JLA foe, the Lord of Time. Olanda and Steel fall in love and Steel appears to stay on the alien planet. “Crisis on Infinite Earths kind of confused things for me,” Conway says. “The problem with Crisis from a writer’s point of view outside of the Crisis itself was that you don’t know what’s going to be required of you in the future. We knew that we needed to tie certain things in, but we didn’t really have a sense of how this was going to ultimately affect the rest of the DC Universe. What were we going to be expected to work in? So that kind of put everything on hold for a few months. It was just one more thing that kept you from necessarily doing what you wanted to do.” According to Conway, “For me, it was ironic, because one of the reasons I wanted to make the change in the Justice League was so that I could focus purely on the Justice League and not have to worry about the DC Universe, and there I was having to worry about the DC Universe. I think these [megacrossover events] are so destructive. They are terrible. It just throws a monkey wrench into creating individual passion for a title. I understand why companies do it in one sense, because it’s something that the people on top can get their hands around. In other words, you are publisher or editor-in-chief of a comic-book company and you want to have an

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Man of Steel JLAer Steel may be battered, but he’s rarin’ to battle on this dynamic Luke McDonnell/Bill Wary cover to Justice League #245 (Dec. 1985), a Crisis crossover. TM & © DC Comics.

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We’re Movin’ on Up! Actually, they’re movin’ on down, into the cave that the JLA used as its first HQ. Original art from JLA #247 (Feb. 1986), written by Gerry Conway, penciled by Luke McDonnell, and inked by Bill Wray, the latter of whom contributed this art scan. TM & © DC Comics.

ture by sucking the life out of the Leaguers, which leads into the 250th anniversary issue and the return of the Big Guns—Superman, Green Lantern, Batman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary. The old guard has to rescue the new members from the menace of Junior and they restore the JLA to health. In the end, Batman agrees to stay on with the League to guide the team for a year. Too bad the team would only be around for another 11 months… And at the end of JLA #250 (May 1986), we get our first glimpse of the newly reborn Despero the Destroyer. “It was around Justice League #250 when we started to realize that the sales were just not going the way they should be going,” Conway says. “We tried to give it a boost by reminding readers that we were a part of the DC Universe. Having Batman around was sort of about the fact that we needed a mainstream character. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but, at that point, I think I was being encouraged to do it. “Luke did a great job making Despero look incredible,” Conway beams. “That, I think, is one of my main contributions to the Justice League—bringing Despero up to speed. He was one of the first JLA villains and I always felt like he should be more like Dr. Doom, somebody you were scared of if you knew he was on the horizon. I felt it was an opportunity to do a multi-issue storyline that mattered.” In JLA #251 (June 1986), Zatanna gets captured by a cult and J’onn J’onzz has a heart-to-heart talk

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with Gypsy about her running away from home. Steel and his girlfriend, Robin, go on a date and Batman and Vixen have a talk as Batman rethinks his decision to rejoin the League. Despero, in a rage, destroys what was left of the old JLA satellite and he heads to Earth to find his foes. Justice League #252 has Despero on Earth looking for the League so he can finally destroy them with his new powers in what would be one of the best story arcs of the entire JLA Detroit run. Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Mari McCabe (Vixen) go on a date, but have to cut it short as Despero attacks. Meanwhile, Zatanna is trying to escape the cult that has kidnapped her and taken her DNA to be used to make their messianic leader, Adam, into a superpowered Homo Magi. Justice League of America #253 has the JLA trapped in Gotham City, which has become the now-magical Despero’s alien Hell, where he recounts his origin story, how he first came to battle the League, and his rebirth with Darkseid–level powers. The Despero story finally ends with Vibe saving the day and, apparantly, destroying Despero. “The only big JLA villains are people like Felix Faust, who is interesting more for his potential than for what he actually does, and Despero, who was interesting and I tried to make him more interesting,” Conway says of the decision to beef up Despero. “But, for the most part, it was like crisis of the week and villain of the week. With Justice League,

I tried to create was a situation that challenged the heroes as a team and as groups within the team. Who the actual villain was was less important than what he was up to. You’re not going to have that one-on-one battle—you’re going to be dealing with battles with other characters and situations. But when we came down to a smaller group, we could do these one-on-one battles with villains who were more focused and more down to Earth. You had to deal with a situation when you have Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter. You have to create a situation big enough to justify their behavior.”

says. “I don’t know if I knew it was my last issue, but I certainly was fed up and felt there had to be a change. I had been pushing to go back to the regular group, because, if it wasn’t working, then let’s go back as try the big group. But I think DC felt I had done as much with that group as I needed to do.” Editor Andy Helfer says this wasn’t the first time Conway had quit on him. “Okay, first, it should be says that I love Gerry Conway, but with me, he had this habit of quitting monthly assignments just before the climax of the story,” Helfer says. “He did this twice that I can recall; in Atari Force (which I still consider some of this best work) and here, when it was decided by forces JLA AFTER CONWAY higher than me that Justice League was to be Issue #255 would be Conway’s last. He canceled and restarted in record time ended his lengthy run on the title by (usually, canceled books were given at focusing on Zatanna’s entrapment by least a year of two to simmer before Adam, who declares that he is God. being restarted, but I suppose Justice Conway also gives us insight into League was too important a title to the personal lives of the new JLA be laid to rest, even temporarily). members, but leaves the book withHe’d launched the new JLA assignout an end to the Adam storyline. ment working with Alan Gold, and “I don’t know whether I knew it the whole thing hadn’t been was my last issue or that I sensed I termed a success, so I was told to was on my way out. I was just havwrap it up and start again with an ing so much trouble at that time all-new crew.” with DC and in my personal life. I New writer J. M. DeMatteis ANDREW HELFER was not in a good place,” Conway picks up the pen to write the next

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Desperate Measures Despero was transformed from a threeeyed, fin-headed sci-fi movie reject (left, from his first appearance) to (right) a formidable threat under Conway. Cover to Justice League of America #1 (Oct.–Nov. 1960) by Murphy Anderson. Original art from JLA #252 (July 1986) courtesy of inker Bill Wray; penciled by Luke McDonnell. TM & © DC Comics.

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Bad Vibrations Controversial character Vibe meets his Maker. Splash page original art to JLA #259 (Feb. 1987), courtesy of its inker, Bill Wray. Script by J. M. DeMatteis, pencils by Luke McDonnell. TM & © DC Comics.

six issues, the first of which, JLA #256 caused by him touching the Godhead, (Nov. 1986), begins the wrap-up to the and she encounters what she believes Adam/Zatanna storyline. It shows the is the voice of her father, which causeffects of becoming God, as it drives es her to travel deeper into Adam’s Adam mad and nearly does the mind and closer to the Godhead. In same to the Martian Manhunter, the end, the Godhead spits who, through a Martian mindZatanna back into the real world, meld, goes into Adam’s mind to where she and Adam decide they experience it all for himself. Though were meant to be together and he nearly went mad, the Martian leave in a flash. engages in the mind-meld again, “I don’t like this,” the Martian this time to allow Zatanna and Manhunter says. Gypsy into Adam’s mind. “You’re always being so negaJ. M. DeMATTEIS This leads into JLA #257, the final tive,” Gypsy exclaims. “Couldn’t chapter of the Adam storyline. you feel the love pouring our of DeMatteis, who had just come from Marvel and had them? The joy?” written a long run on Defenders, including an issue “No,” J’onn answers. that goes into a Dr. Seuss–type of world, gives a nod The JLA then go back to their headquarters to disto that story by having J’onn, Zatanna, and Gypsy cuss the events with the other Leaguers. blip into that same world. Zatanna travels further “That’s quite a story, Manhunter, but I don’t see into Adam’s psyche to learn that his madness was why you’re so upset by it,” Elongated Man says. “Sounds like Zee and Adam came out of that mess in pretty good shape.” “Good shape? Ralph … sometimes you are a real jerk,” Vibe says. “For all we know … Zatanna could be under some kinda mind control! Y’know—like a … cosmic Moonie!” “It sounds to me like she had an authentic mystical experience,” Vixen says. “One that she and Adam need time to digest.” “‘Authentic mystical experience’? Yeah, I had one o’ those once—when I stuck my finger in an electrical socket,” Vibe retorts. “You wouldn’t make jokes if you’d seen them, Vibe,” Gypsy says. “They were … transformed! There was something inside them … something so special. Holy, almost.” “Being neither a romantic nor a spiritualist—I remain skeptical,” J’onn says. “And I remain worried.” That’s when Firestorm bursts in and tells the JLA about the lunatic called Brimstone and leads them into the big-event miniseries Legends. And the League would never be the same. “I’d just left Marvel after six years under contract there and was up at DC looking for work,” J. M. DeMatteis remembers. “Andy Helfer—one of the best editors and nicest guys I’ve ever worked with—told me that Conway had left JL and he needed someone to step in quickly to finish things up on the Adam story. I was happy to do it. I don’t recall if I knew, coming in, that I’d end up doing the ‘End of the JL Detroit’ storyline, but it must have come up early on. “As I recall, the Legends miniseries was going on and that was planned as the launch pad for a major reboot of the DC line. (Hmmm. Where have I heard that before?) A very important part of that was a relaunch of the Justice League—new faces, a fresh take. Funny thing is, I didn’t know at the time I was writing that ‘End of JL Detroit’ storyline that I’d be working on the new League with Keith Giffen for five years and beginning a collaboration that would continue for decades!” Helfer knew the series was ending and he wanted it to go out with a bang. “I think I got DC to give me five issues or so to wrap it up; I decided early on to at least throw the idea of killing them all out to the writer to see how it was received,” Helfer says. “I think Gerry bowed out here, and unlike with Atari Force, I couldn’t really blame him. So I called my old buddy Marc DeMatteis to help me wrap it up. He

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The Final Countdown (left) Conway’s last issue, featuring Zatanna’s struggle with Adam. He pro-

did, and convinced me not to kill ’em all (only the really bad ones). I wasn’t expecting Marc to have anything to do with the new Justice League, but I had yet to find a new writer (or artist, for that matter). When I was considering Keith Giffen for the job, Keith felt unprepared to do the actual writing. Keith and I had already decided to make the book more than a bit irreverent—I’d procured Guy Gardner for the series, and six issues of Captain Marvel to hammer the point home—but Keith insisted a dialog writer was needed. That’s how Marc—very reluctantly, I should add—came aboard.”

A LEGENDARY REBOOT The ensuing four-part Legends crossover was traumatic to JLA fans, to say the least. Running throughout JLA #258–261, the Justice League falls under attack by one of its oldest foes, Professor Ivo, who is searching for a way to reverse the lizard–like transformation he is suffering and blaming on the JLA. DeMatteis shows the JLA falling apart after a defeat in the Legends miniseries. Elongated Man quits after a fight with Vibe in which Vibe unleashes his powers on Ralph and EM yells at him, “I’ve seen vibrators that can do better!” (Someone at the Comics Code Authority must have been sleeping on the job to let that one slip past…) J’onn follows the US president’s orders that all superheroes withdraw from public life, and disbands the JLA. Steel puts an exclamation point on the JLA’s breakup by smashing the old meeting table. Vixen and Gypsy offer to take Vibe out to dinner, but he refuses and stays behind. One of Ivo’s robots catches up to Vibe as he visits his old neighborhood and strangles him to death. In JLA #258 (Jan. 1987), Vixen, Steel, and J’onn

vided the plot to JLA #255 (Oct. 1986), which was dialogued by “Michael Ellis” (actually J. M. DeMatteis). Cover by McDonnell and Wray. (right) The four-part “End of the Justice League of America” commenced with issue #258 (Jan. 1987), a Legends tie-in. Cover by McDonnell and Bob Smith.

find the body of Vibe lying in the street, and J’onn recognizes the mask put on Vibe’s face is the calling card of Prof. Ivo. Gypsy goes to visit her old friends, but gets picked up on the road by one of Ivo’s robot sons and is “killed.” In truth, Ivo’s robot develops a conscience and fakes Gypsy’s death, saving her life and returning her to the family she fled so long ago. In JLA #260, Steel goes out on his own looking for Vibe’s killer, defying the president’s order to stay out of public view. In a confrontation with police, Steel recognizes that one of the cops is an Ivo android and the beating he issues to the “cop” causes the crowd to get angry. Steel takes the robot cop away to finish the fight and the robot blasts away Steel’s face and parts of his body, revealing that he, too, is a cyborg. J’onn takes Steel’s nearly lifeless body back to his grandfather in Detroit, who says the damage to his grandson is too severe and flips a switch that turns off the life support keeping Steel alive. The final issue of Justice League of America, #261 (Apr. 1987), has Vixen, the last of the new JLA still standing, hunting down and destroying Ivo’s robot children and a robot of Ivo himself, before finding the professor straightjacketed in a padded room and babbling incoherently. Vixen and Martian Manhunter go back to JLA headquarters, where they discuss the future of the League. “Maybe the League should continue,” she says. “But it won’t continue with me.” Vixen hugs J’onn and leaves. As the Martian Manhunter hits the power switch and starts to follow Vixen, the JLA emergency signal goes off and, as the original JLA saga ends, a new beginning is on the horizon. “It was an interesting concept and an interesting group of characters,” DeMatteis says. “I’d guess that,

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TM & © DC Comics.

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that at the time that I do things, the loudest voices are the ones of the people saying I’m doing something terrible. I don’t think I’m as talented a writer as Alan Moore, who can come along and turn something 180 degrees on its head and make the fans go crazy about it. What I tend to do are things that vocal fans hate, but readers like, so that years later, the vocal fans have died off or gone on to something else and the readers are now the new vocal fans and they are the ones who are saying they like my run on Batman or JLA Detroit. At the time, I was crucified for this, so I was very sensitive— and still am very thin-skinned—about what I do, which is kind of stupid of me, but that’s where I am. It feels good to be vindicated to some degree by people saying they like what I did.”

The Original Saga Concludes Vixen stands alone on this McDonnell/Wray cover to the final issue of Justice League of America, #261 (Apr. 1987). The series would quickly reboot after the Legends miniseries.

JUSTICE LEAGUE DETROIT AFTERMATH

TM & © DC Comics.

back in the day, it just didn’t fit people’s expectations about what the Justice League was. Doesn’t mean they weren’t good characters and good stories. After all, we’re talking about them now, right? Which means they’ve had lasting impact.” Conway says he did not read DeMatteis’ dismissal of the JLA Detroit in those final issues, but he is glad the team has hung around ever since in the form of flashback stories, cartoon appearances, and action figures. “I never follow anything after I leave a book,” Conway admits. “First of all, it’s not my book anymore and you are inevitably going to be secondguessing the people who follow you. If you leave it under negative circumstances, it’s painful to read what’s going on afterwards because you feel abused, and then if it is something you do approve of, you smack yourself upside your head and think, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ So there’s no upside for me to read the book after I leave it. Sometimes I’ll go back years later and look at it, like I did in order to write the JLA Retroactive [issue].” Assessing the fates of his characters, Conway says, “I was dismayed at the way the JLA Detroit was dispatched in a kind of empty, dispassionate way. It was like, ‘Okay, we’re going to end it, so let’s just end it.’ It’s not DeMatteis’ best work, I don’t think. It was like, ‘Okay, you don’t want to write these characters, but you want to get rid of them so thoroughly that nobody else can ever write them? Is that necessary? Do you hate them that much?’ People do what they need to do when they come on a title. I’ve done things that people hated when I took over books. You write whatever you feel is best for you. You’re being brought in because somebody thinks you have something to contribute. That was his job.” According to Conway, “It’s been the story of my life

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Conway got to return to the JLA Detroit in 2011 with his JLA Retroactive 1980s one-shot. He pitted the JLA Detroit against Felix Faust in a great issue that looked back at an untold tale of Vibe, Gypsy, Vixen, and Steel. “It was actually my idea to do a JLA Detroit story,” Conway tells BACK ISSUE, “because I wanted to finish it off. I felt like the team hadn’t been left with sufficient acknowledgement that they mattered. They were sort of dropped by the wayside, killed off, and treated as jokes. I wanted to give them a final tip of the hat from me, their creator, to say, ‘Hey, look, they may not have been the best Justice League and they weren’t the worst Justice League, but they were the Justice League when they were there. They took on the mantle and did the hard work and fought the good fight.’ “And that was what I wanted to do,” Conway says. “I also wanted to point out that they did influence people in the future because I did have one of the characters in the story be Geoff Johns as a kid. He would have been a kid, living in Detroit back in 1984.” Looking back on the JLA Detroit, Gerry Conway is pleased with his work: “I liked that we tried to bring them down to Earth and that we made this a group that interacted with ordinary people. I really did like the new characters we brought in. I had some plans for Gypsy and I liked her as a character who was part of the group, but not part of the group, either. She didn’t know if she wanted to be part of the group and they didn’t know anything about her, so she was a figure of mystery that was interesting to me. Vibe, I thought, had the potential to shake things up and to be the contrarian in the group. It was unfortunate that he was singled out as a racial stereotype, and that was sort of my fault because my notion on him was that he was putting on this racial-stereotype personality. He actually was a completely different person when he was at home with his family and, once he let his guard down with the JLA, we’d see who he actually was. It probably wasn’t developed as quickly as it could have been with bringing all that stuff into the foreground. I liked Vixen and the fact that we had this kind of sexual tension with her and Zatanna as the opposing legs of the triangle that would change from time to time. It had more potential than we ended up getting. But that’s the way things go sometimes.” Andy Helfer can’t understand the staying power of JLA Detroit: “I have no idea why the old group reappears now and then. Vixen was an interesting character, and

Gypsy had possibilities, but beyond that, it’s a headscratcher for me.” Luke McDonnell is proud to have worked on Justice League of America during the JLA Detroit period: “I initially picked up odd jobs from DC when I first got there, and Andy Helfer saw my work and thought I’d be a good choice for the job on JLA. It was interesting starting with that Crisis crossover issue [JLA #245], because my whole head had been in the Marvel Universe up to that point. When I came to DC, I was taking on a new paradigm and I had to immerse myself in this real fast, and there was a little anxiety in just trying to get it right. I kind of wanted to do the classic characters, but, after awhile, I got to appreciate the idea of a startup JLA, so I got used to it. I liked drawing Steel and Vixen the best. “From what I remember, I thought the stories Gerry was doing were pretty solid,” McDonnell continues. “We revamped Despero because Gerry wanted to make him like Darkseid, so I did a bunch of sketches and we went over them with Helfer and we took a little from this sketch and married it to another sketch. By and large, it was pretty smooth between us. The JLA Detroit characters were new and not being used in other venues—there was definitely a sense that we could take these personalities and do whatever we wanted with them. When Gerry brought back the orig-

Last Hurrah

inal Justice League in issue #250, it gave me a chance to do those characters I’d wanted to draw. I remember the opening sequence in Justice League #250 where there was a helicopter and Batman was jumping onto some guys, and that was one of my favorite sequences. The original JLA was such iconic and beloved characters who had such a history together. I thought Gerry did a great job with the new characters he had, but sales very well could have fallen because we didn’t have the big-name characters. I guess, in retrospect, that’s what happened.” McDonnell reflects upon the final days of JLA: “It was fun working with Marc DeMatteis, because he was the guy who brought me into the comics business. Working on those final issues was bittersweet. I thought we were going in another direction and I wasn’t really cognizant that they were getting ready to revamp everything. I think I had been offered Suicide Squad, and I may have been aware that I was wrapping up the Justice League. But I know there must be people out there who look back on the JLA Detroit with fondness, because they keep bringing them back.”

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Gerry Conway returned to the characters he created in the one-shot DC Retroactive: JLA – The ’80s #1 (Oct. 2011), illustrated by Ron Randall. TM & © DC Comics.

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Justice League, Then and Now with Gerry Conway and Dan Jurgens

Checkered Pasts Continuing a cover theme started with JLA #1: (left) cover to the Conway–scribed Justice League of America #178 (May 1980) by Jim Starlin, and (right) writer/penciler Dan Jurgens—coverinked by Murphy Anderson—on Justice League America #61 (Apr. 1992).

When DC Comics announced trying to keep people around for six there would be a company-wide issues, so it’s a totally different by P h i l i p S c h w e i e r relaunch in September 2011, mindset, a totally different strucmany new incarnations of longture.” time features were expected to undergo massive Conway was among the writers who entered the makeovers, including one of its flagship titles, Justice market in the early to mid-1970s, in his case beginLeague of America (JLA). Over the years, the JLA has ning with a story in House of Secrets #81 (Aug.–Sept. faced many challenges, from Starro the Conqueror 1969). While the horror titles served as ample trainto the Infinite Crisis. ing ground for novice comic-book professionals in But no menace is quite so fearsome as the con- those days, Conway’s true desire lay in writing superstantly changing marketplace. Simply put, writing heroes, especially those of which he was a fan. funnybooks ain’t what it used to be. “The readership “I was at DC for about a year,” he says, “and duris different,” says Gerry Conway, who was the writer ing that year I did about three or four issues, individfor Justice League of America from 1978–1986. ual scripts.” According to the website Mike’s Amazing “I had the advantage or disadvantage of writing for World of DC Comics, his first was Justice League of a readership that would pick up an individual story America #125 (“Men Who Sold Destruction,” Dec. and then go away for three or four months and then 1975). He would continue to write JLA adventures for pick up another individual story, so I had to write sto- issues, #126, 127, 131, 132, 133, and 134. ries that were complete in one issue, or close to comThanks to a friendship with Roy Thomas, Conway plete. I would do a lot of two-parters. Today, you’re was afforded a new opportunity at Marvel Comics,

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Beginnings: House of Secrets #81 (Aug.–Sept. 1969), “Aaron Philips’ Photo Finish”

Milestones: Amazing Spider-Man #111–149 (Aug. 1972–Oct.1975) / cocreator of the Punisher and Firestorm the Nuclear Man / Justice League of America (Feb. 1978–Oct. 1986) / screenplays for Fire and Ice (1983) and Conan the Destroyer (1984) / writer/producer on such shows as Matlock, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Law & Order

Works in Progress: Superman Beyond / Jughead Double Digest / Richie Rich / Archie Comics

Cyberspace: Find Gerry Conway on Facebook

Gerry Conway

Beginnings: The Warlord #63 (Nov. 1982), “The Kaash’ban”

Milestones: Booster Gold, creator/writer/artist 1985–1987, 2007–2011 / Justice League of America, writer/artist 1992–1993 / Superman, writer/artist 1991–1995, writer 1995–1999 / Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, writer/artist 1994 / Captain America, writer 1999–2000, writer/artist 2000–2002 / The Mighty Thor, writer 1998–2004

Works in Progress: Superman, writer/artist 2012 / Justice League International, writer 2011–2012 / Green Arrow, artist 2011

Cyberspace: www.danjurgens.com

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where he wrote such high-profile titles such as the Fantastic Four, and also scripted several SpiderMan stories for Marvel Team-Up. Polishing his skill at writing team books made Conway the perfect candidate for taking over the Justice League when he returned to DC a couple of years later.

A DREAM COME TRUE FOR CONWAY “Julie [Schwartz, then editor of JLA] liked what I was doing and he was looking for a regular writer, someone who could handle a group book, write the different characters, as well as write in the style that he enjoyed,” Conway says. “And we got along very well together, so it was kind of a fit when I came back looking for some regular assignments.” Beginning with Justice League of America #151 (“The Unluckiest League of All,” Feb. 1978), he began a run that, with the exception of a few isolated issues, would last until #255 (“Rising,” Oct. 1986). For Conway, it was a bit of a dream come true: “I think Justice League was one of the very first DC titles that I became aware of as a kid. I can remember vividly reading the first Kanjar Ro Justice League story. I was probably seven or eight years old, so it made a great impact on me. Justice League was one of the two magazines I actually had fan letters in, when I was a fan (the other one was Fantastic Four), so that pretty much sums up my relationship with the book. “I also really felt an affinity for the structure that Julie had created with Gardner Fox for Justice League stories at that time, which was the threepart storytelling where you introduce the menace, then you break your team up into individual teams, and then they went off and fought the menace from different angles. I really liked that structure and I liked being able to write the characters in these little ‘mini-teams.’ But I also brought the sensitivity of the Marvel style of soap-opera storytelling.” As a fan of DC Comics, writing the Justice League was a rather plum assignment as it gave Conway the opportunity to write for some of DC’s biggest stars without being spread too thinly over multiple titles. “I’d always been a huge fan of Green Lantern and Flash,” says Conway. “I really liked writing Batman.” While the core group may have appealed to him, he especially had an affinity for some of the peripheral characters, such as Red Tornado and Elongated Man—“the people who weren’t getting the spotlight focused on them,” explains Conway, “who didn’t have their own titles. Partly, that’s a selfish thing because it allowed me the opportunity to develop them more as characters in their own stories because they weren’t being distracted by storylines being executed in other books.” Under Conway’s pen, many of DC’s lesser characters were developed more fully, such as Red Tornado and Martian Manhunter. “You write the characters,” says Conway, “that you feel an affinity for, and also that interest you for some inherent conflict or challenge that they have as individuals and as a group. For instance, Red Tornado isn’t even human, he’s a machine. Is he a person or is he not a person? That appeals to me, the outsider

within the group. Martian Manhunter is kind of the same way—again, a character I was a fan of when I was a kid, that I wanted to see more of.” Another character that grew into her own was Zatanna. “She was one of the most powerful members,” argues Conway, “and yet was probably seen as one of the weaker members because she’s a girl, but if you really look at it, she’s probably one of the most powerful members of the group because she can do literally almost anything. So I enjoyed playing around with those possibilities.” One character added to the roster of the Justice League during Conway’s tenure was Firestorm, the Nuclear Man, which Conway created with Al Milgrom. The Nuclear Man debuted in his own title, but after only five issues fell victim to the infamous DC Implosion of the late 1970s. Afterwards, Conway introduced him to the Justice League in Justice League of America #179 (“The Siren Song of the Satin Satan,” June 1980). “It was all part of my master plan,” Conway kids. “I’d sort of gotten Julie interested in the character first through doing stories in Action Comics, introducing him as a character in a Superman story,” explains Conway. “I think he liked that character because he was kind of a young kid who provided a different energy to the group, plus he fit the Julie Schwartz/science-based hero thing. So it wasn’t very much of a hard sell. Julie felt the book needed to grow and bring in new readers and bring in new material, so he was on board with that.”

CONWAY ON MULTIPLE EARTHS Since the dawn of DC’s Silver Age and the introduction of the multiple earths, a common staple of the Justice League book was the annual JLA/JSA team-up. “Oh, I loved those crossovers,” Conway says gleefully. “In fact, under me they started to expand to three issues. There was something about the Earth-Two concept that really appealed to me.” Again, this goes back to Conway’s childhood. “Most of the writing I did in comics in my 20s and early 30s was very heavily influenced by my desire to play in the playground that I had grown up in. I remember again very vividly the first Flash of Two Worlds story (“Flash of Two Worlds,” Flash #123, Sept. 1961) by Gardner Fox that just thrilled me. The implication of that story was not just that there were two Earths but that there were three Earths, and they all were real. If Gardner Fox could be in a comic-book story, and I knew that Gardner Fox was a writer in my world, then obviously Earth-One and Earth-Two could also be real, right? You talk to a kid at age ten or 11 and this kind of stuff is mind-blowing. It’s delightful. I always, as a kid, looked forward to those annual crossovers to see what new characters from the Justice Society would come over, what stories would be developed.” In Conway’s opinion, it was the one really strong continuity that DC Comics had, in the sense that Marvel Comics had its universe but there were a lot of crossovers between different characters, conveying the idea of an interconnected universe. However, in the DC Universe at the time, there was no real sense that anything else happened, or mattered from one book to another. The annual crossovers offered readers a sense that there was a larger universe that would reconnect with the past by reintroducing a villain or storyline from DC’s prior history.

“I really, really, really enjoyed that,” says Conway. “I especially enjoyed it when they did the one-offs in Showcase with Hourman or Starman, Dr. Fate or the Spectre. It just enthralled me, and then as a writer, to get to play in that playground, as I say, is just wonderful. “For me it was, ‘Oh, boy, I can’t wait. It’s Christmas.’” Each year, Conway attempted to raise the bar for himself and his readers by expanding the crossover in some way. “It was the anchor of the year for me,” he says. “I won’t say I planned my year around that storyline, but I usually started thinking of what I was going to do for the team-up next year around the time that I was finishing up this year, and if I could lay in some groundwork for it, I would usually try to do that.” From a writer’s point of view, Conway believes having that touchstone every year is a terrific struc-

JLA Issue

Bewitched Conway made Zatanna—seen on the JLA #166 (May 1979) cover penciled by the title’s then-editor, Ross Andru, and inked by Dick Giordano—a significant member of the team. TM & © DC Comics.

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DURABLE AND DEPENDABLE DICK DILLIN

Dillin Denied? Editor Julius Schwartz passed on Dick Dillin’s cover to Justice League of America #66 (Nov. 1968) for a Neal Adams redo, but we couldn’t help but share it—with its Joe Giella inks—here. Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com). (inset) The art, with color, was published as the back cover to DC’s house fanzine, Amazing World of DC Comics #14, a JLA issue. TM & © DC Comics.

tural tool: “You know where you’re headed and I think it’s something that served its purpose for a very long time; at least for me. I wrote the book for ten years. I think it really gave a leg up on planning my year. Not that I ever planned my year the way people think these days, because nowadays every comic book is two six-part stories for a year. I didn’t do it that way. I was more of a ‘seat of the pants’ kind of writer in terms of what I would do in an individual issue, but I had an arc in mind for the character stories. That was how I planned my year. So it was a lot of fun to do that.” Guiding Conway was editor Julie Schwartz, who was the title’s editor until Justice League of America #166 (May 1979), when Ross Andru took over. Andru was succeeded by Len Wein with Justice League of America #177 (Apr. 1980). “There was kind of a shuffling going on there toward then end of my run, during the last two or three years,” says Conway. “They had a variety of editors, which didn’t help. Len was terrific. He had very much the same sensibility as to what the Justice League should be. I think for Ross it was an assignment. I don’t think he really had much of a feeling for it, one way or the other.”

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In the 1970s, it was common for successful creative teams to remain on a title for several years. In the case of Justice League of America, it enjoyed 12 years of the services of artist Dick Dillin, who first drew the team’s adventures beginning with Justice League of America #64 (“The Stormy Return of the Red Tornado,” Aug. 1968). Artistically, he defined the JLA’s satellite years, penciling the title with the exception of only a few issues until 1980. “Dick Dillin was great,” says Conway. “You know, I worked with him for almost a decade and I never actually met the man. It’s so sad. He was one of my heroes as a kid, and I remember reading his stuff on Blackhawk and I loved the opportunity to work with him. He wasn’t the greatest artist in the world, and let’s be honest, he wasn’t as dynamic as George Pérez certainly, or as iconic as Mike Sekowsky, but he got it so well. He was able to translate what you put in the script onto the page so effectively, I think he was the definitive Justice League artist.” While Dillin may not have enjoyed the appreciation of fans the way his contemporaries did, such as Neal Adams or Jack Kirby, Conway says that worked to the title’s advantage, suggesting it’s actually better if a team book doesn’t have an artist who has an extremely dynamic style. “What ends up happening,” explains the writer, “is that the style dominates over the characters. If Neal Adams had been the artist on Justice League, everybody would’ve been looking at Batman or Green Lantern, and he might’ve done a fantastic job with Red Tornado or Firestorm, but inevitably, the scenes would be weighted toward the characters that he is identified with. “If you have somebody who’s right in the middle, that’s the guy who can write or draw a group book most effectively because they’re not bringing into it necessarily a strong identification with an individual character and a tendency to favor that character more than any other.” According to Conway, it was that strength that made Dillin ideal for drawing the Justice League. “You can take any one of his pages and the story is foremost, the group is foremost. In fact, I would the say the group is the character with the Dick Dillin Justice League.”

THEY MIGHT BE TITANS Dillin had just begun penciling Justice League of America #184 (“Apokolips Now,” Nov. 1980) when he suddenly passed away, and George Pérez stepped in. Pérez rotated art chores with Don Heck and Rich Buckler for the next 16 issues. Conway had worked with all three artists before, so he had a sense of what their strong suits would be. “I would say of the three of them, the one who most closely reflected the Dick Dillin style would actually have been Don Heck, because again, he’s a journeyman artist who isn’t really associated with any one character other than maybe Iron Man,” says Conway.

Conway and Buckler had worked together while at Marvel, so coming together and working on JLA was like Old Home Week to an extent. “Rich and I had a lot in common in terms of our approach toward the work,” says Conway. “We were both to an extent a pastiche people. We were doing tributes to the writers and artists we enjoyed as kids, so Rich definitely brought a variety of artistic influences to his material. I think he would have been an ideal artist to continue on the book, but for whatever reason—I don’t really recall what it was—he wasn’t able to or didn’t want to stick around for the long run.” However, Pérez brought a lot of enthusiasm for group books and for the DC characters. “For him it was a big thrill,” says Conway. Initially, Conway worked full-script, but as he and Pérez began to hit their stride, they collaborated more fully, eventually using the Marvel style of crafting the plot, then art, then applying the dialogue. Pérez left following Justice League of America #200 (“A League Divided,” Mar. 1982) to focus more on his collaboration with Marv Wolfman on The New Teen Titans, which was a phenomenal hit for DC Comics. Unfortunately, its success made the dwindling sales figures of JLA seem even more disappointing in comparison, especially for a title featuring so many of DC’s A-list characters. But Conway argues that the advantage the Teen Titans had over the Justice League was that the characters in the Titans didn’t appear in any other titles: “So in an effort to make [JLA] a more homogenous, tightly knit group where the characters were focused just in that book, I came up with this approach to make the central core group younger, make them more homogenous in the sense that they only existed in that title, and use some of the more mature characters as anchors to the old Justice League and in effect create a new Justice League.” The new team debuted in Justice League of America Annual #2 (“The End of the Justice League,” Oct. 1984), as Aquaman disbanded the old team in favor of a Justice League whose members could commit themselves to the group fulltime. This introduced new characters such as Gypsy and Vibe, blending them with veterans that included the Martian Manhunter and Elongated Man. But this new approach failed to resonate with readers in the manner DC hoped for. “I don’t think it was executed the way I imagined it would be executed,” says Conway. “I did as good a job with it as could have been done. I think setting it in Detroit was probably a mistake. Although I liked the idea of making it an Earthbound, gritty book, Detroit was probably not the place to do that. And I don’t think we ever rose to the storytelling the way that we could have. It just never came together. I take the blame for that from a writing point of view. I don’t think the editing brought to it what it could have brought to it. It just didn’t come together.” Alan Gold had taken over as editor beginning with Justice League of America #225 (Apr. 1985), and according to Conway, the two of them just didn’t see eye to eye. “That’s not to say that Alan and I were hostile to each other,” Conway says. “It’s just that he

didn’t really bring anything to the table.” Conway pushed for a return to the original team featuring DC’s highprofile characters, which eventually did happen, but the powers-that-be at the time went a little further by bringing in a new creative team as well. “They wanted to go, as they say, in a different direction. The Detroit era stories weren’t really working, but they didn’t want to give me the opportunity to change it. For whatever reason, I think I played out my run at DC and they just wanted to go a different way.” Conway’s final issue was Justice League of America #255 (“Rising,” Oct. 1986). “My era was over and somebody else’s era was going to start which I think was probably for the best,” he says. “I mean, who could write a book for more than ten years? That’s asking a lot from anybody.” Conway’s only regret is not going out on a high

JLA Issue

Loopy Nuclear Man Conway’s Firestorm in action, in Justice League of America #189 (Apr. 1981). Original art page signed by penciler Rich Buckler and courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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Two Stints of Monitor Duty Dan Jurgens in 2011 at the New York Comic-Con. Seated to his left is Keith Giffen, no stranger to the Justice League himself! Photo by Zach D. Roberts, ComicBook.com. (right) Bloodwynd’s pinup from Who’s Who in the DC Universe Update 1993 #2. Art by Jurgens and Rick Burchett. TM & © DC Comics.

note. “I wish I’d gone out on issue #200,” he admits. “That would have been a good way to go out, but you know, these things happen and I enjoyed the opportunity to write the characters and to write the book for as along as I did. It was good. It was good opportunity for me and I had a lot of fun with it for, I’d say, 95 percent of the run.”

JUST A LOT OF CHANGES Conway’s run on Justice League was followed by a number of attempts to restore the team to its glory days of the 1960s and ’70s. Perhaps it merely fell victim to bad timing. Many of the comic books published in the mid-1980s were overshadowed by “event” books, such as Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Many of DC’s long-running titles seemed to go through a period of upheaval, including the company-wide crossover Crisis on the Infinite Earths, a complete relaunch of the Superman line, and the debuts of new versions of Robin and the Flash. Coming out the other side of this period in the Justice League’s history, writers Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis produced Justice League International, featuring an all-new team with a worldwide mission. Laced with a significant amount of humor, it would be five years before readers began to see another return to a team featuring the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #3 for coverage on this era of the JLA.]

THE JURGENS LEAGUE OF AMERICA In 1992, DC opted for a more straightforward approach, and split the current team into two versions, Justice League Europe (led by Green Lantern) and Justice League America (led by Superman). Of course, it only made sense for the latter team’s writer to be well-versed in writing the Man of Steel. The writer of this incarnation was Dan Jurgens, who was offered his first opportunity to write in the mid1980s by Gerry Conway. “We were working on

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SunDevils together at the time,” says Jurgens, “which I was drawing and he was writing and editing at that point, and his workload got very heavy, moreso than he could keep up with, and we needed somebody to write the final five issues, I think it was of a 12-issue maxiseries. Gerry asked if I would like to do it, and I think he did so based on various conversations we had about the book, where it was going, character stuff, dialogue I was writing in the border, whatever, and I’m eternally grateful for that chance—so thank you, Gerry.” Conway found that Jurgens had a real sensibility of storytelling. “I really liked the way he was telling the story,” he says. “I like the way that he thinks.” Like Conway, Jurgens’ Justice League was privileged to feature a character he had created, Booster Gold. “It was great getting back to the character,” says Jurgens. “For example, during my run on Superman, I’d had Booster guest-star a couple of times over maybe a ten-year period.” Prefaced by Justice League Spectacular #1 (“Teamwork,” 1992), Jurgens’ run on Justice League began with Justice League America #61 (“Born Once Again,” Apr. 1992), in which he introduced a new member of the JLA, BloodWynd. Other members of the team included Blue Beetle, Fire, Ice, and Guy Gardner, led by Superman. Over the next several issues, Guy Gardner was impacted by events in Green Lantern. He surrendered his power ring and his role in the Green Lantern Corps, becoming an intergalactic super-soldier known as Warrior. Regardless of such changes, Gardner remains a favorite of Jurgens. “Guy was, and

I think still is, one of the more unique personalities in comics and he kind of filled the role of that dower guy who seems to show up in every group of seven or eight people or more,” Jurgens says. “And in real life, not just in comics. I think that was great.” However, that crusty persona was softened a bit by his developing relationship with his teammate Ice. “By having his relationship with Ice kind of evolve over time, it served to humanize him so he wasn’t ‘that guy with the edge’ all the time, so we could see a different aspect of his personality come to the surface a little bit,” explains Jurgens. During this time, Jurgens was also writing and drawing Superman, offering him the opportunity to cross over both titles. “We started to plan this little thing called ‘The Death of Superman,’ and I thought, ‘You know what? I can work the Justice League into this. I get along with that writer fairly well,’ and I think it helped create a more DC Universe-wide type of event,” he says. “We brought in the Justice League and I think it helped add to the overall atmosphere of the story.” Much of the careful planning that went into the Death of Superman storyline and the various other DC titles associated with it restructured the workflow. “That changed a lot of things in terms of how we were working and how we were doing things,” says Jurgens. “The pure, simple fact is that writing and drawing two books a month is almost impossible. I don’t know many guys capable of writing and drawing one book a month, much less trying to keep up with two.” Jurgens departed the book as of Justice League America #77 (“Blood Secrets Part Two,” July 1993). He culminated his run by revealing BloodWynd to be longtime Justice League ally, the Martian Manhunter. “I thought that was a great way to create a sense of mystery and misdirection,” explains Jurgens, “to create the character of BloodWynd and at the same time keep the Martian Manhunter in my back pocket as something I can introduce later.” Despite the overwhelming workload, Jurgens was ably assisted by inker Rick Burchett. “Rick did terrific work on the book and definitely contributed a great deal to the artwork,” Jurgens says. “In terms of storyline, it was basically myself and Brian Augustyn, who was editing the book at the time.”

THE NEW 52 Having surrendered the title almost 20 years ago, Jurgens returned to the Justice League in the wake of DC Comics’ company-wide relaunch of 2011, “the New 52.” The intent behind the relaunch has been

to redefine many of characters of the DC Universe and how they relate to the public within the comic-book pages, and thereby make them more relevant for contemporary audiences. “I think what you’re seeing is within the DC Universe a public that has far different perceptions and feelings about heroes that what we have seen before in the DCU,” suggests Jurgens. “They don’t all go out and bow at Superman’s feet and say, ‘You are the greatest ever.’ Some do, some don’t. I think what we want to play with now is a public much more like our own, that is polarized in many more different directions. Even in our own world right now, we can’t get agreement on anything, so how are we going to say that here’s a guy from the planet Krypton standing in the city of Metropolis and get everybody to sign off on the notion that he’s the greatest thing ever?” Among the 52 titles—some new, some reimagined—is an all-new Justice League International, written by Jurgens. He says probably about 12–15 characters were discussed originally, which were then cut down to the eight that they wanted to concentrate on: “I’d sit there and say, ‘I’m sorry, but Canterbury Cricket just isn’t the way I want to go right now.’ It wasn’t marching order as much as it was, ‘Let’s do this book. Let’s bounce ideas back and forth and see what we have, and create this common mission statement, if you will, for the book,’ which is a group of international heroes assembled by the United Nations. We are going to create something here that is different from Justice League of America, and this how we’re going to do it and this why it’s going to be different. “I think that’s the kind of tonal change we’re dealing with in the books and obviously that spreads into the JLI, where we saw the Hall of Justice blown up in

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“Good” Guy, Bad Guy JLA by Dan Jurgens: (left) Superman vs. Guy Gardner on Justice League America #66 (Sept. 1992, inks by Rick Burchett), and (right) the League vs. Doomsday on Superman #74 (Dec. 1992, inks by Brett Breeding). TM & © DC Comics.

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The New 52 The first issue of Justice League International #1 (Nov. 2011), written by Dan Jurgens. Cover by Aaron Lopresti. (Lopresti fans: Join us for BI #60, the “Halloween Heroes and Villains” issue, when Aaron’s art is spotlighted in our Lord Pumpkin article.) TM & © DC Comics.

the first issue,” Jurgens says. “We’re going to see ripples of that in really become part of the main story, before it’s all says and done with. If you look at our world right now, our America, and how we feel about some foreign country that might try to exert influence here, we already got people in our world that don’t like the United Nations, that don’t want to fund it, and it’s all part of the dialogue.” Another difference is the common practice of planning six-chapter stories, which can then be easily repackaged into trade-paperback format, seems to have been replaced with an emphasis on simply telling a good story. “Certainly there is no pressure exerted on us that says it has to be a five- or six-issue story,” says Jurgens. “To step back from that, however, with a team book like Justice League, you end up drifting into stories that are about that long just because of the size of the cast. If you have a book that has eight or nine members, some of which many readers will never have seen before—I don’t think there was this great awareness of August General in Iron—that it does take longer to shape those characters in the reader’s eye and tell a story. It’s fine that we don’t have to five- or six-issue stories, but my first story arc is five chapters with an epilogue in issue #6. I think it has more to do with the size of the cast and it has to do with a natural sense of storytelling. It doesn’t always have to be that. To me the story has to have a natural feel, and that’s what I’m shooting for in JLI right now.” Jurgens says what he and artist Aaron Lopresti are trying to do is make sure they set up very visual elements for the story, to keep it big visually. “I think

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Justice League books always need a sense of grandeur to them,” he says, “which is easy to lose sight of in comics sometimes. At one time, I think there was a clear understanding for writers and artists working in this profession: We want big visuals. We want visual excitement. It’s amazing that over the last chunk of years, somehow we lost sight of that, and so many things became about the importance of 20 pages of beautiful dialogue, or 20 pages of character stuff. Many comics have the potential for that, because of the power of the character or whatever they might have to offer, and it wouldn’t be there. I think that’s something that Aaron and I are trying to emphasize right now.” As an experienced artist, Jurgens tries to offer his collaborator ideas and a sense of how the pacing might go. Jurgens writes a plot, breaking it down page-by-page, then into panels. “Here you go, Aaron. Page 7 is going to be a threepanel page, so really kind of stretch and let it fly here,” he says, “or I’ll structure in such a way that we’re going to be bouncing among seven characters with dialogue, and it’s going to flow so fast and tight that I want a nine-panel grid on this page, just so we can accentuate that bounce-back effect in the dialogue. You wouldn’t get that if you drew all the characters in one panel across the top, for example. “So what I think I try to do is offer the suggestions, and Aaron is fantastic—he does great work, but I let him carry it well beyond that.” While Jurgens has returned to familiar stomping grounds, Gerry Conway has blazed a new trail for himself as a successful television writer, contributing to such long-running TV shows as Matlock and Law & Order. But having grown up on comic books, he has never left the comic-book community entirely behind. Of Jurgens’ work on the Justice League title, he says, “My thoughts on Dan’s work on Justice League follow my thoughts on his work in general as a writer, in that he’s very smart and knows how to be in character. He did that with JLA and Superman and other projects he’s worked on as a writer. As an artist, he brings a good sense of visual storytelling to his writing, so I think he did a terrific job. Among the people that followed me on that title over the years, and all its various incarnations, I think he and [Geoff] Johns and Kurt Busiek were among the better writers on the book.” Nevertheless, writing comic books has changed in the past few decades, largely because the audience has changed. “What readers want from a story today is certainly different from what they wanted back when I was doing it,” Conway says. “The typical comic book, when I was writing it, sold an average of 200,000–300,000 copies. The typical comic book today sells an average of 75,000 copies. When I was writing it, we sold them for a quarter; today, they’re selling them for $3. So it’s a very different market entirely.”

PHILIP SCHWEIER is a graphic designer and freelance writer living in Savannah, GA. He is also a frequent contributor to w w w. c o m i c b o o k b i n . com.

less trio, purportedly penciled by Sal Buscema for a European project, according to Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), from whom we got the scan. Robert Menzies, a double No-Prize winner from Scotland, came to our rescue by citing the page’s source as Marvel UK’s Super Spider-Man and the Titans #206 (week ending January 19th, 1977). Here’s how it looked in print:

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE • Concord, NC 28025

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The contents of our last issue only allowed a one-page “Back Talk,” so this issue, we’re back with a vengeance!

REMEMBERING DAVY JONES Like many of you, ye ed was saddened by the February 29, 2012 death of pop singer and former teen idol Davy Jones, who died of a heart attack at age 66. Not only do we remember him as one of the Monkees—the great music and TV icons of our youth—as well as his classic guest-shot on The Brady Bunch, but as the photo below shows, we also respect him (and fellow Monkee Mike Nesmith) as a reader of comic books. Rest in peace, Davy Jones.

You’ll note the art credits list John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. I’m not convinced of that, and feel that Nick Caputo might be right. GCD didn’t provide credits for that issue, so I turned again to Mr. Menzies, who says: It’s obviously not John Buscema. The practice is that the UK office produced the recap page but, confusingly, it shows the creative team for the rest of the story, for the pages taken from the US original. It happened several times an issue, hundreds of examples of sub-standard art claiming to be everyone from Kirby to Kane. It was never by these major guys and the artists who did draw it were never credited. Ever. It was just the way they did it right through the 1970s. The art often looks like someone known, and then you compare it side-by-side with the original and you can see the differences. The artists sometimes tried to draw in a style similar to the named artist, although normally they didn’t. Don’t trust UK credits! – Robert Menzies Thanks, Robert! And re the above Warriors Three page, you may be asking, Why the “widescreen” width? Marvel UK briefly published comics in a “landscape” format, and Mr. Menzies will tell us all about it in BACK ISSUE #63 (our “British Invasion” issue) in a landscape comics article complementing the issue’s lead feature, a history of Marvel UK by historian Rob Kirby. The issue will also cover Marvel’s The Beatles Story and Excalibur, DC’s “British invasion” of talent in the 1980s, and much more! Be here. I know I will! – M.E.

WARRIORS THREE In response to your request about info on the Warriors Three illo on page 6 [of BACK ISSUE #53]: I believe this was taken from a British reprint, either an interior drawing for a splash page, or possibly a cover. The pencils look to be the work of Ron Wilson, with inks by Mike Esposito, the team drew many covers for the British reprints in the 1970s, many of which I helped identify for the GCD [Grand Comic-Book Database, www.comics.org]. Thanks again for another enjoyable issue. – Nick Caputo Nick is mentioning a piece of original art featuring Asgard’s fear-

ART IDs In answer to your request on BACK ISSUE #53, I’m glad to confirm to you that the mentioned illustration of Lopez Espi appeared first on the cover of the 8th issue of the Thor magazine printed by the Spanish editorial Vertice, around the year 1970, with the title “La historia de Loki el perverso” (The History of Loki, the Wicked One). Please keep up your marvelous magazines BACK ISSUE and Alter Ego! Best regards from the Basque Country, – Andoni Barainka In issue #53 of BACK ISSUE, the question is asked (in the Michael

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Moorcock interview), “Can anyone help us identify this [New Worlds] issue’s number and cover date?” I can confirm that it’s issue #189, from April 1969, and the cover artist is the late, great Mervyn Peake. – John Davey

Andoni and John, thank you! And Andoni, we’ve included another Lopez Espi illo—of Marvel monster-hero and movie star, Ghost Rider—on this page. For readers wanting to learn more about this artist, visit www.lopezespi.com. – M.E.

stand to reason that other god pantheons, as well as the Christian God, also exist? How would it affect people’s lives, not relying on faith for their belief but knowing that these higher beings actually exist? And would there be organized churches in the Marvel Universe worshipping Greek, Roman, and Norse gods? It’s certainly an idea worth exploring. I loved the New Gods article, and the tricky way Kirby continued the saga through several publishers. You’re right, he wasn’t a man to recycle ideas, so I think he knew exactly what he was doing. I remember searching high and low for a copy of Hunger Dogs, and my frustration when my comics shop guy hadn’t even heard of it. When I finally got my copy, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the artwork looked so … odd. It wasn’t until some time later (probably through an issue of The Jack Kirby Collector) that I discovered how the artwork had been manipulated to fit the proportions of the graphic novel format. The result was a sloppy mess of weird borders and word balloons that floated in the middle of panels. Finally, I am as excited as you are about next year’s salute to tabloids, one of my favorite purchases in the ’70s. It sounds like you’re going to do the subject right, and I’m looking forward to the issue with great anticipation! My only concern is that you’ll be printing it in a tabloid size. Cool idea, for obvious reasons, but it won’t fit in my comic box with the other BI issues! But for such an awesome project, I’m sure I can deal with it. Every issue of BI is a gem! Keep doing what you’re doing! – Michal Jacot We’ll do our best, Michal! BTW, Wonder Woman has been covered in numerous previous issues, so she bowed out of our Gods ish to allow other characters their moment, particularly Thor. – M.E.

HE COULD’VE BEEN MIGHTY SORE Just browsed through my digital copy of issue #53 and I was very pleased to see my Ron Frenz commission leading off the Frenz/DeFalco interview! I just wanted to point out that you erroneously credited the commission to Heritage Comics Auctions rather than yours truly! No big deal, I hope to be able to contribute more in the future! – Joe Hollon Joe, our sincere apologies for that goof. We juggle so many images and image sources that occasionally an error like this occurs. Thanks for your understanding—and for your art contribution. – M.E.

RALPH MACCHIO SPEAKS! THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY I finally broke down and bought a subscription to BI to ensure receiving every issue. Even when the theme of the issue isn’t of great interest to me, I always find something fun to read, and that’s much more than can be said for most other magazines out there. I enjoyed the Gods issue, although the Wonder Woman pantheon was conspicuously absent. The concept of a community of deities within a comics universe is a sticky one. Back when nobody really cared about the details, it was a natural fit to create a superhero from a pre-established myth (Thor being the prime example). As fandom grew more serious about continuity and logic, some retroactivity was in order, and we had to find out why Don Blake turned into Thor and vice versa. Which all raises a bigger question: How, exactly, does the Marvel Universe work with the pantheon of Asgard looking over them? The idea that the Norse, Roman, or Greek gods were once major religious forces who were forgotten over time but still exist is a cool concept, but I’d like to see it explored even more in comics. If you’re a resident in the Marvel Universe, the presence of Thor is living proof that the Norse gods exist. Wouldn’t it then 74 • BACK ISSUE • JLA Issue

Thanks so much for the complimentary copy of BACK ISSUE #53 with that gorgeous Simonson cover! The article on Walt’s stellar run on Thor was a pleasure to read. I only wish my old pal Mark Gruenwald were still with us to take a well-deserved bow or two for having the editorial acumen to put Walt on the book way back when. I was only too happy to pick up the reins when Mark had to let them go. And, much as I loved what Walt did on the Thunder God, I was equally proud of his work on Fantastic Four, which I did have to chance to put him on. Hopefully, you’ll do a piece on that series of issues some day. It was also a treat to read that interview with a couple of other of my favorite creators, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, who also had an exceptional run on Thor. I had a blast for years working with those guys. And, as I recall, their entry onto the title happened just as Tom relayed it. I knew cosmic wasn’t Tom’s specialty, but he made everyone sit up and take notice with that first Celestial storyline. The Thunderstrike book was also a big hit and one that I was also proud to have been associated with. I’ve led a really charmed life as Thor editor, just completing another stint working with Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen and artists Billy Tan and Olivier Coipel. I’ve got some deep roots in

HAIRY MATTERS

Asgard, for sure. I was lucky enough to have been the editor on the revival of Kirby’s Eternals. And as you had an article in the issue on them and the New Gods, I had some information from my time as editor that would be relevant to the article. I assigned Peter Gillis to write the Eternals series and he and I often discussed its similarities and differences with the New Gods. It was my feeling that the counterpart to Orion in The Eternals was not Ikaris, but a character who was introduced later in Kirby’s run, the Reject, who we later named Ransak. He was similar to Orion in that he was born from the bad seed among the evil gods, but was taken as a youth to the realm of the benevolent gods to try to assimilate into their culture and fight on their side. And that’s exactly what happened to Ransak. Thena took him and Karkas from the Deviant’s Lemuria to Olympia so he could learn to tame his inner demons and become an Olympian. Likewise, I never saw Domo as a Metron counterpart. Peter came up with Phastos to fill that role. Phastos was the knowledge seeker of Olympia and also their weapons builder. He was haunted by his inability to attain final enlightenment, as was Metron. And, of course, Phastos was short for Hepasteus. We also saw him as Faust because he was also a seeker into the ultimate mysteries. One thing Peter and I found missing from Kirby’s initial Eternals run was a master villain the stature of Darkseid. Brother Tode may have worked as Deviant leader, but we wanted someone of greater stature, so Peter created Ghaur, who leads the Deviants to this day. Where Kirby would have gone with Eternals if he’d stayed on the book is anybody’s guess. But there is so much incredible material he left us, you could work on Eternals for decades and not exhaust the concept. Thanks for giving me the chance to stroll down memory lane with some of my favorite Marvel characters. One more thing: I felt there was a counterpart of sorts in Eternals to Big Barda from the New Gods, and that was Zuras’ daughter Thena. She was one tough cookie and her and Barda would’ve had some throw-down if they’d ever fought. [Editor’s note: Thena is pictured on the splash page to 1977’s Eternals Annual #1, above. Story and pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mike Royer. She’s also shown in a teaser image for the more recent Eternals #3 (Oct. 2008). Art by Daniel Acuña.] – Ralph Macchio We appreciate your insights, Ralph. And thanks for helping us explore Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme in this issue. – M.E.

I have to say that the move to full color has really benefited BACK ISSUE, particularly with respect to the cover reproductions. The focus on Thor in issue #53 was welcome and prompted me to seek out a number of the stories referenced. But it was the article on Moondragon that caught my attention, particularly since it included the cover and splash of Marvel Team-Up #44 (a childhood favorite). I was, however, a little disappointed to see the “Madame McEvil” identity left unexplained. I always wondered about the cheesy name, but was forced to seek the answers elsewhere. I must also respectfully disagree with Jonathan Miller’s view of ‘”follicularly-challenged” in comics. Miller astutely picked up the parallels between Moondragon and Dr. Druid, but lost me with his subsequent assertion that females were treated any worse than men. True, completely bald or shaven-headed characters do make occasional appearances in comic books, but a flip through the first 50-odd issues of your own magazine show that these are relatively rare regardless of their gender. More tellingly, examples of heroic characters with the dreaded receding hairline are virtually non-existent. Men (and women) suffering this condition are vastly under-represented in the various comic-book universes, perhaps even more so than in US film/television. One must assume they are rarely if ever chosen to be intergalactic police or blessed by mutant genes. Radioactive accidents presumably kill them. I found the side observations about the Star Trek mythos to be especially odd, with the claim that Patrick

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Stewart’s baldness was a “non-issue” compared to Persis Khambatta’s. I personally recall Picard’s condition as being a major talking point amongst fans at the time. I also understand that Gene Roddenberry himself was initially furious about the decision to make a bald man the captain of the Enterprise, despite the very strong politically correct messages rife in Next Generation. And does anyone really believe William Shatner could have Captain Kirk appear without his toupee? (I do recall the original doctor having a bad combover in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” but he was quickly replaced by Dr. McCoy and his full head of hair.) Yes, sadly I must report that balding Americans (of either gender) will need to continue with their low expectations of ever becoming superheroes. Or even villains, for that matter. Come to think of it, anyone care to guess the odds of when we’ll have another prematurely balding person become president of the USA? – Ross Morrison

YOU CAN’T HIDE YOUR FIERY EYES Yea, verily, BACK ISSUE #53 wast yet another tome worthy of the gods! (Sorry, couldn’t resist…) Loved all the articles on Thor, and the interview with British fantasy author Michael Moorcock was a quite fascinating look at both his early and current comic-book connections. Was a little disappointed in the New Gods article, though, which I found a bit too superficial in its attempts to find connections between Jack Kirby’s various deity-based series. Some of that disappointment, however, may be based on the short shrift given to Return of the New Gods, which I found a fun follow-up to Kirby’s initial run. I greatly enjoyed the costumes, characters, and concepts the new creative team came up with, especially Jezebelle of the Fiery Eyes. Okay, yeah, she dressed kind of like a ’70s prostitute complete with bare belly and fishnet stockings, but she was a sexy blue-skinned mutant from Apokolips who could fly and shoot lasers out of her blank, yellow eyeballs, who switched sides so that she could defend New Genesis, Earth, and the universe at large from the evil Darkseid (was I the only one who pronounced it “Darkseed” as a kid?), and what’s not cool about that? I liked her a lot and always wished that DC had done more with her. Heck, I even liked the new costume they gave Orion. Sure, I missed the old one and was not disappointed when they returned to the original Kirby design, but the skintight scarlet superhero suit they came up with for RotNG was a pretty gosh darn good one, and it is a real shame it was never used again. You know, they did drop hints of a romantic relationship forming between Orion and Jezebelle, and hey, maybe there could have been some secret love child born of their brief union with his mother’s azure complexion and deadly heat vision and his father’s fierce warrior nature who was raised in hidden safety far from the strife of eternal battle and grew up to don his dad’s old “O”emblemed uniform and venture forth in the cause of peace and justice? Yeah, he could be called Optikus or some such… Oh, well … back to ideas someone actually got paid for! I found the article on the bald, beautiful, and brainy Moondragon much more in-depth and satisfying, although I did notice that there was no mention of her appearance in Spidey Super Stories #31 with her playing the princess part in the sci-fi spoof Star Jaws. Still, I’ve covered that story in a previous letter, so there’s no need to go into detail here. Finally, there was that great article on Hercules, my favorite mythological muscle man. The Prince of Power miniseries were great fun, but I must admit I prefer the more recent stuff where they started to integrate the actual myths into their storylines (hey, we’re talking literally millennia of continuity here filled with some of the coolest characters and conflicts ever!), giving the character greater depth and meaning than he had ever had before and evolving him far beyond the battle-happy buffoon that Marvel usually presented him as into a hero the readers now

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laughed with rather than at. As someone who probably spent too much time in the folklore section of his school library as a kid, I really appreciate what they’ve done with him (pity the comic was recently canceled, though…). You know, going off on a tiny tangent again, the original Marvel Boy (not the ’50s version but the one created way back in the Golden Age by Simon and Kirby) was presented as the reincarnation of Hercules. He only appeared twice back in the ’40s (three times if you count the story where he was re-dubbed the Young Avenger), but I liked the Martin Burns version of the character, whether it was for his mythological origins, the big joinedtogether “MB” emblem on his red, white, and blue costume (which bore more than a slight similarity to the one worn by the team’s next creation, Captain America), or the simple fact that he was a little kid who beat up thugs and spies who were far bigger than he was. I know that there were later heroes with the same name created by such greats as Bill Everett and Grant Morrison and I must admit I am a fan of just about all of them, but my mind keeps coming back to the original, and I would love to see Marvel bring him back. Sure, there is really no way to use the whole “reincarnation” angle, now what with the dynamic demigod still out there running around and all, but, hey, with Herc’s famed weakness for the ladies, well, let’s just say that there is new origin for the “Son of Power” that modern audiences could more than relate to! Anyway, looking forward to the next issue as always. – Jeff Taylor

Jeff, I daresay that back in the early ’70s, “Darkseed” pronunciations were as common as “Sub-Mareener” ones were the previous decade. And don’t forget to flip through your back issues of BACK ISSUE for more about Return of the New Gods—we looked at that series in BI #19 and 38, but since you’re hot for Jezebelle’s blazing baby blues, the previous page offered a glimpse at her from Return of the New Gods #12 (July 1977). – M.E.

“I ‘CREATED’ STARFIRE” Issues #53 (Thor, et al.) and 54 (Liberated Ladies) really showed off the use of full color in this magazine. Please continue the process—it’s worth the extra money! The Ms. Marvel article was of particular interest to me, because I’d always wondered about the story behind Avengers issue #200 and the subsequent Annual #10 (right). I do wish that when an interviewee makes a statement such as “…another title from Marvel was published that did exactly the same thing as what we’d planned for Avengers. So we couldn’t do our original story…” that either the interviewer asks for specifics, or the editor researches the matter and indicates which title (and, preferably, which issues) contained the story or reference in question. Even though I read a lot of comics in those days, I do not know which book David Michelinie was referring to, and not knowing exactly what “we’d planned,” it’s difficult to seek it out. The article on Phoenix also added several elements to my understanding of this classic character, despite covering ground that had been documented numerous times before. I do think that either the editing, or Chris Claremont, decided to be kinder to Jim Shooter and John Byrne and the circumstances of the changed ending to X-Men #137. From what I remember reading in The X-Men Companion, even the changed ending was not what Claremont wanted depicted, in that the method of Phoenix’s death may have been seen by some readers as instigated by the Kree weapon, rather than Jean herself triggering it. However, the space constraints may have also dictated an abbreviated approach. Finally, I cannot pass up the opportunity to “reveal” that I “created” Starfire before either the sword-and-science heroine or the Teen Titan. I must also admit, though, that mine was simply the name of my bicycle when I finally learned to ride it in the late 1960s in Timonium, Maryland! I remember being quite surprised when Marv Wolfman introduced a character with that name; somehow I missed the heroine covered in issue #54. Thanks for that and the continued excellence of this magazine! – Mark Zutkoff Mark, regarding your Avengers query, Alex Boney, writer of the Ms. Marvel article, did indeed ask David Michelinie for more details, but Mr. Michelinie declined to elaborate for a reason he’d rather keep private. – M.E.

CALLING ALL RETAILERS!! I’m just writing to say what a wonderful magazine BACK ISSUE is, and that I enjoy reading it from cover to cover as I’ve yet to come across any article in the magazine that isn’t worth reading. I only started collecting BACK ISSUE a few years back, but have since bought all the back issues of the magazine I was missing and I’m currently plowing through them as well as reading the latest issue. It’s just a shame my local comic shop never has any for sale in the shop and only fills people’s orders, but rest assured every time I pick up my copy I keep letting the shop owner know that he should get some in to put on sale (I think I’m wearing him down each time). I think the added color that the magazine now has is well

worth the price increase. If I may make a suggestion for a future issue, it would be great to see an in-depth article on Marvel UK from the ’70s and ’80s, as the old black-and-white reprint comics from those times are when I started collecting comics. Until I started collecting BACK ISSUE, I was never in to buying back issues of any comics, but with each magazine there is always one or two comics covered that made me think, Wouldn’t it be great to have the original comic in my dirty little hands? Because of this, in the past year I have brought home over ten boxes of back-issue comics from the ’70s and ’80s, much to my wife’s despair. As much as I love modern comics, I love the comics from the ’70s and ’80s more, not just for the fact that they take me back to my childhood, but simply because anything went in those days and there weren’t so many event comics around and the simple fact also that they were so much cheaper then. Having just read issue #54, I can tell you that I will be ordering back issues of Ms. Marvel, Starfire, and She-Hulk. I look forward to the next issue, where I’m sure I’ll come across yet again more comics that I will look to get back issues of, so once again, thank you for a great magazine. – Ian Walker Poole, England Ian, what a wonderful letter! Thank you for hammering the owner of your comics shop about stocking BACK ISSUE. Keep on doing that, and as I’ve said in this column in previous issues, it’s important that all of our readers ask their shop owners to stock BI beyond subscribers’ copies. There are many comics fans who still have yet to discover BACK ISSUE (after 58 issues over nine years!). While we understand retailers’ hesitations during these challenging economic times, if shop owners would order one copy of each issue beyond simply filling orders, you’ll pick up more sales. Your clients can’t buy BACK ISSUE if they don’t know it exists. We don’t want to be a best-kept secret—please stock BI! And I’ll bet you’re excited about the aforementioned BI #63, the British Invasion issue! – M.E.

TOGA PARTY Mr. Eury, I am hoping you can answer this question (nobody else seems to know)! In BACK ISSUE #54 (“Liberated Ladies”), page 11,

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you ran a DC house ad from 1978. Could you please identify the character in between OMAC and Martian Manhunter? The dark-haired girl with the sword wearing a toga. I have asked so many comic “experts” and nobody knows who she is! I know you are a comics genius so I am confident you will know. Thank you so much. Can’t wait for your upcoming Avengers issue, by the way! – Scott Galloway Scott, first of all, I’m flattered you’d consider me a “comics genius.” I thought of myself as more of a “middle-aged fanboy who’s read way too many comics throughout his life,” but, hey, “comics genius” ain’t a bad sobriquet! The toga lady represented the “Amazons” backup intended for Wonder Woman but axed in the DC Implosion. Speaking of which, a shout-out to our friends at DC Comics: How about reprinting the two issues of Cancelled Comic Cavalcade, with the artwork colored, as a collected edition? – M.E.

in every issue! Thank you for your time! – Heather Freeman Heather, we’re honored that you use BACK ISSUE as source material for your thesis! And thanks for noticing that we also make our issues fun. Journalistic and historical accuracy is important to us, but we never want to be dry or excessively scholarly in our presentations. Good luck with your thesis! – M.E.

IF YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW MS. MARVEL… While reading the Ms. Marvel article in BI #54, I immediately recognized the Dave Cockrum house ad on page 24 and was certain it had actually seen print SOMEWHERE. With a little checking, I discovered it at the end of Fantastic Four Annual #13 with the added line, “If you thought you knew Ms. Marvel … think again!” I thought you might be interested. – John Wells

AS SEEN ON TV Did you see Bruce Timm’s bombastic Big Barda BI cover on TV back in March? In episode 4 of Kevin Smith’s series Comic Book Men (airing on AMC), cast member Bryan was shown reading BACK ISSUE #54. This year we’ve been nominated for an Eagle Award, an Eisner Award (a nomination shared with TwoMorrows’ other magazines, Alter Ego, Draw!, and The Jack Kirby Collector), and now BI is on TV. Ye ed’s sporting a Joker-sized grin! – M.E.

Thank you for that tidbit, John. And are we to add “Marvel scholar” to the resume of one of our favorite DC experts? – M.E.

MIKE VOSBURG SPEAKS! My thanks to all of you for the wonderful jobs you all did on the

THESIS REFERENCE MATERIAL I’m writing you today in regard to your magazine BACK ISSUE. I’m a Cultural Anthropology major and Women’s and Gender Studies minor at Eastern Washington University. I am currently working on my thesis entitled “Fighting the Femme Fatale,” about the subjugation of women in comics and about the progressive movement toward making heroines more individualized and less sexualized in today’s comic-book world. I admire your magazine for the amount of articles dedicated to women in comics, especially February’s “Liberated Ladies” issue, and have come to refer to you as a source in my thesis often. In closing, I would like to let you know how much I love your magazine. I’ve been an avid comic-book reader since I was nine, and currently work at a comic-book shop in Washington State. I promote your great magazine whenever I can and am always surprised at the great amount of information and fun you give us

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Starfire and She-Hulk articles in the latest BACK ISSUE. It is very ego gratifying to see work that you did several years (centuries?) ago still being appreciated … maybe more so now than it was at the time. Both features were major steps forward for me at the time; looking back I can see a real progression in the work. It’s always difficult integrating quotes into a prose piece, so I am especially thankful that you kept me from sounding like a complete idiot. That’s often no easy task in my case. So I was able to be honest in my feelings about Vinnie and others without sounding cruel or arrogant. If I had discussed my inkers on She-Hulk with Doug, that might have been interesting. (And I loved both Frank Springer and Chic Stone.) – Mike Vosburg Thanks for the feedback, Mike. You’re always welcome in these pages, and I suspect we’ll be revisiting more of your work before long. – M.E.

TRUE VOZ ADVENTURES Michael, I read the Liberated Ladies issue over the weekend. Thank you for another great issue! I read the issue cover to cover including the letters page. I even read the articles I don’t think I will be interested in (which end up sometimes being my favorite, as I will learn some facts I didn’t already know about comics or send me out hunting through back-issue boxes so that I can read books I haven’t read yet). I enjoyed both the Starfire and the She-Hulk articles the most,

as they featured Mike Vosburg. Mike went to school with my older brother and also lived down the street from my dad’s grocery store. In high school, my brother worked on a fanzine with Mike. Because of my older brother I got into comics before I could read and have been into them ever since. When I was in elementary school, Mike would stop by my dad’s store and drop off different things for my twin brother and I. Mike left a page from his run on Deadly Hands of Kung Fu and the Starfire print featured in your article (personalized and autographed), as well as some other items over a few years in the ’70s. I finally got to meet Mike in San Diego at Comic-Con in 1995 when I worked for McFarlane Toys; he was there for the HBO Spawn series. This was a very special day, as I had been a fan of Mike’s since I was eight or nine years old and I always remembered his generosity toward a young fan. After meeting, we exchanged letters as well as Mike sending me a box filled with photos from his work on HBO, character designs, and pages. He also wrote a very nice letter where he said some very nice things about my dad and asked about my brother. I apologize for the long-windedness of this post, but just thought I needed to share what a great guy Mike is (not that anyone who knows him or has met him at a show doesn’t already know). – Matt Hamilton What a nice story, Matt! Thanks for sharing. And while we’re on the subject of Mike Vosburg—and Liberated Ladies—these pages share the Voz–penciled cover of She-Hulk #20 and the splash page from Marvel Team-Up #81, the latter depicting Spider-Man’s co-star du jour, Satana … as well as Doc Strange’s black-magic woman, Clea. Art courtesy of Heritage. – M.E.

A BACK ISSUE CONVENTION? WITH AWARDS? The previous letter writer also posted the following on Facebook, an idea too good not to share in print: BI should try to hook up with one of the regional con promoters and try to do a BACK ISSUE con with only creators from the BACK ISSUE era. While waiting in line at C2E2 for autographs this past weekend, I got to speak with a lot of comics fans and noticed that the majority of people waiting for autographs were collectors who grew up during the BI era. This could also be very good for some of these creators who have been bypassed by the larger shows and have not been out for a while. Just a thought. – Matt Hamilton Matt knows from my response on Facebook, but this is something I’ve been considering for the past few years, with the “BACK ISSUE Awards” a part of the mix, honoring creators and stories from yesteryear. What do the rest of you think? And are there any convention promoters out there interested in partnering on such a venture? If so, please contact me at euryman@gmail.com. – M.E.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

Recently one of your readers contacted me regarding an article you published in issue #54: Liberated Ladies. In it was an interview with Jill Thompson, Gail Simone, and Barbara Kesel. I was informed that there was a discussion about Barbara’s writing for Tokyopop’s Legends of the Dark Crystal volumes. Displayed was the cover of volume two, Trial by Fire, which was said to have been illustrated by Jae-Hwan Kim, as well as the interior sequential pages (or so I was told). Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Jae-Hwan Kim was the cover artist for the first volume, The Garthim Wars. I illustrated the cover for Legends of the Dark Crystal: Trial by Fire (the cover you featured) and was the penciler and inker for the entire volume, as well as

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for the majority of volume one (the tones were by Jessica Feinberg). My name is clearly indicated all throughout that volume and rather prominently on the cover itself. Not only was my artwork wrongly credited to someone else, it was wrongly credited to a male artist in an article that was meant to shine a light on female comic creators. Just a bit of irony, there. I’m not sure what to request in this case, as I’m not sure if you publish retractions or corrections, but I did, at least, want to bring this error to your attention. – Heidi Arnhold www.heidiarnhold.com BACK ISSUE regrets the error and appreciates your correction. – M.E.

ON THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE Just wanted to say I was greatly amused by the nod to my employer in the Big Barda illustration [the title page of the Barda article in BACK ISSUE #54]. Another enjoyable issue. Keep up the great work – Brian Hiatt Senior Writer Rolling Stone Thank you for the kind words, Brian, and for your appreciation of this homage! Credit goes to writer Jim Kingman, whose title for this article provided that nod, and to guest designer Jon B. Cooke, who perfectly visualized it. Next issue: “Toon Comics,” with a history of Space Ghost in comics! Plus: Comico’s Jonny Quest and Star Blazers, Marvel’s Hanna-Barbera line and Dennis the Menace, the history of animation house Marvel Productions, Ltd., and a “Greatest Stories Never Told” look at the unpublished Plastic Man comic strip. With commentary from and/or art by MARK EVANIER, RON FERDINAND, PHIL FOGLIO, MARC HEMPEL and MARK WHEATLEY, LEE MARRS, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS, ARIEL OLIVETTI, DOUG RICE, STEVE RUDE, BOB SCHRECK, DIANA SCHUTZ, SCOTT SHAW!, ALEX

TOTH, DOUG WILDEY, and more. And an all-new painted Space Ghost cover by Steve Rude! Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty! Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s through the 1990s: • • • • • • •

Unpublished artwork and covers Commissions (color or B&W) and professional-quality specialty drawings 1970s–1990s creator and convention photographs Character designs and model sheets Original art: covers and significant interior pages Little-seen fanzine material Other rarities

If you have any of the above materials, please query the editor via email prior to submission. Art contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive a complimentary copy of the issue.

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Since BI is a full-color publication, preference is given to color artwork. Random convention sketches and “quick sketches” that do not reflect an artist’s best work and were not intended for print will no longer be considered for publication.

Advertise In BACK ISSUE!

BACK ISSUE does not read or consider unsolicited manuscripts. However, we routinely welcome new writers to our magazine, and have done so since day one!

TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings)

If you’re interested in writing for BI, please request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writer’s Style Guide by emailing the editor at euryman@gmail.com. Contact BI at: Michael Eury, Editor, BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE Concord, NC 28025

FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100 Prepay for two ads in Alter Ego, DRAW!, Back Issue, or any combination and save:

These rates are for black-&-white ads, supplied on-disk (TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable) or as cameraready art. Typesetting service available at 20% mark-up. Due to our already low ad rates, no agency discounts apply. Sorry, display ads not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Send ad copy and check/money order (US funds), Visa, or Mastercard to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 Phone: 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

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JENETTE KAHN interviewed by ROBERT GREENBERGER, DC’s Dollar Comics and unrealized kids’ line (featuring an aborted Sugar and Spike revival), the Wonder Woman Foundation, and the early days of the Vertigo imprint. Exploring the talents of ROSS ANDRU, KAREN BERGER, STEVE BISSETTE, JIM ENGEL, GARTH ENNIS, NEIL GAIMAN, SHELLY MAYER, ALAN MOORE, GRANT MORRISON, and more!

“JLA in the Bronze Age”! The “Satellite Years” of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, with BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, PÉREZ, and WEIN, salute to DICK DILLIN, the Justice League “Detroit” team, with CONWAY, PATTON, McDONNELL, plus CONWAY and GEOFF JOHNS go “Pro2Pro” on writing the JLA, unofficial JLA/Avengers crossovers, and Marvel’s JLA, the Squadron Supreme. Cover by McDONNELL and BILL WRAY!

“Toon Comics!” History of Space Ghost in comics, Comico’s Jonny Quest and Star Blazers, Marvel’s Hanna-Barbera line and Dennis the Menace, behind the scenes at Marvel Productions, Ltd., and a look at the unpublished Plastic Man comic strip. Art/comments by EVANIER, FOGLIO, HEMPEL and WHEATLEY, MARRS, RUDE, TOTH, WILDEY, and more. All-new painted Space Ghost cover by STEVE RUDE!

“Halloween Heroes and Villains”! JEPH LOEB and TIM SALE’s chiller Batman: The Long Halloween, the Scarecrow (both the DC and Marvel versions), Solomon Grundy, Man-Wolf, Lord Pumpkin, Rutland, Vermont’s Halloween parades, and… the Korvac Saga’s Dead Avengers! With commentary from and/or art by CONWAY, GIL KANE, LOPRESTI, MOENCH, PÉREZ, DAVE WENZEL, and more. Cover by TIM SALE!

“Tabloids and Treasuries,” spotlighting every all-new tabloid from the 1970s. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions! Commentary and art by ADAMS, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, MAYER, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more. Wraparound cover by ALEX ROSS!

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SUPERMAN issue! PAUL CASSIDY (early Superman artist), Italian Nembo Kid, and ARLEN SCHUMER’s look at the MORT WEISINGER era, plus an interview with son HANK WEISINGER! Art by SHUSTER, BORING, ANDERSON, PLASTINO, and others! LEONARD STARR interview Part III—FCA—Mr. Monster—more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and a MURPHY ANDERSON/ARLEN SCHUMER cover!

MARV WOLFMAN talks to RICHARD ARNDT about his first decade in comics on Tomb of Dracula, Teen Titans, Captain Marvel, John Carter, Daredevil, Nova, Batman, etc., behind a GENE COLAN cover! Art by COLAN, ANDERSON, CARDY, BORING, MOONEY, and more! Plus: the conclusion of our LEONARD STARR interview by JIM AMASH, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARVEL ISSUE on Captain America and Fantastic Four! MARTIN GOODMAN’s Broadway debut, speculations about FF #1, history of the MMMS, interview with Golden Age writer/artist DON RICO, art by KIRBY, AVISON, SHORES, ROMITA, SEVERIN, TUSKA, ALLEN BELLMAN, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by BELLMAN and MITCH BREITWEISER!

3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (get out those glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

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