Mister Terrific

Justice League of America #102 (October, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago, this issue brought the conclusion of the tenth annual Justice League-Justice Society summer team-up extravaganza — a special event which also served to commemorate the League’s reaching its 100th issue milestone.  Making the occasion even more memorable, this JLA-JSA get-together was the first to take up three whole issues; it also featured the unexpected return, after twenty-seven years, of yet another DC Comics superhero team: the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

Or maybe that should be most of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, since one of the key mysteries of the storyline concerns a lonely grave standing on a Himalayan peak, with a stone marker inscribed to an “Unknown Soldier of Victory”.  As of the conclusion of JLA #101, small teams of Justice League and Justice Society members have retrieved four out of seven of the time-lost Soldiers (or Law’s Legionnaires, as they’re also called) — the Crimson Avenger, the Shining Knight, Green Arrow, and Stripesy — with three more left to go.  So who’s buried in the Unknown Soldier’s grave?  Is it Vigilante?  The Star-Spangled Kid?  Speedy?

The answer, as many of you reading this already know, is:  none of the above.  Which is, and simultaneously is not, a cheat.  But we’ll get to that soon enough — just as we’ll get to the solution to the separate mystery posed by Nick Cardy’s superb cover (his best yet for the title, in the opinion of your humble blogger) — who else among our heroes is doomed to die?  Read More

Justice League of America #101 (September, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The fifty-year old comic book that’s the subject of today’s post features the middle chapter of the three-month-long celebration of Justice League of America‘s reaching its hundredth-issue milestone, as well as of the tenth annual summer event co-starring the JLA’s predecessors from the Golden Age of Comics, the Justice Society.  Your humble blogger is as eager as the rest of you to jump back into the story by writer Len Wein, penciller Dick Dillin, and inker Joe Giella — but before we do, let’s take a good, close look at the cover by Nick Cardy.

Like all of the other JLA covers of this era, it features a left-hand column of League members’ floating heads (this particular issue also includes a right-hand column of JSA heads as an added bonus).  But unlike virtually any other such cover, there are only three full-time active members of the League included in this group of five — the presently non-powered Diana Prince being on a leave of absence, while Metamorpho is only a “reserve member”.  That meager number is the max number of “official” JLAers appearing in the story as well. Read More

Justice League of America #83 (September, 1970)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog know, I went through a brief period at age 12, lasting roughly from the fall of 1969 through the spring of 1970, when, for one reason or another, I became disaffected with comic books.  By June, 1970, my interest in them was again on the increase, but I wasn’t quite all the way back yet; and one unfortunate consequence of this was that I failed to buy Justice League of America #82 off the stands when it was released that month.  Why was missing this one comic such a big deal?  Simply because it featured the first chapter of that year’s two-part team-up between the Justice League of America and their counterparts on “Earth-Two”, the Justice Society of America — an annual summertime tradition at DC Comics ever since 1963, and one in which I’d faithfully participated ever since 1966.  That mean that not only had I been buying and enjoying these mini-epics for most of the time I’d been reading comics, but for a significant chunk of my life, period.  Four years is a pretty substantial period of time when you’re only twelve years old, after all.  Read More

Avengers #58 (November, 1968)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

By September, 1968, when the subject of today’s post came out, I was buying The Avengers semi-regularly.  Of course, “semi” literally means “half” (at least in the original Latin) — which is my way of saying that though I’d bought issues #53, #56, and the 1968 Annual, I’d skipped, or at least missed, issues #54, #55, and #57.  So, not only did my eleven-year-old self miss out on the debut of the Vision (in #57), but I was also completely in the dark about the malevolent robot who’d allegedly created him, Ultron-5, introduced in issues #54 and #55 as the mysterious leader of the “new” Masters of Evil.

Thus, when I came across Avengers #58 in the spinner rack, I may have been momentarily daunted.  Even if I had no obvious way of knowing that this issue tied into the Masters of Evil storyline from several months back, it was clear from the cover that the story was a direct follow-up to the previous issue’s Vision tale.

But the cover also made it crystal clear that the book featured appearances by Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor — the Avengers’ “Big Three”, whom series writer Roy Thomas wasn’t allowed to use as regular team members by the fiat of editor Stan Lee, but whom he nevertheless shoehorned into the book every chance he got — and I had been conditioned by now to recognize this as being something of a special event (if not necessarily a rare one).  And, in the end, that must have sold me.  I’d buy the book, and trust that the creative team — which included penciler John Buscema and inker George Klein, in addition to Thomas — would catch me up.  Read More

Justice League of America #64 (August, 1968)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As longtime readers of this blog may recall, Justice League of America was the first comic book title I ever subscribed to through the mail, way back in early 1966.  By June, 1968, that one-year subscription had long since expired, but I was still managing to score every issue off the stands, and at this point had an unbroken run extending back to my first issue, #40 — twenty-five issues in all.  I think it’s safe to say that it was still my favorite comic book series at that time (although The Amazing Spider-Man was definitely beginning to give it a run for its money).  Read More

Justice League of America #56 (September, 1967)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

This issue of JLA features “The Negative-Crisis on Earths One-Two!”, a story written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Mike Sekowsky and Sid Greene.  It’s the second part of 1967’s Justice League – Justice Society team-up, an annual summertime tradition that DC Comics maintained from 1963 all the way through 1984.  I blogged about the first half of this tale a few weeks ago, and I’m sure you’re all eager to find out how our heroes get out of the mess they were in at the conclusion of JLA #55.  And we’ll get to that pretty soon — but first, I’d like us to spend a little quality time with the book’s cover.

To begin with, it’s just a great piece of work — one of the final, as well as one of the finest, products of penciller Carmine Infantino and inker Murphy Anderson’s long and profitable collaboration.  And as perhaps the first comic book cover to feature what would become an everlasting motif in the superhero genre — two line-ups of superheroes charging each other — it has historic significance as well.  Read More

Justice League of America #55 (August, 1967)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

From June, 1966 through May, 1967, DC Comics published nine issues of Justice League of America, all of which capitalized on the enormous popularity of the Batman television show by prominently featuring the Caped Crusader on their covers.  Upon its publication on June 13, 1967, Justice League of America #55 clearly marked the end of that year-long run of exploitative, Batman-dominated covers.

Um, sort of.  OK, not really.  Because this issue’s Mike Sekowsky-Murphy Anderson cover, featuring the debut of “a grown-up Robin” whose costume was an amalgam of the duds traditionally worn by both the Boy Wonder and his august mentor, was obviously trading on Batmania as much as any other JLA cover that editor Julius Schwartz had seen through production in the last twelve months.  Read More