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!

Go to www.twomorrows.com for other issues, and an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE!

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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Star*Reach’s Batman, Aquaman II, 1984 Black Canary miniseries, Captain America: The Musical, Miracleman: Triumphant, unpublished issues of The Cat and Warlock, BLEVINS, DEODATO, FRADON, SEKOWSKY, WEISS, MIKE GRELL cover!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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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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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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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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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

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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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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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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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