Customer Reviews

Showcase Presents: Justice League of America, Vol. 1

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As I began to read Showcase Presents the Justice League of America I soon quickly came to the startled realization that in my thirty plus years as a comic fan, I had never read the first appearance by the JLA in Brave & The Bold #28. This came as a surprise as I had read, in some form or another, the first appearance of just about every major superhero or team: Superman, Batman, The Avengers, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, etc..., but never the Justice League. It came to me that growing up I had read many of these DC first appearances in those old, oversized, Famous First editions, and read many of the Marvel first appearances in Origins of Marvel Comics collections. But somehow I missed on the Justice League. Thankfully DC continues to produce these affordable and jam-packed Showcase editions. With over 500 pages, this book collects Brave & the Bold # 28 - 30, Justice League of America # 1 - 16, and Mystery in Space # 75, the formative years of DCs greatest super team. All of the stories in this book were written by Gardner Fox with art by Murphy Anderson, Mike Sekowsky, and Carmine Infantio, all with great Anderson covers. Murphy Anderson was as much the artistic face of DC comics in the 1960's as Kack Kirby was at Marvel in the same period.

Interestingly, in Brave & the Bold #28, we get virtually no origin at all. In fact the league is already established with members The Flash, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Superman, and Batman. It's obvious they've already worked together as they have communication devices to signal each other when needed, which Aquaman does when he discovers the threat of Starro the Conqueror, a giant, intelligent starfish from space. Only Superman fails to answer the call as he is deep in outer space battling a meteor swarm. Then in Brave & the Bold #29, the team goes up against the Weapons Master Yotar from the year 11960 who travels back in time with his futuristic weapons to destroy the JLA. In Brave & Bold #30, professor Ivo creates the synthetic humanoid known as Amazo who has the power to steal the powers of the heroes.

Superman would see his first action in Justice League of America #1 as the team would meet for the first time one of their greatest enemies, the tyrant Despero from the planet Kalanor. Other long time JLA villains also make their early appearances in this volume including Doctor Light (the lighting rod for the Infinite Crisis storyline) and Felix Faust. Green Arrow would gain membership into the team in issue #4 and the Atom would join in issue #14. One of the very first issues of the title I remember seeing and reading was #7. This one has the famous funhouse mirror cover with distorted images of the team including the hefty Wonder Woman which I always got a kick out of.

By today's standards the stories may seem a bit simplistic and they are but this was, after all, the very early 60's, pre-Beatles and Viet Nam and it was a simpler time. The running theme of teamwork is present in many of the stories as the team learns to work together to best utilize their abilities. Yes the comics are in black & white and printed on low-cost newsprint paper. But in color this book would be three times as much and that's what the hardcover Archive editions are for. This is great stuff. Vintage Silver Age comics at their finest!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Ignore the review above....all Showcase titles are in B&W. It's nice to see DC finally coming out with their own version of the Marvel essentials.

My God, DC silver age comics were goofy. If you LOVE the Superfriends, then this is for you. I mean, if you love the fact that every villain in the universe had some Krytonite, some yellow lasers to zap Green Lantern with, and a Bic lighter to get Martian Manhunter- then this is AWESOME! The stories are so absurd that you have to suspend all disbelief and just enjoy the comedy of it. This is not for people who want a serious story, this is for heroes who are so stupid they are trapped by the most insane devices. This is about villains who are mega-whacky. This stuff is just FUN, FUN, FUN.

I like older comic books, written back in the day when things were simpler. For this reason, overall, I have enjoyed the Essential series from Marvel, and I optimistically decided to try out one of the similar Showcase volumes that DC is publishing. My first experience was with the Justice League of America, and sadly - contrary to many of the other reviews expressed here - I cannot give it a positive review.

The Justice League consisted of the all-star lineup of the DC universe: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter. Joining the group later would be the Green Arrow and the Atom. Also, part of the team was one of the more annoying sidekicks in comics history, Snapper Carr, a finger-snapping teen with a tendency to speak in pseudo-hepcat language.

The artwork is consistently nice, but the writing has its problems. I understand that these comics were written in a different era and with kids as the key demographic, but compared to the work of Stan Lee and company just a year or so later with Fantastic Four, this material is very weak. The personalities of the superheroes are almost exactly the same; outside of references to superpowers, you could mix up the speech bubbles for the characters and never know the difference (I suppose this is the only thing that makes Snapper stand out).

In addition, the same plot seems to be recycled issue after issue, with just the villain changing: each story has a villain threatening the world; the Justice League splits into smaller groups to deal with individual threats and being overcome until they reunite as a team to stop the bad guy.

I suppose the big problem is that these comic books were never meant to be read as a set, but rather as individual stories read a month or two apart. It's kind of like of cookies: if you eat too many at one time, you'll get sick, but eaten at separate times, you can enjoy each one. Because of this cookie concept, I am giving this book a low three stars although it probably really rates only two. This set has more historical value than entertainment value.

I enjoyed this huge graphic novel for the most part. The stories were bizarre but good if you expect that. Makes me think of B Sci-fi movies, very over the top but creative despite that. My favorite part had to be the creative use of super powers, one of the most fun parts of the book. Of course you expect Green Lantern to do some very different things with his ring, but the Flash does some amazing things too. He can control the world around him by varying the way that his uses his superspeed: create vibrations, slow down his rate of falling, create wind etc. (If you read this you will see what I mean).

The villains were all very different, using technology, alien intellect, or magic to trouble the Justice League. The plots have the general pattern of: 1. some seeming impossible challenge, 2. solution through the creative use of powers or some other clever device. This makes for some redundancy but still a lot of fun. (Don't try to read all in one setting...Space them out at bit.)

There are some flaws that draw you out of the fun that the book has to offer. The thing that irked me the most was "Snapper Carr." I understand this is the age of sidekicks, and part of this era of comic books, but he was definitely overused and annoying. The only other complaint is the lack of color. The color would add so much to the visuals. I understand this comes with the territory of these huge complitations, though.

I think this book is definitely worth the read and if you like old comics worth a purchase. It was fun to read these early comics and consider how much comics have changed.

Blame Amazon for not listing the book as having a B&W interior, but if you know ANYTHING about Marvel's ESSENTIAL line or DC's SHOWCASE collection, you should know what to expect. You're getting 500+ pages of comics for less than $12... how can anyone complain?

That aside, these are all the classic JLA stories from dawn of the Silver Age of comics. The stories are very corny and silly by today's standards, but they are still fun to read. With the grim and grit of comics these days, these SHOWCASE books are perfect for younger readers as well. If nothing else, it is the world's greatest coloring book.

First, I grew up reading DC comics. Green Lantern, Flash and Justice League were my personal faves. This is a terrific opportunity to have the early JLA stories, in a great format, without costing an arm and a leg. I'd love to give this Five Stars, but the lack of color (which, I assume, would have increased the price), for me keeps it at Four.
The early issues of the JLA title are all here as well as the first three JLA stories from The Brave and The Bold. Starro, Faust, Amazo....all the big bad guys are here as well. Great art and terrific stories from the sixties! What more can you ask for?

I'd never read comic books, and I was expecting more along the lines of epicness like Hollywood scenes that were too hard to film, or failing that, a good novel. Instead, it's more like a collection of B-Movies with ridiculous villains and implausible logic. It reminded me of the old Scooby Doo cartoons, and 'Godzilla vs the Swamp Thing'. Stuff like, 'even though I'm a normal man in a costume, I'll inhale this chlorine gas, which because it's vaguely yellow, will not dissolve my lung tissue, and it will protect me from the villain who has stolen Green Lantern's Powers'...

The black and white comics go like that, with weirdly drawn antagonists who are loopy, producing a gimmick of the week, which the Justice League defeats with their own Plot Armor. I had an awful time suspending my disbelief, and I wasn't able to simply 'sit back and enjoy' most of the stories.

Superman and Batman are usually absent until the end games, as both these heroes are too powerful or too smart for the run-of-the-mill whacko. The other big surprise was Snapper, a perfect normal Cool Cat who wears a leather jacket and is an honorary Justice League member. What is snapper's power? He's cool. He snaps his fingers. That's it. As you can guess, Snapper often saves the day (and I really didn't like him).

Overall, if you are looking for deep character studies in heroism, look elsewhere. If you want to see the downfall of the Time-Traveling Weapon Merchant of Doom (ominous thunder rings) at the hands of the Amazing Justice League, who will beat him with an Old Orange Peel after their powers are cleverly neutralized, then this is the book for you Daddie-O!

The Showcase Presents line is letting me have a second childhood and I'm loving every page, even in B&W. Years ago I had every issue in this collection. I started buying JLA new with issue #19, and started my time as a serious collector soon after. I always felt Sekowsky was the perfect JLA artist while my favorite artist, bar none, was Infantino. When Sekowsky's run on JLA was done it was hard for me to keep my interest in the series. By the time I was in the 10th grade had I found the three Brave and Bold issues plus JLA 1-18 for a nickle each in a used book store. The lady who owned the store knew comic collecting was starting to take off because of The Batman TV show but she continued to sell used comics at half their original cover price, and she usually let me have first crack at them. Years later I let most of my collection go and even if I had them all today I doubt I would ever take them out of their bags. The Archive series is nice but I'm tired of collecting things and tired of finding places to put them. When I finish my Showcase Presents books I think I'll just give them to a grandson or sell them on ebay, or toss them. If nothing else, the price of these is hard to beat.

I have read over 50 Marvel essentials and DC Showcase presents comic books. this is the one showcase presents book that I didn't even want to finish. some of those characters are great in their own comic books but they had so much more potential than this."Spoiler Alert" The stories were ridiculously cheesy such as Starro the giant intelligent space starfish, Despero from Kalanor,and random bad guys from space. DC could have done so much better than this and overall I really did not like this book.