Justice League of America #177 - Apr. 1980

After the nifty, uber-exciting cover by Rich Buckler, is a story of the return of the JLA's oldest and most deadly foes!

The Story: "The Graveyard Gambit!" by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. This issue begins in a way very few issues of the book ever did--with Aquaman!

After many, many months of not being in on the fun, we have a perfect setting for the King of the Seven Seas: open with a group of fisherman who are gloating over their catch, a school of dolphins.

This does less than please the Aquatic Avenger, and I really enjoy the fury with which Gerry Conway has Aquaman express himself:

...even though he is enraged, his instructs his dolphin friends to save the fisherman that have fallen unconscious into the water. While there, he sees something bizarre--the fisherman begin to glow and change shape, and turn into giant, statue-looking beings!

Meanwhile, the same exact thing happens to the Atom, and then again with Green Arrow and Black Canary, and Superman and Batman. In the last case, the strange beings don't even look remotely human, instead taking the form of...castles?

They all share their info with Zatanna, who is on Monitor Duty. She calls an emergency JLA meeting.

Meanwhile, we see who is behind this strange plot, as well as an old friend...

To be continued!

Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Atom, Black Canary, Zatanna

Notable Moments: Nice to see Aquaman back after being absent from so many issues (how many times have I written that over the course of this blog?), and gets such a nice shot at the action.

This issue features another JLA subscription ad, tying the book in with three of its members' solo titles:

Those Neal Adams heads never get old!

As of this issue, classic JLA writer Len Wein returns to the book, this time as Editor (having replaced Ross Andru, who replaced the legendary Julie Schwartz). Under Wein's tenure, the book would see (IMO) some of its finest moments...as we'll see!