Wonderfully composed cover by Murphy Anderson--the eye leads you right around, back to where you started. Nice job, Mr. Anderson!The story: "The Cavern of the Deadly Spheres!" by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, and Bernard Sachs. A villain named The Maestro uses his powers to control the Justice League...but there was one member he overlooked...the tiny titan, The Atom!
Roll Call: Superman, Batman Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, The Atom
Notable Moments: Features a real out-there final act, where we find that the previous eighteen pages never happened, and is in fact a comic-book story starring the JLA read to them by Snapper Carr! And to make it even weirder, we read that the artwork is by "Jerry Thomas"(Jerry Bails + Roy Thomas = Jerry Thomas)! Never before had a comic book so completely integrated some of its readers into the fictional world of the comic itself.
As Snapper Carr would say, "Coolsville, man!"
The one thing that I thought was weird about these early issues is that the big two,Superman and Batman, were in the stories but were never on the covers. It probably had something to do with a legal contract but it still seems weird to me.
ReplyDeleteJulius Schwartz has said that it was because their respective editors didn't want to risk over-exposure of the two characters, so asked Julie very strongly NOT to feature them prominently. However, after the first two years or so Julie (and the PTB) realized that Supes and Bats sold more comics, so they began appearing and then never stopped.
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