Justice League of America #89 - May 1971

But what if I wanna be Aquaman?

The Story: "The Most Dangerous Dreams of All!" by Mike Friedrich, Dick Dillin, and Joe Giella. Aquaman is chairman of the monthly JLA meeting, where he suggests there should be more water-based adventures.

No, I'm kidding--actually, after the meeting, where they note the absence of Arrow and Canary, the JLA transports down to Earth. It's here that writer Mike Friedrich appears(!) telling us of the story we're about to read...

Black Canary is hit on by the smooth talking Hollywood writer Harlequin Ellis, and as they have a cup of coffee, Green Arrow shows up and threatens to put a boxing glove arrow where the sun don't shine. Ellis laughs this off and splits, telling Canary where she can meet him if she "wants to dump this crude bozo."

We follow Ellis back to his office(though it looks like a house, it has his secretary and some other guy, so I'm not sure), and we find that Ellis' feelings for Dinah are so deep, that the very barrier between the real and the unreal begins to break down!

Here we start bopping around the time stream, with the various JLAers appearing all over the place, fighting a giant cyclops, Aquaman dying(!), and Superman blaming himself. What the holy heck is going on here??

Superman then turns into Ellis, and Arrow and Canary find themselves transported back to the coffee shop where they were last. Ellis heads back out, Batman fights a Minotaur, then Batman turns out to be Ellis as well, Black Canary then finds Ellis, they go to a concert together, and Canary lets him down easy.

Mike Friedrich reappears at the end of the book to explain what we just read:

Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary

Notable Moments: This issue can be read along with Pink Floyd's The Wall.