Justice League of America #124 - Nov. 1975

Can the JLA and the JSA defeat...Cary Bates?!?

The Story: "Avenging Ghosts of the Justice Society!" by Cary Bates, Elliot S! Maggin, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. The bad guys, revealed to have actually been the JSA, appear to be dead!

Meanwhile, Cary Bates goes on a reign of terror, robbing banks and whatnot, all under the control of the Wizard. Unnoticed, a strange green wisp watches what is transpiring...

The Wizard discovers that Elliott S! Maggin is on Earth-2 as well, and tells Bates to kidnap him and use him as bait to trap the JLA. He does so, and the JLA and the Injustice Society square off.

The JLA start to see the ghosts of the dead JSAers, and get defeated the the bad guys, until the mysterious mist reveals itself to be...The Spectre!

The Spectre resurrects the JSAers, who help rescue the JLA, who then turn on the Injustice Society, easily beating them. The spell on Bates wears off, and Johnny Thunder's T-Bolt sends them home.

We end the issue where we started this whole story--Bates and Maggin trying--and failling--to pitch story ideas to Julie Schwartz. As he tells them of their newest tale "Nobody's gonna believe a story like that!"

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

Notable Moments: The Spectre, thought dead since JLA #83, does not reveal himself to his friends, none of the heroes ever know how they died and came back to life. I guess you learn not to question stuff like that when you're a superhero.

Justice League of America #123 - Oct. 1975

The JLA and the JSA face off against one of their oddest adversaries ever!

The Story: "Where On Earth Am I?" by Cary Bates, Elliot S! Maggin, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. We open on Earth-Prime("our" Earth), where we find JLA editor Julius Schwartz berating his young writers--Bates and Maggin--for not being able to come up with a plot for this month's issue!

While Julie goes to lunch, the boys break out Julie's Cosmic Treadmill(as seen in The Flash #179), and Bates accidentally finds himself transported to Earth-2! While there, something mysterious happens to Bates, where he finds himself with amazing powers, and becomes tempted to use them for evil!

Meanwhile, Maggin tries to follow him, but ends up on Earth-1, where he is rescued by Aquaman from drowning, who takes him to the JLA satellite, where he gives them his story.

They of course don't believe him, but Maggin has developed powers too, which he uses to prove to the JLA he's not making up this crazy story, by teleknetically removing the masks and knowing the secret I.D.s of several JLAers!

On Earth-2, Bates gets worse, and uses his powers to trap and defeat the JSA. We then find out that this is because the evil supervillian, The Wizard, cast a spell on Bates turning him evil!

The JLA come to Earth-2, and are met by the Wizard and his Injustice Society(Sportsmaster, Huntress, The Gambler, The Shade, and The Icicle). Luckily, the JLA defeats them, but finds that these bad guys are actually...the JSA! What's going on here? Only the evil Cary Bates knows for sure. To be continued!

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

Notable Moments: Another lark of an issue, similar to #89 where writer Mike Friedrich was the protagonist. What was it about the JLA that made their writers want to incorporate themselves into the stories?

On the JLA Mail Room page comes this interesting suggestion for a new member:

...and you thought Shade the Changing Man was thinking outside the box!

Justice League of America #119 - June 1975

Another great cover by Dick Giordano--and what I love the most is that it's the exact same scene as the previous issue's cover, but with the predicament getting steadily worse. Plus, Batman looks pissed.

The Story: "Winner Takes The Earth!" by Elliot S! Maggin, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. These Adaptoid creatures are announcing their plans to eradicate the human race, while the defeated and wounded JLAers watch from the satellite.

Finally the other JLAers--Batman, Atom, Green Arrow, and Elongated Man--get involved, but they prove no match for the Adaptoids, so they are beamed back to the satellite for the JLA to compare notes and regroup.

The news announces that governments are toppling under the assault of the Adaptoids, and Superman, current JLA chairman, calls a "War Room" meeting of the JLA. And when Superman is in charge, he sure lets you know it:

Yes, being in charge and generally just being Superman isn't enough, he has to stand on the table and talk, literally, down to the rest of his teammates.

As they discuss strategy, the Adaptoids show up in the JLA satellite! They beat the JLAers again, when suddenly Hawkman returns, and exposes the creatures to the Equalizing plague by bringing...Hawkgirl!

This equalizes the JLAers and the Adaptoids, which gives the JLA the edge they need to defeat them. The JLA announces to the world they have done so, and Green Lantern comes by(better late than never) to transport the Adaptoids to a barren prison planet, where they immediately start building a primitive society for themselves.

Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Red Tornado

Notable Moments: Elliot S! Maggin tied in the previous storyline to this one, which was neat. And bringing Hawkgirl back to Earth was needed, as well, so he got a lot of things accomplished in just this issue.

The Atom gets a chance to shine, as his scientific background helps the JLA figue out what to do with the creatures and how the JLA will adapt to have been "equalized."
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JLA Satellite fan/F.O.A.M. member Russell Burbage pointed out to me that the JLA made an appearance in Action Comics #443.

I've normally been skipping the JLA's appearances in other books, but I was able to pick up a very cheap copy and besides, that Nick Cardy cover looks like so much fun! (I had hoped to profile the book in chronological sequence--which would've been around JLA #115, but it just arrived yesterday, so please forgive me)

The story is "Clark Kent, Super-Hero!" by Elliott S! Maggin, Curt Swan(of course), and Tex Blaisdell. We open with Superman himself delivering the 6 O'Clock News on WGBS! What's going on here?

Next we see the Queen Bee and her drones robbing a bank, when they are stopped by...a flying Clark Kent?!?

Queen Bee gets away, and she heads back to her "Anti-Justice League" satellite, which looks a lot like a certain Legion of Doom would in a few years. Queen Bee has assembled a team of bad guys, consisting of Brainiac, Clayface, the Harpy(who?), Merlyn, Ocean Master, Sinestro, Chronos, and Gorilla Grodd!

Turns out these baddies have gone after the individual JLAers and defeated them(using a sophisticated plan of attack, calculating and anticipating the heroes' actions), and they are now encased in a cage of the Queen Bee's devising.

Unfortunately for them, Brainiac has not been able to defeat Superman, because he is attacking illogically, doing nothing he normally does! When a tracker he creates pinpoints where Bee's hideout is, he heads there and takes on all the villains himself.

Superman gets blasted by Brainiac, but not before he helps free the Flash, who then frees the other JLAers, who open a can of whoop-ass on the bad guys. I love these two panels in particular:

...Ocean Master and Chronos are waking up tomorrow with a headache and a broken jaw, respectively.

They wrap up the villains, and use the Queen Bee's rod to make everyone forget all that they saw regarding Clark and Superman. Done and done!

The JLA is definitely just a guest-star in this story, which makes sense since its meant to be a Superman tale, first and foremost. I like Queen Bee's line-up of villains, I wish this group had come back more!

Justice League of America #118 - May 1975

A great cover, courtesy of Dick Giordano--a classic "How did they get themselves into this?" scenario.

The Story: "Takeover of the Earth-Masters!" by Elliot S! Maggin, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. Up in the JLA satellite, Aquaman(who is on Monitor Duty) and Hawkman are sharing stories, Hawkman bemoaning that, without his wife Shayera, he really has nowhere to go on Earth.

This conversation is interrupted when they get a distress signal from Central City. Aquaman thinks Flash can handle the situation on his own, but Hawkman insists on getting the JLA involved.

Flash is fighting some weird pink blobby creatures and as he's telling the JLA of this, it(they?) zap him! Superman, Aquaman, and Red Tornado find themselves fighting the thing to a standstill, while Black Canary takes the Flash to the satellite for help.

The creatures seems to adapt and evolve to fighting the JLA, and they zap the heroes long enough for them to escape.

Flash tells the JLAers of some work a local scientist has been doing, and how he contacted a space alien who created the creatures, which he calls Adaptoids. The JLA then disperses all over the globe to fight the creatures, but they defeat the JLAers by converting energy back at them, breaking Black Canary's leg, turning Aquaman into a mer-man, etc.

Hawkman, who was left behind to coordinate with other JLAers, is nowhere to be found. He leaves a note saying he had to go back to Thanagar, which the JLA takes as an act of cowardice:

...oh great, and we just changed the JLA Mail Room header back!

Roll Call: Superman, Aquaman, Flash, Hawkman, Black Canary, Red Tornado

Notable Moments: Elliot S! Maggin's second issue in a row, and his plots are dense and, frankly, hard to summarize. I apologize if some of these issues don't sound like they make a lot of sense.

Aquaman has been playing a much larger role in the JLA as usual, no doubt due to The Super Friends being a big hit on TV.

Justice League of America #117 - April 1975

One of the more dishonest cover images you'll see--no way does that look like a silhouette of Hawkman.

The Story: "I Have No Wings and I Must Fly!" by Elliot S! Maggin, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. Somewhere in space, a strange-looking man(?) named The Equalizer is coming...

Meanwhile, at the JLA satellite, Green Lantern is watching members arrive after he set off the distress signal. He saw Hawkman's Thanagarian ship orbiting Mars, but when the other JLAers tell him Hawkman should be following behind them at any moment, he doesn't show!

So the JLAers head to Mars to see what's going on. They find the ship, but it manages to fire several defensive weapons at them. The JLAers manage to avoid them, and get inside the ship, long enough to see someone who they think is Carter Hall, but they aren't sure. He assures them he is Hawkman, and slams Batman and Green Arrow, dumping them out of the ship and taking off.

On Mars, strange changes are happening to the JLAers--Atom is growing in size, Batman finds he has the ability to fly...what's going on here?

We see what happened back on Thanagar--a weird ship spread some sort of chemical over Thanagar, making everyone the same size--equalizing them. Now that the ship is headed for Earth, Hawkman needed to expose the JLAers to him so he could "steal" a fraction of their powers and take him on.

As Hawkman takes on the Equalizer, the JLAers combine their will power to use GL's ring to help them find their friend. They do, but are stymied when the Equalizer is able to balance whatever they can do with what he can do. Hawkman finally figures out that if they flood the Equalizer with pure hate, then he will become overloaded and that's the chance they have to get their powers back.

So the JLAers each think of someone or something in their lives they hate, and it works. The Equalizer is destroyed, returning the JLAers back to normal.

Since Hawkman has been cured of the Equalizer's effects, he tells the JLA if he returns he will succumb to it all over again, since the whole planet is still under quarantine. He asks if he could be reinstated back in the Justice League, which they quickly agree to.

Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Red Tornado

Notable Moments: I never liked Hawkman not in the JLA, so I'm glad he was reinstated so quickly after leaving. In fact, his absence in issues 110-116 makes for the shortest time any hero was gone from the team.

The JLA Mail Room header is changed yet again, with Hawkman put back in, though someone in coloring still needs to figure out just how Elongated Man and Red Tornado are supposed to be colored:

This issue's letter column is almost entirely devoted to people's suggestions for membership, and it's instructive to see that comic fans back then were as hard to please and all over the map as they are now:

Get rid of Superman and Wonder Woman (who, er, hasn't been a member for years) and replace them with two Robins? What the hell?

And the guy who suggested Captain Marvel Jr. and Swamp Thing is from Medford, NJ, the next town over from here; I gotta go find him and ask what the hell was he thinking.