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The Plastic Man as deadbeat dad story was another many people hated

Actually I loved that issue. It was the only issue in Joe Kelly's run (up to the end of The Obsidan Age) that I liked.

Let me use Bendis as an example. His name is a draw. There's no denying that. If his name is attached to a project, it automatically gets attention. Avengers without Bendis was a high seller, but put Bendis name on Avengers and it became a HUGE seller. Yet his Powers comic sells a fraction of what his New Avengers sells. Does that somehow mean Bendis name is not a draw? No, it's just that in entertainment it comes down to a combination of two factors, the hugeness of the property AND the creator involved. Likewise, frank Miller's Martha Washington sells so-so compared to Frank Miller on All-Star batman, but no one in their right mind would say that Frank Miller attached to a project is not a big draw. So your arguments that Morrison on Detroit JLA would not have sold as much don't mean anything, the same goes for any creator that's a draw: put them on a property no one cares about and interest will be significantly less. Jim Lee on Detroit JLA would not move that much units in comparison to Jim Lee on a Big 7 JLA either. Part of what makes a writer or an artist a huge draw is seeing them tackle major characters.

No matter how big a creator is, the property said creator is working on makes a difference. Put the argument in reverse and you'll see how it fails. I could say "Look at the poor sales of a Big 7 JLA in JLA Classified compared to when Morrison was working on it. Obviously a Big 7 JLA doesn't get asses in the seats, the whole reason for high sales on the early Morrison/Porter issues must have been strictly Morrison and Porter." Obviously that wouldn't be true. But the point is, there are plenty of examples of Big 7 JLA stories and one shots that didn't set the sales charts on fire due to the creative teams involved. Doesn't negate the fact that with the right creators, the Big 7 JLA can draw in a lot of fans. Likewise, there are plenty of stories where Morrison's name would not have that strong an impact, but THAT doesn't mean that on the right property his name WOULD have a much stronger impact. In all forms of entertainment there is a synergy involved between the names involved in the creative process and the property they're working on (for example Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath isn't a big draw, but put him in an Indy Jones movies and there's buzz aplenty). Neither exists in a vacuum.

But at the time of JLA's debut, Morrison already had a pretty large and devoted cult following and his work on Doom Patrol and Animal Man were already in the category of modern classics and were held in high regard. The Big 7 angle did a lot to bring in a lot of readers, but the added oomph of people curious to see what the man who wrote Animal Man and Doom Patrol would do with a more mainstream property like JLA also got a lot of asses in the seats. It's similar to how curiosities were piqued when people heard cult favorite indie director Chris Nolan was going to be handling Batman movies years back, even people who never saw a Nolan movie were intrigued to see what he would do with it. That is the atmosphere I remember at the time Morrison was announced as the writer of the JLA ongoing.

Howard Porter’s art was a factor in JLA’s sucess, too.

Oh totally, without a doubt. It was definitely a factor for me.

I think it is easy to look back today, and overestimate the draw Grant Morrison may have had. JLA sales were so high from the start because it was starring the Big 7. Morrison’s writing may have won the hearts of fans, but it was the pairing of the Magnificent 7 that got the retailers to order it in the first place, and retailer orders, are what builds the sales figures. I think it is all too easy these days to overestimate the sales pull that Morrison had back when JLA started. Aztek and The Invisibles ran concurrently with JLA, and they certainly didn’t make the sales impact that JLA did.

Yes, but even now a Grant Morrison or Bendis creator owned work would have sales that pale in comparison to Grant's Batman or Bendis's New Avengers. Most writers that are big draws are only big sellers when they work on big properties. While Morrison was not the superstar he is now back then, don't underestimate how popular he was back then.

I totally acknowledge that Grant wasn't as big a draw then as he is now, and I also agree that the Big 7 returning also had a big impact on sales, but I think it was more the synergy of both factors that made it the breakthrough hit it was. The thought of the Big 7 being written by Grant Morrison, a guy previously known for brilliant Vertigo-style fare and well-crafter lower-tier superhero comics, really piqued everyone's interest. No one knew what to expect. At least that was the attitude i had and the people at my comic shop. News of a Grant Morrison book by itself would generate some buzz. News of a big 7 JLA would generate even more buzz. But the two together was more than the sum of its parts and since Morrison to that point was untested on mainstream, A-list flagship books like JLA, everyone was curious as to what he would do with the book.

The miniseries with the big 7 that immediately preceded Morrison's book, JLA: Midsummer's Nightmare, had the same big 7 characters but didn't generate nearly the same amount of buzz before coming out because Fabian Nicieiza doing big superhero comics has no novelty, it was what he's known for.

The sales drop that came with Kelly & Mahnke could have been a combination of new writer, new artist, and that sad natural attrition that most books experience.

EM

Pre-order sales of JLA dropped 10% before anyone read a single issue of Kelly’s run.

Great artists like Mahnke are not always favorites of the purchasing public (and vice versa - note the popularity of Greg Land).

True, but keep in mind that Morrison and Waid were both big draws as writers for the first two runs. Although Morrison was not as huge as he would eventually become, he was still held in high regard among fans. Waid was also a huge deal when announced as Morrison's successor. So the 10% dropoff before a first issue shipped could easily be a result of disappointment at Joe Kelly's name as writer being attached to it after having two superstars like Morrison and Waid previously. I know for me personally, i knew nothing about Mahnke but had some exposure to kelly's writing from the Superman books and other books and was never impressed. Even though I stayed on a bit before jumping ship, it was Kelly's name that troubled me more than Mahnke's and based on what followed my worst fears were surpassed. I know it's strictly anecdotal and is just one case, but I just wouldn't be quick to assume it was strictly or even mostly Mahnke's attachment that caused that 10% drop.

Great artists like Mahnke are not always favorites of the purchasing public (and vice versa - note the popularity of Greg Land).

Speaking personally, it was the terrible writing that drove me away. Even Bryan Hitch wouldn’t have kept me.

Agreed. I used to frequent JLA message boards at the time and was a major fan of Morrison's JLA run and the popular sentiment among me and other people online who hated that run was that Kelly's writing was the problem and not Mahnke in the least.

There was one storyline where Kelly did some hamfisted political commentary, there was the uninspiring lineup Kelly set up in a run where one of the big draws for the readers up until that point was the "Big 7" dynamic. The Plastic Man as deadbeat dad story was another many people hated/ I heard there were more bad stories but i quit by then

Next time, I guess...

I miss Tom Nguyen inking him though. I thought the SS:Frankenstein was little too rough.

EM, who is firmly in the "I Love Joe Kelly's JLA" camp

Honestly, as much as I love Mahnke (and I loves me some Mahnke), I think that ultimately it was he who killed the Kelly run, readership-wise.

Speaking personally, it was the terrible writing that drove me away. Even Bryan Hitch wouldn't have kept me.

I'm not the biggest fan of Mahnke's (though I find his work decent enough), but he was perfect on Frankenstein!

Like him or not, Howard Porter was a popular artist (although Morrison probably carried that run a bit), and Hitch was massively popular. Mahnke was less known and drew in a MUCH less populist style.

Had Kelly written JLA with Hitch artwork, the sales likely wouldn't have dropped much at all.