Since Gerry Conway was writing the book when I was 12, he’s my 1st choice as the definitive JLA writer (pre-Detroit, of course). I’ll put JLA #200 up against ANY other JLA story written by anyone. I’ve read Len Wein & Steve Englehart’s runs in back issue form, and they’re both great & highly recommended. Wein brought back the Seven Soldiers of Victory & created the Freedom Fighters. Englehart brought great characterization and created the Manhunters, the Construct, the Star-Tsar & the Privateer.

Morrison is great, but can’t hold a candle to these runs in my mind.

And you have to give it up for Gardner Fox, too. He wrote the book for what… 10 years? Let’s see one of today’s writers match THAT!

You’re also the first person I’ve seen refer to characters such as Batman, Captain Marvel, and Mister Miracle as understudies’ understudies. The Giffen/Dematteis League is my #1 choice. #2 goes to the originator, Gardner Fox (I get a real kick out of reading those ones), and my #3 goes to Jurgens, with Len Wein close behind at #4.

-Citizen Scribbler

Morrison places a very close second.

I’ll echo the Joe Kelly, er, like? I don’t think you can call it love, but I thought his run was pretty good (with some terrible moments like Absentee-Dad Plastic Man

Funny how the issue people often hold up as the worst in Joe Kelly’s run is the only one I actually liked. I thought the rest of his run was terrible, but I loved that issue.

for me:
1 – Giffen +Dematteis
2 – Morrison
3 – Waid

I’m still looking for another decent JLA run…

Joe Kelly’s stories not connected to the Atlantis thing were brilliant.

I dig Wein and Conway too but I don’t have enough to go by.

I’m a shameless Morrison fanboy, but his JLA isn’t even a contender for top slot on my personal “Morrison’s Best” list (Doom Patrol, Invisibles and even Seven Soldiers all come out ahead of it).

Also a massive Englehart fan, but I always rather preferred his actual Marvel work to his “Marvelized DC” work. Same for Wein and Conway.

Dick Dillin is Mr. JLA Artist of all time, though.

That to me would have been Conway, just pre-Detroit.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed what I now think of as “Classic JLA”. I must also be one of the few who enjoyed JLDetroit… J’onn, Aquaman, Gypsy, Steel, Vibe… Ahhh….

But JLI ruled. Sure it lost it’s way (long before Breakdowns), but for the sheer length of the run, including JLE (with Basil Fawlty as the Beefeater!) JLI had more pages of fun than anything else I can think of…

“One Punch!”
“Don’t call me ‘Bats’ Beetle…”/”Don’t call me ‘Beetle’ Bats…”
“I can see you Gardner…”
“Blue Beetle, meet the Paris Embassy head, Catherine…” “BWAH-HAH-HA-Ha-Ha!!!!”
“Buy this comic or we WON’T shoot the cat….”

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…

Oh… and women enjoyed it too….

Yes. Despite PowerGirl (drawn by Adam Hughes, Bart Sears and gang…) *swoon*

I find the “Big 7″ boring as hell… with JLI, you were never sure if they were going to pull it off…

oh, and the first annual even had some of Bill Willingham’s first DC artwork!!!!

Oh yeah. As a kid, I got into comics just in time to catch . . . X-Cutioner’s Song. Where the stork-legged pert-buttocked X-Men are on the moon and, um, Jean and Scott have a kid from the future? Only the villain is. . . the clone of their kid . . . maybe? I don’t know if I’d do a better job of understanding it as an adult.

I gave up after buying three X-books and stuck to Spider-Man. I suppose Wikipedia would’ve helped.

It’s trendy to answer GM, but they really were the best books.

Yes, Morrison’s run was wonderful. But way too many of the classic JLAers were damaged goods at the time. So, instead of Hal we got Kyle. Instead of Ollie we got Connor. Instead of the SA Hawks we got Zauriel. For awhile Wonder Woman was her mom and Superman was electric and blue. And, don’t get me started on Aquaman. Dammit, the JLA should be exempt from such crappy editorial decisions!

Giffen / DeMatteis, two incredibly talented creators whose work I usually enjoy, created a book that I could not stand.

Fans of Englehart’s run would enjoy Friedrich’s JLA as well; both of them were doing the same trick of splicing Marvel storytelling and characterization values onto DC characters and plot structure.

GERRY CONWAY!

Can’t believe how much hate that guy stirs up on the net. His 1000000000 issue run on the original Justice League pretty much sets the flava for everything that comes after. Fox was writing a team book with totally interchangable characters (as someone mentioned above), O’Neil, Wein and Englehart were all fantastic but frankly more of the same. It was Conway who wrote the book on the JLA as it is today and has been for the last 30+ years; a book about DC’s best second stringers with guest appearances from the big 3.

Even Morrison only managed 8 (?) issues or so before his ‘big 7′ were all being written out/’irreversibly changed’ and he had to replace them with Zauriel, Steel, Huntress etc.

Oh, loved Giffen/DeMatteis too when I was that golden age of 12/13 and collected it avidly. Some of it is still a damn good read but a lot of it has aged VERY badly. People demanding hardcover collections of the Kooey Kooey Kooey arc, the Teasdale Imperative (zzzzzz…), Breakdowns, and especially the godawful General Glory 5 parter have way too much disposable income.

And man, that Secret Society of Super Villains/JLA/JSA crossover is all kinds of awesome.

The guy’s run is just plain sick. Rock of Ages, World War III, the Ultramarine Corps. He made the blue Superman readable for god’s sake. He brought in Aztek and made it have a point beyond simply boosting one of his own creations. Plus, the two-issue battle with Prometheus is freaking great – to this day one of my favorite villain introductions.