I doubt it was a trademark thing, because it’s not like there was ever a Dr. Light comic, and the old one never quite went away.

Capt. Marvel/Doctor Fate- That’s the reason why Captain Marvel was dropped, btw- even though he didn’t get his own series until YEARS after leaving the JLI, there definitely was one in the works (by Roy Thomas, building on his “Shazam: A New Beginning” continuity (which everyone seems to hate, even though I thought it was one of the most emotionally honest portrayals of a boy that age for the time period)) Dr. Fate almost certainly left the team so that Giffen and DeMatteis could have some breathing room to revamp him into a “hir,” but once that new character design was reestablished Dr. Fate was brought back onto the team- until it became clear that the character was about to be revamped AGAIN.

Lineup choices- Jacob T. Levy’s analysis on the character choices was excellent and right on the mark. It’s one I thought *I* came up with, actually- which leads me to believe we both read it somewhere. I’ve always thought that the choice was specifically calculated that way (as it falls in line with Meanwhile columns at the time that described Crisis as being the “opening” of the universe and Legends as being designed to show off the new status quo.)

The ‘Big” Three- I’m going to put myself out there and say that the lemonade-made-from-lemons didn’t only apply to the quality of the book itself, but that the retroactive choice to divorce the “big three” from the origins of the JLA was inspired. JLI (and even to an extent, the Detroit League) always made more “sense” to me as a kid because of that choice, and I was happy to see Superman off the team. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only kid who ever picked up an old issue of the original JLA and wondered why the heck Superman needed all those people around when in his own books he could have defeated pretty much anyone the JLA fought single-handedly- especially in the days when he had a super-intellect, as well (which I assume has been given back to him in the “let’s make Superman just like he was in the Silver Age” era of the Superman books). Honestly- what is the point of having a guy who runs fast, a guy with wings, and a brilliant thinker on a team when Superman does all of that and is better at it? I was glad to see him go. (Frankly, even Green Lantern is too powerful to be on a team, so it made sense to give him a mental handicap). Not being part of a team also allowed Byrne to make Superman what he should always be- separate. The few times he visited the Giffen/DeMatteis team he was there largely to awe the other heroes- which is as it should be. (Even the people running things now used to agree with that, judging by the aborted Superman 2000 proposal.) Retro-retroactively squeezing the Trinity back in as “founders” in one throwaway line in Infinite Crisis was just bad storytelling. If no one has any intention of telling those stories, what is the point of messing with an already established continuity? (No, that’s not hypocritical- when Superman, et al, were taken OUT of the team, it was because their stories were actually being told. We SAW why Wonder Woman and Superman weren’t founders. Do we see, now, why they were? Other than editorial caveat?)

It always surprises me that there are people who STILL refuse to buy JL comics that are weighted toward “second-tier” characters. They’ve all apparently forgotten that the “magnificent seven” weren’t considered all that magnificent when they were first teamed up (Martian Manhunter was hardly considered an icon back in the day). And people who decry the “Detroit league” and the JLI while adoring the satellite era, filled with characters who could not support solo books, are suffering from an intellectual disconnect. Love or hate the JLI, but when it began, five of its ten members (Batman, Blue Beetle, Black Canary, Guy Gardner, and Booster Gold) were starring or co-starring in other books. Captain Atom, who was added soon after, had a very long running series, and Dr. Fate and Mister Miracle both ended up with spinoffs that lasted several years. I’d say that’s about as good a ratio as the Satellite-era League had, if not better. In other words, the guy at Wikipedia who referred to this team as “C-LIst” (something I edited out for being WP:POV, of course) apparently doesn’t understand what a C-List is.

You can obviously count me among the many here who think that JLI was a great, great comic- it is easily my favorite of all the JL incarnations over the years, and the retroactive snubbing it has gotten from the overly-nostalgic fanboys running the DCU iis not only unfair, but is also an example of what happens when creatives get their way even when the market doesn’t bear them out. I don’t think it’s ONLY a matter of the ‘grim and gritty” trend, or DiDio thinking that “humor doesn’t sell” Even when JLI was the biggest book DC had, grim and gritty was in full swing, and tt was coming right on the heels of an editorial mandate that finally canceled the last of DC’s non-superhero books. I think it has more to do with the fact that the people who write 95% of any stories featuring the DC icons are all very openly annoyed the COIE happened in the first place- 25 YEARS AGO. Their childhoods/early adulthoods were apparently so traumatized by the loss of the “original” Superman, et al, that they want to make sure everyone realizes what a VERY VERY BAD THING the Crisis was. When the creative head of a company comes out and announces in his column that a main reason he took the job was to bring back a character who was successfully killed and replaced 24 years earlier, there’s no “between-the-lines” reading that needs to be done.

Pretty much the ONLY character from the post-Crisis era that is still getting any love is Booster Gold, oddly enough- and since he has always been intended as a a not-heroic hero, I suspect he’s allowed to go on only to mock the allegedly “awful” the post-Crisis era.

She only had her powers stolen six months before Infinite Crisis, which didn’t stop her participating in the big event so they retconned her depowering to have taken place in week 2 of Fifty Two.

I think the no respect remark probably was more in relation to how the characters have been treated by DC the last 5 years or so. Maxwell Lord revealed to be evil the whole time, shoots his former buddy Blue Beetle in the head, and then is killed himself. Sue Dibney retroactively raped and then murdered. Ralph Dibnet, dead. Dr. Fate, dead. Barda and Mr Miracle, dead. Martian Manhunter, dead. Until recently, Ice was dead. These characters haven’t received a lot of love from DC lately.

I know all of that. I just don’t take that as disrespect. They’re using the characters and producing hardcover collections of 20 year old material.

Characters like Vibe on the other hand just get ignored.

Never mind the humour (and it didn’t always work: see ‘Manga Khan’), The Justice League book was the most CREATIVE monthly comic in the late 80s by DC, andprobably by anyone. The characterization was more rich, the situations more original, and the artwork…my god, the artwork!

For me, I sleep comfortably at night knowing that all this new Blue Beetle/Maxwell Lord/Sue Dibny crap is all happening to Earth-OTHER versions of my favourite characters. Geoff Johns and Dan Di Dio didn’t create these characters, so they have no right to turn them into puppets in their melodramatic smut.

Personally, I feel like they screwed the pooch on not letting the book be about the Big Seven. Then again? The moment they decided Bats, Supes, and WW weren’t founders of the League, I feel like they should’ve rebooted the entire DCU. That was too huge a change to decide, “Well that never happened, but everything else in their histories did!”

“Note to self:Use picture of Rube Goldberg machine as a Shibboleth to root out English spies in midst. If colleague calls it a Robinson machine, send them back to their tea and strumpets…”

It’s easier to spot we British spies by asking “Who invented television?”

Which reminds me – Was Superman a spy?

The Giffen/Mcguire League may have been silly, but as pointed above, they were also made much more human, more than the blank slate heroes they often were. This is a fact the current DC administration simply didn’t understand.

You know, I remember saying that to myself waaay back when I first saw that cover by Maguire, I grabbed a little bit of everyone from the DC universe, And you had the archetypes all represented then too even though most of the Magnificent Seven weren’t actually a part of the group.

Gypsy was introduced using her “blend-in” powers for petty theft. She lived on the streets with no family or home. And the costume was much more stereotypical than a Madonna homage, with a big skirt and billowy top, covered in patches.

The first tpb of the JL/JLI run (A New Beginning) has a big text piece talking about the whole thing. Basically they created a formula that would work regardless of what characters they had to use.