Hmmm … I’ve never seen the Booster Gold Showcase. Maybe I’ll have to look for it.

I know DC has a Showcase of Booster Gold that came out around the time that Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz’s Booster Gold run began. I think it includes the whole series that Dan Jurgens did when the character first appeared. I’m not sure about Captain Atom (and I haven’t heard much about his solo book), though.

Also, random question, but it’s recently come to my attention that there’s another person posting on here as “Drew.” I’m not sure how much he (or she) has been posting, but is there any way to retroactively change my old posts (and this one, I guess) to include an initial or something like that?

You made a comment earlier that your synopsis of these characters is based as purely as possible on how they were portrayed only in the pages of JL/JLI/JLA etc. You further pointed out that you haven’t read the solo titles of many of the members of the League. Have you given any thought to checking them out? A friend of mine just recently turned me on to the Bates/Broderick run of Captain Atom. I’ve also been currently reading the 80′s Booster Gold series and find it to be a fun, breezy little superhero comic. I don’t know if any of them would merit “Comics Yo Should Own” status, in your eyes, but just the same, I’d like to know what you think about them. I’ve read many of your other postings and have generally agreed with your opinions.

P.S. Although it is irrelevant here, I’d like to add that Dreadstar (both the Starlin and David/Medina versions) are some of my absolute favorite comics I’ve ever read.

Great humorous books like this one, Peter David’s first X-Factor run (his current run’s good, but “humorous” really isn’t a word I’d used to describe it very often), Joe Kelly’s Deadpool, Fabian Nicieza’s Cable & Deadpool, Gail Simone’s Secret Six, Abnett & Lanning’s Guardians of the Galaxy, etc., tend to be my favorite books, as much as I like serious comics as well. I’ll really suck if there do end up only being four JLI trades. Guess I’d better order a copy of the first volume for the store I help out at to do my part towards keeping the series in demand . . .

This is an interesting comment – thanks for it. I didn’t have any conception about the status of the heroes used in JLI, because it started before I began reading comics, and I only came to it later. I base the idea that they were less than A-listers solely on Helfer’s introduction in the first trade – if the editor says they couldn’t use the “big guns” and were therefore forced to use lesser-status heroes, who am I to disagree with him? You make a compelling case, though.

As for Beetle and Booster – I read these comics as an entity unto themselves, so I try not to bring in any ideas about the characters from earlier stuff. I obviously do it, but I TRY not to! I have never read any solo series with either Beetle or Booster, so while I believe your characterization of them, I didn’t know that when I started reading the series. Reading simply the issues in this series, it’s obvious that Booster is certainly greedy, but he doesn’t instigate the schemes – that’s Beetle. Maybe that’s not good characterization based on their previous series and we should blame Giffen and DeMatteis, but that’s what it is in this series.

Part of the reason I don’t like “Glory Bound” and “Breakdowns” is because the art is truly atrocious. I don’t mind Medley, but she doesn’t work on this book. And Wozniak is just terrible. I don’t like the stories as much – they feel very sloppy, but if a good artist had drawn them, they might have worked.

And I know the book didn’t “stagger” along in terms of selling, but the quality went way down after Giffen and DeMatteis left. I was just re-reading them, and I could barely get through some issues. This was back in the days when people often bought comics for characters, not writers (which is still very prevalent, of course, but I don’t think as much as back then), so I wonder if people just liked the idea of the “Justice League” and kept buying. I know I did for a while, until the book got so terrible I just couldn’t continue.

Thanks for the history lesson, though – I like the fact that these characters became A-listers because of the Justice League, and not the other way around. That’s a good point.

Also not sure why you display such disdain for the General Glory and Breakdowns arcs. Yes, the General Glory story was largely comedy-centered, but it served to sketch in some of Guy Gardner’s behavior up until that point (why would a former hero who had become brain-damaged act that way? Because he was trying to imitate the comics he grew up reading.) Breakdowns, meanwhile, may have been too long, but it was genuinely touching on multiple occasions, and it dealt realistically (comic book-wise) with just how a superhero team that had become a family would deal with losing their autonomy. (By the way, it’s hard to call an additional 53 issues plus two more spinoffs “staggering along,” whether the series was as good or not. That’s nearly the length of the Giffen/DeMatteis run.)

There is also a false assumption that everyone, even people who claim to love the JLI era, makes about the book, which is that the JLI was “second stringers” as compared to the original team’s “big guns.” Even the comics professionals do this, and I believe they’re simply guilty of revisionist history. The facts behind the original JLA’s roster and the JLI’s, which can be borne out by objective evidence, are this: The original JLA was NOT about “the big guns”- not from the first appearances in the Brave and the Bold, nor for most of it’s run. Yes, in comparison to the old JSA stories, it featured Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman more than the previous team had- but only barely. Superman and Batman hardly appear in the early issues of the JLofA, and when they do it’s as deus ex machinae. Of the remaining members of the team, only Flash, at that point, was a “popular” character. Green Lantern had only made his own debut four months earlier- which, in terms of comics lead time, would have been far too recent for anyone to gauge his “popularity.” Likewise, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter both had languished as backup features before and after the JLofA was formed (Aquaman having received his new origin less than a year prior). If they had been “all-stars” at the time, the Manhunter would have headlined a book by that point- he never did. The simple truth is the JLofA, at first, consisted of pretty much any superhero at the time who was available and who fit into the format. The book existed more to promote new characters than it did to represent any character’s “popularity.” Of the 13 later members of the JLofA, only two were starring in their own titles when they joined. The other eleven didn’t even get solo series until years after they joined the team- and even then, only Firestorm was given an ongoing title before the Crisis. Even if you count the full Satellite membership as active before the Detroit team came in (which would be inaccurate due to the trial of the Flash and Hal Jordan’s resignation from the GLC), only six of the sixteen members were appearing regularly anywhere else at the time the team was disbanded (and only Firestorm, Superman, and Batman avoided cancellation post-Crisis). The “big guns” became “big guns” because of their association with the JLofA- not the other way around.

What’s ironic is that people regularly deride the JLI as “B-listers,” even though Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and Captain Atom were the first new members to join the team while simultaneously starring in their own books since Hawkman joined over two decades earlier! And they clearly weren’t being “dumped” there- Blue and Gold’s books weren’t canceled until nearly a year’s worth of JLI issues had been published, and Captain Atom’s own series continued for years. Considering that Batman appeared in about half of the issues of the Giffen/DeMatteis run, it’s hard to accept the whole “JLA=Big guns, JLI=Second-stringers” argument that always comes up. DC clearly had high hopes for most of the characters introduced in in “Justice League.” Captain Marvel was intended to get his own solo series (aborted due to creative differences between Roy Thomas and DC); Blue Beetle and Booster Gold has both been heavily promoted and it was clearly felt that membership in the team could “push” their sales; Dr. Fate and Mister Miracle both soon received relatively long-running solo series; Guy Gardner and Dr. Light had both played major roles in the Crisis a year earlier. If they’re considered “second stringers,” it’s because of hindsight- not because of they were intended to be second stringers when they joined. True, later additions like Rocket Red, Fire, Ice, and General Glory, were pretty much created to serve the format of the book- but that’s hardly any different that the addition of Red Tornado, Black Canary II, and Zatanna to the original team.

Still, I can’t disagree that JLI is a “comic you should own.” Though I think you should take a closer look at JLE- it was a worthy partner to the original series, and actually was quite a bit more serious than its progenitor, which endeared it at the time to some of the fans who felt that JLA had swung too far into bwah-ha-ha territory.

Releasing something in $25 hardcovers with softcovers not coming until a year later is not the best way to get people to buy something.

They really dropped the ball with this one. The TPBs could have been either cheap digests or big doorsteps like the Return of Superman TPB – something like the Essentials, but colour (but just the cheap original colouring to keep it cheap).

I think they could have been huge sellers if they’d kept it cheap like this.

I came to the tittle midway – Adam Hughes’ first issue, he’s still my favorite artist of this bunch.
A co-worker was kind enough to let me borrow her complete run of the series up to that point.
It was a blast to be able to read them back to back, all before the days of having almost (I said almost) everything collected in trade format.

The Despero arc was great. Kirby as the priest at Mr. Miracle’s funeral was a nice touch.

To Mxy:
I had the exact opposite reaction to Templeton’s work, I thought he handled the domestic aspects better than the action, go figure. Actually I didn’t care for his work when I was younger. Looking back I see that it had a charming lightness and “openess” to it that I appreciate much more now.

Yeah, but look at the shoddy paper that DC used even on the HCs. It’s hardly better than the original paper!

I would’ve bought the HCs if they were on better paper, but decided for the softcovers when I saw what I was getting. I’m european, I’m used to see comics printed in good paper. Darnit, when I was a teen in Brazil the JLI comics I bought were printed on cheap paper better than the one DC used at the time (and about the same they use now…). Can’t US comics be printed on better paper than those on third world countries?

Not to try to make this a DC X Marvel thread, but Marvel ALWAYS prints their HCs on quality paper. And costing about the same as DC’s. So there you go.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)