Justice League of America, Volume 1

by Gardner F. Fox

Book Overview

Written by Gardner Fox Art by Mike Sekowsky, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson and Bernard SachsCover by Anderson The newest installment in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS collection spotlights the JLA In... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1401207618
• ISBN13: 9781401207618
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: DC Comics
• Length: 540 Pages
• Weight: 1.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.9" x 10.1"
• Age Range: 11 to 15 years
• Grade Range: Grades 6 to 10

Customer Reviews

JLA Forever

The Showcase Presents line is letting me have a second childhood and I'm loving every page, even in B & W. Years ago I had every issue in this collection. I started buying JLA new with issue #19, and started my time as a serious collector soon after. I always felt Sekowsky was the perfect JLA artist while my favorite artist, bar none, was Infantino. When Sekowsky's run on JLA was done it was hard for me to keep my interest in the series. By the time I was in the 10th grade had I found the three Brave and Bold issues plus JLA 1-18 for a nickle each in a used book store. The lady who owned the store knew comic collecting was starting to take off because of The Batman TV show but she continued to sell used comics at half their original cover price, and she usually let me have first crack at them. Years later I let most of my collection go and even if I had them all today I doubt I would ever take them out of their bags. The Archive series is nice but I'm tired of collecting things and tired of finding places to put them. When I finish my Showcase Presents books I think I'll just give them to a grandson or sell them on ebay, or toss them. If nothing else, the price of these is hard to beat.

Cheese-tastic greatness

My God, DC silver age comics were goofy. If you LOVE the Superfriends, then this is for you. I mean, if you love the fact that every villain in the universe had some Krytonite, some yellow lasers to zap Green Lantern with, and a Bic lighter to get Martian Manhunter- then this is AWESOME! The stories are so absurd that you have to suspend all disbelief and just enjoy the comedy of it. This is not for people who want a serious story, this is for heroes who are so stupid they are trapped by the most insane devices. This is about villains who are mega-whacky. This stuff is just FUN, FUN, FUN.

THE START OF DC'S GREATEST SUPER TEAM

As I began to read Showcase Presents the Justice League of America I soon quickly came to the startled realization that in my thirty plus years as a comic fan, I had never read the first appearance by the JLA in Brave & The Bold #28. This came as a surprise as I had read, in some form or another, the first appearance of just about every major superhero or team: Superman, Batman, The Avengers, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, etc..., but never the Justice League. It came to me that growing up I had read many of these DC first appearances in those old, oversized, Famous First editions, and read many of the Marvel first appearances in Origins of Marvel Comics collections. But somehow I missed on the Justice League. Thankfully DC continues to produce these affordable and jam-packed Showcase editions. With over 500 pages, this book collects Brave & the Bold # 28 - 30, Justice League of America # 1 - 16, and Mystery in Space # 75, the formative years of DCs greatest super team. All of the stories in this book were written by Gardner Fox with art by Murphy Anderson, Mike Sekowsky, and Carmine Infantio, all with great Anderson covers. Murphy Anderson was as much the artistic face of DC comics in the 1960's as Kack Kirby was at Marvel in the same period. Interestingly, in Brave & the Bold #28, we get virtually no origin at all. In fact the league is already established with members The Flash, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Superman, and Batman. It's obvious they've already worked together as they have communication devices to signal each other when needed, which Aquaman does when he discovers the threat of Starro the Conqueror, a giant, intelligent starfish from space. Only Superman fails to answer the call as he is deep in outer space battling a meteor swarm. Then in Brave & the Bold #29, the team goes up against the Weapons Master Yotar from the year 11960 who travels back in time with his futuristic weapons to destroy the JLA. In Brave & Bold #30, professor Ivo creates the synthetic humanoid known as Amazo who has the power to steal the powers of the heroes. Superman would see his first action in Justice League of America #1 as the team would meet for the first time one of their greatest enemies, the tyrant Despero from the planet Kalanor. Other long time JLA villains also make their early appearances in this volume including Doctor Light (the lighting rod for the Infinite Crisis storyline) and Felix Faust. Green Arrow would gain membership into the team in issue #4 and the Atom would join in issue #14. One of the very first issues of the title I remember seeing and reading was #7. This one has the famous funhouse mirror cover with distorted images of the team including the hefty Wonder Woman which I always got a kick out of. By today's standards the stories may seem a bit simplistic and they are but this was, after all, the very early 60's, pre-Beatles and Viet Nam and it was a simpler time. The ru

DC atlast releases it's own *Essentials* line

These *Showcase* tpb are an excellent addition to any comic book fans library. They're much along the lines of Marvel's *Essential* books. Affordable & collecting a plethora of material from the golden age era of super heroes. These are enough to catch up on & learn about all that has come before. Some people have complained they hate the black & white but honestly, I think it makes the artwork look alot better & brings to mind the indie comics scene from back in the day. The lack of the original coloring in no way takes away from the superb storytelling. Hopefully DC puts out collected books from The Doom Patrol, The Demon, Teen Titans, etc.