The first time I saw the Justice League of America I was 5 years old, at a newsstand in the spring of 1960, looking at the cover of Brave and the Bold 29.
This second appearance of the team was a first for me in several ways — the first time I saw a number of soon-to-be iconic superheroes, and the first time I was introduced to the thrilling concept of a superhero team. I’d missed their first, instantly sold-out appearance.
The Martian Manhunter I recognized from the first issue of Detective Comics I’d purchased, number 277, two months before. I considered him to be kind of a Superman, but green.
I probably also recognized Aquaman from his back-up features in Superman family magazines. But the thrilling, brightly colored figures of the Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman were delightfully new to me, and I lost no time in running them down.
Brave and the Bold 29, cover-dated May 1960, was on the newsstands in March. By April 1960, I’d be buying my first issue of The Flash. My first Wonder Woman followed in May, then Green Lantern in September.
As if five cover-featured superheroes weren’t enough, the issue also offered some of the attractions that could be seen in DC’s sleek science fiction titles like Strange Adventures — multicolored interstellar dinosaurs and, joy of joys, a giant yellow robot with a futuristic criminal inside his glass tummy cockpit.
The fact that the robot also seemed to have a ray gun for a penis is something of which I was not consciously aware.
I would have been thrilled beyond containment if I had known that this team was a space-age iteration of one from the Dark Ages of the 1940s, the Justice Society of America, and that even this cover idea had been used before by the earlier team.
To a child of 5, a decade ago might as well be a time when dinosaurs roamed the planet.
Tom Pica wrote: I must honestly say I never thought of the robot's ray gun turret as a penis. Otherwise, I share your enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteMark Engblom wrote: With DC Comics operating their editorial offices almost like autonomous *countries*, there were almost no crossovers (with the exception of Superman, Batman & Robin in "World's Finest) or any real sense of a shared universe (long before such a term became common). So I can only imagine the utter SHOCK that era's young readers experienced seeing DC's disparate heroes not only participating in the same story, but becoming *teammates* as well!
ReplyDeleteIt was the first of a spectacular one-two punch (the second being the "Flash of Two Worlds" mind-blower in 1961) that cemented DC as a place where heroic friendships could transcend both the jealous strictures of fiercely competitive editors and, with the revival of the JSA, the formidable barrier of dimensions and decades.
Paul Zuckerman said: You were a few years younger than me (well, you still are! :)) but you got to start with the JLA one issue before I did. I was almost eight, and it was B&B 30 that blew me away.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that I read it right off the newsstand though. I recall that my copy was missing a couple of pages of the Wonder Woman chapter--which implies that I had gotten it from somewhere, maybe borrowing it from my friend's older brother Ben. He had a stack of comics and we would lend each other books.
I had been reading Superman and Batman forever by then. So, I was also familiar with Aquaman and J'onn J'onzz from the anthology books that they headlined. I had already discovered Flash--probably from Ben; certainly it was the case for Adam Strange, because Ben had his first Showcase issue, which I remember reading.
I don't know about Wonder Woman. I don't recall being new to her, but I also don't find any of the issues that were out at that time to be familiar. I know that I wouldn't have known GL, because I missed all three of the Showcase issues and GL 1 had not yet come out yet (which I bought new off the newsstand.)
I WAS there when JLA 1 came out a few months later at the end of the summer. There was a full page ad in an issue of Superboy. I was fixated on that ad on my trip home that summer from the mountains back to Brooklyn!
B&B 30 made mention of the JSA in the letter column. That intrigued me as did the many references in subsequent letter columns. I was more than primed for Flash 123 a year later!
I was disappointed that my two favorite heroes, Superman and Batman got short shrift. I always wanted them to beef up their roles. Until, years later when they did and they took over the book--then I wished their role was reduced, especially doing the Batmania craze!
I didn't know Snapper Carr but I was one of the readers who actually liked the kid and wanted him to help out more often, and I was happy the few times he made the cover!
The Silver Age had begun but we didn't realize it--we just knew that there was great stuff coming out and a new world was being created before us!
Bob Blanton said: What a great time to start reading comics, in the 60s. There were a lot of social changes happening in the coming years that would make reading “funny books” a great way to escape from the world. It would be the mid 70s before I started reading (10 years old), and much later before I was able to see the cover w/ the team taking on Starro. I loved the idea of a big starfish taking on amazing superheroes.
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