Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!
Today we look at Len Wein and Dick Dillin's Justice League of America...
Enjoy!
Len Wein had a relatively short run on Justice League of America (partnered with longtime JLA artist Dick Dillin), fifteen issues in total from #100-114, but boy did he do a lot in those fifteen issues (also, since the book went bi-monthly shortly into his run, he was on the book for more than two years)!
He opened up with a bang with a tremendously fun storyline involving the League teaming up with the Justice Society of America AND the Seven Soldiers of Victory, a team that had not been used in DC Comics since the end of World War II (the run began in 1972)!!!
It was a great adventure, and it was especially cool seeing all these mostly unused characters be used again. Wein really put DC's library of character to great use.
On that same note, the following issue featured a great guest-star that Wein was quite familiar with (having written a number of his stories), the Phantom Stranger!
Check out his awesome introduction...
Man, Dillin NAILED that, didn't he?
The following issue was a fun action issue with the League taking on the Shaggy Man.
Next, we saw how Wein was also putting his mark on the Justice League by adding, in back to back issues, no less, TWO new members of the team (theorizing, correctly, that it really didn't make much sense NOT to have these characters be members)...
First the Elongated Man...
then Red Tornado...
It was at this same time that Wein introduced both the John Smith persona for Red Tornado AND Smith's love interest...
So we're just seven issues in and Wein has already brought back the Seven Soldiers of Victory, added two members to the team AND invented John Smith and his girlfriend, Kathy!
He then followed by introducing the Quality superheroes to the DC Universe...
in a cool storyline that involved the Justice League traveling to Earth X, the world where the Nazis won World War II!
Check out this cool page by Dillin featuring Batman scaring some Nazis...
Wein continued to shake things up by having Hawkman leave...
Look how DRAMATIC everything is!
This was really noteworthy adventure comics right here.
Speaking of dramatic, Wein mixed drama with a great sense of humor for the next issue...
It was a really whimsical tale that holds up really well today.
Finally, in his last really amazing issue, Justice League of America #111, Wein introduced Libra, in a story so cool that it influenced Grant Morrison decades later...
The last three issues of the run aren't BAD, but #100-111 measure up nicely with the best JLA runs of all-time (a few of which will be featured this year)!