Ancient History #2
Justice League of America v1 #65
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Title: Justice League of America v1 #65: T.O.Morrow kills the justice league-today! Writer: Gardner Fox
Art: Dick Dillin and Sid Greene
Publication Date: Sept 1968
Publisher: DC Comics
What You Need to Know:
Know them, you love them, THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA! America’s favorite superhero team consists of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Hawkman, The Atom and Hawkman! Together they fight an evil and cowardly lot of truth, justice, and the American way!
What You’ll Find Out:
We open on a meeting of the Justice League of America before they can say what they’re meeting for (details…) half a dozen of their significant others walk in, kissing their respective spouses, who instantly drop dead! The spouses fade away into nothingness…
Suddenly Green Lantern picks up a transmission, a voice says he took out all but 5 members of the League in order to have an unobstructed view of the leagues’ destruction! Still standing is superman, batman, flash, green arrow and green lantern, the voice also reveals he has released a horde of monsters headed towards the league’s location.
The monsters attack the league, each geared towards a specific leaguers weakness, kryptonite teeth for Superman, a yellow griffin for Green Lantern (remember when that was a thing?!) and a slightly stronger than the normal guy for Batman and green arrow!
The league battles the monsters, finally managing to get the best of them, as they defeat the monsters they fade away same as the spouses before! As the leaguers return they find the culprit in the JLA trophy room, T.O. Morrow!
Suddenly all the trophies come to life, Starro, Super Duper (the machine menace! Remember him? ME NEITHER!) A Diamond creature wielding a bell owned by Felix Faust, and Amazo!!! The league is heavily outgunned and falls one by one, none survive!
Next, we cut to earth 2 (ugh remember when that was a thing? Glad we cleared all that up 3 crisis later. HA!) Where red tornado is waking from a similar attack on the JSA, he then… spins? that can’t be, right? no, yeah he spins between dimensions (soooo glad things are simplified now, HA again!) and finds the League dead in their trophy room. He theorizes if he reverses the energy in T.O. Morrow’s energy weapon he can bring them back to life. Conveniently he finds a rack of such weapons in the trophy room and begins reviving the league.
The revived league tracks T.O. Morrow to earth 2 and red tornado spins them over there and they overcome Morrow with their increased numbers, the day is saved again!!
What Just Happened?
Plot:
The golden age was a funny time, and this is a funny issue, Batman cracks jokes, but he also dies a grisly death, a strange combo. The one and done nature of plots of the day required the issue to be wrapped in a way that seemed overly easily resolved, although this issue is significantly more complex than Marvel comics of the era, and holds up well to the test of time.
Art:
The Art in this issue, particularly the fight scenes, is really well done, I particularly enjoyed the fight scene in the trophy room. Honorable mention: the scene of the trophy room with Morrow triumphant is particularly good the perspective is used well and the detail is excellent.
Rating: 8/10
Final Thought:
This justice league story, although a bit quick, holds up well 50 years later, a good example of a great series.
