Justice League Coloring Set

F.O.A.M.er Ilke Hincer sent me a link to a Hake's auction for an item I had never seen or heard of before--a 1960s Justice League of America Coloring Set!

Hot on the heels of the Filmation cartoons, there was a brief explosion of JLA-related merchandise, with the Martian Manhunter even getting in on the action, as you can see above. Most of them featured painted portraits of our heroes, which give these items a distinct, almost Norman Rockwell-esque look.

Almost all the images you were meant to color are taken from DC comics at the time, and the group shot is the only one with Aquaman. Still, an amazing item, and I love that eight + years into the Shrine there are still new pieces of Aqua-merch to find. Thanks Ilke!


Post Script: They are putting one of these out in tandem with Batman v Superman, but all the colored pencils are brown. Thank you, I'm outta here!

Convergence: Justice League of America #1

Comics Weekend "Heroes Interrupted" by Fabian Nicieza, Chriscross, and Snakebite (yes, those are the names).

This issue opens up with a welcome sight...the happy couple known as Ralph and Sue Dibney! Now that the dome covering Gotham City has disappeared (see last week's Convergence: Aquaman #1), Ralph's stretching powers have returned and he is once again suiting up as The Elongated Man.

Ralph meets up with the JLA's newest members, Vibe, Vixen, and Steel, and await word about any possible trouble from the team's remaining powerhouse members: namely, Zatanna, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman:

Many heroes who happened to be in Metropolis when the dome went up and now trapped there, making the city safer than Kinshasha, Zaire during The Rumble in the Jungle. Local reporter Cat Grant is doing a TV report on the hero who seems the most out of the place, the Sea King. We learn that Aquaman fought Chemo which, while leading to his (its?) defeat, it also left Metroplois Harbor poisoned, which is about the last thing Aquaman wanted.

Having talked S.T.A.R. Labs into making him a prosthetic hook for a hand, they are about the only people he's now bothering to converse with:

Suddenly there's an explosion across town. Manhunter uses his telepathic skills to determine that it took place at the newly-refitted warehouse that is the current base of the League! The three heroes arrive and start sifting through the rubble to search for their teammates. What they find is a mysterious device that features a red button and a note begging the reader not to touch it. Zatanna can't resist, but not without casting a protection spell first:

The box opens some sort of dimensional portal, and out of it come a team of "heroes" calling themselves The Secret Six. Consisting of alt versions of known metahumans like The Flash, the Joker, Plastic Man, and the Spectre, the SS attacks the GCPD only to be stopped by the rest of the League! To be continued!


I wasn't exactly nostalgic for JLA Detroit, but it's still nice to see Aquaman has a team leader again, if briefly. Writer Nicieza gets in some good bits with Gypsy and Zee, denoting a light touch that the original series could have benefited from at the time. The art is quite attractive too, though the one panel where it looks like Aquaman is wearing big thick rubber-soled boots confused me...

Justice League of America #1 House Ad

The one that started it all! A beautiful ad, with Aquaman taking his rightful place among the leading lights of the DC Comics universe, circa 1960.

Justice League #36 - Jan. 2015

"The Amazo Virus, Chapter One: Quarantined" by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok, and Brad Anderson.

After Aquaman kicking some butt in the last issue of Justice League, I picked up this week's to see what happened next. Unfortunately, as this issue picks up the story, Aquaman is down for the count for the whole thing!

This issue focuses on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Luthor trying to deal with the Amazo virus, and the Sea King never gets off the mat. Oh well. Disappointed to be sure, but nothing new: no matter what DC universe, Aquaman spends a lot of time in a hospital bed:

JLA: Year One #10 - Oct. 1998

"Heaven and Earth" by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Barry Kitson.

Last issue of JLA: Year One ended with the team distrusting the Martian Manhunter, whom they mistakenly thought was in control of some nefarious machine. Stumbling into the situation, it all goes wrong, and suddenly the sky is filled with fire:

Green Lantern and the others accuse J'onn of the being the eighth Apellaxian alien, and working to change the planet's environment to better suit them. But in the middle of the argument, Aquaman is blasted in the back by a small army of armed alien invaders!

J'onn attacks the machine, risking his life by being engulfed in flames, eventually destroying it. The sky of fire dies out, and along with it, the aliens. The JLA realize they've been wrong, but it may be too late: J'onn looks as though he is dying.

The JLA, enraged, follow the Locus soldiers via a teleportation beam back to their HQ. After a few minutes of a pitch battle, however, J'onn recovers and is able to help, but not before Locus' final stroke is enacted: a worldwide tectonic shift that will reconfigure Earth's landmasses and destroy all life!

The Flash, the all-but-official leader of the team, sends Green Lantern into space to try and stop the shift. While Aquaman, Black Canary, and J'onn continue to fight off the aliens, The Flash tries to reverse the program. He eventually does, while J'onn probes the aliens' minds, which trips a "fatal neuroshock", killing them all. It's...over?

A little while later, the team discusses what happened. They are still mad at J'onn for "spying" on them in their civilian lives, but come to realize it's mostly just because they really don't know one another, despite on depending on each other for their lives:

The rest of the team follows suit, but this detente is interrupted by a beaten and bruised Snapper Carr (unfortunately not dead), who tells the JLA that it is his Uncle Simon who is the missing, unknown alien. The Norad Alert goes off, and the JLA see now the scope of the plan:

To be continued!

By design, this issue is more about Martian Manhunter, with Aquaman mostly getting just to punch a bunch of aliens. That being said, writer Waid never forgets to have the Sea King be a major presence in every scene, which is always appreciated!

JLA: Year One #9 - Sept. 1998

"Change the World" by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Barry Kitson.

After Simon Carr wakes up from a dream--a nightmare, really--involving the Apellax aliens, we join The Flash, who is hanging out late at night at the Secret Sanctuary along with Snapper. The Flash is concerned that J'onn J'onnz's "betrayal" of the team will permanently break up the group, but his glum thoughts are interrupted by an emergency, spotted on the news by Snapper. The Flash sends out the JLA signal:

Three similar disturbances have popped up in the North Polar Icecaps, the Mariana Trench, and the California Redwoods. This, of course, necessitates the JLA to break up into groups, leaving the situation in California for later. As they take off, they resolve to worry about their missing teammate later. Seconds later, Snapper sees that J'onn was there all along, using his invisibility.

Flash and Black Canary encounter one of the Locus Agents, who have been promising global armageddon. They destroy the machine he was using to melt the ice caps, and take off for California. After a brief interlude with Vandal Savage, we find the other JLAers underwater:

Back at the Sanctuary, Snapper gets violently by his Uncle--my favorite scene in a JLA comic in a long time. Over in California, the four heroes reunite, and spot--J'onn J'onnz, manning some sort of vast machine!

The JLA act first, think later, and gang up on J'onn. The Flash sets off a fire--using J'onn's main weakness against him. J'onn tries to get a warning to his former teammates out, but they won't listen. The fire grows, because the machine--that J'onn was attempting to turn off--was designed to do just that:

To be continued!

I have to say, it really bothered me to watch the JLAers beat up on J'onn. After reading this characters in this context for so many decades, it just felt so very wrong. On the other end of the spectrum, it was nice to see Aquaman lighten up a bit, and have a laugh at Green Lantern's expense. And any comic that features Snapper Carr's face smashed and bloody is a good one.

Brave and the Bold #30 - July 1960

Comics Weekend "Case of the Stolen Super Powers!" by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, and Bernard Sachs.

It's Adventure Sunday!

The Justice League of America's final "try out" issue of The Brave and the Bold features the introduction of yet another classic villain. Two, actually:

The Flash, on his way to taking on the Mirror Master, finds himself momentarily without his powers! Luckily the strange occurrence only lasts for a few seconds, too fast for anyone else to notice. The same thing happens to Green Lantern, Woman, and, yes, Aquaman:

Wonder Woman is first to encounter Amazo, and she finds herself unable to defeat him. Let's see if the team of Aquaman and Green Lantern are having better luck:

As you might expect, The Flash and Martian Manhunter are defeated as well, leaving all of them to find themselves prisoner of Amazo and his creator, Professor Ivo:

...and so ends another adventure for the Justice League of America!

As you can see from the final page, DC knew when it had a hit on its hands, and immediately promoted the Justice League to their own title. Aquaman's inclusion to the team transformed the character from a dependable, if relatively unremarked, second-stringer to one of the company's top-tier characters. Aqua-History would never be the same!

 

JLA: Year One #6 - June 1998

"Sum of Their Parts" by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Barry Kitson.

Back at Doom Patrol HQ, The Chief is trying to fix the damage the JLA has suffered at that hands of the strange purple creatures and Monsieur Mallah last issue. He jerry-rigs a robotic arm, and asks Green Lantern to try it out, but be careful:

...well, so much for that.

He does the same for Black Canary, Flash, and Martian Manhunter, leaving the League battered but undaunted. They decide to attack the Brotherhood's Power Ring-generated castle by splitting up into teams (of course). We start with Team Orange:

The other teams--consisting of Canary, Manhunter, Elasti-Girl, and Flash, Green Lantern, and Negative Man--each defeat the members of the Brotherhood they encounter, leading to the collapse of the castle.

The Brain, using the body made from JLA parts, attacks, managing to trap most of the heroes in a Power Ring death trap. Off to the side, The Flash and Aquaman come up with Plan B, which relies on the one hero not yet affected by The Brain's plan: Aquaman!

After The Brain is apprehended, the two teams had back to Doom Patrol HQ and the JLA are made whole. The heroes show their admiration for one another, with Green Lantern and Negative Man particularly hitting it off: 

...To be continued!

As you might have guessed, this was my favorite issue of JLA: Year One so far. After Aquaman not getting a whole lot to do, he gets to team up with Robotman, and save the day, ending with the two super-teams fighting for him!

The other thing I like about it is, even though this series was set to run twelve issues, writer Mark Waid didn't feel compelled to write one big story that takes up the whole series: he found room for smaller stories within the bigger series, like this diversion with the Doom Patrol. Instead of padding this team-up out, it can reach a natural conclusion and still have room for something else. In this, case, Superman!