As you can tell by my other posts, I love hearing what everyone’s favorite stories are. What are you guys’ favorite Justice League comic series and what makes them so great?
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Justice League International was consistently entertaining and featured a great mix of characters. Most issues had some pretty good chuckles which made the serious issues even more so.
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Grant Morrison’s JLA is to this day my favorite run on a series, ever. I never get tired of those stories.
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JLA: New World Order might be my favorite story, but JLI is most consistently my favorite series. I love it right up through Death of Superman (shoot, spoiler) and then it’s on/off but pretty forgettable after Jurgens left. JLA is great for a long time but I’m most fond of JLI.
I know JLofA is the forever classic but I’m personally not a big fan of the Silver Age style. The “Satellite Era” is my favorite run.
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Gardner fox had some good stories but I think was not knowledgeable about the characters. Martian Manhunter could fly, have super breath and maybe super strength. Whenever Superman appeared he brought out the kyrptonite. Favored Flash and Grern Lantern tremendouly.
Artwise their costumes clashed, as they were from diffetent eras. They didn’t look like a team.
Enjoyed it greatly as a pre teen
Denny O’Neil said in the class that i took with him that he hated writing Justice League (and Superman) Reading those stories now, it shows. Did a nice riff on Green Arrow always have the best trick arrow for the occasion. He manually used a similar arrow to blast open a lock.
Len Wein and Steve Egleheart did great work on the original title.
JLA by Morrison followed by Tower of Babel by Wail, great as well
Metzger had a good first arc and had the most diverse members.
The couple of issues of Justice League of America by Geoff Johns with Martian Manhunter, Catwoman Katana Vibe Stargirl Savage Hawkman and Simon Baz was much better than his regular Justice League run. Jeff Lemire was better too, with his Justice League Dark
Jl Rebirth had the best membership with Jessica Simon and Family Man Superman and the worst stories
Synder had the most spectacular stories but I didnt understand it.
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So which is better. Morrison JLA or JLI?
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Griffin JLI was the more inventive and entertaining but JLA by Morrison.was about the real, heroic, crisis solving Justice League.
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Totally different books/styles. Morrison has the Big 7 in epic cosmic fantasy stories while JLI is like a sitcom, which is not a negative comparison. It has lesser known characters but a lot of heart and humor.
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Meltzer league is my personal favorite. It had a great cast, and some really good stories. The main issue with the book for me is that it kind of just fizzled out by Final Crisis.
I read Morrison’s JLA, but I wasn’t really a fan. It was always some kind of invasion, usually alien. That got boring after the first three times. I did really like the one where they went back in time to find Atlantis though.
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Justice League Europe
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The JL/JLI/JLE era of the books was the collective best IMO.
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As long as we agree that the recent Justice/doom storyline by Snyder and others was the absolute worst.
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I’m admittedly a bit of a Snyder apologist so I wouldn’t say worst but I agree it was a huge letdown. I was annoyed with the length of the story that went nowhere, It was bloated and mostly pointless but had some redeeming qualities. I enjoyed the art consistently and come on we got Jarro!
I think JLofA by Hitch was a hot mess. The stories were awful and his art has lost all appeal to me. I at least remember specifics from Snyder’s run but only remember not liking Hitch’s.
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Morrison’s JLA. It is just epic from start to finish
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I have always favored the “satellite” run. It’s where the League really becomes a “league” by adding so many new members (even the Phantom Stranger!). It’s the era of O’Neil, Dillin, Wein, Giordano, Englehart and Perez. This is the era that featured a JLA/JSA/LSH crossover. Come on, it doesn’t get better than that.
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JLA. From Grant Morrison to Mark Waid, and from Mark Millar and Joe Kelly to Chris Claremont, Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns and Bob Harras (DC’s current Editor-in-Chief), there’s not a bad run in the entire series.
Other noteworthy modern Justice League titles:
- Justice League Elite
- Justice League (New 52, 2011)
- Justice League 3000 and 3001
- Justice League (Rebirth, 2016)
I’m also an unabashed fan of Extreme Justice. The writing and art may be a bit clunky at times, but golly that series is FUN.
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Anything JL with Starro as the enemy. Starro is too cool, and under the radar sadly. Could you imagine JL2 movie being about Starro? Also, sometimes I wonder if James Cameron got his idea for Alien from Starro?
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Starro may have indeed been an influence on H.R. Giger’s design for the facehugger.
Not that I’ve seen or read, but it’s possible.
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As for favorite issues
Case of the Stolen Super Powers last tryout in.Brave and Bold
Early Justice Legue Fox story with them in.Fantasy Land.
Exarh X two parter The original Superman against Nazis for a few panels.
Christmas story featuring the key doing “ten little indians” to Superman Batman Green Arrow Black Canary Red Tornado and John Stewart Green Lantern ina death trap where one by one they give up their life for the remaing team membets
The JLA JSA and New Cods team up. Helena Wayne calls our Batman uncle Bruce. Also features a young kid as Red Sonja
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JLI, definitely, with Waid’s JLA (and only Waid’s - I’ll never understand why people think Morrison’s run is even good at all, let alone the best) a close second.
Filling the League with second-stringers and turning it into a comedy series was a strange idea and it worked beautifully. For all the silliness, or rather because of the silliness, Giffen and DeMatteis’ JL/JLI/JLA was the first series that made the League really feel like people with proper character arcs and interpersonal dynamics. You get know them much better than most runs. Personally, I can’t stand Dan Jurgens’ run (which loses the sense of humor in favor of “Superman is the bestest superhero forever and you should all love him and the other characters aren’t fit to lick his boots”) and what little I’ve been able to read of Dan Vado’s stuff seems mostly all right but not super interesting. Also haven’t read any of Gerard Jones’ stuff, obviously, so no comment.
As for JLA, Morrison picked out a fantastic lineup (though I’m biased; I like any team with Oracle on it) and then never did anything with them. Well, other than an endless string of generic, high-spectacle alien invasion plots. And Prometheus is the most infuriating villain ever. He’s like a little kid who doesn’t know how to play a game but can’t stand losing, so he keeps changing the rules (i.e. pulling some nonsensical technobabble gadget out of his rear that lets him win). He also completely wastes Wade Eiling, who was awesome in Cary Bates and Greg Weisman’s Captain Atom run and deserved more exposure. Just… not like this.
Waid’s run gutted the roster, which was a bit of a waste, but the plots were actually far more varied. Tower of Babel precipitated a lot of really ill-advised characterization for Batman, but at the time it was a clever idea and set up some interesting drama. Again, seeing the League as people and not walking powersets that dispense one-liners.
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