Justice League of America #17-22

Justice League of America #17-22

Originally released in 1963

Written by Gardner Fox

Art by Mike Sekowsky

I had read the first sixteen issues of the silver age Justice League of America a while back, to see what that series was like compared to the Avengers, which came out a few years later.  I wasn't very impressed; most issues follow the same plot (there's some sort of mysterious crime afoot, the League splits up to three teams to try and figure it out, and then they come together, pool their knowledge, and save the day), the League members mostly felt like the same character (you didn't get much of an idea of their personalities from any of the issues), and very few of the villains felt like Justice League level threats. (whereas the Avengers had the Masters of Evil and Kang the Conqueror, the biggest threat to the Justice League of America seemed to be the Justice League of America, given how many times they were hypnotized, brainwashed, had to fight duplicates of themselves...

Issue 17 felt very similar to issue 16, in that the vast majority of the issue sets up a situation where the Justice League are completely outmatched only to reveal that it's an in-universe work of fiction.  In issue 16's case, it was a story that a fan had sent to the League, asking them to figure out a way for them to win, while in issue 17, a sentient space-faring tornado grew to admire the League, created an entire planet that was a duplicate of Earth, and created images of the League members so it could pretend to be the Justice League.

The tornado longs to be good, but its evil side causes havoc on the world and seems to be invincible to anything that the good tornado tries while posing as the League.  The good tornado travels to Earth to create a simulation of the threat that his artificial League went through, and hilariously, the real Justice League solves the problem in one page.

At some point, an android superhero called the Red Tornado joins the Justice League - I'm not sure if this good tornado is piloting the android body, and this is the true form of the Red Tornado, or if the fact that this sentient tornado admires the Justice League and wants to be just like them is just a coincidence and the two have no connection.

Issue 18 gives the spotlight to Snapper Carr, the team's collective sidekick.  Thankfully, he's absent for most of the issue, as the writer's attempt at giving him modern teenage lingo is downright nonsensical to a modern audience (and was likely nonsensical at the time), and can make some of what he's saying difficult to follow.

Once Snapper's saved the day, Green Lantern solves the problem with hilarious ease. (this seems to be a trend) He casually rewrites the atmosphere of the entire planet just by saying that he wills it to happen, which raises a lot of questions like "why didn't he do that as soon as he found out what the problem was?"

Issue 19 has the Justice League exiled from Earth after a group of doppelgangers who are superior to the originals defeat them and cause havoc.  After being exiled, they come to the realization (following the logic of the cinematic classic Air Bud) that while Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. have been exiled from Earth, there ain't no rule saying that Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince, etc. can go back there. (they have Green Lantern create an invisible ship, handily avoiding the question of how nobody sees them arrive)

In order to follow through with this plan, they have to reveal their secret identities to each other, with the exception of Aquaman who doesn't have one.  I thought that this could change the group's dynamic, leading to them becoming friendlier to each other and interacting outside of their costumes, or giving the team's earliest members a bond that later members wouldn't have. (since only Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent know each other's identities before this point, and they seemingly don't know the identities of any of the other members) And then this happens:

The fact that Superman has enough amnesium to seemingly wipe the memories of the entire planet raises so many uncomfortable questions.  These issues have other questionable moments, like Superman being openly sexist towards Wonder Woman. (maybe it was just poorly worded, and over at Marvel, Stan Lee's writing of women wasn't much better in many cases, with Mary Jane being the big exception, but it's still an incredibly uncomfortable piece of writing)

Issue 20 is fairly bland, but issues 21 and 22 seem like a fairly big milestone for DC - the very first Crisis event.  The Flash Of Two Worlds story established Earth-2, home of DC's Golden Age heroes from books published before Barry Allen became the Flash. (Jay Garrick was established to be a work of fiction in Barry's first appearance; The Flash Of Two Worlds established that somehow, the writer of the comic (Gardner Fox) had visions of Earth-2 that he turned into comics)  Crisis On Earth-One and Crisis On Earth-Two (the titles of these two issues) mark the start of a regular meeting between Earth-1's Justice League and Earth-2's Justice Society. (also, I was surprised to see the cover proudly proclaim that the Justice Society is "back after 12 years!" - I figured the gap was longer)

The issue starts with Batman calling the team together in order to deal with a newly formed team of villains calling themselves the Crime Champions.  Chronos, Felix Faust, and Doctor Alchemy are combining their powers of time travel, magic, and the ability to change the molecular structure of anything (including turning lead into gold, or turning a car into a plane) in order to... rob a bank, a single safe from a sunken ocean liner, and an armoured car.  Presumably, they're doing it to prove that they're superior to the League, though at least Doctor Alchemy has the excuse that his powers only last 20 minutes at a time.

On Earth-2, the Justice Society has come together for a similar reason, facing a challenge from the Fiddler (not to be confused with the Riddler), the Wizard, and the Icicle, though at least those three are aiming higher, wanting to complete a trio of million-dollar robberies.

As it turns out, the two trios of villains are working together.  The Earth-2 villains are less impressive in terms of powers, though I find it funny that the Wizard underwent training with Tibetan monks much like Batman (it seems to be a meme that Batman can literally do anything or negate any power and justify it with "thankfully the Tibetan monks trained me for this").  Also, somehow, the Icicle managed to escape from Doctor Fate, who can casually freeze people in time.

Also, the six villains have kidnapped both Flashes to prevent them from interfering or hopping between universes, though they look annoyed at this situation more than anything.  In the meantime, the villains plan to switch Earths, so that they can spend their ill-gotten gains in an Earth where they aren't wanted criminals. (even though the plan is to stay under the radar, they immediately decide to start committing crimes on the Earth where they're laying low while disguised as the criminals who they switched places with)

This definitely feels epic compared to the other Justice League stories of the era, with the amount of characters and the plot being split between two versions of Earth playing a part in that. Between the nine Justice League members, seven Justice Society members, and six villains, the plot is split in many different ways, likely necessitating this story being a two-parter.

Funnily enough, despite all of the build up, the villains are beaten fairly quickly in the second part, with most of the length coming from the amount of villains that need to be dealt with. (They're each beaten in about three pages) The villains plan to escape to Earth-3 before they're caught and stopped. It would later turn out that Earth-3 is home to an evil Justice League, so they would have been right at home.

Going into it without comparing it to where the Avengers comics were at the time seemed to help, though a lot of my big problems still remained. (The Crisis story did feel like a story that would require the entire League) The issues were cheesy but fun, though I wish that more had been done to make the Justice League members feel more like individuals rather than the dialogue feeling like it could apply to any of them.