The JLA (vol. 1)'s cancellation in 1987

[tilleycs]

I recently read Justice League of America (vol. 1) #s 201-261 (whew!), and was curious if anyone knew the circumstances/plan behind them canceling the book back then. I was still collecting comics back then, but I'd stopped collecting the JLA with #200 (a definite high point for that book), picked it up again with #211, and then quit for good after #225.

 

I wonder how far in advance they'd planned the book's cancellation, and what led up to it. Aquaman broke up the old JLA in annual #2 and sent the heavy hitters packing. I always wondered why in the world they did that. If the book was eventually canceled due to poor sales, they set themselves up for it by getting rid of the big guns and bringing in 4 new characters - 3 of which had just been created and had ZERO history/development, and one of them (Gypsy) barely had any powers. Batman eventually came back, but it may have been "too little too late".

 

My first reaction was that it was one of the dumbest moves in the history of comicdom to break up the old league and bring in a bunch of 5th-tier characters (two of whom they killed near the end of the title, and they sent another home to be with her family); it was an insult to the history of the league. But the stories aren't horrible; at least the new characters knew how green they were and how out of their, uh, league they were compared to the JLA of old. But still. The fanboy in me says that they had no business calling it the JLA once they added those losers.

 

I was surprised (from the letters pages) at how many people just gushed over the new members they'd added. Of course, there were plenty of long-term fans who gave them tons of grief (I probably would have been one of them). Even the characters in the stories reacted to negative criticism from "the media" (maybe to give the writers a "voice" to address all the grumblers?).

 

I know they replaced it with "Justice League" the month after it was canceled, which (from what I understand; I've never read that title) took a different approach and attempted to be more humorous than the JLA traditionally was. I guess they just wanted to start over with a sort-of relaunch?

 

Were any of you guys reading the JLA back then? What were your thoughts from month to month? I know that reading things from this end of things (knowing that it would be canceled) is different from following it month-to-month while it's going on.

[Foolkiller]

I started reading Justice League at the time that it came out as the relaunched Justice League by Giffen, DeMatteis and McGuire (the team that brought you Formerly Known as the Justice League and will be doing a new Defenders series soon), but enjoying the new Justice League than the Lame-o version I had read that fought Despero towards the end.

 

But, Justice League wasn't really all that great a book for quite some time. The stuff that Perez did was pretty good, and some of the Dillin drawn books were ok, but overall, the editors were probably right about Justice League needing a slightly different version.

 

Like every other book, it just need a major shake up. The Avengers has periodically done the same thing from time to time -- you could almost say the same thing about the move Stan made in changing the Avengers roster in 16... or the moves made around 300 when he brought in Reed and Sue Richards, Gilgamesh (who?), and brought back Thor and Cap as the only stalwarts.

 

Then of course, they really hit their stride when Morrison and Porter went on the book and kicked a** with the classic characters in huge stories.

[justiceleaguer]

I didn't start reading the series until it was long over, i was only 11 when it ended. I have since read the majority of the 261 issues and can honestly agree that the last 61 were not their finest. I personally believe that in any team based book you need to constantly shake the roster up to keep the book fresh, however, in the process you may certainly lose the majority of the core audience. That sense of losing familiarity with the characters combined with the weak storytelling definitely spelled the end for this series.

[sborock]

"was curious if anyone knew the circumstances/plan behind them canceling the book back then"

 

VIBE!

[justiceleaguer]

"was curious if anyone knew the circumstances/plan behind them canceling the book back then"

 

VIBE!

 

....... .......

[helionaut]

I remember I stopped reading is as soon as I saw one of the characters using words like "whack" and "chill" and shooting his vibration powers out of his elbow. Not even Stan Lee could use fake hip-speak as painfully as that.

[JLA_ALL_THE_WAY]

Yeah, the tail end of the series was sucking something fierce, but in retro-spect it was all planned out. The series post-crisis wasn't doing well, so...let's throw out a mini-series and call it "Legends" that will pretty much end JLA at a historically popular #...261 !!

There were obvious bulls-eyes on the foreheads of every new member since their debut. And as far as I'm concerned, Aquaman should have been marked for death as well (not to mention the so-called writers/artists at the series' end).

But on the bright side , Vibe & Steel both suffered a horribly painful demise, though I'm sure they welcomed the sweet embrace of death, as slow & agonizing as it was.

 

Well, off to work!

 

Rick

[uclapeterg]

Legends

[Silver]

Foolkiller,

 

I know this is

 

but the Natural is one of my favorite movies.

[Aman619]

It was cancelled because it was unreadable and badly drawn.

the new cast came about as a desperate move to shake things up with new kids, (like Teen Titans??)

it failed.

end of 20+ year run

I dont think moe an a few diehard JLA fans even noticed or cared.

Adventure was cancelled too after a 40+ year run.

Action was almost cancelled until they did the Weekly experiment...

 

These comics were never supposed to run forever. By coincidence,I just got a laugh looking at the cover of JLA#21, the return of the Justice Society!! They were dead and cancelled a looong time before that issue and here was their long awaited (by some) big return after a lifetime out of publication.

 

And the cover blurb says "Back again after 12 years!" 12 years !!?? Thats all? Cripes, in today's comics industry, 12 years is nothing. (Image started more than 12 years ago) Back then, all of comics history was a mere 20 years of stories... and thats now 45 years ago!

 

wow.

[tilleycs]

Yeah, the tail end of the series was sucking something fierce, but in retro-spect it was all planned out. The series post-crisis wasn't doing well, so...let's throw out a mini-series and call it "Legends" that will pretty much end JLA at a historically popular #...261!!

 

I agree, it seems weird to cancel a book at 261, but they had to know that things were headed downhill and possibly/probably headed toward cancellation. If they DID want to keep the book around, I wonder why they didn't do more to try to correct it. Bring more of the heavy hitters back and have an "old vs. new" storyline. Don't just let it die. That's what makes me wonder if they just WANTED it to run its course so they could start the "Justice League" title.

 

I agree that with team books, you have to shake things up with new members. That's what kept the JLA book itself interesting in the past, and book likes the Avengers. I don't think relaunches are ever really necessary for team books. Just rotate some old members out and some new ones in.

 

And I agree about Vibe. Him being there means that someone thought (and was able to convince other people on staff) that it would be a GREAT idea to add a Puerto Rican break dancer to the JLA. Oy vey. Sometimes trying to anchor something in the times (like the fad of breakdancing) prevents it from ever becoming timeLESS. Not always, but sometimes.

[Zonker]

The JLA Detroit was the Platonic ideal of poorly-conceived comics revamps!

 

In the first place, Gerry Conway stayed on the book about 100 issues too long. When they first tried the revamp, DC was no doubt trying to recapture the formula of the New X-Men and the New Teen Titans: take some established characters, create a few new ones with some superficial diversity, and away you go. I also think they believed by focusing on characters that didn't appear anywhere else they could tell stories without worrying about continuity clashes. But man, what a train wreck.

 

Then when it was obvious the book was going nowhere, they wrapped it up in the big Crisis on Infinite Earths purge. The original idea was that all the DC books would start over with #1 (Can you imagine Action Comics #1 from 1986? ) So just as Wonder Woman, the Flash and Superman got re-booted, so too did JLA as Justice League (International). Initially, I'm not even sure there was supposed to have been a predecessor League in post-Crisis continuity, but later they did retcon the earlier League, with Black Canary standing in for each of the historical Wonder Woman appearances so that WW would remain "fresh."

 

I'm not much of a fan of the late-80s JLI. Maybe that's why I like the Countdown to Infinite Crisis storyline: DC wants to ret-con the ret-con? Bring it on!

[shadroch]

I've thought long and hard to come up with something nice to say about the revamped'Detroit' JLa and about all I could come up with is that they were at least better than the original Outsiders team that Batman put together. Remember DC canceled Brave and the Bold to put that lemon out.Adventure died a slow painful death,reduced in the end to an experimental digest size,and Action went to a weekly book with a Superman centerfold each week.The Flash went on trial for murder in the most drawn out arc ever before kicking the Cosmic treadmill. Green Lantern was canceled,as well, after a relaunch as the GL Corps failed to catch on

Believe it or not,sales of the JLA picked up at first with the new team.The younger readers didn't care for Supey,Bats and the original

Flash as portrayed back then.Vibe might not have been a hit in middle-America but he had a small following amongst the Latinos and the B-Boys in NYC.I suppose Gypsy might have had some support from the bag-ladies and Madonna wannabes as well.

[tilleycs]

Action went to a weekly book with a Superman centerfold each week.

 

I read all the "Action Comics Weekly" issues last year for the GL stories. The only things I can remember about them is that the art (in the GL stories, at least) was horrible, and that Star Sapphire killed Katma Tui (John Stewart's wife). Every issue of ACW was (I think) 64 pages, but they were trying to cram so many different characters into it that, minus the advertising, each character got what, 8 pages at the most? There was no chance to develop or advance any kind of storyline, and 8 pages of bad GL art wouldn't have been worth the price to have to pay for all the other "dead weight" every week. No wonder it bombed.

 

Green Lantern was canceled,as well, after a relaunch as the GL Corps failed to catch on

 

My kneejerk reaction to renaming GL's book "The GL Corps" was the same as changing the JLA - I hated it. And you're right, it didn't last very long. But I recently read the run of GLC (#s 201-224), and it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I assumed it was going to be a directionless mess, but it held my attention (thanks mostly to Kilowog).

[jordanscott]

I'm a die hard original JLA guy...and even I can't say anything good about the revamped team at the end except that now that I'm rebuidling my colletion, they're dirt cheap in great condition whenever I find them.

 

The stories were cheesy, the characters were head cheesy and the biggest boost that run got was when they brought back the originals to root out the life leach in the old HQ.

 

All that said....it was still better than the first couple yrs of the JL(I) series with Max Lord and BG and BB as main players. I mean, the writing on that was just [#@$%!!!]. I don't know if they were deliberately trying to put together a comic relief book, but that's what it seemed to be and some of the characters...L'Ron...ugh...

[shadroch]

I was never a big Booster Gold or Blue Beetle fan,but I enjoyed their work in the new JLA.

Playing off of them,Jonn Jonzz became almost likeable,to me anyways.Guy Gardner,Rocket Red(?) and a few of the other second tier heroes made it quite enjoyable.

[Aman619]

I read all the "Action Comics Weekly" issues last year for the GL stories..... Every issue of ACW was (I think) 64 pages, but they were trying to cram so many different characters into it that, minus the advertising, each character got what, 8 pages at the most? There was no chance to develop or advance any kind of storyline, and 8 pages of bad GL art wouldn't have been worth the price to have to pay for all the other "dead weight" every week. No wonder it bombed.

 

well, ironically if I remember correctly, that was the who;e point of ACW - - to get back to the tightly plotted and scripted antholgy books with 8 page stories of the GA snd SA, because the current vogue of expanding plots and dialogue etc into multi issue sagas was being blamed for a lack of excitement in th estories. Every story was taking too long to be told because it COULD be 24 pages long for 8 pages of story.

 

So DC tried to go back to their roots...and failed, proving you just cant go home again.

[shadroch]

Action weekly was an interesting experiment.

Its sales were not all that bad,in the same range as the previous monthly incarnation.People might make the assumption that it failed since it only lasted about nine months,but it is important to know that when John Bryne took over the Superman line,he insisted it be a monthly book devoted to Supes.Yes,the sales of the newer monthly issues dwarfed the weekly books but that was because of Bryne.

The purpose of the experiment was to see if

sales would stay close enough to previous sales so that the reduced profit each of 52 issues recieved would be greater than the 12 issues of a regular book. In this case,it went unanswered.

The reintroduction of the Secret Six and the Sunday newpaper-like Superman story were pretty kool,but on a whole I didn't care for the book. Interesting concept,poor execution. Typical of DC at the time.

[uclapeterg]

I stopped collecting Action after Byrne left.

 

Action weekly was more like the Action comics of old, no? They wouldn't be 100% Superman stories, right? Did they ever go to 100% Superman stories?

 

for being ignorant.

[tilleycs]

well, ironically if I remember correctly, that was the who;e point of ACW - - to get back to the tightly plotted and scripted antholgy books with 8 page stories of the GA snd SA, because the current vogue of expanding plots and dialogue etc into multi issue sagas was being blamed for a lack of excitement in th estories. Every story was taking too long to be told because it COULD be 24 pages long for 8 pages of story.

 

So DC tried to go back to their roots...and failed, proving you just cant go home again.

 

To me it's more an issue of the story & art being either good or bad, regardless of the length. Give me a compelling 3-part story over 8 pages of useless dreck any day. I don't like people taking 24 pages to do what could be done in 8 pages, either, but that doesn't mean that they have to scrap the remaining pages if you can boil it down to 8 pages. Just add to the story!

 

I'm sure they were hoping to "rope in" fans of one character or another and make them buy the entire mag, but I wonder how many people were fans of Superman, Green Lantern, Deadman, Wild Dog, Blackhawk, and The Secret Six. If I have to buy a comic that has five characters/teams I don't collect, you'd better make darn sure that the stories of the character that I DO collect is great, or you won't be keeping me as a reader. Evidently they didn't.

 

Oh, and I checked - they were 52 pages, not 64.