The Greatest Stories Ever Told

I recently celebrated my 50th birthday. As such, I decided to send for this book as a sort of reminder of my past. I was an avid comic book reader, and had even aspired to being a writer because of my love for the medium. I thoroughly enjoyed Justice League of America: The Greatest Stories Ever Told. I have to say that it was a bit of a shock to realize that most of these stories were still familiar to me. I would highly recommend this book and only gave it four stars because a few stories were missing which I felt could have qualified. I hope anyone who gets this book will enjoy it with the same enthusiasm I did; though being 50 years old is not a prerequisite. Chiao

Anything called the `greatest' is always going to be subjective and open for debate. At first glance at "The Greatest JLA Stories Ever Told" seems a bit slight to hold such a lofty title. After all, were talking about a title that has been around for nearly fifty years. I'm not sure if these are truly the best stories ever featuring the Justice league of America, rather it seems that the editors basically wanted to provide a sampling of stories from different eras. This volume stories from: Justice League of America #19 1963 Justice League of America #77 1969 Justice League of America #122 1975 Justice League of America #166 - 168 1979 Justice League #1 1987 JLA Secret Files #1 1997 JLA # 61 2002 We can see with these stories that the editors have made a concerted effort to cull stories from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and 2000's. And in all fairness, these are some solid stories for the most part. In JLA # 19, Doctor Destiny uses the dreams of the members to create super versions of the team that commit crimes. The JLA gets blamed and goes into self-imposed exile off Earth to try and figure out how to defeat their duplicates. This is by far the weakest story in the book. Gardner Fox's script is clumsy, even for the early 1960's. At one point Doctor Destiny goes into one of those villainous monologues (alone in his jail cell I might add) and uses the word "wicked" four times in the space of a couple of panels. Add to that, I always found Mike Sekowsky's art to be very blocky and unattractive. In JLA #77 the league is betrayed by their mascot Snapper Carr who turns over secret knowledge to a man called John Dough who is leading a sort of religious quest to rid the world of superheroes. Interesting to note is that this story features a Black Canary who has just joined the team and doesn't yet know how to control her sonic scream powers. Story and art by Denny O'Neil and Dick Dillin. JLA #122 is called "Great Identity Crisis" and rather ironic considering the events at DC over the past year. In this story, which, coincidently Dr. Light figures prominently in, the league members reveal all of their identities to each other to avoid problems in the future. How prophetic is that! Story and art by Marty Pasko and Dick Dillin. JLA # 166 - 168 is a three part storyline featuring the Secret Society of Super Villains who use a magical artifact to switch bodies with the league and then imprison the JLA into a stasis cube. Some nice interplay between the characters in this tale. Story and art By Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin. Justice League #1 was the Keith Giffen revamp that went for a good deal of comedy and slapstick...usually at the expense of Guy Gardner and Blue Beetle. In the first issue, Gardner is being his usual loudmouth self and starts a fight with several of the new members until Batman puts him in his place. That is still a classic scene! Kevin Maguire handled the art. JLA Secrect Files #1 is a modern retelling of the