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Topic: Your 5 Favourite Justice League Writers and Artists Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 8:34am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Who do you rate in your Top 5 for writing and art for the Justice League?

Mine:

Writers:

Gardner Fox
Gerry Conway
Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Steve Englehart
Dwayne McDuffie

Artists:

Dick Dillin
George Perez
Kevin Maguire
Dan Jurgens
Mike Sekowsky
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 8:52am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Let's see... I go pretty old school, so I'll start that way.

Gardner Fox
Steve Englehart
Dwayne McDuffie
E. Nelson Bridwell
Grant Morrison

Dick Dillin
George Perez
Mike Sekowsky
Howard Porter
Ramona Fradon

I'm including in SuperFriends, certainly. And since there was no comment about honorable mention... Kurt Schaffenberger BARELY missed the list, due to his infrequency of art in SuperFriends. Tomorrow, he might be on the list, and Howard Porter might be just a'hint the door. I'm SO fickle... ;)

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John Byrne
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 9:16am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Surprised to realize how small an impact the JLA has had on me. As a kid—9, 10–I followed the title as well as I could, given the rotten distribution in my part of Canada, but I can’t say I was a huge fan. I preferred solo stories for those characters.
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 9:26am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Eric, I tend to go old school as well with only Giffen, DeMatteis, Maguire and Jurgens making it form the title re-launches over the last 30 years or so.

Dwayne McDuffie's run should have been great if it hadn't of been compromised and undermined further down the road. His "Injustice League" and "Salvation" stories are up there with some of the best.

We can't over look the great work he did on the Justice League animated series either.
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 9:31am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Surprised to realize how small an impact the JLA has had on me. As a kid—9, 10–I followed the title as well as I could, given the rotten distribution in my part of Canada, but I can’t say I was a huge fan. I preferred solo stories for those characters.

=======================================================

Looking over your work, I can really only see the Justice League (in one form or another) figuring in with these works:

Legends 1 - 6
JLA (1997) 94 - 99
JLA Classified 50 - 54
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 9:46am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Wow--for a book I've sort of loved all my life (at least in theory), I'm hard-pressed to answer this!

Writers
1. Steve Englehart--I loved his ten or so issues so much, everything else pales by comparison.
2. Len Wein--I am reminded how brilliant his introduction of the Freedom Fighters in that year's JLA/JSA team-up was, and also I enjoyed the random issues of his around that.  (I starting reading a couple of years later and my collecting of JLA back issues remains spotty to this day!  I really look forward seeing some nice collections of that period some day soon.)
3. Cary Bates & Elliot S. Maggin--That was my era, warts and all.
4. Denny O'Neil--He did some important stuff during his run...just bringing in Black Canary alone earns him my vote.
5. Gardner Fox--Of course!

Artists
1. Dick Dillin!!!!!
2. George Perez!!
3. Rich Buckler--Loved his covers and he did enough interior work to get a vote.
4. Neal Adams--Just based on his covers (though he did a little interior work too), some of which are classics!
5. Alex Ross---He's done enough.


Edited by Eric Jansen on 15 July 2019 at 9:47am
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Adam Schulman
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 11:57am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I love the JLA as a concept but over the past 60 years I think most JLA (or JLI, or just JL) writing has been..."meh." I admit that I haven't read enough of the Len Wein or Steve Englehart stories to have an opinion on them.

From what I have read:

1) Grant Morrison
2) Scott Snyder
3) Geoff Johns (despite him being trapped in The New 52)

I'd add Dwayne McDuffie if DC editorial hadn't gotten in his way. His Justice League Unlimited cartoon writing is superb.

That's about it, really. The Giffen/DeMatteis stuff hasn't aged well, and Dan Jurgens hadn't become a very good writer yet. Gerry Conway introduced the very boring (sometimes embarrassing) Detroit JLA.

Gardner Fox wrote characters made out of cardboard and some very illogical plots. The Denny O'Neil of JLA wasn't yet the Denny O'Neil of BATMAN -- though I give him credit for making Green Arrow something other than a boring Batman clone (Arrowcar, Arrowplane, etc.).

Artists:

1) George Perez
2) Kevin Maguire
3) Alan Davis
4) Howard Porter
5) Ivan Reis


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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Gerry Conway gets a lot of criticism for his JLA Detroit, but over the course of his 11 year tenure there was some really good stories like:

JLA # 157 - The marriage of Ray Palmer and Jean Loring
JLA # 158 - The JLA vs. The Injustice League
JLA #'s 159 - 160 - JLA / JSA Team Up
JLA #'s 167 - 169 - JLA vs. Secret Society of Super Villains
JLA #'s 177- 178 - JLA vs. Despero
JLA #'s 183 - 185 JLA / JSA / New Gods vs. Darkseid

Pretty much his whole run with George Perez (issues 184 - 186, 192 - 197 and the classic JLA 200)

Conway seemed to lose a lot of his passion after Perez left, and artists like Don Heck and Rich Buckler didn't gel with him in the same way Dillin and Perez did.
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Bill Catellier
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

No particular order:
Writers
Conway
Giffen
Englehart
Johns
Morrison

Artists
Dillon
Perez
Maguire
Fabok
Porter
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Doug Centers
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Hmm, for whatever reason I haven't got any collected stories from the "silver age". I'll have to go from my buying time and JB's work.

Writers;
1. Gerry Conway
2. John Byrne
3. Cary Bates
4. Steve Englehart

Artists;
1. John Byrne
2. Dick Dillin


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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Greg, I'm not enough of a JLA fan to come up with five in each category, so I hope this is okay. (If not, let me know, and I'll zap it.)

Writers

John Byrne - That Was Now, This Is Then and The Tenth Circle

Darwyn Cooke - New Frontier

Alan Davis - The Nail and Another Nail

Dwayne McDuffie - JLAnimated episodes "Maid of Honor," "The Terror Beyond,""Hereafter," "A League of Their Own" and others

Artists

Darwyn Cooke - New Frontier

John Byrne - That Was Now, This Is Then and The Tenth Circle

Alan Davis - The Nail and Another Nail
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Chris Rayman
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Posted: 15 July 2019 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Writers:

Grant Morrison
Geoff Johns
Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Gardner Fox
Denny O'Neil

Artists:

George Perez
Adam Hughes
Alan Davis
Kevin Maguire
Jim Lee
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