Once again the old order changeth with the Justice Society of America taking over a large portion of ADVENTURE following the unfortunate cancellation of ALL-STAR COMICS. Writer Paul Levitz and artists Joe Staton and Bob Layton had made it one of the best DC titles, following on the heels of Wally Wood's memorable stint on the series. But the DC implosion caused a lot of damage and, just as they were about to publish a major storyline, they were cut adrift. So that storyline had to go somewhere, in thos case displacing the never published Don Newton series, THE MAN CALLED NEVERWHERE. Oddly, the letters page announces that this will be Levitz's last issue as editor, being replaced by artist Ross Andru.
At last, this was the issue that introduced me to ADVENTURE...mainly because of the intro of The JSA feature. I was a huge fan of the team (even at the tender age of 7) and seeing The JSA in their own feature was a BIG deal to me (I was completely ignorant of the fact that for the last 3 years they were in the revived ALL-STAR COMICS)...but the rest of the book was amazing as well! An intriguing Flash mystery by the main title's creators, a puzzling Deadman tale with awesome Aparo art, Aquaman by BATMAN artist Don Newton, and a mediocre Wonder Woman story that was only made palatable by the first (and only if I'm correct)team-up of WW with Wonder Girl (Pre-Crisis, anyway...)!
ReplyDeleteAll of this was worth the buck...of course I'd no idea of the huge event that was to come next issue for the JSA until much later, but every time I saw a comic or magazine rack I would look for ADVENTURE.
Oh! and the Prologue to the JSA story was a brilliant idea. For years if I wanted to explain what Earth-1 and Earth-2 was I would whip out this issue.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was pretty neat that Staton drew the E-1 Superman to resemble Christopher Reeve!