The first comic book to blow my mind

It was the fall of 1973 and I hope I can help you appreciate the atmosphere for those of you who weren’t around yet. The first line of eight Mego World’s Greatest Super-Heroes action figures had just started to be widely distributed in retail stores and Super Friends had premiered on ABC in September. The backlash following the end of the Batman TV series in the 60’s had been severe and it was the first time in a few years, outside of chance syndication offerings, that there was any arena to be introduced to super-heroes outside of the comic book medium. It was through these back doors that I came into super-hero comics at age six and early on there was one particular issue more than any other that helped to insure that I stayed around. That book was Justice League of America #109.



Now, JLA #109 was not my first comic book. I do remember having a number of Archie comics before this and the oldest “surviving” comic from my childhood still in my possession is a Gold Key Walt Disney Christmas digest from the ’72 holiday season. Nor was it even my first super-hero comic – Action Comics #420 has that distinction. (How I can recollect such facts amazes me; I can remember these events from my past vividly but these days I can’t remember half the time why I just walked into the kitchen.)

Looking at the dates reveals that JLA #109 was the first issue of the series to hit the stands after Super Friends had premiered. In fact, the very next issue would see a “Here Come TV’s Super Friends” banner above the book’s logo that would remain in place for a year. This connection plus a fairly striking Nick Cardy cover led me to pony up the 20 cents.

This issue came at around the mid-point of Len Wein’s excellent run on the book; what stands for me as one of the two most important and vital writing stints that this book enjoyed. (The other being Steve Engelhart’s superb stretch on the title later on in the decade.) Right out of the gate, there is a major development on page 1 that even this first time reader knew had some considerable gravity to it – Hawkman’s resignation from the team.



What followed was a vibrant and fun adventure featuring the entire membership of the League at the time pitted against Eclipso in his first appearance since the end of his House of Secrets feature. Were it today, this would have been formatted as a five or six issue arc at the least. The story followed the classic split-into-smaller teams format (though I could not have known that at the time.)

The issue was drawn by regular artist Dick Dillin whose work from a modern perspective is often dismissed as flat or workmanlike. Whether it is warranted or not, Dillin was my JLA artist – clean, completely devoid of glitz but straightforward. The best example to illustrate my point from this issue; Aquaman’s entrance into the story: heroic and distinctive but in no way disruptive to the story’s pace:



I feel in a way that a character did not become a part of the DC Universe at the time until he was drawn by Dillin. JLA was the most continuity-centric title during this time period and as new characters came into the DCU through the remainder of the 70’s I feel it wasn’t until they appeared in JLA and were rendered by Dillin – The Marvel Family, Firestorm, Black Lightning, Power Girl the Mark-Shaw Manhunter, Huntress, even the Fourth World characters in Dillin’s last story before his passing – that their status was somehow codified. I wonder if anyone else who was a reader at this time has a similar perspective on this.

The ultra-liberal Green Arrow vs. ultra-conservative Hawkman dynamic had been playing out in JLA for the past few years. The epilogue to this story offered its dénouement.



Now, it may not seem that sophisticated in 2010 but for 1973, this shit was like Tolstoy for comic books.

At six years old I doubt I had the facilities to accurately express it but even then I knew – this is so much cooler than Super Friends.

So, that was the first book to blow my mind. Do you have a book (or maybe story arc or creator or character) that had a similar effect on you?