This is the cover from the Wizard JLA Special from 1997. I could go on and on about how people give Wizard a hard time and blame it for the excesses of the comic book marketplace of the nineties and blah, blah, blah but I’ve done that in the past so I feel like I can skip it for this post.
This special contained:
- A Top 10 of things we need to know about the League.
- An interview with JLA writer Grant Morrison.
- An interview with JLA artist Howard Porter.
- An article speculating on which Leaguer would win if a fight broke out.
- An article about the history of the League.
- The Top 10 most brutal fights the League have been in.
- An article about the upcoming JLA: Year One maxi-series.
- An article about the Watchtower, the League’s new headquarters.
- Profiles of Aquaman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Superman and Wonder Woman.
- An article about the five heroes that could be joining the League in the near future.
- An article about the villains the JLA is about to face off against.
- A day in the life of JLA editor Ruben Diaz.
- The results of a poll Wizard conducted on America Online back when that was a thing.
- A cute little cartoon about what it takes to join the Justice League.
- The “official” Justice League membership form.
Full disclosure; I love these specials. I loved them when they first came out and I love them now. I read them and re-read them over and over again and I still go back to them from time to time. They are neat little time capsules to an era long gone. This special brings back so many good memories of a time when JLA wasn’t just a comic book title but a brand that DC embraced whole hog. I’ve had to buy new copies of some of them because the old ones wore out but I still hang on to the ragged versions.
You know…for sentimental reasons.
I posted this cover because I love it despite how wonky Wonder Woman looks but I also posted it as a tease for some scans that I will be posting on Wednesday. There is a quote from one of the Superman writer’s that flies in the face of an article I posted last week and I felt it was worth posting for historical reasons.
So come back on Wednesday and junk.
God, how I absolutely and utterly more than adored this era of the ’90s (Aztek, Trumph, Tomorrow Woman and Zauriel as exciting additions to name but a few to an already kick ass run) for the JLA! 😆
Unfortunately, poor Howard Porter ended up eventually enduring a hand injury and altered his style first to the post-Infinite Crisis Shazam title (which name currently escapes me), and the later on finalised art come Justice League 3000 along with 3001 to present Scooby Doo Apocalypse title even.