Arguably the biggest event for DC in the 1980’s was Crisis on Infinite Earths; Rebooting the universe for new readers for the first time since the end of The Golden Age. It retconed old characters with new origins, merged landmarks and Gardner Fox’s Multiverse into one plane of existence (for a little while anyway). This event, of course lead into what would be the end of The Bronze age.
(But that’s not what I chose to do for The GoJ Series because that would’ve been too obvious! :P)
In a struggling attempt to stay relevant, DC tried to keep their characters grounded and move away from things like The Super Friends and Batman ’66. DC comics were going in some pretty controversial directions with their books. Jason Todd was created… only to be killed about five years later. Green Arrow and Green Lantern fought drugs and racism…. while being kinda racist about it (also Speedy became a heroin addict in the same series). Plus with The Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns just around the corner, things were getting brutal and dark, very fast. Despite the TV and media presence DC held in the mid to late 70’s/early 80’s, things were looking undeniably grim.
But then through all of that weird stuff, somehow we got The Justice League International towards the end of the decade!
The beginning of this series marked the end of The original Justice League publication run from 1960. These new stories started a new numbering ending the original 261 issue run! (27 years! :O)
In 1986, Keith Giffen, J.M.DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire set out to create a "big seven" title similar to the original lineup that had previously been established. (granted, their were more than seven, but hey, who’s counting?)
During the time however, Superman (w/John Byrne), Wonder Woman (w/George Perez), The Flash (w/Mike Baron), and all those other dudes were still being “re-vamped” and “re-lauched” Post- Crisis. So that’s partially why we got so many left-of-center characters. Funny enough, the only reason Batman was part of the JLI was because Dennis O’Neil took petty on the team. (Maybe he didn’t have faith in the project but who’s to say? “…Yeah alright you can have Batman…. You’re gonna need him with a crap team like that.”) 😛
It was really a matter of coincidence that brought this Super Team together. For example Doctor Fate’s inclusion coincided with DeMatteis and Giffen writing their own Dr. Fate series. The Editor, Andy Helfer (also an editor of Green Lantern at the time) suggested using Guy instead of Hal. The resulting comedic tone was Giffen’s idea.
JLI really brought in some of the modern characteristics of these characters we know today! For instance, Guy was now written as a loudmouth wise-cracker, Captain Marvel wasn’t a separate personality from Billy Batson anymore, even Black Canary’s badass feminism (and a really dumb costume) all derived from this series!
This was also prime time for DC to utilize these characters in such a way after the events of Crisis and DC Comics’ own company changes. For example, Blue Beetle was a recent acquisition from Charlton Comics, Mister Miracle was brought in from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, and Captain Marvel was previously on a separate Earth populated by characters from Fawcett Comics! It’s funny how still to this day they struggle with Captain Marvel (but that’s beside the point) 😛
The series would go on to become nominated as "Best New Series" in 1988 by the Harvey Awards! It would also feature Adam Hughes’ first work for a major comic publisher… blah blah blah… back stories… comic book history… (are you guys still even reading this?)
All told, this was a fun series that I feel still doesn’t get enough credit where it’s due. Being so tightly wedged into the DCU that the creative team used the less popular side-characters and turned it into something memorable is extremely notable.
Also it gave us Batman punching Gardener in the face. That was nice. 🙂
“Just one punch!” 😛
So while I could have done some kind of Crisis JLA lineup for the 1980’s, I chose to go with the latter, mostly (because I wanted to showcase the figures) and what I genuinely enjoyed the most from the 1980s 🙂
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For anybody who was wondering, the custom printed figs are:
Minifig Madness Booster Gold (with alternate arms and hairpiece)
SFX Minifigures Guy Gardner (with alternate head)
UG Minifigures Doctor Fate
Everybody else is Purist Lego (Except for Batman, Martain Manhunter, and Mr. Miracle who are rocking some CapeMadness Collars and Capes!) 🙂
And in case I haven’t said it enough, there’s about three to five posts per GoJ era including bonus Comic Book Covers, BTS Photos of the builds/figs, heck there’s even a video over there! (I never do videos!) 😛
But really, we’re only half way though the GoJ series and there’s been a post almost everyday between the these decades over on Patreon! Remember, if you decide to join, you get a personal shout on on my next most recent post, plus a follow from yours truly 😉
But anyway, for the 80s, Patreon has an exclusive comic cover recreation of The Justice League International No.1, plus other goodies including that memorable one punch 😉
Go check it out! They’re some of my favorite Patreon post’s so far! 🙂
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www.patreon.com/andrewcookston
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Posted by Andrew Cookston on 2017-10-25 11:52:17
Tagged: , Lego , DC , Comics , Justice , League , International , Martian , Manhunter , Booster , Gold , Guy , Gardner , Batman , Blue , Beetle , Doctor , Dr , Fate , Light , Mr. , Mister , Miracle , Oberon , Captain , Atom , Red , Rocket , Maxwell , Lord , Black , Canary , Marvel , Billy , Batson , Shazam , Elongated , Man , Ralph , Dibny , Keith , Giffen , J.M. , DeMatteis , Kevin , Maguire , 1980s , 80s , Custom , Minifig , Minifigure , Minifig Madness , SFX , Minifigures , UG , CapeMadness , Photoshop , Toy , Still , Life , Nikon , Macro , Photography , Andrew , Cookston , Andrew Cookston
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