Classic events: JLA & JSA
by Wayne Markley
First of all, let me thank Westfield Comics for this opportunity to write for their blog. It is a great honor and something I look forward to doing for a long time to come. I have loved comics for over 40 years and have worked professionally in the field for over 25 years. I have managed comic book stores, I wrote Advance Comics and Internal Correspondence (For Capital City Distribution), I worked for DC Comics, (in Creative Services), I ran my own Distribution Company for 10 years (FM International), and I have, and still do, work for Westfield Comics. What all of these various jobs have in common is they all involve comic books and they all have been a blast. I love the format of the comics, both books and strips. I love the art, the business of comics, the inner workings of comics, and most of all, I love a good story.
Thus with this installment of my blog I would like to look back at the lost art of a good crossover event. Over the last 20 years or so, comics companies, namely Marvel and DC, have marketed multi-stories crossovers as “events.” At one time, they were done as a way to tie a series of Annuals together (Marvel’s Atlantis Attacks) or to tell an epic story (DC’s Superman: Our Worlds at War). Recently we have seen such epics as Final Crisis, Dark Reign, Civil War, World War Hulk, and Blackest Night. All of these stories have been done with the intent to tell a good story with ties into multiple books in an attempt to get the comic reader to buy a book they normally do not buy and find some new book the reader might enjoy. Some have worked and some have not. I will let you, the reader, decide which stories did work and which ones did not. (All are available as trade paperback collections through Westfield, except Blackest Night which is still ongoing. Well, so is Dark Reign, but parts of it have been collected.)
One complaint I hear over and over about the epic crossovers is they are too long, involve too many books, and they become too expensive to get the entire run. So I would like to suggest that we go back to a time when the epic crossover was an annual event and only went two issues (well, three issues in the 70s). And the stories were great. I am referring to the classic annual Justice League of America/Justice Society of American annual crossover that ran in the original Justice League of America comic in the 1960s. You will not even have to spend hundreds of dollars to try these wonderful stories as DC has collected them as a series of trade paperbacks called Crisis on Multiple Earths.
When DC started their “Silver Age of Comics” by reintroducing new heroes using Golden Age heroes names, such as the Flash, Hawkman, Atom, Green Lantern, etc. they stumbled across the idea of having the Golden Age heroes and the Silver Age heroes both exist, but on different parallel Earths – Earth 1 and Earth 2. (See the classic Flash of Two Worlds, available in a beautiful hardcover as part of DC Comic Classics Line) And if the two Flashes could team up, why not the two super teams? Thus was born the first epic crossover with the JLA and the JSA. Every year for many, many years, the two teams would get together in the pages of Justice League of America to confront some event or menace that only the greatest heroes combining their efforts could defeat. Over time, they used the annual crossover to introduce a number if parallel universes that featured DC characters that did not fit into the traditional DC Universe, such as Earth S with the Captain Marvel and his Family, or Earth X with the Freedom Fighters. Almost all of these stories features the heroes breaking off into smaller teams to face one aspect of the challenge or villain, which is based on the concept established in All Star Comics in the 40s. These annual epics eventually lead to Crisis in Infinite Earths, Countdown, and 52.
If you like a nice epic story that is well told and fun, but is not going to break the bank, then I strongly suggest you try one of these Crisis on Multiple Earths collections. They feature all of the top DC Heroes, as well as a cast of hundreds, (well at least 20) and each story has a strong beginning, middle ,and end. Plus it is a chance to discover characters that you might not be familiar with and may want to read more about.
In closing I would like to recommend a book that did not get much exposure, but it is a great read if you take the time. This time I would like to recommend, Bayou from Zuda Comics. This was originally an online comic for DC/Zuda comics. I tried to read it online but I am a person who does not care to read comics online, I like them in my hands, on paper. I bought the Bayou trade because of the very nice art, and the story is a nice mix of a fairy tale and a horror story. It is a unique format, but the story and the art are both engrossing and leave you on the last page wanting more. It is well worth looking for. Please leave comments, suggestions, ideas, and anything else that comes to mind in the comment section.
Purchase
Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 1
Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 2
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