One of my favorite early comics, the second issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA that I owned was a 100-Page Spectacular, purchased for my by my father when we stopped in to the 7-11. The price on these Super-Specs had crept up from 50 cents to 60 cents, another clear indication that a price increase was coming, though I had no idea about this at the time.
At this stage, Len Wein was continuing his tenure as the regular JLA writer, combined with the omnipresent Dick Dillin on art. Len’s JLA was a modernized updating of the formula pioneered by Gardner Fox at the start of the series, combined with some of the characterization improvements made by Marvel Comics in the interim. It was the perfect comic book for a seven-year-old.
This particular story follows up on the preceding issue, in which six Justice Leaguers had half of their mighty powers stolen by the now-destroyed villain Libra. In order to regain their lost might, the League decides to reactivate and reprogram its old enemy Amazo, an android that had earlier been used to siphon the JLA’s super-powers.
By leading him on a chase across the world and forcing him to use the powers that the JLAers have lost, Amazo will re-absorb their missing abilities, which can then be transferred back into their original heroes. So, as was typical, the JLA splits into smaller groups, and gets to carrying out the assignment.
They lead Amazon on a merry chase, despite the diminished capabilities of about half their number. Amazo has been led to believe that the device they’re keeping from him is the only thing that can save his life, but in reality it is an override that will turn him off once he activates it.
Unfortunately, one of the half-powered heroes is Batman, which means that when Amazo absorbs the caped crusader’s missing intellect, he works out the whole plan ahead of time and stymies it. Fortunately, even with only half his smarts, Batman realizes that this will happen and sets up his own failsafes, destroying Amazo and restoring his friends.
Next up in the issue is the second half of a long Seven Soldiers of Victory story that had been started in the previous issue. I really should have loved this story, but I didn’t. The early Golden Age art was crude and disturbing–it made me feel uneasy. In particular, the panel on this page of the bandaged Bandler.
There was also a beautifully-drawn Starman adventure that likewise did noting for me. Like a portion of the Seven Soldiers story before it, this tale was illustrated by Mort Meskin, a phenomenal illustrator whose style I just found creepy and off-putting as a child.
But the final adventure in the issue was a real winner, my first exposure to the early, formative Justice League and the idiosyncratic work of artist Mike Sekowsky. In this story, one by one the Justice Leaguers are confronted by evil super-improved versions of themselves, who demonstrate their superiority and then vanish.
As a kid, the concept of evil doppelgangers really disturbed me. It might go back to the classic Twilight Zone episode Mirror Image, which I would have seen at around this time. But I can recall reading this comic in my family’s living room, and casting a glance towards the staircase to our unfinished attic; I was convinced in that moment for no particular reason that an evil version of myself was lurking up there, waiting for the right moment to strike and take my place. It creeped me out.
Meanwhile, back in the story, the evil League proceeds to commit a bevy of crimes, for which the true League is blamed. Unable to prove their innocence, the JLA agrees to being exiled from the Earth, in recognition that no conventional jail could ever hold them. As they parade to their exile, their counterparts watch them, disguised in their own secret identities.
This all turns out to be a plot on the part of the League’s enemy Doctor Destiny, who has manifested the evil league from out of the JLAers’ own dreams. But speaking of secret identities, the JLA realizes that while they have been exiled in their super hero personas, nobody said anything about their true identities. So they return to Earth in civilian garb (after first introducing themselves to each other–at this point, they were unaware of each others’ true identities) and take up combat with their evil selves once again.
And once again, they fail utterly, the evil League is just too powerful and doesn’t possess any of their weaknesses. But recognizing that, as dream-selves, they cannot kill the source of their existence, the evil League imprisons the JLA in an underground vault. The JLA is able to make its escape by expanding the size of Green lantern’s power ring so that it’s large enough for all of them to use simultaneously–their combined will power is greater than that of the evil GL who imprisoned them..
They also have a new tactic. The Atom shrinks down to microscopic size, and then performs brain surgery (!) on each of the League doppelgangers to short-circuit their command of their own bodies. The now futzed-up Evil League is easily dispatched, the real JLA’s reputation is restored, and Doctor Destiny is foiled. It’s a great, ridiculous story, one of my favorites. Oh, and at the end, just to clean everything up, Superman uses the alien element amnesium to wipe the memory of the team’s true identities from one another and the world again. Which begs the question: if Superman has access to such a substance, why worry about Lois lane always trying to expose him? If she does, just zap her with some amnesium, problem solved!
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
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