Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
Sometimes, the
menace du jour was of a more personal and... immediate origin
[#53]...
... whereas -- on other occasions -- as in tthe case of the Justice
League's annual (and much anticipated by the book's steadfast readership) team-ups with their heroic alternate world counterparts, the legendary Justice Society of America... their opponents were even their own spandexed comrades-in arms [#56]!
Throughout it all, however: the League remained iconic of everything that was so magically, marvelously right with the concept of the "super-hero" -- surely, the last unalloyed "Good alwways triumphs over Evil" fairytale literature left us, in these increasingly better-grow-up-quick-kid times.
While it's become something of an article of faith with today's supposedly more "sophisticated" readership to glance down its collective nose at such concepts as Selfless Heroism and Inherent Nobility -- affecting, in essence, a jaded and studiedly-fashionable cynicism wholly out of keeping with the essential nature of the super-hero concept -- what's been gained in "realism" and shallow, slapdash "characterization" doesn't begin to make up for the concurrent loss in shining, minted-each-month-anew idealism.
What's lacking most, really, from the vast rank and file of today's super-hero adventure offerings is that ineffable sense of mythic grandeur that once was -- not so very long ago, really -- their bread and butter; their primary stock in trade. "Shading" the heroes with cumbersome and unnecessary moral nuances meant a corresponding "greying" of their arch-foemen as well.
Villains who are purely Evil for Evil's Sake have an operatic quality that simply cannot be convincingly gainsaid. It's the reason children of every generation respond so wide-eyed and readily to stories where the bad guy is a Nazi... or a black-armored ex-Jedi Knight.
Occasionally, one hears a modern-day reader sniffing audibly at the "silliness" of the classic Silver Age stuff... as if the very notion of grown men and women hurtling through the air in garish body stockings was somehow, inherently, one which ought to (by rights) be treated with the utmost stone-faced solemnity.
This, of course, is a classic (and, sadly, all too prevalent) misreading of the nature of the fairy tale... which is what the best and most enduring super-hero legends really are, at their most primal and exhilarating. Pity the man who plods leadenly through this life: eyes sensibly downcast... resolutely unable (or unwilling) to appreciate the naked, heart-thumping glory of Gretel's firey annihilation of the witch... or Perseus' triumph over the spiteful gaze of the Gorgon.
It was precisely this heady, aromatic admixture -- equal parts battle and bonhomie; fearsomeness and frolic -- which the Silver Age comics abundantly delivered to their readership, in general...
... and DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, in particular.
While this is a comics series which has -- only recently -- found its way, once more... the backwards glance, towards a time when that footing was stead and sure from the outset, with nary a fumble or miscue -- is one well worth taking.
As the old saying goes: "... those who fail to learn from history..."
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page ONE
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page THREE
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page FOUR
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page FIVE
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page SIX
"MORE COMIC BOOKS," YOU SAY...?
The DC Comics Sub-Directory
The Marvel Comics Sub-Directory
The Miscellaneous Comics Sub-Directory
The "Gotta Find That DC Character" Menu
The "Gotta Find That Marvel/Miscellaneous
Character" Menu