This issue has lately been acknowledged as one of the most influential comics of the last 25 years. Strange considering the death of Superman occurred in this same time frame.
Here's what it was all about: in 1987 comic books were living in a post apocalyptic Alan Moore wasteland. The Watchmen had introduced a dark and gritty super"hero" world that had influenced everything being printed at the time. I blame this as the #1 factor behind the elimination of Sgt Rock and the Haunted Tank, how do you make war comics grittier than they already are without making them horrific? I admit it was time for these books to be put to rest anyway so I'm not here to lament that loss. And, in fact I am not really trashing Alan Moore, his work was groundbreaking and important; even though I think most of his stuff is way overrated he did pave the way for the likes of Garth Ennis and The Preacher.
What in fact I'm talking about here was the death of fun. All of a sudden no one wanted to be fun anymore, everyone wanted to be dark and serious and, to be perfectly frank, where's the fun in that? I mean sure it led to the death of Jason Tod, a Robin so bad that when the fans were asked what to do they overwhelmingly voted to have the Joker kill him with a crowbar, but still, while that was cool, where was the fun? I'll tell you where it was, Keith Giffen and JM DeMatties had it in the new Justice League.
I won't go into great detail here, Darcy already covered a lot of it, but this was just good fun, they actually managed to make Mr Miracle into someone that you cared about and wanted to know what he was up to. Now I've always been a fan of Superman, but keeping him out of the League was a genius move, he would have ruined it, as he did 6 years later. Making the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold into wisecracking goofs? Genius. Captain Atom? That dude is as dull as dishwater, yet he became entertaining. You see the trend here? They took second rate characters and turned them into real people that you looked forward to spending time with. They even took some European superheroes, Fire and Ice, and made them good.
They ran the gambit on the stories too, silly and dumb to pure action. Watching the Martian Manhunter, G'nort, and Kilowog go for a night out on the town, pure comic genius. Same thing with General Glory, the ridiculous take on Captain America. But as for down and dirty, well they took down Despero by themselves and the JLE introduced the Extremists, these guys were so bad that they actually tortured to death every single person on their home planet. Even more amazing, they took down Starro, the intergalactic starfish conqueror from the original League and managed to make it an interesting story.
As with all good things though, this came to an end. Too many fans got their panties in a bunch about these classic heroes being turned into goofs and demanded a return to the old school League. Funny enough, that league, with Superman at the helm, along with a serious Green Lantern, first Hal Jordan and later Kyle Rayner, and Wonder Woman, only lasted a couple of years before it got swept aside and the entire series cancelled. Nothing new and nothing interesting there.
My point is that it's OK to do things different, that's the only thing that the Watchmen had going for it, at the time, it was different. Different is good, because otherwise, everything is the same. I personally own every Justice League comic from this period, from the main titles, to the annuals, to the quarterlies they started coming out with and I wouldn't part with them for the world. Seriously, if you ever get a chance to read them do so, they're pure gold baby!
Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
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