Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Justice League of America #66

Justice League of America #66 (On Sale: September 10, 1968) has just a nice cover by Neal Adams.

"Divided -- They Fall" is by Denny O'Neil, Dick Dillin and Sid Green. Generalissimo Demmy Gog and his rag-tag six-man army set out to conquer America using the stolen morale machine inventor by Professor Howard Aiken. Meanwhile, the lesser-powered members of the Justice League have a falling-out with their mightier comrades, which results in Batman, Green Arrow, and Atom joining Snapper Carr to investigate the morale machine's disappearance, while Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern remain behind.

A boost of morale allows ordinary humans to defeat the first JLA trio, and finally lands them in Gog's death-trap. At the same time, a lack of morale fills the other three members with such apathy that they cannot summon the will to use their super-powers. Hitchhiking to rendezvous with their comrades, they too fall into Gog's trap, until the Atom rallies the will to escape and switch off the morale device.

The JLA defeats Gog's men, after which Gog himself filled with an excess of morale, attempts to overcome Superman single-handedly – to no avail. Reprinted in Justice League of America Archives Vol. 8 HC.

Edited by Julie Schwartz.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I haven't read this issue in at least 30 years, but I can still recall many images from it - Wonder Woman with the apron on, telling Superman to put some machine somewhere else so she could clean (or something along those lines), the three super-heroes hitch-hiking, the arrival of the powerless characters on the college campus.

Denny O'Neil turned that book around right away, by injecting Marvel-style characterization and his own brand of bizarre humor.