Justice League #87

Justice League #87 (On Sale: December 10, 1970), has a cover by Neal Adams. I know, you're thinking, "Gee, Keller sure fucked up this time. The name of the book is Justice League of America, not the Justice League." Not so fast, my judgemental friend. A quick look at the indicia of this issue reveals it to be an issue of a magazine entitled Justice League, and only Justice League.

I guess mistakes happen all the time, right? I'm just not sure how this one did.

This issue features "Batman -- King of the World" by Mike Friedrich, Dick Dillin, and Joe Giella. Two super-corporations of an alien planet, which have long since destroyed each other in an atomic war, were responsible for sending deadly robots to Earth and to the planet Angor. Able to control emotions, the robot sent to Earth inflicts Batman with power-madness and paranoia, and Hawkman with numbing fear as part of a scheme to eliminate the Justice League and rob Earth's natural resources. The JLA members fake their own defeat at the robot's hands, while Green Lantern sends the Atom to the automaton's power source on its home planet.

After Atom deactivates the robot, he is joined by Green Lantern, Flash, and Zatanna (who had aided the heroes in their earlier battle). Mistaken for the robot's creators, they are attacked by the champions of Angor: Wandjina, Jack B. Quick, Silver Sorceress, and Blue Jay. The needless fight continues until Zatanna stops to help the injured Blue Jay, after which explanations are made and peace is restored. Speaking of things that are needless, the alien heroes encountered in this story are meant to resemble Marvel's Avengers: Yellowjacket, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Thor. Why this was done, is never made clear. Reprinted in Showcase Presents: Justice League of America Vol. 5 TPB (2011), Justice League of America Archives Vol. 10 HC (2012), and Justice League of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 HC (2017).

Edited by Julius Schwartz.

Flash #198

Flash #198 (On Sale: April 21, 1970) has a classic cover by Gil Kane.

Unfortunately, the fireworks of the cover wrap around Vinnie Colletta's toxic inks inside on Gil Kane's pencils of Robert Kanigher's script: "No Sad Songs for a Scarlet Speedster." When the Flash performs at an orphanage, the director asks him to help three rebellious orphan teens (who just happen to mimic the ethnic and gender breakdown of the gang from TV's Mod Squad). The teens are not impressed by the Scarlet Speedster, even though he grants their request to return to their old neighborhood. The Flash sees that it has fallen on hard times and, at the site of a demolished building, the Flash decides to build a boys club at super speed (how the girl in the group feels about this is never explored).

While clearing the rubble, the Flash discovers the stolen loot from a million dollar robbery. The crooks show up wanting their stashed money and in the ensuing fight the Flash is hit in the head with a brick, yet still manages to get the kids and the money away from the goons at super speed. When he stops at a nearby park, the kids realize the head wound has caused him to forget his adult identity and reverts to the Barry of age eight. The teens are forced to protect him.

When the crooks find the kids and the Flash, the speedster prays for powers his friends say he has n(yes, the cover is not symbolic! Go DC!). It appears to work as Barry's super speed returns and as he uses his speed to stop the crooks, he receives yet another blow to the head, which restores his memory.

The back-up story, "Call It... Magic" is by Mike Friedrich, Don Heck and unfortunately, Vinnie Colletta once again. This story features Zatanna in only her seventh appearance and her first in three years. In a little over a year, she would start her own short-lived series in Adventure Comics. Zatanna is the daughter of John Zatara, the crimefighting magician from the 1940s DC books, and Sindella, a member of the race of Homo magi, a branch of humanity with innate magical abilities, which Zatanna has inherited. 

This also marks Don Heck's first super-hero artwork for DC and signals his first transition from Marvel to DC. Donald L. Heck was born in the Jamaica neighborhood of New York City on January 2, 1929, His first known comics work appeared in two Comic Media titles, both cover-dated September 1952: the war comic War Fury #1, for which he penciled and inked the cover and the eight-page story "The Unconquered", by an unknown writer; and the cover and the six-page story "Hitler's Head", also by an unknown writer, in the horror comic Weird Terror #1 He started at Atlas/Marvel in 1955 and, with the exception of a half dozen or so miscellaneous stories for DC here and there, would work for them exclusively till 1970. In his first long stint at Marvel he transformed from a romance/horror/western artist to a super-hero artist and was known for co-creating Iron Man and lengthy runs on that book, The Avengers, Captain Marvel, The Amazing Spider-Man and on the Ant-Man strip. 

Of Heck's transformation, Roy Thomas said of the artist, "Don was unlucky enough, I think, to be a non-superhero artist who, starting in the sixties, had to find his niche in a world dominated by superheroes. Fortunately, as he proved first with Iron Man and then with the Avengers, Don could rise to the occasion because he had real talent and a good grounding in the fundamentals. He amalgamated into his own style certain aspects of Jack Kirby's style, and carved out a place for himself as one of a handful of artists who were of real importance during the very early days of Marvel".

At DC he was relegated to the back-up strips for a while: Robin, Batgirl, Aquaman, Supergirl, Jason Bard, Rose and the Thorn and Zatanna all saw Heck's pencils. Later he would draw the Justice League of America, Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Hawkman, Dial H for Hero and co-create Steel, the Indestructible Man with Gerry Conway. 

Don Heck's last known comics work was the 10-page "The Theft of Thor's Hammer", by writer Bill Mantlo, in Marvel Super-Heroes vol. 2 #15 in 1993. Don died of lung cancer in 1995.

When Barry and Iris take in Zatanna's show, she singles Barry out of the audience, but something goes wrong and her attempt to make Barry disappear, by kissing him, backfires and she disappears only to find herself in a strange land watching two sorcerers battle. She has been called by Namba to help him fight Xarkon, who possesses Namba before Zatanna can stop him. Meanwhile, Barry senses someone calling to him and vibrates to invisibility then follows the path of disturbed vibrations left by Zatanna and uses the Cosmic Treadmill to follow her. He eventually finds Zatanna and together they are able to defeat Xarkon and expel him from Namba's body. They are both returned to the stage where their kiss concludes and the audience is none the wiser when Barry uses his bowers to magically return to his seat.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.