Fucking Comics: The Avengers VS The Justice League:
Given the fact that the first appearances of both trademark super-groups happened in the early 60's you can understand that what I found was stupid on both ends, so it was a matter of picking out which was the most ridiculous. Teen Titans, as with most DC Comics of the time, totally surpassed the X-Men in terms of ridiculousness and stupidity. The X-Men only fared for bad fashion sense and the excessive use of a thesaurus. So popular was this review (and in terms of this website, popular means three people have read part of it and complained about it being too long.) that I decided to do the same thing again, with two different similar groups of characters: Marvel's Avengers, and DC's Justice League. Both books feature a team of super heroes (usually the most popular characters of said companies universe) having adventures together as a team. This is not an old concept because it was being done in the 1930's with DC Comics Justice Society of America (which featured the 40's era Flash, Green Lantern, and focused on lesser known characters) and Marvel's Invaders (which featured Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and the Human Torch) But as I've said time and time again by the 60's a combination of factors (the end of World War 2, lack of sales/interest in super-heroes, and the advent of the Comic Book Authority Code) made the revival of super-heroes a cautious venture in the early days of the resurgence.
Learning of this idea, and hoping to compete with it, Marvel would end up creating the Fantastic Four in 1961, who would rival for the readers against the Justice League, however they wouldn't be the direct competition. In 1963, Marvel alumni Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (who created the FF two years prior) would create a group of heroes known as the Avengers. It's line up would feature Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp (and expanded rosters later, first of whom was Captain America.) The logic behind this was obvious: Here you have all these characters who appeared in solo stories in other books *. It only stood to show that since these were all popular characters it would entice readers to pick up either title so the fan could read more stories about their favorite character and perhaps interest them in other popular characters and pick up their books as well. It would also (at least at the time) be a method of shuffling around newly created characters to gauge their popularity and determine if they warranted their own series (Captain America is the best example of this.)
The Avengers would become, arguably, the more popular book and some would say that DC saw this and attempted to emulate some of the things that Marvel would do with their characters, with some limited success. Today we're going to take a look at one of the first times either books took on a serious subject: the subject of race. So we'll be taking a look at Marvel's Avengers #32-33 (Because it's a two part story), published September & October 1966, and DC Comic's Justice League of America #57 published November 1967. Let's start with the Avengers story since it was published first.... Next - Back
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* FOOT NOTE:Hey wow, you decided to check this part out, very nice. Since I have a habit of running off and cramming too much information into each one of my action packed rants about why old comics can be pretty fucking stupid, I decided this time that I should put that "too much information" for those who care down here in a nice little foot note. For the one or two people who actually care, I decided to expand on what books each of the founding members of the Justice League and Avengers would appear in with solo stories. Justice League Members: Superman would appear in his own self titled book, Action Comics, have a regular Superboy feature in Adventure Comics, and have regular appearances in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson, Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, and regularly team-up with Batman in World's Finest Comics. In the 1960's, Superman was the Wolverine of his time, considering he appeared in seven books every month. Batman would appear in his own title, and also appear in Detective Comics as well as regularly team-up with Superman in the aforementioned World's Finest Comics. Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern would appear in their own self titled series. Martian Manhunter would appear in Detective Comics and Aquaman would appear in his own title, but also have stories bounced around between Adventure Comics, World's Finest Comics and Detective Comics. The Avengers: Thor would appear regularly in Journey Into Mystery a title that would later be retitled to The Mighty Thor. Iron Man would appear in Tales of Suspense, a title he'd eventually share with Captain America, until the title was named after the later and Iron Man was given his own series. Ant Man and the Wasp would appear in Tales to Astonish a title that they'd share with their fellow Avengers teammate The Hulk. However, due to a lack of popularity, Ant Man (later Giant Man) and Wasp would be dropped in favor of ongoing Sub-Mariner stories, however the characters would eventually become mainstays in the Avengers book. The Hulk prior to appearing in the Avengers had his own book Hulk which was canceled, and so he hopped from series to series to only appear in Avengers. He'd then end up sharing Tales to Astonish with Giant-Man and the Wasp, and later with the Sub-Mariner. Rosters, Rosters Rosters: The issues that I'm reviewing above, obviously were published long after the original rosters have changed so just to give you an idea of how they're represented in the above mentioned stories: The JLA: After being founded by Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter and their honorary member Snapper Carr, the group also added Green Arrow, the Atom, and Hawkman to their roster. None of the JLA members have left the group at this point, but the characters "available" in each story would vary from issue to issue from the entire cast, to four or more characters per story. The Avengers: After being founded by Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, and the Hulk would see the Hulk depart after only their second adventure, Captain America would join their ranks shortly after, and after about 20 issues or so, the original roster would go on a temporary leave of absence, leaving Captain America in charge. They would recruit Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver into their ranks, and later Ant-Man (calling himself Goliath) and the Wasp would eventually return to their ranks full time again. |
In a previous edition of Fucking Comics I compared the early adventures of two similar books that are published by Marvel in DC Comics. In that edition I compared 
The first company that decided to do the hero team book first was DC Comics in 1960, with the reimagining of the Flash and Green Lantern (plus their mainstays Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman) Writer Gardner Fox decided to create a group that was a reimagining of the Justice Society of the 40's, and so he created the Justice League of America. Which was a group of heroes who's original cast included Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman (and soon expanded to other characters, the first new addition being the Green Arrow.)
At any rate, these two books while having similar concepts differed wildly in terms of the kind of story they published. Early JLA books would read much like two kids playing with action figures in a sand box, none of the stories having any real baring on the lives of the characters from issue to issue or in their own solo titles. The Avengers on the other hand, like most other Marvel comic books focused on developing the personal lives of the characters, having interactions with other characters from other series, and their battles having consequences.