Remember the Good Old Days (Inaccurately)?: THE '90S: JLA RETROACTIVE #1

[tcampbell1000]

105 of 108. Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire reunited for the last time in 2013. The DC Retroactive comics offered a chance for such old comics teams to…like the crew in a heist movie…come out of inactivity to pull one last job.

This issue includes a reprint of a story we’ve already covered, so I’ll be taking my third of its full length from the original material. (It’s a weird choice, too: Justice League America #60, which is the end of their original run but hardly the best example of it. I would’ve gone with Justice League International #8, the first bwa-ha-ha and the first non-action issue, or JLI #23, the first Injustice League story.)

Much like other looking-back-on-the-JLI stories, this doesn’t quite fit into the original timeline…Booster Gold and the real Scott Free had left the League before Power Girl got her cat, for instance…and a few details have changed. Major Disaster seems more mercenary than usual, and his old buddy Big Sir is now closer to Multi-Man. Fire seems solid in her flame-form (as she was in the Super Buddies days), and she expresses an opinion that’ll surprise you.

Let’s not let such little things bother us: I only cite them here so we can all get on board with this story’s reality. One plot point will feel very familiar to JLI fans: the outcome of a supervillain card game turns out to be very important, as it did in Club JLI and with Wally Tortolini. Rule of threes! (Three DECADES, that is.)

Multi-Man wins the “shiny toy” but little else: the money in the pot was counterfeit and the parademon ends up making out with a waitress that Multi-Man’s had his eye on for two years. He and Big Sir slip back to the IJL’s shared quarters, where Major Disaster is arguing with Clock King over his *brilliant idea:*

The beaten-up parademon looks around for his “medibooster,” which will ease his pain and aid his healing by infusing him with parademon DNA. But then he realizes he lost it in the poker game. Miracle contacts Beetle and Max and outlines the worst-case scenario: if that DNA infects a person who infects more people with their blood, the result could be a parademonic zombie apocalypse.

Fire and Ice, and Guy and Miracle, converge on the Sirademon at roughly the same time, but…

Two truths and a lie: Big Sir was restored to his former self in time to join Justice League Antarctica. Guy Gardner’s middle name has sometimes been cited as “Joseph,” but despite Google’s claims, both Wikipedia and the DC wiki have it as “Darrin.” Bea bled out on the floor of a Macy’s.

And with that, we end with a splash page of the JLI flying away, with a caption quoting a source that was older in 1987 than the JLI is now…

Watch on YouTube

Next week: Our retrospective wraps up with the other fun times Giffen and DeMatteis had together, and the best post-JLI stories for the JLI’s biggest stars. There’s still some overlap between those two categories, but not as much as you might expect.

Comments

[scorntx]

Almost at the end? Aww.
This has been pretty fascinating. And only occasionally terrifying.


It's a retrospective flashback story. Not expecting it to be entirely air-tight on the continuity front, even if it wasn't dealing with the JLI.
Some details can be ignored, or forgotten, or "forgotten".
Eh. If it comes to it, just blame Superboy-Prime.


-"We'll be able to cash in!"-
You say that, MD, but in practice if they do make an adaptation of you, it'll either be watered down completely or they'll just replace the whole lot of you with some random characters who you've never been in a comic with in your entire existence.

[cainofdreaming]

Beetle - Giant monster? Business as usual.
Beetle - Power Girl's cat? Gyaa! Get it away!

I mean, his reaction isn't wrong, but it is funny.

[mastermahan]

I'm going to miss this fantastic series. Thank you for this wonderfully enjoyable retrospective, tcampbell1000.

And yes, Bea, not liking shopping? I also call nonsense. She's always been too much of a fashion plate.

[scorntx]

Max was clearly overdoing it on the mind-whammy again.