JLA: each issue is no more or less interesting than the last. There's no real continuity, as each character had their own things going on in their separate mags. JLA is ultimately skippable, IMO. Going back to the earliest stuff by Gardner Fox or John Broome, whoever was writing it, each issue is nearly identical to the last, other than the villain of the month. Characters are completely interchangeable without impacting the story at all, etc...in other words, typical 60s DC.

Thanks -- when do they at least get past the "generic personality" era of the Silver Age and get into something that's more similar to, say, the Thomas/Buscema Avengers run in terms of tone and characterization? I assume at least by the time Perez got to the book...

Thanks -- when do they at least get past the "generic personality" era of the Silver Age and get into something that's more similar to, say, the Thomas/Buscema Avengers run in terms of tone and characterization? I assume at least by the time Perez got to the book...

The first, great, cohesive run was the Len Wein years: Len Wein's Justice League of America ( Vol. 1, Issues 100-114 )

Right about 1970. Most of DC lost that generic Silver Age feel the same year. But that doesn't mean JLA was good at this time; quite the opposite. O'Neil and Mike Friedrich wrote some godawful preachy crap.

The words "Written by Denny O'Neil" are a surefire way to realize we're about to read crap.

Unless it's on a Batman book, in which case you are objectively wrong.

LEN WEIN LOOKS BACK AT OVER FIVE DECADES CRAFTING “TALES OF THE BATMAN”

CBR News: How eager were you to get a chance to get your hands on the character of Batman, and what were the circumstances that you were able to get the gig for the very first time, back in 1971?

Len Wein: "The House of the Haunted Batman"? That particular story is a weird set of circumstances. In terms of how anxious was I to get any Batman gig, I couldn’t be more anxious for any character. The two first stories I remember reading as a kid were both Batman stories, so that’s what kind of started my interest in comics. So I always wanted to write the Batman. That’s one of the ways DC got me back from Marvel. In fact, when I went back to DC after my Marvel run, they offered me The Batman to write on a regular basis.

But the first story was very weird. Marv Wolfman and I were just starting out in many ways at that point, and we came up a Batman story which we pitched to Julie Schwartz, who was editing the book. And Julie said, "Nah, doesn’t do anything much for me," and passed on it. And we went back to the DC bullpen, forlorn as any newcomer kid would be. We were just chatting with Neal Adams – he used to work out of the bullpen most of the time back then – and we told him our story and Neal said, "That sounds like a great story." And we said, "Yeah, we think so, too!" So Neal says, "Why don’t you guys write up a script, and I’ll draw it. Then we’ll give it to Julie and see what he thinks about it when it’s illustrated."

And we did exactly that – we took I don’t remember how many months, but Neal drew the story and then we brought it into Julie essentially a fait accompli. He was not a happy man. Initially, he says, "Don’t ever do that again!" And Neal said, "But you’re going to buy the story still right?" He says, "Yeah, of course, I’m going to buy the story, dammit." And that’s how we got our first Batman story published.

When you came back a few years later it was a time of really interesting change for the character. He'd already had that initial transformation back to a darker, moodier character, and then writers like yourself, Archie Goodwin and Denny O’Neil were really doing some interesting stuff to build that out around the time you came back. Was there a big master plan, or did everybody’s vision for the character just sort of go in that direction?

I think it didn’t start out as everybody’s vision for the character. I believe it was originally Denny and Neal’s vision of going back to doing "The Batman" as opposed to simply "Batman." And once they did what they did everyone else said, "That’s fantastic!" And so everyone went to follow that model. It was a better character to write. It was much more exciting to write those kinds of more adult Batman stories than Batman vs. the Purple Monsters from Planet X, which had been a lot of what Jack Schiff had been doing when he was editing the books.

Joker's Five Way Revenge is one of the best Batman stories ever.

I enjoyed this issue a lot, and I suppose the ones leading up to it. Might want to check it out and go from there.