JLI Podcast #6 – Justice League #6 (Oct 1987)

It’s time for the sixth episode of JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL: BWAH-HA-HA PODCAST! The Irredeemable Shag welcomes guest host J David Weter to discuss Justice League #6 (Oct 1987)! This month Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire bring chaos (and the Creeper) to Stone Ridge, Vermont! It's the Justice League versus the Gray Man, plus Captain Marvel and Martian Manhunter in a knock-down, drag-out fight!! Dave and Shag cover what was on the shelves that same month, recap and discuss the Justice League issue, and finally YOUR listener feedback!

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13 responses to “JLI Podcast #6 – Justice League #6 (Oct 1987)

  1. I have to suspect your story on staying in a hometown hotel because of “home improvements” as being untrue.

    I believe your family calls it “laying low” and “dodging the five-oh.”

  2. Why so hard on “the Living Daylights”? It’s a strong enough Bond movie. All it really needed was a better villain and it would be one of the better movies in the series.

    But “Goldeneye”? Aside from the awesome part with Bond driving the tank through a wall with the theme song behind him, it’s really pretty forgettable.

    1. Goldeneye is my favorite Bond movie, so no.

      True story (to the best of my fuzzy recollection): My father worked for a time in theater concessions, so one Friday on my sporadic weekend visits, he took me along as he managed his route. From place to place, he’d do his thing, and I’d go watch part of a movie that was playing until he called me back to move along. I believe the three movies I watched in/ex media res were The Untouchables (which I loved but never liked as much after Connery & I exited, because I didn’t see the rest of the movie until home video,) The Monster Squad (an ’80s cheese classic that I got to see more or less in total,) and The Living Daylights (which I may have abandoned for one of the other two after the violin case chase.)

      After a couple of stalled attempts, I finally watched Daylights to completion a few years ago during an aborted Bond 50th anniversary marathon. On paper, Dalton should have been a great Bond, but he lacked the charismatic spark for both the role and his broader career as a leading man. He’s a handsome and capable supporting actor, but he lacks that certain something to be a star. D’Abo was pretty but vacant, and none of the actors had much chemistry. It’s a very flat entry, and a half measure between a more serious, grounded take and Roger Moore. Brosnan bridged that divide much better in Goldeneye, which was so good we suffered through the rest of his tenure waiting for a repeat of its greatness (with The World Is Not Enough coming the closest while still falling far short.)

  3. So much to comment about this episode … and I don’t even have this issue!

    Creeper – how can so many people who seem to know so much about comics not ‘get’ the Creeper. That dude is just awesome! Seriously!

    Black Canary costume – how can so many people who seem to know so much about comics not like this version of Canary’s costume. I love … looooovvveeee … this costume. Too good!

    Goldeneye – this was a rebirth for the Bond series. Brosnan as Bond! Alan Cummings as nerdy double agent Boris! Dench in her first turn as M? Joe Don Baker as standard overly confident US CIA agent! Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatop!! Sean Bean as 006, killed in a way only Sean Bean can be killed in a movie! Robbie Coltrane as a Russian mobster! And did I mention Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatop (that fight in the sauna with Brosnan is awesome)!!!

    Living Daylights – Wasn’t a bad movie. After all, Olivia D’Abo is a fantastic Bond Girl … a cello playing assassin! But it ain’t Goldeneye!

    Slash Maraud is a perfect quarter bin find. Gulacy art alone is worth it.

    Firestorm as a blank slate? I guess I said ‘him? no!’ rather than ‘know him’. Yep. I guess I caused the cancellation of the book.

  4. I told you those transporter tubes were trouble Shag. I’m calling OSHA.

    Great discussion! Thanks for making this listenable Dave. Seriously, I especially enjoyed the Captain Marvel talk. I personally wonder if the Captain’s early dismissal from JLI was his last great chance to get back his popularity from at least the 70s, during his TV run. If they’d spun a new ongoing out of JLI, think what might have been? Even if they’d kept him on the team until Breakdowns and then did the Power of Shazam OGN and series. The mind boggles.

    And yeah, that gray haired, yellow-eyed Big Red Cheese was actually frightening. Brrr!!!

    Oh and that Action Comics Annual #1 is as awesome as you would imagine. In addition to the From Crisis to Crisis guys covering it, Cindy and I talked it up last year on Super Mates episode #38 (PLUG!)

    Chris

  5. I LOVE that you guys talk about Midtown Comics. For a long time when I had a lot of money and no bills (ah, the good ol’ days) that was the gold standard here in Manhattan for comic shops. I even had a pull list with them. Funny enough I got a lot of JLI issues through them.

  6. Irish Embassy calling wondering about two memos: The first is from Health and Safety saying that in future, all people who enter the transporter must wear pants, and the second from Lost and Found, saying that a Conway Twitty-singing colon has been found and will the owner collect it immediately as it is sick of being ask to “take the dare”. Weird!

    Anyway, excellent show Dave and Shagg. I actually love the splash page and first panel of this story, because it mirrors the end of the last issue, except with it being a panel and splash page at the end of issue 5. Very good work by Maguire.

    There was some excellent lines from Canary in this issue. I felt she was really coming into her own as a character in these issues and it was a pity that she had to be pulled. I wonder, like Captain Marvel and Dr. Fate, was she a “loaner” to the JLI and was always meant to be pulled, or did the events of Longbow Hunters meant that she had to be taken out of JLI to properly deal with the consequences of same?

    It was interesting Shagg talking about drawing the Firestorm image from the ads – I had visions of young Shagg up in the attic, with pictures of Firestorm hanging from the walls, and “KNOW HIM” scrawled all across the pictures! I jest!

    On a more serious note though, with all the talk of characters being piulled out of the JLI, does Shagg think that the Firestorm of this era would have been a good fit to be in the JLI, or would the events in his own book preclude him from being a member. I have not read this era of Firestorm but Shagg did mention that John Ostrander was told to ramp up sales for the character so maybe being part of the JLI team would help, like it did Blue Beetle and Booster……ooops, never mind! Still, be interested to see if Shagg would have liked Firestorm to have been part of this JLI?

    You go from Living Daylights to GoldenEye, without speaking of Licence to Kill, which is far superior to Living Daylights, in my opinion. Think GoldenEye just shades it over Licence though, as Pierce Brosnan was just a better Bond than Dalton.

    On the feedback, my feedback was the only one that did not get a “One Punch” sound effect. It may seem strange (One Punch) but I really wanted that “One Punch” sound effect (One Punch). One punch, er I mean one hopes that shagg will rectify this one punch oversight and give me that “One Punch” sound effect (one punch).

    Great show and look forward to the League going International next episode. (One punch).

  7. This show continues to deliver. Well done, Shag and Dave.

    Black Canary definitely stole the show in issue #6. Yes, I love the jazzercise costume. I’m all with Shag, Canary is a beautiful woman and Maguire makes her look amazing. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking that her time with the team doesn’t last. But I wonder: were Giffen/DeMatteis just now finding Canary’s voice in the book? Were they deliberately giving her more prominence in reaction to the terrible things happening in GA: TLH? Were they fighting an editorial battle over the direction of Dinah’s future? Hmmm.

    I have to say, the “Meanwhile” and “House ads” part of the show has become a surprising favorite time for me. What a trip down memory lane. Oh, my poor beloved Outsiders. I thinks Jim Aparo draws one more issue? Maybe? And then it’s some dude named E Larsen until cancellation. Sigh.

    While poking fun a little at Slash Maraud and Silverblade, it’s interesting to remember this period when DC also published Camelot 3000, Watchmen, and Swamp Thing, delving into “Mature Readers Only”, comics not for kids. It’s like their first baby steps to launching Vertigo. Amazing time indeed.

    And I’m sorry my posts tend to be long, rambling, disjointed, etc. I so much love for this series and this period of comics, I just have so much to say! Probably makes me the G’Nort of this community. I mean well, but…

    Anyhoo! Great show! Can’t wait for my transporter to arrive! Right? Right? (“Sigh.” “I didn’t know power rings *could* sigh.”)

  8. Love this issue… love this show!
    I remember being sad that Cap. Marvel was leaving, when I bought this off the shelves. In my head Captain Atom was a second rate replacement. Made even worse because I knew his “secret spy side” from his own book. I don’t remember how we all knew/ or figured out that the J.L. was about to gain an “I”. However I know by the time this issue hit the stands the information had leaked. It was pre internet so that wasn’t it. Anyway my pal Zee, was convinced the humor had been temporary and I hat things were going to “get serious so the big guys can come back”( or something similar it has been decades). I bet him the humor would continue… I love winning bets about comics.

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