JLI Podcast #31 – Justice League America #31 & Justice League Europe #7

It’s the first JLA/JLE crossover – THE TEASDALE IMPERATIVE parts 1 & 2! Jose Rivera joins The Irredeemable Shag to discuss Justice League America #31 in which Adam Hughes makes his Justice League debut! Then Scott X stops by to chat about Justice League Europe #7 in which both teams work together to battle a deadly disease as it sweeps through Europe! Huh, where have I heard that before? Plus YOUR listener feedback!

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31 responses to “JLI Podcast #31 – Justice League America #31 & Justice League Europe #7

  1. Fun stuff guys. I bought these issues when they came out too. Among the new releases on the shelves, Sears and AH aroused my interest.

    I did some digging online and the blue and gold fanzine was called The Booster Brigade. There’s some info about it here http://www.boosterrific.com/booster/media.php?media=fan%20tribute . I remember it had articles, fan art, and its own letter column. It was typed and arrived overstuffed in #10 envelopes.

  2. Listening now, but something jumped out at me looking at the gallery images. I haven’t read these comics and ages, and since then I became aware of Milton Bradley’s Starbird Avenger electronic spaceship from the late 70s, trying to cash in on the Star Wars craze. Apparently, Adam Hughes was also a fan!!!

    Starbird toy from Plaid Stallions

    Chris

    1. Chris, great pickup! I had the Starbird as a kid. Though as you said it was created to cash in on the Star Wars craze, I already had some of those ships to play with. So this ship doubled as my Battlestar Galactica. Not to scale with my Colonial Viper, but you do what you have to do.

      I think that Starbird still lives in my mom’s basement. Looks like a scavenger hunt is in order next time I visit!

  3. YES! Adam Hughes!
    When I was first starting to collect the back issues of JLI in 1992-93, I collected mostly from Hughes’ run so the only Maguire books I had were the two trades. Also, Having collected The Who’s Who Loose Leaf run, I was already somewhat acquainted with his work with the pinups he did on Fire, Ice, Barda and Phantom Lady,……among others!

    1. On a mildly unrelated note. I’m happy to say I just got in the DC Heroes Justice League Sourcebook. One of these days I’m going to try to get the Game start-up pack

  4. I can confirm that Adam Hughes draws men just as sexily as he draws women. Mr Miracle, Beetle and Booster are all very hot in JLA 31.

    1. Yeah, no kidding. I was walking through a barren toilet paper isle earlier today. Call in the Night Stacker!

  5. Gotta say, it was a lot of fun to record this episode with Shagg. I’m not used to recording podcasts like everyone else but getting to talk about my love of the JLI made it all the more special. Thank you to Shagg for the chance to talk comics and thanks to everyone for being so cool.

    1. Dang, Jose, you did a great job! So great to hear you on the show! (Not the first time you’ve heard that this week.)

  6. Great episode! And I don’t doubt Jose is a bigger Starman fan than I. I know he was a faithful listener to our Starman Chronicles episodes on Super Mates. Remember those?

    I think Adam Hughes gets away with “cheesecake” because their is an undercurrent of empowerment for the females he depicts. They are always in control, often dominating the hapless males in his images. I certainly didn’t mind the way he draws women, and honestly still don’t! His looks for Fire and Ice carry over to JLU as well, so we’ll see them in animation there.

    I do agree the JLA issue could have been a prologue to “The Teasdale Imperative”, but even numbers was probably the reason for just branding it “Part One”.

    Great to hear Scott X on the JLE segment, and nice to know he’s still getting his card punched. He gets a free sandwich when his card is full of holes!

    Chris

    1. Chris, always a pleasure and privilege to appear on the network. And I will keep working on getting that dance card filled. Also, a free sandwich would be great! I was afraid you would try to offload the life size Shag standy (“She’s hot, she’s hot) you and Cindy found a the Fire and Water Podcast Network Headquarters when you moved in! 🙂

    2. Chris! I miss those Starman Chronicles episodes. Hell, I think I’m gonna download them again on my phone and take them with me to work tomorrow. Loved your coverage of the series.

  7. Impressive podcast. Most impressive. Ah the JLA and E. Sounds like 2 fun comics. I probly should have collected them as a kid. Ah well. I kind of left off of these When Max was in the hospital. Ah way cool ship that Betel and Scott made. Ah Booster being booster. Wait Fire gave Booster a free Horn Dog moment and he fumbled the ball…..sigh. Booster is losing his touch. Ah the Fire And Ice getting their iconic suits awesome.

    Ah Bats being Bats.

    Was cool see Dr. Fate again. I like her. Wish she was in the comic more. But, wish she was more in the comic. LOL Fire burned the room. But, really their cloths confuse the AI? What if they show up in reg cloths? Shouldn’t it be set for Infor red? Or their voice comparison? Couldn’t a villain just ware the costumes with a appearance trick. Ted and Scott are there. They should have been better….sigh. LOL Guy and J’ohhn that was funny. Soooo yeah lots of female Cheese cake on the cover. But, note Captain Atom. His em bits and peace are kind of showing threw his costume. Ted might wanna move. If Dr. Fate being a gal is shocking him he might not want to look up. And well move.

    Wait did you say he for me ? That must have been a opps. Moving right along. Ah JLE is always funny. Luckly Power Girl is no longer a Kriptonan or she’s be the person with the biggest worry. Since Vamps count as Magic….. wait did bats question the Vamps? Didn’t he and Supes just fight Skeeter? Shouldn’t he be less hmm about this. He killed a Vamp to save Bats. I now see Guy played by Bill Burr. Yeeeeeeaaaah a bit to much cape for Power Girl. Still it looks cool. Ah The JL A and E fighting Vamps looks cool. And real Vamps not Sparkly ones. Oh real Quick I still have my U tube page.

    And I should also mention. Oh while I’m pluging my own U tube page. That’s Elizabeth Anne Oswalt. Here’s a few other folks I kind of know on U-tube. That have cool pages.

    Kiri Morning
    That Junkman
    Robert Willing
    Their back to the comic. Ah Animal Man and Rocket Red make a good team. And were fun together as a buddy team. Sad that Animal Man left the book to soon. As for Huntress and Dr. Fate. Teir probly hanging out with Mark Hamill After Last Jedi.

  8. I always assumed The Teasdale Imperative as a title was a play on all those manly Robert Ludlum novels such as the The Holcroft Covenant, the Bourne Supremacy, the Scarlatti Inheritance and the Poodle Conundrum.

    So far as the spelling of the Gray Man is concerned, only one spelling of ‘Gray’ is ever needed.

    Congrats to both guests for their wit and insight. José made a superb debut and Scott’s pointing out the Kubert-ness of the JLE cover was the highlight of the episode – it jogged a memory or two and sent me straight to the Grand Comic Database to see if I could find an original that spawned the likely homage. I’m not convinced I did – see my exchanges with Scott on Twitter – but I had loads of fun.

    And well done José for noticing the winking Dr Fate mask on the other cover – I think Shagg, and me, missed it because, for all his evident talent, Hughes hadn’t mastered shiny, reflective surfaces – the mask is a gurning mess… the rest of the book, gorgeous!

    I think Pablo Marcos on inks does Bart Sears’ a great service, adding an extra layer of dark drama to his work; sadly, he can’t save those lady faces… Peege looks like a failing drag queen. And you’re right about the hair, Shagg and Scott, it’s so high, Bea and Karen look to have triple crowns worthy of a Tamaranean.

    As for the story, as ever, some great character moments, but really, if you’re going to have two teams come together, you need an A-list villain, or one with potential… Teasdale ain’t it.

    1. As a person whose mom read all those Ludlum novels when they came out, I physically laughed at the “Poodle Conundrum” title. I would have loved to see that be the next movie in the Bourne series. Perhaps like John Wick, it has to do with Bourne’s pet dog?

      Also, for a person who lives in Canada, there is only one spelling of “grey” and I’m surprised the person from the UK uses the American spelling! We Canuckleheads learned everything we know from you!

  9. Opps I realize you probly hadn’t done that. The world losing it’s collective minds and U-tube comments. Seeing all these folks lose it over TP…oy. Seems minus the Zombies Kirkman would have probly been right. Of cores we know my pronouns are She, her, lady. Woman Witch or crazy witch. I just miss heard. Any way I remember the back lash on JLI, It lasted into the 200s. In one RPG I saw some one showing a big dislike for how the JLI were saw. Back when Max joined Check mate and killed Ted.

    Some were saying they were so annoyed at the JLI and how it treated the JLA that they were pro this. Me and one other person were annoyed about Max being a villain and how much we loved JLI. lad tha time is over. as cool to see Vamps again. Can’t wait to see how this playes out. Bart Sears was like Rob Kelly. And well me a Joe Kubert School student. Ok I did mine as a correspondence course, but still. Any way that’s probly why is cover looks so much like the Master Joe Kubert. Since he learned at his school. And probly learned at his desk.

    Ah the ark’s Broth’s style humor of Flash and J’ohn that was great. The talk between Fire and PG was cool. Hearing them talk was cool. Nice hearing them speak. Though JLA probly doesn’t use their real name cause a villain might hear them. Kind of like When Berry got annoyed and Hal for using his first name when they fought Bats in the New 52. So yeah probly best that they don’t use their real names in public. Shocked J’ohn or Bats didn’t get annoyed that The JLE are using their real names.

    Why ware a mask if every ones going tp say who the hero is?

  10. That Bart Sears clip at the beginning of the show was FANTASTIC! So nice, Frank!

    Huntress did say she was stopping by just to familiarize herself with their operation. But her PalmPilot dinged “ooo, sorry, I have a thing. so you all have fun in the crossover!”

    Ok, new thought about Max getting Huntress to join the JLI. We just finished getting Beetle deprogrammed from the Queen Bee, meaning mind controlled. And that’s when Max pushes Helena? What a hypocrite! Geez!

    I guess Ice is more about the look of the costume than the amount of skin. But man, I love these Fire and Ice costumes! Head bands and crop tops. Loooooove.

    I looked it up, and Sears had drawn one issue of Spectre before this series, so yes, he would have rocked a Spectre series.

    Wait, a Bwah-hah-hah award tie? No. Just… no. And I hate to side with Shag, but the Flash-J’Onn bit was the funniest in the issue! LOL, or maybe BHH!

    Another great show, gang!

    1. Oh gosh, I almost forgot to apologize for spoiling things in a 30-YEAR-OLD COMIC! I’m sooooooo sorry. But is it really a spoiler to say a character won’t appear any more, when it’s never addressed in the comic? So there! Captain Buzzkill, AWAY!

  11. If a containment suit or space suit needed to be worn by a Kelley Jones depiction of Batman, then I’d imagine those giant bat ears that Jones drew would have to wrap around the sides of Bruce’s head like ram horns. OK, now I have to go draw that fan art.

  12. Irish embassy here and with the Teasdale Imperative sweeping the continent, the Iris Embassy is fully stocked up to take care of the vampire threat – we have garlic, toilet paper, holy water, toilet paper, crosses, toilet paper, silver bullets, toilet paper, and of course, toilet paper!!!

    I really enjoyed the first two issues of the Teasdale Imperative. The Adam Hughes artwork on JLA 31 was an exceptional debut – for someone who was only making his first DC work, he really hit the ground running with his art. Despite the lack of the JLE in the book, I felt that the chapter was a good opener to the crossover. In fact, the lack of JLE in the story gave it a sense of ominous, especially inserted with the cutaways of the Spectre/Grey Man, Oberon/Max, and Sue/Catherine talking, in that whether the JLE had fallen to the forces that they were sent to investigate.

    A solid start to the story was amplified in JLE 7 when we saw first hand what the threat was facing them. After the initial skirmish and the meeting of the teams, we had some good character bits between Kara and Fire, J’onn and Atom, Batman and Ralph, and Dmitri and Buddy. There was a nice call back to with Invasion with J’onn’s rebuttal of the local army commander’s desire to kill the vampire creatures echoing J’onn’s distaste of war in the Invasion issues. The introduction of Teasdale and his anger against Stagg, the meeting of Spectre and Fate, and the not-so-surprising reveal of the Grey Man’s treachery make this a fine end to part 2.

    Regarding the cover, my original cover had Power Girl with the white hair and her cloak looked more brown that red. This made me thought, on first looking, that it was the Silver Sorceress on the cover rather than Power Girl, which made little sense of course, given that we are still awhile before seeing Sorceress on this book.

    A great start to this storyline and looking forward to the next episode covering the end of this story. Hope everyone is keeping safe in these times.

  13. so happy that you guys are finally on Spotify, about this edition, I am not a big fan of this crossover but I agree that it would make an excellent Dr Fate story with JLE and JLA as guests starring. About the setups in this story we have clues of things that will happen with Animal Man and Dimitri and some things that maybe would happen but the writers forgot: Flash and Powergirl? (thanks to rao).I conclude by stating that once again the Spectre doesn’t show up to help the heroes (he either gets in the way or does nothing).
    PS: about the lords of the order being incompetent, I challenge you to find a powerful entity from the DC universe that is not (I’m looking at you Guardians of the universe)

  14. OMGM! This is where some of my earliest “fan fights” because it is “political” start. My pal Zee was NOT happy about the Doctor Fate switch up. (This is 89 so I might have been having this argument in BBS forums as well.). Zee called it “feminist doctrine gone too far”. He had forgotten my interest in comics started with my feminist mom’s love for Wonder Woman. I personally LOVE it when we get a new version of a JSA characters. I used to argue with people who didn’t, but the fights were rarely worth my time. The sadist part is, I don’t remember the comic, just that first fight.

  15. Your mention of reading comics in strange places remind me of something I’d not thought of for… quite a while. Back in the day I house sat a friends grotty little flat with only a single heater to keep the room anything approaching warm. The reason I remember it was that he also had a full (at the time) run of Sandman and I spent the cold night working my way through them all, probably my first Vertigo and I probably have a soft spot for Sandman fo that reason. Thanks for reminding me of that, and putting up with my ramblings!

    Adam Hughs is an artist that does a lot of Power Girl art, to get back to my theme :D, including covers of the series that cermented my love for Power Girl. I don’t have much memrobelia but I do have a bust of Power Girls based on his art (and a mini Bombshells Power Girl, but thats beside the point).

    Hey look not bad seeing I have nothing to say about the comic, though as always an excellent podcast.

  16. Well done on an excellent episode! I’m sorry I’m so far behind but I feel like I’ve had LESS time to listen to podcasts during this time of staying at home. But the reason I love listening to this show is the excitement the hosts have for these great comics! It’s contagious and makes me to pull out these issues from my dusty long boxes.

    I do remember buying the JLA issue from the stands as I did a cartoon double-take when I saw Doctor Fate on the cover. I enjoyed Doctor Fate in the early issues of JL/JLI so this was quite the difference. I wasn’t reading the Doctor Fate monthly title at this time so I didn’t know what was going on. But I remember not having a problem at all thinking it was a neat turn on a classic character. Or maybe it was just the Adam Hughes art and I was in my early teens……

    I also remember this JLA issue got me to start collecting JLE as I didn’t want to miss out on the Teasdale Imperative! That way, I was in perfect shape for Breakdowns…….oh man, that word just bums me out. But that’s in the future! Right now, Breakdowns means nothing! Pay no attention!

    Once again, a great job everyone. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. Keep up the great work!

  17. We’ll look at that I am just over half way through the podcast run – there were only 60 issues of JL(I/A) for this run yeah? Finally over half way for the podcast and at this rate I will catch up soon….. What do you mean there’s the meanwhile episodes? Its just the annual right? RIGHT? There is MORE? Argh!

    Ironically I am in Germany this week visiting my in laws and while it’s not eastern Europe architecture the small towns and villages certainly do give me Teasdale flash backs. Kudos to the art teams who must have had photo references to look at.

    In the meanwhile (Argh feck now I am doing meanwhile comments!)…. This is what the 3rd official JL shuttle? Big, White/Red roof crasher, Black/Blue deltawing and now this “Starbird” design. Are there many other images of this version (or the other versions?) So I can try and model with LEGO?

    Ta for the great podcast!

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