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[QUOTE=caj;5206071]I think people are forgetting that Batman re-joined in issue #250 - right before the Despero arc. I just think it was a matter of 'too little, too late' at that point.[/QUOTE]
He also conveniently disappeared after #255, right after the Despero story ended.
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[QUOTE=caj;5206157]Agree with all of this. I knew it was off pretty early in Jurgens' run. I stayed with it until some writer killed off Ice and I was done. I stayed waaayyyy too long.[/QUOTE]
I remember Waid commenting that killing off Ice was the biggest mistake of his career.
I thought it was cool that she was growing some and becoming a bit more powerful.
And we got to see her homeland.
Just to have her killed off...
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JLI was a joke that lasted too long.
The “Breakdowns” arc was the nail on the coffin.
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I'd say it's all in the talent and execution. If things were switched, I have no doubt that DeMatteis/Giffen would have made JLDetroit a success.
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Right off the bat, JLI looked great thanks to Kevin Maguire (and Terry Austin in issue one). I didn't like how the series became more and more about humor -- and I think that was what brought the run crashing down eventually. Once Maguire and Hughes (and all of the heavy hitters like Dr. Fate, Captain Marvel -- even Black Canary) were gone, the book was mostly a jokefest with occasional dramatic turns).
Justice League Detroit had so-so art, so-so characters and just didn't look that great.
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[QUOTE=kcekada;5206867]Right off the bat, JLI looked great thanks to Kevin Maguire (and Terry Austin in issue one). I didn't like how the series became more and more about humor -- and I think that was what brought the run crashing down eventually. Once Maguire and Hughes (and all of the heavy hitters like Dr. Fate, Captain Marvel -- even Black Canary) were gone, the book was mostly a jokefest with occasional dramatic turns).
Justice League Detroit had so-so art, so-so characters and just didn't look that great.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I don't think Kevin Maguire gets the credit he deserves; he was just about the best at making great and funny facial expressions...he visually told those stories better than anyone else could have. He's still the best at that today IMO, with perhaps Connor coming close for humorous facial expressions. But his selected use of decompression to sell a visual gag is still unmatched IMO.
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[QUOTE=achilles;5206881]Yeah, I don't think Kevin Maguire gets the credit he deserves; he was just about the best at making great and funny facial expressions...he visually told those stories better than anyone else could have. He's still the best at that today IMO, with perhaps Connor coming close for humorous facial expressions. But his selected use of decompression to sell a visual gag is still unmatched IMO.[/QUOTE]
Something I dislike is the over rendered coloring they do to his art now days.
To me, it ruins his line work and distracts me from the story.
His art is perfect without it.
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[QUOTE=j9ac9k;5206611]I'd say it's all in the talent and execution. If things were switched, I have no doubt that DeMatteis/Giffen would have made JLDetroit a success.[/QUOTE]
Maybe, but I doubt it. As a reader back then, it was a jarring move and no quality of writing was going to change that at that point. Post-[I]COIE[/I]? Then it might have succeeded.
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[QUOTE=Jim Kelly;5205932]Maybe the terms of comparison are off.
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA began in 1960 and ended in 1987. It ran for 261 issues. JUSTICE LEAGUE/JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL/JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA began in 1987 and ended in 1996. It ran for 113 issues.
Couldn't we ask why JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA failed, too? Dan Jurgens came onto that book, took it in a different direction, but it got cancelled. I think it just ran out of steam. And the publisher wanted to reboot the series, because in the collector market sales go up when a series restarts.
The Detroit League came at the end of a long running series. Gerry Conway had already been writing the Justice League for a long time (longer than anyone else--even Gardner Fox--I believe) and the Detroit League was his effort to bring new life to a book that was losing steam--that plus the fact that many of the long-standing members of the team were subtracted from the book for editorial reasons and the trend was for younger super-hero teams. Conway took a move out of the Stan Lee playbook (on AVENGERS) and threw a hail-mary pass.[/QUOTE]
Jurgens didn’t kill Justice League America. It obviously wasn’t as good but was entertaining enough. Dan Vado’s stuff was worse but still ok. It was the post Zero Hour run by Gerard Jones that destroyed the book. Those issues (93-113) are unreadable.
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I remember there being some outcry too especially regarding Vibe because of how stereotypical the character(s) are/were.