Your Favorite Single Justice League/Justice Society of America Teamup Story

[caj]

Bumping this thread up because I thought it might make for an interesting poll. So far, looks like those JLA/JSA annual meetings mentioned are:

#91-92 (1971) <Robin of Earth-2 with Robin from Earth-1>
#100-102 (1972) <Seven Soldiers of Victory>
#113 (1974) "The Creature in the Velvet Cage" <return of Sandman's former sidekick Sandy>
#135-137 (1976) <Earth-S>
#147-148 (1977) "Crisis in the 30th Century!" <with Legion of Super-Heroes>
#171-172 (1979) <Death of Mr. Terrific>
#183-185 (1980) <New Gods / Darkseid>
#207-209 + All-Star Squadron #14-15 (1982) "Crisis on Earth-Prime!"

Any other contenders that should be mentioned?

I loved the Seven Soldiers of Victory (100-102) and the Legion of Super Heroes (147-148)

But my favorite would have to be Death of Mr. Terrific (171-172).

[M@Bowers2014]

Got to be The Death of Mr. Terrific teamup for me. Very cool locked door murder mystery. And excellent characterizations (Batman agonizing over The Huntress's injury, Alan Scott irked that Superman was "giving all the orders", etc)

This was my first JLA/JSA team-up that I read as it was coming out so I'll always have a soft spot for it. Same for the next one featuring the New Gods and the first JLA artwork by Perez. But my favorite has to be the next one featuring the Secret Society of Super Villains. Honorable mention goes to Virtue and Vice the hardcover one-shot that came out in 2003. I'm really hoping we see the return of this soon after the JLA relaunches later this year.

[caj]

But my favorite has to be the next one featuring the Secret Society of Super Villains.

That one was a lot of fun but the plot didn't make much sense when I re-read it (Thanks, Gerry Conway).

But the characters used and the great art of Perez made it much better than the plot.

[MajorHoy]

But my favorite has to be the next one featuring the Secret Society of Super Villains.

That one was a lot of fun but the plot didn't make much sense when I re-read it (Thanks, Gerry Conway).

But the characters used and the great art of Perez made it much better than the plot.

So, we're adding

#195-197 (1981) <Secret Society of Super-Villains>

to the list.

[Jim Kelly]

Got to admit a real soft spot for 91-92. It's not the best, but it was the first I read, and I loved the scenes between The Robins

This was the first one I bought, also. I had bought a couple of issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA before, but not the crossovers. And I do remember reading the 73-74 crossover when I was at a neighbour's house--but maybe just issue 73; however, I didn't remember too much about it at the time, only that it had Starman and Black Canary and the Dillin and Greene art looked really cool. But it was 91 where I understood that there was another Earth with the other versions of the same characters on it (that they had actually existed in comic books back in the 1940s, I didn't trust, it could have just been a "what-if"). And that's what hooked me on buying JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA from then on.

I'd say that the "Crisis on Earth-Three" story in 29-30 was one of their greatest--the best from the original team of Fox/Sekowsky/Sachs. And I also really like the first grown-up Robin story in 55-56, by Fox/Sekowsky/Greene.

[astro@work]

#100-#102 Was the best one for me, but also my first.
What an awesome Summer that was waiting for each issue to come out, and they even brought back non-powered Diana Prince for the first time since she left the team.

It inspired me to hunt down previous team-ups that were hiding in my neighbor's old comic stacks, since comic stores with extensive back issue bins weren't really a thing yet.
(And I wouldn't have been old enough to drive myself to one anyway).

[The Darknight Detective]

JLA 183, 184 and 185
Attachment 110382

Yep. #1 and it's not even close, IMO.

[The Darknight Detective]

Crisis on Earth S , 1976 for me. It’s got Earth 1, Earth 2, & the Shazam earth characters. Finally issue builds up to a battle between Superman & Captain Marvel. Kind of a dud but loved it all the same. It also had a rare appearance by the Earth 2 Batman.

Besides, it was my first Crisis.

Not only was it also my first Crisis, but it was my first JLA story I both read and bought, too.

[caj]

LOL - I noticed that the re-telling of Black Canary's origin (#219-220) was not included on the list. People really do hate that re-write.

If I recall, Gerry Conway gave credit to Marv Wolfman for the idea. It did not go over well.

[astro@work]

LOL - I noticed that the re-telling of Black Canary's origin (#219-220) was not included on the list. People really do hate that re-write.

If I recall, Gerry Conway gave credit to Marv Wolfman for the idea. It did not go over well.

I really feel like it was the younger Dinah having all the memories of older Dinah (like, you know, sex with daddy) that turned people off.
Short version: ewwwww.

At the time it was getting very awkward that 30-ish year old Ollie was dating 55-60-ish Dinah. They were backed into a corner, although in retrospect they could have waited a couple more years for COIE and just made the change then.

[MajorHoy]

I really feel like it was the younger Dinah having all the memories of older Dinah (like, you know, sex with daddy) that turned people off.
Short version: ewwwww.

The thing is, that story answered all the issues DC was trying to address. And younger Dinah having all of older Dinah's memories was sort of necessary to explain why younger Dinah had been acting like she was Golden Age Dinah for the past 14 years.

But, yeah, if anybody had really stopped to think about it, . . . ewwwww.

[The Darknight Detective]

I really feel like it was the younger Dinah having all the memories of older Dinah (like, you know, sex with daddy) that turned people off.
Short version: ewwwww.

Oh, definitely ewwwww. The writers couldn't think of something better? I blame the artists always drawing Dinah so young looking, despite being middle-aged by the '60s. I always assumed she was in her twenties until I discovered I was only off a few decades.

If DC wanted to get her and Ollie together, they should have de-aged her somehow and this idiotic retcon would never had seen the light of day.

[astro@work]

The thing is, that story answered all the issues DC was trying to address. And younger Dinah having all of older Dinah's memories was sort of necessary to explain why younger Dinah had been acting like she was Golden Age Dinah for the past 14 years.

But, yeah, if anybody had really stopped to think about it, . . . ewwwww.

Agree that it was required for the premise of young Dinah thinking she was old Dinah (but as mentioned, ewww).

But as I think about it, young Dinah rarely referenced her old life on Earth 2 or many specifics about it.
They could have added a couple panels to play this up, by having somebody challenge young Dinah on some of these specifics of her old life, and then have her realize she DIDN'T actually remember much.
Then of course she would have fainted, because everybody fainted back in those days. It could have subverted the idea that young Dinah retained every last detail of what old Dinah would have remembered.

[Jim Kelly]

I don't think the Dinah Drake Lance retcon was needed. It was just Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas as fans getting up in their heads about things that didn't need to be explained.

Maybe Dinah was supposed to be older but maybe not--who knows how time works in the comic book world. Failing anything else, they could just say the Aquarius stuff that gave her her metahuman powers helped rejuvenate her. Or she had that magical ability that all the Justice Society had not to show their age. It's really not something that had to be explained in the comic book--readers could make up their minds what was the deal.

And it's not a good explanation, because if you think about it for just five minutes it makes no sense.

That crossover only happened a year and a half before the start of the Crisis, so the retcon wasn't in continuity for very long before it was erased. I look at it as an aberration in the time-space continuum prefacing the Crisis that would destroy all

Not a crossover but kind of adjacent was the two-parter in 192 - 193, that finally established Red Tornado was the Tornado Champion. I like this one, because it's not so much a retcon as revealing something that seems like it should have been true all along. Gardner Fox created the Tornado Tyrant and Tornado Champion in MYSTERY IN SPACE and Fox created the Red Tornado--it makes sense that it was all connected from the beginning.

These two different continuity stories exist side by side in my mind as contrasting examples of how to do a continuity revelation and how not to do a continuity revelation. If the writer has to force too many variables into the mix to make it work, then it's no good. But if all the elements are already there and the writer just needs to connect the dots, then it's through the uprights.

[Lee Stone]

The New Gods/Darkseid one would be my pick, too.