125 issue JLA run from late 90's through early 2000's

[REVOLUTION]

Hello all-
I know the Morrison written issues are highly regarded, but how good was the rest of the run. As always, thank you in advance for your input.

[Aarkus]

Hello all-
I know the Morrison written issues are highly regarded, but how good was the rest of the run. As always, thank you in advance for your input.

the Mark Waid and Joe Kelly portions of that run are also worth reading. they're not Morrison-level bonkers, but it's all solid as far as JL writers go. after those two it starts to go downhill a bit, especially around the 100-issue mark. then it kind of plods along toward the end with Geoff Johns writing the final issues with a bunch of tie-in crap and the team just sort of falling apart. it's an even sadder limp to the finish line than when the original run ended back in the 80s

[Robotman]

I loved the Joe Kelly/Doug Mahnke run. I would definitely give that a read.

[K7P5V]

Loved when they brought in different artists, like Yvel Guichet

The Obsidian Age is Highly Recommended (IMHO):

[Aarkus]

Loved when they brought in different artists, like Yvel Guichet

The Obsidian Age is Highly Recommended (IMHO):

probsbly my favourite post-Morrison part of the run right there

[HsssH]

I'm a fan of Busiek's Syndicate Rules, but other than that Morrison -> Waid -> Kelly are obvious picks.

[Steroid]

I loved the Joe Kelly/Doug Mahnke run. I would definitely give that a read.

I loved the Joe Kelly run and Trial by Fire may be my all time favorite JLA story.

[Nomads1]

Hello all-
I know the Morrison written issues are highly regarded, but how good was the rest of the run. As always, thank you in advance for your input.

Honestly, overall, it was a very good run, probably one of the most even of the League's runs. As others have mentioned the Mark Waid's and Joe Kelly's runs are, in their own right, almost as good as Morrison's, though I'd often wish that Waid had added some more members to his line-up. (If I'm not mistaken, around the beggining of the run, Waid decided he was going to leave DC to manage Boom Studios, so his run, like ironically enough Geoff Johns' in Marvel's Avengers, had an established end date.) Tower of Babel, Obsidian Age, Trail by Fire, are all considered classic JLA sagas. And the Mark Waid/ Brian Hitch partnership also gave us a tabloid sized adventure called JLA: Heaven's Ladder. Around #90, Joe Kelly seemed to be tieing up his run (he'd come back for issue #100, with the Justice League Elite, that branched out to a 12 maxi-series by Kelly and Mahnke) and the rotating creative teams started. That was, IMHO, when the book took a nose dive. You had a three issue story by Denny O'Neil which, honestly, I can't remember almost anything about it, then came Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Jerry Ordway in a very confusing arc, the Tenth Circle, that mostly served to launch Byrne's new Doom Patrol series (the art by Byrne and Ordway was pretty good, though). After #100 came an arc by Chuck Austen, Pain of the Gods, that was not very good, even though the art was by Ron Garney, one of my personal favorites. Then Garney stuck on for an 8 issue arc written by Kurt Busiek called Syndicate Rules, that not only was one of my all time favorite JLA adventures, but also gave me hope that Busiek and Garney were going to stick around as the new regular creative team (a dream team for me, really, since both are among my favorites). Sadly, that was not going to happen. Identity Crisis was already going on, and editorial seemed to have decided that the League as we knew it was going to be a casuality, going on hiatus to be relaunched at a later date. We had a Geoff Johns, Allan Heinberg and Chris Batista arc, Crisis of Conscience, that tied in with Identity Crisis, which was, IMHO, quite good, and then a final arc by Harras and Derenick, a World Without a Justice League, that was not. So, up to issue #90, I'd say the series is totally worth it, after that, it depends on what you like, and you can pick and choose the individual arcs, for there is not much connection between them. I'd recommend Syndicate Rules, Crisis of Conscience and even the Tenth Circle, though mostly for the art and the novelty of having Chris Claremont and John Byrne working together again. #100 is also good, tieing in with the classic Joe Kelly Superman story "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and The American Way?", and so is the 12 issue maxi-series, Justice League Elite. However, that is a matter of personal taste.

Peace

[Alan2099]

The Chuck Austen Pain of the Gods story arc, JLA #101–106, is one of the worst excuses for a Justice League story arc you're likely to find. Each issue is another League member failing, innocent people dying, and then the League member feels bad about it. (Except Batman. Batman doesn't fail.) It's not really much of an arc as it is the same story being told for several issues in a row.

It's also got probabaly the worst take on Martian Manhunter I've ever ran across.

[Zero Hunter]

I think it was a good run but it kinda suffered from the same thing the previous run did and DC stopped treating it like a flagship title and started putting writers and artists on the book that were not their A listers. When a book is one of your Flagship titles you HAVE to keep the A list talent. Thinking that a book will sell on the name alone is always a recipe for failure.

[caj]

I think it was a good run but it kinda suffered from the same thing the previous run did and DC stopped treating it like a flagship title and started putting writers and artists on the book that were not their A listers. When a book is one of your Flagship titles you HAVE to keep the A list talent. Thinking that a book will sell on the name alone is always a recipe for failure.

Agree completely.

A Flagship book is not the place to see what our newbie writer can do.

[Nomads1]

Agree completely.

A Flagship book is not the place to see what our newbie writer can do.

What most bothered me when DC stopped having a steady creative team on the book, and started to have a rotating cast of creators, was that we had JLA Classified around the same time, doing exactly this.

Peace

[FFJamie94]

Funnily enough, I just bought a lot on ebay of issues 47-125 (it was about £70) after having issues 1-46 in my collection for a year.
I'm looking forward to getting around to it (I also have the One Million event and the 3 issue Midsummer's Nightmare mini).
I may have to give folks an update on how I get on with them.

[Bruce Wayne]

What most bothered me when DC stopped having a steady creative team on the book, and started to have a rotating cast of creators, was that we had JLA Classified around the same time, doing exactly this.

For JLA Classified, barring the first issues with the Sheeda and the Ultramarine Corps and a few other stories, a lot of the issues in JLA Classified were recycled stories (like the Kid Amazo one) that had been binned for one reason or another despite being in various stages of completition that DC editors decided to finally take them out of the filing cabinets to get them published and presumably to get back some of the money back that they had paid to comission these stories in the first place.