Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
Okay, then: the question practically begs itself, doesn't it?
Just what was so gosh-darned cool and nifty-keeno about the much lauded "Silver Age of Comics," anyway...?
Welllllll... I suppose I could attempt to wax poetic about the sharper and more astute storytelling values inherent in most of the comics published in the 60's and early 70's. Less pointless, copycat "realism" for its own self-referential -- and self-limiting -- sake; heeroes who were more truly (and unabashedly) heroic; artistic giants in the field (Kirby; Kane; Colan; Dillin; Cardy; Infantino; Premiani; etc.) whose brilliant likes are all too obviously absent these days, and whose clear-eyed storytelling savvy is, sadly, missed in much of the thin fanboy fare being offered up to us today. Yeah... I s'pose I could do it that way, mebbe...
... or -- or -- I could just let some representative samples of the work speak for themselves (far more concisely and eloquently than I ever could, at any rate).
Yeah. Let's do it that way, then.
Let's show, rather than tell. 
Until just recently...
this once-proud flagship title of the DC Comics line had fallen upon hard,
hard times.
A series of ill-considered "changes in direction" in the 80's and early 90's -- each one more disastrous than the next (changing the galaxy-spanning League into an earthbound, Detroit-based haven for career tenth-rate spandexed types; turning the book into a weak-kneed "humor" title; splitting the franchise into no fewer than three ongoing monthlies, none of which proved sustainable due to lackluster line-ups and paint-by-number creative personnel -- had brought the title to its lowest-selling plateau ever. Dispirited fans had wandered away from the Justice League; the essential core concept -- i.e., "The World's Greatest Super-Heroes" -- had long since been foolishly abandoned by the title's curators.
While things are quite a bit better now -- thanks, in no small part, to the Joseph Campbell-style sense of mythic grandeur bestowed upon the title by its current scribe, Grant Morrison -- it's worthwhile, I think, to reflect back upon the League's earliest "glory days," and realize how absurdly simple and elegant the engine which fuels this particular funnybook funny car.
"The World's Greatest Super-Heroes" -- treated as the iconic archetypes they are.
Try mining too far from that base point, and -- inevitably -- all you'll end up hitting is sheet rock.
Grant Morrison brings much of the same creative ChexMix to the Justice League party as did the very best of his predecessors (Gardner Fox in the 60's; Len Wein and -- most especially -- Steve Englehart in the 70's). Chief among his storytelling virtues is the conscious awareness that the League has always functioned best, creatively, with a soupcon of Heavy Weirdness Sauce added to the necessary "... migawd... did you see that...?" flavoring.
In the very best of the early JLA stories... anything could (and, often, did) happen... no matter how existentially offbeat; no matter how seemingly ludicrous, upon sober reflection. (... but, then: in a storytelling medium so thoroughly given over to the monthly chronicles of god-like men and women dashing about in their Dr. Denton's... "ludicrous," really, ought to be the order of the day...) :-)
Giant, sentient starfish from outer space, bent on world domination...? Check.
Cosmic funhouse mirrors which transformed stalwart super-heroes into sideshow freaks...? Check.
The bodiless uniforms of their most implacable foemen, come to horrific life in order to continue Doing Evil in the stead of their masters...?
Ummmmm... check.
A personal note, if I may be allowed to mention it: JUSTICE LEAGUE #37 (first series; pictured here) was the very first comic I ever bought, way, waaaaaaaayyyy back in the 1960's.
A lifelong devotion to the comics medium... and I owe
it all to Gardner Fox (writer); Mike Sekowsky (artist); and a somewhat befuddled
pink genie. Go figure.
In all seriousness, however: the issue proved a nigh-irresistible "bait" with which to suitably hook a seven-year-old kid, more than thirty summers ago. Alternate earths... two (not one -- two!) different super-hero teams... earthquakes... moon monsters... and High Magic -- all for the merest expenditure of twenty-four cents (it was a two-part story).
These days (by way of comparison), the only thing a quarter will get you from your local comics dealer is a sour look.
Until the advent of JUSTICE LEAGUE #42 (first series; "Metamorpho Says -- NO!"), the notion that any card-carrying super-hero type -- even one as naturally reticent towards such matters as the freakish Metamorpho (a.k.a., "The Element Man") -- might actually refuse the fellowship of so august an assemblage as the Justice League was, quite simply, an unprecedented one. Another comics "first"; another feather in the storytelling cap of master comics scribe Gardner Fox.
Incidentally: Metamorpho should have said "yes"; his solo title was canceled shortly after his refusal of League honors.
The earliest incarnations of the League had as odd and unsettling a rogue's gallery of villainous antagonists as ever graced the pages of any ongoing adventure title. Three-eyed alien chess aficionados... men with heads shaped like keys... women who transformed men into drone-like "bee" servitors...
...and -- of course -- the one... the only... Shaggy Man.
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page TWO
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page THREE
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page FOUR
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page FIVE
The Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE: Page SIX
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