There have been -- in the nearly forty years that a comics magazine entitled JUSTICE LEAGUE (or some variation thereof) has been published by DC Comics, Inc. -- in my opinion, as one who's read eveery last, single blamed one of 'em... only four writers to get the concept and characters dead, spot-on, capital-"R" RIGHT.

That's not very many, really, over the course of three decades of near-continuous publication.

Which says something, I think, about how difficult a concept the Justice League can be to carry off with the proper panache (as well as the resultantly satisfying "read").

Even though that baseline concept is a bone-simple one ("The World's Greatest Super-Heroes. Treated With the Respect They Deserve.")... various lesser writers, over the years -- thinking themselves, perhaps, of greater pith or measure than the concept itself -- have not, by and large, been able to resist "tinkering" with it, here and there.

Sometimes, said writer is a comics "fanboy" grown older (if not, sadly, grown up), whose own tastes are for the four-color characters of his youth who -- rightly or wrongly -- have never been able to sustain ongoing titles of their own. (Hence: goodbye, "The World's Greatest Super-Heroes...")

At other times, the writer has been an avid comics deconstructionist, whose own feelings on the characters with whose shepherding he's been entrusted border on ridicule, if not contempt outright. (So long, then, "Treated With the Respect They Deserve.")

There have been -- as I've stated -- only four, of any lasting tenure, who've felt otherwise.

The current JLA scribe -- the Joseph Campbell-besotted Grant Morrison -- is one of these. As were 70's interpreters Len Wein and Steve Englehart.

But the first -- and best -- was the JUSTICE LEAGUE's original Aesop/Boswell/what-have-you: Gardner Fox.

The 60's JUSTICE LEAGUE, under the sainted Mr. Fox, was very nearly as much a straight-ahead science fiction title as it was a spandexed showcase.

By "science fiction," here, I do not mean the nuts-and-bolts stuff popularized within the genre by such worthies as Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven and so forth (although it certainly did contain, often as not, precisely that sort of clear-eyed and level-headed scientific extrapolation as its storytelling mainspring).

Instead, what I'm referring to, in the main, is what devotees of the SF form like to refer to as "the Sense of Wonder"; that satisfying emotional and intellectual "rush" which accompanies one's appreciation -- upon summary reading -- of the very best extrapolations from the "If This..." to the "... Then What If That...?"

Part of this, of course, was due to the simple fact that Mr. Fox -- unlike the vast parvenu rank-and-file of comics scribes working today -- was a well-read, well-rounded adult, whose own tastes in recreational reading ran to considerably broader reach and effect than the popular "trash" novelists of his day. Indeed: he wrote much outside of the super-hero comics field, as well: prose western novels, science fiction, theatrical reviews... and the greater portion of it all betraying a probing and restless intellect which would have felt resultantly cramped, surely, if held back by the ceaseless, anti-story dictates of the modern-day reader.

(For those who might well be scratching their head over that last bit... allow me to explain:

(There exists, unaccountably, within the comics readership of today a noisy, story-comes-second subsect which values practically everything moreso than it does the simple glories inherent in The Tale Well Told. Chief amongst their fannish concerns is this: that every single comic published by [say, in this instance] DC Comics, Inc. be able to "snap" comfortably into pre-arranged jigsaw place with every other published issue of every other title.

(That this silly conceit on their parts -- i.e., that the work of, literally, hundreds of well-intentioned men and women be held storytelling "hostage" to their own anal-retentive needs for a seamless "tapestry [if you will] against which they may better justify, perhaps, their own affection for such an innocent, fairy tale art form -- is untenable, of course, does nothing to keep these sorts from mercilessly hectoring said creators through every venue open to them for Forgetting This Issue Here or Neglecting To Reference That Panel There. It is -- ultimately -- much like watching an ill-mannered group of small children bickering in the front room over whether Mighty Mouse actually "exists" in the same universe as, say, the cast of CHEERS: dull; pointless; relying chiefly upon the use of circular reasoning; and a thoroughgoing nuisance to everyone else in the house.

(The comics "family" of fandom -- in short -- would be an infinitely happier one, if only these dysfunctional "children" within same would simply grow up; move out of the basement; and start dating girls. Or whatever.)

In any event... back to Gardner Fox. And with an audible sigh of relief, I might add.

Mr. Fox, for his part, didn't (from all published indications) give a royal hang what adventures -- if any -- his assembled cast might be up to in their own ongoing titles, whether singly or in tandem. Such quibbling with the respective visions of other working, adult professionals within the field wasn't on his storytelling agenda; nor, thankfully, was it any more coveted on the part of the readership of the day.

This left the field, then, wide open for tale-telling of the grandest and most nakedly imaginative stripe: tales wherein one (or more) Leaguers may find themselves... just as a f'rinstance, mind; there are many such from which to choose -- suddenly grown freakishly gigantic, due to their having attempted to help a fellow hero (the outwardly-monstrous Metamorpho, in this particular) in a prior JLA adventure.

By way of unhappy (if illustrative) comparison: a writer attempting to do so today would need special "clearance" from the writers and editors of each individual character's "home title"... and, like as not, be subject to their unwanted storytelling "input," as well.

As stated, earlier: this "continuity" nonsense is anti-story, in every particular -- the intellectually sterile and self-referential equivalent of what teenaged boys are often warned will make them go blind, if they indulge in it with too-reckless appetite and abandon.

These days, sad to say... a true-blue super-hero's greatest terror isn't the escaped arch-nemesis, sworn to eternal vengeance; it's the torrential tidal wave of angry letters and e-mail from howling, "continuity"-crazed fanboys, demanding to know why the latest issue of POTATO SALAD MAN doesn't make requisite obesience to a thought balloon within the penultimate panel on Page Twelve in a years-old issue of THE TURKEY COMBO PLATTER SQUADRON.