Articles & Analysis

Naming the Ages

Newsarama started a debate over what to call the period of the DC Universe from the Crisis on Infinite Earths to Flashpoint as the usual term, post-Crisis, is increasingly confusing.It got me thinking so I sketched out the different eras/versions of the DC Earth/Earths in the above flow chart (click it to enlarge, updated to include Wildstorm). The trouble with most of Newsarama’s suggestions is that they get into descriptions of in-universe trends and those may only be true for one particular phase of that entire Earth 0.1 to Earth 0.4 cycle. That block is 25-years long – as long as the Silver and Bronze Ages combined.

The classic publishing ages don’t really match step perfectly with the in-universe continuity either. For example, the Classic Earth-One continuity period covers both the Silver Age and the Bronze Age (the split between them being the wholesale replacement of DC’s old guard at the end of the Silver Age and the injection of a new wave of writers and artists). Earth-Two is often use as a short hand for the Golden Age material, but, in a strict sense, its a Silver/Bronze Age construction. Ditto for all the multitude of Classic Multiverse Earths. And all of this is what we generally lump together as pre-Crisis.

The post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe splits into five distinct incarnations with each separated from the last by a wholesale in-universe revision of the timeline. This happens in Zero-Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, and in Flashpoint. The timeline is revised in Zero-Hour to fix the continuity mess created by merging five parallel Earth’s into one at the end of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Infinite Crisis splits the single Zero-Hour Earth into a Multiverse of 52 Earths. Grant Morrison restarts the timeline in Final Crisis with, for once, little visible effect on continuity. And then Flashpoint rejigs everything again and and brings us the post-Flashpoint Earth of the New 52. If that’s confusing think about all the parallel Earths that vanish with the Crisis and reappear with the Infinite Crisis.

All that post-Crisis revision doesn’t really parallel with any particular publishing trend or age. The grim-and-gritty “Dark Age” is in vogue immediately after the Crisis and into the Image Comics dominated 1990s. A central thesis of Morrison’s Supergods is that, by the mid-to-late 1990s, there is a push back against the Dark Age and a new Heroic Age of sorts comes about in works like Waid and Ross’s Kingdom Come, Morrison’s JLA & All-Star Superman, and Busiek’s Astro-City. Its also arguable that we’re actually seeing a new Dark Age with mainstream comics dominated by the Authority, Ultimates, Hush – a sort of cinematic, widescreen, ultra-detailed approach – that’s certainly the look that the new JL appears to be following.

So names… the publishing ages don’t align well enough to be usable. Terms like post-Crisis, post-Zero Hour, etc are okay, but require a certain level of knowledge about when they terminate. A grandiose title might be something like the Crisis Cycle, like ‘ramas own Crisis Era, but it again requires you to know what a Crisis is. However, I suppose that could be said of many different terms. I think the most neutral choice might be to resort to archaeology where the age that follows the Bronze Age is the Iron Age or if you want to split it down the Dark/Iron Ages. Whether the post-Flashpoint world deserves its own Age remains to be seen.

BB #28 – The Editor: Julius Schwartz

Julius Schwartz by Carmine Infantino (from the cover of Alter Ego #38)

First Appearance: All-American Comics #58, Flash Comics #54, Sensation Comics #39 (all June 1944)
Occupation: Literary agent, comic book editor, DC Comics good will ambassador
Claim to fame: First literary agent specialising in science fiction, being Julius Schwartz
Creator of: Editor & co-creator/co-plotter of the DC Silver Age characters (Adam Stranger, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Ray Palmer, etc)
Homages: Memorial lecture series, “The Schwartz” – the force behind everything in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, Zardeth in Adam Strange

Julius Schwartz’s autobiography is aptly titled Man of Two Worlds as he moved in two rather different, but intimately connected worlds. The Earth-2 Julie was a pivotal figure in early science fiction fandom – he collaborated on the first fanzine, convention, literary agency, you name it. The Earth-1 Julie was the man who helmed the 1960s revivals at DC Comics and is thus single handily responsible for comics’s Silver Age.
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BB #28 – The regular inker

There were three inkers who worked upon the first appearance of the Justice League in Brave and the Bold #28 – Bernard Sachs, Joe Giella, and Murphy Anderson. Anderson and Giella inked the Flash and Green Lantern chapters, but it was Sachs who inked the rest of the book and was the inker on the regular series.

Bernard Sachs

First Appearance: Silver Streak Comics #11 (June 1941)
Occupation: Inker of comic books, advertising animator
Claim to fame: Last JSA inker, first JLA inker.
Creator of: Inked the first appearances of Adam Strange and the Justice League
Homage: The source of the most expensive Roy Lichtenstein swipe ever sold.

Bernard Sachs has the distinction of being the last inker on the Justice Society’s original run and the first inker of the new Justice League. He was a prolific inker who brought a polished and clean, if not particularly dramatic, line to his work.

Early Comics Work

Cover to Airboy Comics #10 drawn and inked by Sachs.

Bernard Sachs was one of the legion of early comic book professionals who toiled away to produce our pop-art masterpieces, but of whom we know very little personal information. He may have been born in 1921 [1]. Julius Schwartz mentions visiting with Sachs and his wife Bernice who lived nearby to him [2]. He eventually left the field in the mid-1960s for an animation job with a large advertising agency before retiring in 1986 [3]. He passed away in 1998 [3].

Like his personal background, Bernard Sachs’ early comic book credits can be fragmentary, but the first work by him listed in the GCD is as a penciller on the “Dan Dearborn” feature in Lev Gleason’s Silver Streak Comics #11 (June 1941). He then pencils the “Espionage for X” feature in Quality’s Smash Comics #43-48 and #50 (June 1943 to Feb 1944). He reappears in 1946/47 on various features in various volumes of Airboy Comics for Hillman Comics either on his own or, quite often, inking the work of penciller Arthur Peddy on the “Heap”.

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BB #28 – The Myth of the Fantastic Four

The myth of the "most expensive gold game" in comic's history.

Brave and the Bold (vol. 1) #28 (Feb-March 1960) was the seminal comic which really sealed the genesis of the DC Comics Silver Age – the end of the beginning if you will. Yet, as the story goes, it was also the beginning of Marvel’s renaissance. There had been a slew of attempts to regenerate superheroes during the 1950s and Marvel had had their own attempt, which was one of the earliest, with a set of titles that included the Human Torch and Captain America. However, that like the others, didn’t stick.

How it may have looked... (credit: Waterloo Library)

The legend goes that one of the owners of DC Comics was playing a game of golf with Marvel Comics owner Martin Goodman. At this time DC Comics was owned by the same people who owned the company that distributed both DC and Marvel so they really had Marvel over a barrel. The DC executive made the mistake of boasting to Goodman that they had this new title called the Justice League of America which starred all their biggest characters and was selling amazingly well. (You could really imagine the smug DC guy really thinking he’s lording it over this wannabe competitor.)

The end result of that golf game was a title called The Fantastic Four. We’ll come back to them later. But, lets stick with the myth for a little while longer.

That Game of Golf...

A court case between the heirs of Jack Kirby and Marvel Comics over the issue of Kirby’s ownership of the characters that he co-created at Marvel has recently finished. It’s an emotive subject for fans and historians, but in the cold light of a court room Kirby’s contributions were – like almost all comic creators working at Marvel or DC – owned by the company.

So the Court Case was a loss, but it was a goldmine for anybody interested in the facts pertaining to these events. Indeed in the Final Judgement on the case, in a section titled “Undisputed Facts”, the judge states that:

In 1961, Goodman told Lee to create a new team of superheroes to complete with “The Justice League of America,” which was published by National Comics.

So Goodman’s instructions are legal fact. Why he gave that instruction is more subjective. In his deposition to the Court Stan Lee described this situation in more detail:

In the 60s, the ideas for the new characters originated with me because that was my responsibility. And what would happen is the publisher, Martin Goodman, for example, with the Fantastic Four, he called me into his office one day. And he said, “I understand that National Comics,” which later changed its name to DC, “but I understand that National Comics has a book called The Justice League. And it’s selling very well. I want you to come up with a team of superheroes. Let’s do something like that.”

There was no mention of that golf game. However, Roy Thomas remembered hearing the golf story from Stan after starting work at Marvel in the mid-1960s (Alter Ego #43) and Stan published the anecdote in his 1974 Origins of Marvel Comics.

At the 1996 Chicago Comic Con Stan was roasted by various colleagues and former competitors. And the golf game anecdote gets repeated by Roy Thomas, and more importantly by Julius Schwartz! In his speech and in his autobiography Julie states that its Jack Liebowitz who was the DC exec involved. (DC, in the early 1960s, was co-owned by three men and their wives and family members – Harry Donenfeld, Jack Liebowitz, and Paul Sampliner. Harry died in the early 1960s and was succeeded by his son Irwin Donenfeld.)

Paul Levitz’s own account appears in the massive DC 75th Anniversary book he wrote. He labels the event “The most expensive game of golf in comics”, but continues Julie and Stan’s pattern of saying that the executive was Jack Liebowitz. However, during the Marvel/Kirby trial Mark Evanier, a close associate of Kirby, relates that Liebowitz denied that he was involved with the game. Likewise Irwin Donenfeld when explicitly asked in Alter Ego #26 about the game also denied he was involved.

The closest we get to the truth may be from film producer Micahel Uslan – who has once been the equivalent of an intern at DC. He remembers Sol Harrison (DC’s art director and later President) telling him the anecdote. He wrote into Alter Ego #43 with the version of events that he hard heard:

But the way I heard the story from Sol [Harrison] was that Goodman was playing one of the heads of Independent News [I.N.], not DC Comics (though DC owned Independent News). I don’t recall the head honocho’s name… Paul Levitz knows it. As the distributor of DC Comics, this man certainly knew all the sales figures and was in the best position to tell this tidbit to Goodman. Now, why would Goodman be playing golf with the head of Independent News? I.N. was distributing “Marvel” then, as well as DC, under a “take it or leave it” arrangement that severely limited the number of comics Goodman could publish monthly. Of course, Goodman would want to be playing gold with this fellow and be in his good graces. It would absolutely be in the best interests of his business. In addition, I understand that I.N. was well known for its golf outings back then.

Anyway, that’s the way it was told to me. Sol worked closely with Independent News’ top management over the decades and would have gotten this story straight from the horse’s mouth.

Independent News was co-owned by the same people – more or less – as DC Comics. If it wasn’t Liebowitz or Donenfeld at the game then it may well have been Paul Sampliner. He was the President of Independent News at the time, but wasn’t involved in the creative side of things at DC. Comics historian Sean Kleefeld is about the only person who has written about Sampliner and says that his money is on Sampliner being the subject of the golf anecdote.

Further, if circumstantial evidence, of the Sampliner link comes from the fact that Martin Goodman once worked for Sampliner at the distributor he ran prior to setting up Independent News. The comics industry is actually quite small and these sort of connections are common, but it at least establishes that these men had known each other for 20-30 years by the time of the golf episode.

The Fantastic Four

Now we have to admit that the existence of this golf game is a standard bit of comic book legend and mythology. Its existence is very plausible. Nevertheless, somehow, via this game of golf or not, news of the JLA’s success got back to Martin Goodman.

Stan 'The Man' Lee (even DC fan's know who this guy is).

At this point in the early 1960s Stan Lee, who was Goodman’s chief editor (and his wife’s cousin, another of those small industry links), was on the verge of quitting comics. So one day Stan goes into work intending to hand in his notice, but he never gets that far. Goodman is fired-up with an “anything you can do, we can do better” energy and orders Lee to copy DC’s strategy. Stan told Roy Thomas in an interview (Comic Book Artist Collection #1) that:

I was really so bored and really too old to be doing these stupid comic books; I wanted to quit. I was also frustrated because I wanted to do comic books that were – even through this seems like a contradiction in terms – I wanted to do a more realistic fantasy. Martin wouldn’t let me and had wanted the stories done the way they had always been done, with very young children in mind. That was it.

My wife Joan said to me “You know, Stan, if they asked you to do a new book about a new group of super-heroes, why don’t you do ‘em the way that you feel you’d like to do a book? If you want to quite anyway, the worst that could happen is that he’ll fire you, and so what? You want to quit.” I figured, hey, maybe she’s right. That’s why I didn’t want to do the Torch or the Sub-Mariner; I wanted to create a new group and do them the way I had always wanted to do a comic book.

To Stan Lee’s eternal credit he did just what he wanted to do and didn’t do exactly what Goodman was thinking of – a simple photocopy of the JLA. He pulled in Marvel artist Jack Kirby, who had worked for DC during the 1950s. (It’s can be entirely coincidence that one of the properties that Kirby created for DC was the Challengers of the Unknown, a quartet of characters who survived a disaster and become adventurers investigating the strange and monstrous. There must have been something in the air.) Lee and Kirby melded their ideas of the quartet with character concepts pulled from some of Marvel’s Golden Age books and launched the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #1 (Nov 1961) – exactly a year after Justice League of America #1 appeared.

Fantastic Four #1 (Nov 1961; art: Jack Kirby)

Stan also told Roy that:

If Martin hadn’t come in to me and said, “Liebowitz said the Justice League is selling well, so why don’t we do a comic book about super-heroes?” – if he hadn’t said that to me, I might’ve – in the next day or two, I might’ve just quit.

Ergo no Justice League means no Silver Age Marvel and no Silver Age Stan Lee. At least that’s the legend.

List top 100 most prolific DC Comics writers (updated)

I’ve been playing the Grand Comics Database. They allow you to download and play with a full copy of their database (provided you know MySQL and have an idea of how to work with databases). This product of this is the above table below of the 100 most prolific writers at DC Comics according to data contained with the database. I’ve tried to exclude reprints (see the notes at the every bottom of this post).

The first column list the rank in terms of number of pages produced at DC Comics, the second column lists the name of the writer, and the third column lists the number of pages they produced. The fourth column lists the number of pages as a percentage of DC Comics total output as listed in the GCD. I’ve also listed columns for the number of stories, issues, and the date of publication for their first work at DC Comics.

A few interesting observations:

The most prolific DC writer of all time is Robert Kanigher who is responsible for 3.5% of all DC’s original output across their entire 75-years. Second to him is Gardner Fox. Together they are responsible for more than 5% of DC’s entire output.
The most prolific DC female writer of all time is Gail Simone at No 42. Other women on the list include Dann Thomas (No. 57), Louise Simonson (No. 66), and Devin Grayson (No. 68).
The most prolific DC writer to start working after the Golden Age is Chuck Dixon at No. 3.
The newest writer on the list is Matthew Sturges who appears at No. 61.
The writers with the earliest start dates are Jerry Siegel and Sheldon Mayer who both have credits dating back to 1935.
The massive caveat is that these details are only as certain as the details in the GCD. Also the Stories column may be over-estimated as individual chapters of a single book length tale (e.g. the separate All-Star Comics chapters) are indexed as separate stories.

Updated 02-Aug-2011 to make the table sortable by clicking on the column header (via the excellent Tablesorter jQuery plugin as included in PolyVision’s WordPress plugin.) I’ve also added an additional column listing which feature they did most of their work on, the number in brackets is the number of pages on that feature.

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Brave and the Bold (vol. 1) #28 – The Artist

Characterture of Mike Sekowsky from Secret of the Comics

First Appearance: All-Winner Comics #3 (Winter 1941-1942)
Occupation: Comic book artist, writer and editor, animation artist
Claim to fame: Being faster than Jack Kirby
Creator of: Adam Strange, originated the mod-Diana Prince version of Wonder Woman.

Mike Sekowsky was the youngest of the collaborators on Brave and the Bold #28. His first work was for Timely/Marvel in the 1940s and he became one of the mainstays of the 1950s and 60s romance comics. Mark Evanier described Sekowksy as the “man who could draw anything-and usually, overnight” [2]. He was the guy you turned to when a feature was facing deadline problems.

When I wrote the Gardner Fox sketch I found a wealth of details about his career, but every little about his character. Almost everybody agreed he was a very nice man, but there isn’t much more colour than that. His collaborator on the Justice League, artist Mike Sekowsky, is almost the complete opposite. Reading interviews about Sekowsky you get a sense of, for better or worse, a really strong personality. Fox corresponded heavily with fans and Julius Schwartz survived log enough to publish an autobiography, but by contrast there is almost nothing in Sekowsky’s own voice.
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Brave and the Bold (vol. 1) #28 – The Writer

A portrait of Gardner Fox drawn by Gil Kane (it's something of a cliché that all Gardner Fox biographies must show this image at least once!)

First Appearance: Detective Comics #4 (June 1937)
Occupation: Writer of comic books, short stories, novels
Claim to fame: First professional comic book writer, originated the superhero team
Creator of: Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Adam Strange, the Batarang, DC Multiverse, etc.
Homages: The Green Lantern Guy Gardner and the Flash John Fox are both named for him. The Justice League episode “Legends” is dedicated to him.

Gardner Fox has due claim to be the first and possibly the greatest comic book writer ever. In a comic book career that spanned the years 1937-1969 he originated not only the Justice Society, but also the Justice League and the very concept of the DC Multiverse. He was the co-creator of the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Adam Strange, and a string of other characters.

If Timely’s Comics [Golden Age Marvel] seemed to lay stress on the art and the artists, then DC’s books took the opposite approach. There the writer was the star who, if he so desired, always got top billing. And, in a galaxy of comic writers, Gardner Fox is one of the most brilliant.

- Jim Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics #1.

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Platinum Age: Before the Supermen

Something I seem to do with some frequency, either for cartoon reviews or comic book annotations, is to relate various bits of DC publishing history. Recounting the origins of the Golden Age for the n’th time begins to get stale so I’ve decided to try to combine the histories into a new series of posts about DC Comics’ publishing history. A lot of this is material that was on a previous (now offline) version of the site remixed with some new images and commentary. There may be a lot of time between instalments, but one has to start somewhere…

The Platinum Age

Period: Often described as the Platinum Age (1935-1938 or just pre-1938); specifically pre-Action Comics #1.
Character Types: Pulp style adventurers, brawlers, detectives, aviators, and comedy characters.
The Power Players: M.C. Gaines, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Harry Donenfeld, Jack Liebowitz and Paul Sampliser
The Editors: Vin Sullivan with Whitney Ellsworth, and Sheldon Mayer at Eastern
You’ll know the names from: MC Gaines was the father of Bill Gaines who ran E.C. Comics (the horror guys), Whitney Ellsworth served as a producer on The Adventures of Superman and gave his name to Lana Lang’s boyfriend in the first season of Smallville. Likewise the Smallville character of Chloe Sullivan is named after Vin. Liebowitz died in 2000 at the age of 100 there is an obit in the NY Times.

In the Realworld

The Depression had ended and the United States was looking for happier times. Big Band and Jazz music were popular, it was the Golden Age of Hollywood, Science Fiction was in its infancy, and radio was the most popular form of home entertainment. Yet storm clouds were on the horizon: Nazi German and Imperial Japan were arming and were about to plunge the world into war.

The Secret Origin of DC Comics

Sequential images used for storytelling have been around since the time of prehistoric cave paintings, but their explosion as a popular medium did not occur until the latter half of the nineteenth century. Short illustrated stories told using a sequence of cartoons started in Europe, but the form did not reach its early zenith until the arrival of the American newspaper barons. The circulation wars between Joseph Pulitzer (for whom the Pulitzer Prize is named) and William Randolph Hearst (founder of King Features Syndicate) gave platforms to the brightest and best of the cartoon strip artists.

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The 99 – A Cribsheet

Has anybody been reading Justice League/The 99? It’s the cross over mini-series featuring the Islamic inspired superhero group the 99 and DC Comics’ JLA. It’s one of those good old-fashioned “living on the same Earth, but only just met” out-of-continuity crossovers. That may sound disparaging, but it’s not meant to be. Admittedly the first issue was a bit OTT as everybody was dropped into their respective positions, but the remaining issues have been quite good.

Nevertheless, its biggest problem is that the background and origins of the characters are left to the shortest of captions and there isn’t much room for characterisation as such. So the following is a crib-sheet of information on members of the 99 put together as much for my reference as anything else.

The 99 (the short version)

There are a series of 99 magical gems called Noor Stones. Certain rare people are turned into superhumans via contact with a Noor Stone. A businessman/philanthropist called Doctor Ramzi Razem is searching for these people and has brought them together as a superhero team called The 99. However, the Noor Stones are also sought by an evil immortal called Rughal. He started off as Razem’s secret backer, but has since begun to openly oppose him.

There is an excellent official website for the 99 at www.the99.org which gives biographies and a lot more background than I’ve got room for here. Their comics are available for purchase as PDF files and there is a special The 99 Origins issue which is free.

Members of the 99

Dr Ramzi Razem

Name: Dr Ramzi Razem
Origin: Founder of the 99. Dr Ramzi is an internationally recognised philanthropist and businessman. His public goal was the promotion of world peace, but he secretly believed that peace would only be attainable if the Noor Stones could be found and uses to elevate humanity. He is the 99′s “Professor X”.
JLA/The-99: When he first appears Ramzi is attending the opening of the City of the Future with Jabbar, Noora, and Samda.

Bari

Codename: Bari the Healer
Alter Ego: Haroun Abrens
Place of Origin: South Africa
Powers: Tactile healing abilities
Origin: Bari discovered a Noor Stone whilst digging his sister’s grave and used it to heal his sick mother. The stone accentuates his ability to diagnose disease and can even heal wounds.
JLA/The 99: Met the JLA at the The 99 Steps Foundation in Seville, Spain when they brought Darr back to the 99.

Darr

Codename: Darr The Afflicter
Alter Ego: John Weller
Place of Origin: St Louis, USA
Powers: Generates waves of a pain.
Origin: He’s American, the victim of a drink driving accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. He visited a new age healer to help his depression and was given a stone to aid his meditation. You’ve guessed it, the stone was a Noor Stone, and John gained the power to project his pain outwards at other people as a “painwave.”
JLA/The-99: The wheel chair bound Weller had returned to St Louis, USA to consider his future when he came under attack by the New Madmen. A microscopic Starro spore inside him triggered his superpower causing waves of pain in everybody around him. The JLA attended and stunned John before taking him to the 99′s Seville base for study.

Fattah

Codename: Fattah the Opener
Alter Ego: Toro Ridwan
Place of Origin: Indonesia
Powers: Teleportation
Origin: He was just a restaurant washer-up until he discovered a strange belt in a local second-hand shop. It gave him the power to create teleportation portals.
JLA/The-99: Met Hawkman whilst investigating the source of earthquakes in Brazil. Revealed that they were caused by the awakening of a new Noor Stone gem bearer.

Hadya

Codename: Hadya the Guide
Alter Ego: Amira Khan
Powers: Tracker and navigator
Place of Origin: London, UK
Origin: She escaped the constraints of her traditional family by becoming fascinated in maps. Even as a child she could draw maps of places she’d never been and annotate them with details she could never have actually known. Her power is gifted to her by a Noor Stone embedded in a necklace that she always wears.
JLA/The-99: Met the JLA at the The 99 Steps Foundation in Seville, Spain when they brought Darr back to the 99.

Jabbar

Codename: Jabbar The Powerful
Alter Ego: Nawaf Al-Bilali
Powers: Super-strength
Place of Origin: Saudi Arabia
Origin: The first evidence for the survival of the Stones presented itself when a young Saudi man called Nawaf Al-Bilali was forced across a mine field by criminals. An exploding mine shattered a Noor Stone that the youth was unwittingly carrying and embedded its fragments within his skin. The stone gave him vast superstrength and turned his body into an almost uncontrollable hulk. Ramzi convinced the Saudi’s to leave the boy in his care and transferred him to Paris where they removed enough of the fragments to give Nawaf control over his abilities. Ramzi then named him Jabbar, the first of his 99.
JLA/The-99: When he first appears Jabbar is one of the three members of the 99 accompanying Dr Ramzi to the opening of the City of the Future. He, Noora and Samda tried to settle the crowd during the Starro initiated riot.

Jami

Codename: Jami the Assembler
Alter Ego: Miklos Szekelhydi
Powers: Able to create mechanical constructs
Place of Origin: Hungary
Origin: He was an insular child-genius whose abilities were boosted to a superhuman level by the family locket he unwittingly wore (yeah, it was a Noor Stone). He can visualise the blue prints of any device he looks at and can assemble advance machinery by sheer effort of will.
JLA/The-99: Met the JLA at the The 99 Steps Foundation in Seville, Spain when they brought Darr back to the 99. Created the machines used by the Flash and Atom to diagnose Darr’s problems.

Mumita

Codename: Mumita the Destroyer
Alter Ego: Catarina Barbosa
Powers: Enhanced strength, speed and agility
Place of Origin: Portugal
Origin: She is a mysterious runaway who when found by Dr Ramzi was working as a criminal enforcer.
JLA/The-99: Met Hawkman whilst investigating the source of earthquakes in Brazil. Revealed that they were caused by the awakening of a new Noor Stone gem bearer.

Noora

Codename: Noora the Light
Alter Ego: Dana Ibrahim
Powers: Illumination Powers
Place of Origin: UAE
Origin: She was a spoilt rich brat until she is kidnapped from university by men trying to extort money from her father. She was thrown down a deep well where she found a Noor Stone that she then used to escape.
JLA/The-99: When she first appears Jabbar is one of the three members of the 99 accompanying Dr Ramzi to the opening of the City of the Future. She senses the corruption in Albert Chou. She, Jabbar, and Samda tried to settle the crowd during the Starro initiated riot.

Rafie

Codename: Rafie the Lifter
Alter Ego: Murat Vyaroglu
Powers: Control over gravity
JLA/The-99: Met Hawkman whilst investigating the source of earthquakes in Brazil. Revealed that they were caused by the awakening of a new Noor Stone gem bearer.

Samda

Codename: Samda the Invulnerable
Alter Ego: Aisha Mokhtar
Powers: Immovability, impenetrable force field
JLA/The-99: When she first appears Samda is one of the three members of the 99 accompanying Dr Ramzi to the opening of the City of the Future. She pushes Chou away after Noora senses the corruption in him. She, Jabbar, and Noora tried to settle the crowd during the Starro initiated riot.

2010 in sales (Diamond JLA orders)

Last time around I looked at the average reviewer scores for each JLA issue since McDuffie left and we saw that Generation Lost was consistently ranked higher than the main JLA title (despite the main title having stabilised recently). Here for comparison are the sales figures for the same period taken from ICv2′s estimates based on Diamond’s charts.

The caveat, as always with comics sales data, is that these are sales by Diamond (the distributor) to the speciality comic book stores and are not direct sales to the end consumer (i.e. the reader). These are based on the estimates of how many issues shop managers think they can sell based on experience and a healthy piece of guess work.

The obvious trends for the limited series are the steady decline after the first issue representing the received wisdom that mini-series always lose readers. So no real surprise there. What is interesting, however, is the relative sales of Generation Lost compared to Justice League of America (something Phil alluded to in his comment on the previous post). In the reviews JLGL was consistently placed higher than JLA, but in the sales it is JLA that is dominant.

What I found interesting with JLA’s sales is how consistent they’d been over the last 6-8 months. There is a massive spike with JLA #39 (the first Blackest Night tie-in) and then a drop-off until a jump with JLA #44. That’s when they start putting the “Brightest Day” banner on the title. There is then a plateau through JLA #50 and a drop with JLA #51.

That issue-to-issue drop from JLA #50 to #51 isn’t as strong as it seems as #50 was an anniversary issue and would have been ordered in increased numbers. Look at the drop through the 4 most recent blue markers and you see the underlying trend. It is worrying, but there are changes in the air. JLA is moving from the $3.99 price point to the $2.99 price point and is getting a new artist. How that will affect orders I don’t know.

One thing we don’t know are JLGL’s digitial sales as its available to buy online at the same time it ships to the stores. It is possible to compare illegal torrent activity to sales orders. The main JLA title gets about 5000 downloads per issue and Generation Lost gets about 4000 downloads (based on one popular torrent tracker). That’s about 10% of the actual sales – or $20,000 of net sales on each JLA issue alone – so no wonder piracy is a hot issue. It is depressing to see JLGL so highly torrented when there is how a legitimate digital sales route for it.