JL# 30 FORWARD

As much as I hate to say it, next issue is the LAST issue. By Christmas 2000 my wife and I had decided that I would probably not last another year. I was waiting for various things to happen at the end of the then-current fiscal year, but the prospects were not good. I looked very seriously at the possibility of having to end this series, and one thing I knew had to happen: I *had* to write a sequel to my previous Time Lord story (in numbers six and seven).

Quick re-cap if you don't have time to go find the actual stories: The Time Lord shows up, starts to steal things from an art museum, is interrupted by the JLA, and sends them back to prehistoric times. They find a way to return to "our" time but he escapes.

Yes, you read that right. The Time Lord ESCAPES.

I don't know what I was thinking at the time. I don't know why Superman and the Flash didn't just knock him out and drag him to jail. For some reason, I let him get away. Maybe I thought I'd bring him back sooner? It was 1992 and no records exist as to what I was thinking. The point is, I had always meant to bring him back to get captured, and when I was plotting my last two or three issues I *knew* I had to do this story.

I took as my base another story by Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin, JLA #160, where the combined forces of the Justice League and Justice Society go after the Time Lord. I switched some characters around but  I kept the basic story intact. Then I *added* the opening chapter connecting this story to my originals (the "yesterday" part) and the closing chapter (the "today" part), bookending the adaptation.

This is another one of my favorites. We can talk more about why after you read it.

Translation was provided again by my friend Yamamura-san. I think this might have been the time that Yuzo Saito was transferred out of my Education Department. Because he was no longer sitting at a desk across from mine I don't think I could get him to read my stuff any more.

For the cover I "stole" the outline for the then-new JSA comic issue #2, with art by Alan Davis and Paul Neary. You can definitely see how Aquaman and Wonder Woman represent Wildcat and Stargirl, respectively, and how "my" Black Canary matches DC's Black Canary.