JL #13 "And The Winner Is....!" AFTERWARD

So...were you surprised?
I'm especially curious what long-time JLA fans think of this story.
For those of you not in the know, this is the "official" DC comics JLA membership history:

the JLA was founded by Aquaman, Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Superman, and Wonder Woman. New members added in this order: Green Arrow, the Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary, the Elongated Man, Red Tornado, Hawkwoman, Zatanna, and Firestorm.

I will establish in the next issue that the founding members in "my" universe are the same, but with John Stewart traded in for Hal Jordan. Then instead of Hawkman as the third new member, "my" Justice League chose Hawkwoman first. Then Black Canary joined, leaving the next slot open for The Elongated Man. Now, in "my" universe I haven't yet introduced Red Tornado, so it's not likely that he will join in the next issue (!). So that leaves Hawkman.

JL #13 Special Guests & Villains

This is the issue where the JLA goes New Member hunting. So there are quite a few guest stars---! 

continued after the jump---! 

JLA #13 "And The Winner Is....!"

JL #13 "And The Winner Is....!" FORWARD

This is the first issue I ever did whose title is NOT a direct translation of the Japanese (or vice-versa). I think I came up with the English title "And The Winner Is..." from the Academy Awards show (this was before the phrase was changed to "And the Oscar goes to...") and then wanted a Japanese translation. Well, there evidently isn't one! When announcements like this are made, the Japanese that is used is equivalent to "The award winner is" and then the name. I could have done "the new member...." or "the winner..." but it wouldn't have sounded the same.  So then I went for a more-Japanese cultural title, loosely translated as "Looking For New Members." But I didn't like the sound of that in English!

As you could probably guess, this was partly a problem of working with Mrs. Ochiai, who dutifully read my stories but didn't really "get" them, I don't think. If she could follow what was going on, she didn't really change any of my terms. So after last issue wasn't quite the translation that I would have wanted (several kids asked what was going on in several scenes) I asked Mrs. Ochiai and then also asked one of my adult English Class students, Ms Shoko Taniguchi, to look at it, too. This time I think it read better, but this combination also had its problems, not the least of which was the time constraint of having two different people reading the manuscript. 

Another change that I was not happy with was my lack of "caucasian" and "gray" colored pencils. If you compare this issue with the earlier ones you'll see that the satellite gray and the skin color of most of the members had changed slightly. I had bought new colored pencils but did not like how they actually ended up looking. I would go through a few different candidates for those in the next few issues, too, until I finally found ones I liked.

JL #13 "And The Winner Is....!"

This is by far the oddest cover I ever did....featuring NO Justice Leaguers whatsoever! I was really going overboard with the whole "the DC Universe is a large place!" idea with this one, haha.

This issue was one of my least popular issues, and looking back on it now, I can't really say I disagree with the popular vote. It does have it's moments, but...well...more in the FORWARD, and then much more in the AFTERWARD. Let's just say that it's one of my least popular (=favorite) issues and leave it at that. :-)