JLA No. 6 "The Debut of the Time Lord!" AFTERWARD

So, what did you think? Did you see the time-travelling ending coming? My guess is after the whole team showed up and it was already page 30-something you probably guessed it would be a two-parter. A little side note: in true continuity the first two-parter in their history featured The Time Lord (and Felix Faust, but he's not coming up for a few issues yet) so I figured I'd do the same. :-)

You have to remember that this story took place in the early 90s. Dinosaurs were BIG then (well...you know what I mean!). So it seemed like a no-brainer to pit my guys against them. How to do it: either bring them back to the dinosaurs, or bring the dinosaurs to them. It's a lot easier to draw jungles than it is to draw cities, so....:-)

A few other notes about this issue that struck me as I was scanning the pages in:

 As I mentioned in the Forward, this story started by me asking the question: How would the JLA come across a character like the Time Lord? I picked Black Canary as the main protagonist for two reasons: 1. she had a brand new logo (more about that later) and 2. she was popular with the girl readers (and I had an idea for Wonder Woman that I used two issues from now). As soon as I hit on the idea of having a member come across the Time Lord on an individual case and then have that adventure escalate into a story that involved the entire group, I narrowed the choice down to Black Canary easily. So...the first few pages are actually a Black Canary adventure, which seemed kind of cool. She maintained her popularity as long as I was drawing these, which I liked.

It always seemed odd to me that if you happened to be reading an issue of BATMAN, he would be able to solve whatever death-trap plot-devise his Arch-Nemesis would toss at him, but if he happened to be in JUSTICE LEAGUE then he would suddenly need his buddies' help.  So with that in mind, when Black Canary is faced with a choice of either breaking into the museum or asking for a quick teleportation lift, it seemed logical for her to call Aquaman to help her out. He is at her service, after all. Especially characters like Black Canary and Green Arrow, who would otherwise not have a way into the building without teleportation (unlike, say, The Flash or Green Lantern, who could get in under their own power).

This was the first issue where I started to create some of the internal logic and rules of "my" Justice League: namely, I established that there are two types of "alerts" that members can send out: Yellow Alerts, which is asking for help from anybody who happens to be available; and Red Alerts, which are A-1 emergencies that all members must respond to.  This made sense to me at the time, even though in the very next panel showing Aquaman staying on duty, Green Arrow is shown receiving the signal...! So...uh...what exactly is Aquaman supposed to be doing? Co-ordinating something? Or did *he* send along her signal? That part was left unclear. And when the Red Alert signal goes out, he is shown to be

responding himself, leaving no one at the satellite on monitor duty. That doesn't seem right, either....and will be addressed in a couple of issues after I had realized my mistake. Later issues will show that there is always a member on duty...although I guess if it's a Red Alert that member would also respond...? See how complicated it gets? ;-)

As for Black Canary's logo, she is the only member to ever get two logos. When I was putting together the Roll Call Portraits I only had access to the comics I had with me in Japan at the time...and the only logo I had for her was the straight block type. So that is the one I used in issue 5. Then between issues 5 and 6 DC came out with their new BLACK CANARY ongoing series, and with it a new logo. THIS is the one I used from issue 6 on! :-)  

In general I thought this issue did what it was supposed to do very well: it starts out as a solo adventure, becomes a team-up, and then, finally, a team story: just in time To Be Continued; all in a straight-forward and logical way. We'll see if it all ends as clearly as it starts! 

JLA No. 6 "The Debut of the Time Lord!" To Be Continued

The Justice League has "time-slipped" (time-travelled) 100 million years into the past and now faces 3 problems....1) How can they return to the present day? and 2) How do they survive until they can? And finally 3) If they do return, how can they stop The Time Lord?
The surprising answers....next time!!!
Please look forward to JUSTICE LEAGUE No. 7!

JLA #6 "The Debut of the Time Lord!"

JLA No. 6 "The Debut of The Time Lord"

This is my first and only "when titans clash" covers. Although I always liked the idea of two sides of characters rushing to do battle against each other, I didn't want to do it more than once.
Another note about covers: I always hated those "symbolic" covers that showed scenes that did not actually occur in the story. So although I did more than my share of "poster" covers (such as Number Five) I tried to not  "cheat" by using a made-up scene. I can think of only one time that I did it....!

JLA No. 6 "The Debut of The Time Lord" FORWARD

Here is our second issue...and as I promised in my AFTERWARD to Number Five, it isn't going to be in the same "teams break up" format. When I sat down to write these stories, I always started with The Bad Guy. It had to be somebody strong enough to keep the JLA occupied....So after I decided on The Time Lord (a villain I never really cared for in the comics, to tell you the truth) I pretty quickly came up with the general idea of what I wanted to do: the JLA would tackle a time-travelling criminal who has tools and equipment that makes their 20th century stuff look like bows and arrows. But how would they come together? The Time Lord wouldn't be an egomaniac like,say, The Joker or Lex Luthor who *wants* to confront their nemeses. No, The Lord of Time would want to *avoid* the JLA. So what if one of the members accidentally came across him and tried to handle him on her own, but soon realized she was out of her..ahem...league, and needed help? 

If you read interviews with writers you will often hear them say things like "the characters took on a life of their own" or "the story wrote itself." It's kind of a cliche, but it's true! I remember setting this story up and as I was heading towards the page limit (36, because they were printed double-over) I realized where this story had to go...! See if you can figure out where it's going before we actually get there. :-)

This issue's translation was also managed by the wonderful Mariko Tadokoro. I can't say enough about how wonderful she was to work with. If I had something even a little wrong she would make a face as if to say, "How do I tell this guy that this doesn't make any sense but not hurt his feelings?" I would jump in and say, "I can change it! What do you suggest?" Sometimes I would use the wrong Japanese characters, and then she would laugh and say, "You don't mean to say (whatever the mistake was), do you?" My clearest memory of working on this particular issue was when she read the Japanese name of the villain, "Lord of Time." She said, "Oooh, he sounds dangerous." I knew I had picked the right phrase.