Prelude to Justice League #50!

art by Luke Daab

Welcome to the introduction of my 50th fan-fiction Justice League story! I always knew that I wanted to make this issue something special. Initially, I hit upon the idea of having the Legion of Doom in this issue and this issue would be my LAST one! Although I reconsidered that part, I kept the Legion of Doom. 

art by Tim Wallace

After deciding on the Legion of Doom as the bad guys, it was easy to decide two more things: I would structure the story as a classic JLA adventure, with individual chapters leading to a free-for-all group conclusion. With this format, I could then ask some of my artist friends to help me out as guest-illustrator, with different artists on different chapters. 

art by Andy Kapellusch

When I contacted my “stable” of potential collaborators know of my plans, most enthusiastically agreed to help me again. Then it was just a matter of giving as many of them as I could the characters they wanted! Luckily Tim Wallace, Andy Kapellusch, Aaron Bias, and Ashton Burge all chose the characters they wanted, or were willing to work on whoever was left. They all turned in fantastic work, as I’m sure you will agree. I thank you, gentlemen, for your efforts on my behalf. 

art by Ashton Burge

Joining us this time was newcomer Gautam. He saw one of my earlier stories on-line and casually asked me to keep him in mind the next time I had a story needing an artist. Luckily for all of us, that happened to be just as I had finished writing this issue’s script. I responded back to him immediately and the result is three awesome pages of the Flash and a Black Canary-Hawkwoman interlude. In fact, special thanks are due to Gautam for being the first artist to complete his assignment. He’s been waiting for this issue to come out almost as long as I have! Hopefully we’ll see more of his work in the future! 

art by Gautam Sheoran

Along the way Chris Franklin and Derek Crabbe could not commit to three pages, but graciously provided a fantastic pin-up and variant cover, respectively. 

Speaking of pin-ups and covers, another way I wanted to make this issue special was with special one-page illustrations of the climactic battle. So besides getting pin-ups from each of my artists, I also commissioned work from Bill Walko, Jared Alberich, Greg Schmidt, and, of course, Luke Daab, who provided the “main” cover to the story. They are all fantastic, and I’m more than satisfied! 

art by Greg Schmidt

When I decided to use the Legion of Doom in this anniversary issue, I decided that I wanted the group to really mean something; to REALLY be a representation of the Justice League’s greatest enemies. To that end, I set out to make sure that each member appeared in my series BEFORE their big moment in #50. That means that after I re-started the series, I made a conscious effort to include members of the Legion of Doom who had not appeared before. Here is the break-down: 

Black Manta, The Cheetah, The Scarecrow, The Toyman appeared as members of a slightly different Injustice League, way back in JL #11. 

Captain Cold was part of an ice-team that fought the Justice League in #25. 

Lex Luthor fought Superman in JL #35.

Sinestro fought the JLA in JL #38.

Giganta fought Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, and Hawkman in JL #39. In the same issue, Bizarro fought Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter. 

One version of Brainiac fought against Red Tornado in JL #26. Another, earlier version re-appears in JL #41.  

The Riddler was the side-menace for Batman and Speedy (of the Teen Titans) in JL #46. 

Solomon Grundy fought the JLA and the JSA in JL #47. At the end of that story, I kept him in the swamp, with a bit of foreshadowing that he was meeting up with others. 

And Grodd was the very last Legion of Doom member to appear when he faced off against the JLA in JL #49. That story was plotted several years ago, but I kept practicing drawing gorillas and re-scheduling the story until I had no choice but to use it!  

As for the story itself, one reason this issue took so long was because my family and I decided to move! For approximately one year I was preoccupied with finding a new place, packing up my things, physically moving, and then un-packing my stuff! Although I had sent every artist their scripts, I had little free time to spend on pushing them to complete the work; in fact, when I *did* get some of the art I didn’t have time to do anything with it. Then, last Spring, just after we were moved in and I was beginning to knock out the last few pages of the finale, my wife went to Japan to help care for her elderly father, and I have been on semi-permanent grand-baby duty ever since. Run-on sentence? Run-on life! It’s a wonder I finally managed to get the issue done at all! 

art by Bill Walko

I promise that the next issue will NOT take a year to get to you. I have already completed fourteen pages, so let’s hope it gets done in the Spring. 

It comes down to this: I am very proud and happy to present this issue to you, on behalf of myself and my fellow artists. I know that there are certain spots that I wish were better, but overall I think it’s pretty darn good. I hope you agree! I’m not sure if it was worth the wait; I kind of think it was….! 

art by Aaron Bias