I realized some years ago that my preference for group comics as a young reader had different causes than my pleasure in writing them in my adult years. As writer, it was the ability to have different personalities interact that made them fun…and especially two qualities that the Justice Society and the Legion of Super-heroes shared: they were both in their own little corners of the DC Universe, so I didn’t have to check in with other writers or editors all the time. (Well, occasionally, during the massive cross-over crisis stunts that became more common. But not often.). In addition, both of those series allowed me to affect the lives of the heroes in ways that simply wasn’t available to the writer of JUSTICE LEAGUE.
As a reader, perhaps the different personalities were a factor, though the JUSTICE LEAGUE issues I grew up on kinda failed that test. Gardner Fox plotted amusing sf tales for kids, but it’s generous to assign different personalities to the Leaguers as he wrote them. And my beloved LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES fared a bit better if you look very carefully in Jerry Siegel and Ed Hamilton’s tales, but a lot of the heroes were very similiar in their outlook on life. My view of Saturn Girl or Brainiac Five definitely started from those early tales.
But the next level of my insight into my own psyche as a reader and collector came much later, probably first when I got a chance to write an AVENGERS mini a couple of years ago. I recalled being attracted to a cover of the title where a horde of heroes were depicted. Why hadn’t I gotten into FANTASTIC FOUR when my friend Alan adored the series (and it was genuinely done far better than any of the titles I loved, by my more discerning adult evaluation)? Or sticking within DC, why had I ignored so many of the team titles like DOOM PATROL, CHALLENGERS, SEA DEVILS or RIP HUNTER? (No, it wasn’t the fact that the latter two of those titles were among the most poorly written in the line…I only wish I had that discernment at that age.). Of the ‘second tier’ teams, only METAL MEN caught my interest for a while, though it lost me as Bob Kanigher began to run out of variations on his theme, while TEEN TITANS and BRAVE & BOLD kept me interested.
It was the costumes.
I liked the comics that featured heroes in different costumes working together. Maybe it was the pretty colors attracting me. Or maybe with my poor vision and the hurried artwork of the era (artists producing multiple pages per day weren’t likely to carefully vary facial features and body forms) the varied costumes made it easy for me to figure out who was who. Thinking back, my interest in the X-MEN only happened after they gave up the common blue and yellow uniforms.
Whether my attitude was typical of the 1960s readers or not, it is interesting that the group titles with varied suits charted higher in sales than the single uniform teams, by and large. It was certainly true at DC, though the fact that ADVENTURE COMICS with the Legion then outsold most of the line (and all of Marvels) is more fairly attributed to the power of the Super-symbol on covers, since that level of success was true for the whole Superman family. (Embarassing that JIMMY OLSEN outsold SPIDER-MAN? Sure, but Jack Larson made us care about Jimmy, and Spidey had no such salesman in those years.)
But my latest insight into my reading came this past week, when Joe Illidge guested in one of my courses. Speaking of his own reading habits, he attributed his love of the group books to the fact that he was an only child, and the packs of heroes were found family–the brothers (and occasional sister) he didn’t have. An alarm bell of recognition rang in my head…I’m an only child, too. Maybe that was it?