The JLI Franchise

Overview

The Franchise

The Cover of Justice League #1
In the wake of the Crisis on Infinite Earths most DC’s franchises were either revamped or rebooted. When it came time to revamp the Justice League editor Andy Helfer found that most of the old Leaguers were in a state of flux and were unavailable for the book. The decision was made to launch the new League with a brand new line up and a new direction. Following Keith Giffen’s plots and J.M. DeMatteis’ scripts the new League focused more on the personalities of the characters than it did on their primetime heroics. This, at times light-hearted approach, was a success and spawned a spin-off European title (Justice League Europe) and a quarterly anthology. Another factor in the title’s early success was the wonderfully expressive style of penciller Kevin Maguire, and his successors Ty Templeton, Adam Hughes, and Bart Sears.

Giffen and DeMatteis left the franchise after the Breakdown’s crossover and were replaced on the American title by Dan Jurgens and on the European title by Gerard Jones (who had already taken over scripting JLE). Jurgens brought a new seriousness to his title and tied it into the Death of Superman storyline, while Jones pushed the envelope of the genre with villains and plot elements that were often based on metaphysical or philosophical concepts. A further spin-off title was launched called Justice League Task Force that focused on a special operations team with a rotating membership and creative team.

The second major revamp of the line came in 1994 when the European/International title was cancelled and Jones moved across to the main JLA title. A new second title called Extreme Justice was also launched and the JLTF were reformatted into the League’s training branch and was taken over by Priest. JLA and JLTF had definite direction and strong plots, but the over all position of the franchise was lower than DC would have liked. This era came to an end in 1996 when DC cancelled all three League titles ahead of a high profile relaunch of a single back-to-basics Justice League book written by Grant Morrison.

Indexed Issues

Ongoing

None

Finished

Limited Series

Reprint Series

None

Reprint Singles

Oneshots/Specials

Prestige Format Specials

None

Hardback Graphic Novels

None

Oversized Tabloids

None