Wizards and troll kings roaring along, delighted with their late-model 1950s American convertibles — an image that has stuck with me for more than half a century.
How they got there in Justice League of America 2 (Dec.-Jan. 1960) had something to do with cultural history of which I was unaware at age 6. By the late 1950s, magic was problematic.
The twin attention-getters of the atom bomb and the space race had focused national attention on the necessity of scientific education, with its underlying philosophical foundation of rationalism and empiricism.
In that cultural atmosphere, a belief in the irrational wish fulfillment of “magic” — even in fiction — could be seen as not merely fanciful, but even insidious, undermining the national mission.
That point was explicitly addressed in the story in a scene between the JLA’s teenage pal Snapper Carr and his younger brother.
“Snapper’s brother Jimmy rejects magic in favor of science,” noted comics historian Michael E. Grost. “He symbolizes science by a model airplane… Jimmy sees magic as something he is now too old for, so the rejection of magic for science is seen as part of growing up.”
So magic got played down as an explanation for any fantastic abilities and events, even in comic books. Pseudo-scientific gibberish was much preferred. At least that could SOUND plausible.
Justice League of America 2 built its story directly on that idea.
“Earth makes contact with another dimension, which runs by magic instead of science,” noted Gross. “The premise allows (writer Gardner) Fox to make a tale full of fantasy, with only a little science fiction.”
With dimensional polarities reversed, technological devices stop functioning and the JLA members lose their “science-based” superpowers. Luckily, the vast library in their Secret Sanctuary includes books on magic, and they’re able to use that to take the battle to the weird invading forces in Magic-Land.
One of the JLA’s three enemies in this tale is named Simon Magus, a reference to a biblical sorcerer who had “bewitched the people of Samaria.” In apocryphal works, Simon was said to possess the ability to levitate and fly at will.
Story ideas for the early Justice League adventures were readily available in the 55-issue run of their forerunners, the Justice Society, in All-Star Comics. Writer John Broome had sent the JSA to visit an extradimensional Fairyland (All-Star Comics 39, Feb.-March 1948).
The striking cover of Justice League of America 2 is something of an amusing cheat, by the way. The JLA isn’t fighting a giant monster that’s trying to shove his way through a doorway in the sky. It’s just the befuddled Snapper.
“Snapper accidentally turns himself into a giant when he fools around with Merlin’s magic wand, something he doesn’t fully understand,” Grost observed. “The wand is a phallic symbol, and Snapper reflects the confusion teenagers feel over not having grown-up control of their sexuality. Getting big is something that happens to teenagers, too, as part of growing up.”
The JLA’s meeting with Merlin would have major consequences for the DC universe later (Justice League of America 21, Aug. 1963). Merlin left them a souvenir crystal ball that the JLA members use to summon the Justice Society from Earth-Two to their aid, inaugurating the title’s tradition of popular annual team-ups.
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