{"id":4840,"date":"2025-02-28T08:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T16:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/?p=4840"},"modified":"2025-01-07T13:20:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T21:20:56","slug":"859-bowling-for-justice-leaguers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/859-bowling-for-justice-leaguers\/","title":{"rendered":"859 – Bowling for Justice Leaguers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Snapper<\/a>
Snapper Carr tallies the JLA membership votes for the Atom, Justice League of America #14, July 1962<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It’s that time again – that time when DC wants to give one of their newer heroes a readership boost by adding them to the Justice League, just like they added Green Arrow in 1961<\/a>. In Justice League of America #14 (July 1962), the entire team (including Batman and Superman in absentia) votes unanimously for The Atom<\/a>. Poor Hawkman! But there’s only one problem: No one can seem to remember who the Atom is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cue the “Memory Master”, a forgettable (ha!) crime boss who recruits enemies of the Justice Leaguers to “de-memorize” their foes, causing the heroes to lose track of their identity and forget their powers and become mindless or something – I kind of forget (ha!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway wouldn’t you know it: the Atom is able to recover his memories. Undeterred, the Memory Master shoves him into a “bowling ball bomb” and tosses him towards the statue-like JLA members who happen to be standing at the end of a bowling lane-like room, completely with ball-return track (!).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Bowling<\/a>
Bowling for JLA member in Justice League of America #14, July 1962<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This seems like a very clear example of DC coming up with the cover image first and then writing a story around it. The problem in this case is that the idea and the story written after are both stupid. I mainly attribute this to the fact that shrinking super-heroes are a dull and uninspired concept, and both DC and Marvel have been struggling to write interesting stories<\/a> because the super-power is basically a really lame super-disadvantage that can only rarely be useful. A bit like Aquaman in these early JLA stories too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the Atom steers his bowling ball bomb away, restores memories to the JLA using Green Lantern’s power ring and they defeat the Memory Master and all his rogues.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"The<\/a>
The Atom is offered JLA membership in Justice League of America #14, July 1962<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The Atom is offered JLA membership and accepts. He is given a tiny 6-inch chair, coming up to maybe ankle-height of the rest team – seems like a passive aggressive insult? But lo-and-behold, the chair is able to levitate to table-level. Why doesn’t the Atom just enlarge himself during JLA meetings?!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s that time again – that time when DC wants to give one of their newer heroes a readership boost by adding them to the Justice League, just like they added Green Arrow in 1961. In Justice League of America #14 (July 1962), the entire team (including Batman and Superman in absentia) votes unanimously for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[754,303,14,576,762,172],"class_list":["post-4840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-754","tag-amnesia","tag-dc","tag-justice-league","tag-roster-change","tag-the-atom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4840"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4935,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4840\/revisions\/4935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}