Cameo Crossovers #2: JLA #1 - Jan. 1997

This spectacular Cameo Crossover comes to us from DC Comics. The series that has the honor of being spotlit this go around is JLA.

This is another one that stands out in my memory. Some time around 1996 or 1997, I had decided to give DC another go, and JLA was the title I chose to start off with. That way, you know, I was getting a bit of all the DC bigwigs. Superman was in there, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern and some dude named Martian Manhunter (pretty sure I had almost no idea who J'onn was back then, aside from knowing him to see him). How could I go wrong? So I eagerly grabbed the first issue.
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And the second.

And the third.

Then I missed the fourth issue. And the fifth. Got issue seven, then missed a whole slew of issues up until around #14. My plan to successfully collect a DC title was dashed, largely in part to the crappy, no comic-store town I was living in. So I dropped DC again. Until recently.

JLA, along with other titles such as Firestorm, Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Captain America, amongst others, are all on my "Try to get a Complete Run Of" LIST at the moment, and as of right now, I need around 40 more issues of JLA to have the complete set. I just moved (again) recently, and while unpacking, came across my JLA issues. (I still have that same #1 I bought waaaay back in '97.)

Flipping through JLA #1 (January 1997), I stumbled across this entry into Cameo Crossovers:

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For those of you who haven't read the comic, this is the issue where Grant Morrison, the writer for this series at its start, kills off Wolverine and Doctor Doom.

Wait? WHAT?

Okay, okay. The actual storyline has it that a group of White Martians, masquerading as superheroes, begin executing super-villains without any regard for the law. Among those disintegrated are Marvel characters Wolverine and Doctor Doom. You can see Wolverine to the left of the picture, smoldering away, and Doctor Doom is to the far right of the pic, looking on in horror as he awaits his turn. Doom actually looks afraid in the pic, but you can't really tell from my cruddy scan of the page. Sorry.

That is a completely half-assed rundown of the story, which continues through the first four issues, if I remember correctly. If you want more info, head on out and grab a copy for yourselves. You won't regret it. Morrison's run is some of the best Justice League of America stuff I've ever read.

That's it for this time.