I’ve been going back and looking at the Dwayne McDuffie situation on Justice League of America, where all the editorial interference hamstrung his ability to tell the stories he wanted and ultimately led to his dismissal after he publicly spoke out about it. There were all these crossovers and assorted “event” mini-series running concurrently to the book during his tenure, which meant there were restrictions on which characters he could use, when he could use them, and how. This is amazing when you consider that DC executive editor Dan DiDio, when he brought McDuffie on board, seemed to want him as writer indefinitely, which implies a certain level of faith in McDuffie’s ability to guide the book where DC wanted it to go. Somewhere along the way, however, this drastically changed. Why?

JLA is (theoretically) supposed to be the book with the big-name superstar heroes of the DC Universe. Ever since the Grant Morrison revival in the 90’s, this has more or less been what the book has aspired to be. Yet with the proliferation of crossover “event” mini-series, especially in this decade with books like Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis and Blackest Night, these books have been touted as the ones where one can see all the superstar heroes together, and regardless of what one thinks of their quality, they continue to sell big. And they’re not the only books DC have recently put out that follow this pattern. Trinity was an entire year’s worth of stories featuring Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Countdown to Infinite Crisis prominently involved those three as well as many other major DC heroes. And Superman/Batman continues to come out every month.

My point is that JLA can no longer be reasonably considered the place to see the superstar DC heroes together in a story that “counts.” DC wants it to be that way, but they also want it to tie into current events in the greater DCU, so you get what we had with the McDuffie run: the editorial tail wagging the creative dog. I submit that this is an untenable situation that will only get worse. But the solution is so remarkably simple: remove JLA from the shackles of continuity altogether and give the creators the freedom to tell the stories they want however they want.

Fanboys won’t read a DCU superhero book that’s not in continuity? Then why were All-Star Superman and All-Star Batman & Robin such massive hits? Again, regardless of whether or not you think they were any good (though the former did receive tremendous praise from critics and fans alike), these are concrete examples of creators allowed to do what they do best and the fans responding in droves. Given the name recognition of a book like Justice League of America, I believe if DC were to get their top talent for it – Perez, Lee, the Kuberts, Busiek, Simone, Robinson – and tell them, “Do what you want for six issues each and don’t worry about continuity,” and market it the way they marketed the All-Star books, this would lead to happier creators telling better stories that will make more money.

I suspect one reason why DC may not choose to do this is the greed factor. Why have Joe Writer write a JLA story in JLA when you can put out a second JLA book and (theoretically) make twice as much money? The problem is, though, that DC will still want both books to “count” – witness the Justice League: Cry For Justice mini as an example. As many superhero books as DC puts out every month, though, do they all have to “count”? In 2009, is this really asking so much? Besides, everyone knows that there are fans who will buy JLA simply because it is JLA and they have to have every single issue regardless of quality. Imagine if you could get those people plus new readers who know nothing about the events in Final Crisis or Blackest Night and don’t care.

Personally, I believe this policy should also apply to the Superman and Batman books also. As many titles as those franchise characters get every month, it’s not asking a lot to remove Action Comics and Detective Comics from continuity and let those books be creator showcases, the way Wednesday Comics was a creators showcase. But I’m sure that’s way too radical an idea for DC editorial to get behind, so perhaps we should stick with JLA for now.