JLA: Rural Greed

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As promised, here is the panel from *The Brave and the Bold* #28, the very first Justice League of America adventure, that makes me cackle every time I read the story.

Green Lantern destroys Starro the Conqueror, thereby saving the life of every human being on the planet. And what’s he concerned about?

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Yes, I know the Comics Code probably required this idiocy, but it still reads like GL’s depressing estimation of human nature.

5 Responses to “JLA: Rural Greed”

  1. A.L. Baroza Says:

    Well, GL’s being a hero. Heroes support capitalism and the American Way, after all. Those farmers earned every penny they spent on that lime, even if the JLA needed to “borrow” it to save the planet–

    Nah, you’re right. It’s silly.

  2. bob Says:

    I have this image of a later court case where the farmer is asking an exorbitant price for the lime while the JLA argue that under an extension of eminent domain property taken to save the planet must only be compensated for at fair market prices.

  3. Mark Patterson Says:

    I dunno. It always made sense to me. You use something, you pay for it. They may have retconned Hal Jordan into a drunk driver, but hey…he’s no thief.

    I mean, when they made Socrates drink hemlock, wasn’t one of the last things he worried about squaring a debt that he owed?

    I’m just saying, is all.

  4. Tom Peyer Says:

    They just wanted us impressionable kids to know, in no uncertain terms, that it was not okay to steal lime from farmers to kill starfish.

    But I did it anyway, and it was great.

  5. Richard Bensam Says:

    Actually, there was an unpublished followup to this:

    Green Lantern says, “Here you go, helpful farmer, this twenty seven dollars and fifty cents should cover the cost of your lime! Thanks for helping us save the whole world!”

    To which the Happy Valley farmer replies, “I been readin’ about you…how you work for the blue skins…and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins…and you done considerable for the purple skins! And with all that, I want to know how come…MY LIME SAVED THE WHOLE FREAKING PLANET and all you give me is TWENTY SEVEN FITTY? When that ring of yours could make me a house out of emeralds, or a swimming pool full of enough thousand dollar bills to give Scrooge McDuck a coronary, or a wild night of passion with a green Marilyn Monroe? That’s all I get when you needed your ass saved from a bunch giant yellow starfishes? Answer me THAT, Mr. Green Lantern!”

    You can see why it wasn’t published, but I think Denny O’Neil worked it into something else later.