"Snapper Carr- Super-Traitor!" from 1969's Justice League of America #77 is an interesting story, marking the decisive end of the Justice League of America's earliest, most kid-friendly adventures. O'Neil had just taken over the writing from Gardner Fox, and his first move was to get rid of the JLA's irritating teen sidekick, Snapper Carr, by having Carr fall in with a demagogue named John Dough. Dough uses both public speaking and secret crimes to smear the League, hoping to drive the government itself to make superheroes illegal. At the end of the story, Dough is revealed to be the Joker, which makes Carr look even dumber. Unmasked, the Joker doesn't say a word, and as John Dough, he gave absolutely no clue he was really the Joker. He could've been unmasked to be Lex Luthor or literally any other supervillain, and this key story in JLA history would've been unchanged. What Fixed It: It's not totally fixed. Occasionally the Joker has been treated as a "generic bad guy" instead of the unique creation he is, as he was in the TV series Galactic Guardians and Young Justice. That's just plain boring. And nothing kills a joke like boredom.
T Campbell has written quite a few online comics series and selected work for Marvel, Archie and Tokyopop. His longest-running works are Fans, Penny and Aggie-- and his current project with co-writer Phil Kahn, Guilded Age.
