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“For Sale---the Justice League!”

Editor: Julius Schwartz
Writer: Gardner Fox
Art: Mike Sekowsky (pencils); Bernard Sachs (inks)





Scientist Caleb West invents the cyberniray, a device intended to speed up the education process by increasing a person’s ability to absorb and remember knowledge. One evening, West inadvertently overcharges the device. The shock causes the inventor to stumble, accidentally knocking the cyberniray device out the upper window of his lab, into the alleyway below.

At that particular moment, small-time crook Pete Ricketts is fleeing two pursuing cops through that very alley. He stumbles over the compact invention and inadvertently activates it. The cyberniray bathes the two patrolman in an orange glare, and Ricketts discovers that the over-energised device compels the cops to do whatever he commands.

Ricketts learns that the ray works on anyone, after using it to accomplish a few petty hold-ups. Looking for a way to make a big score off of the invention, he finds it when ten chieftains of organised crime put up a million-dollar prize for anyone who can devise a means of eliminating the Justice League of America.

As the first step in his plan to collect the million-dollar bounty, Ricketts intercepts the Green Lantern at a charity event and uses the cyberniray to put the Emerald Gladiator under his thrall. He then approaches the Syndicate bosses with the living proof of his power. The gangbosses see that G.L. is completely under Ricketts’ control and agree to pay him off, if he can deliver the remaining League members.

Ricketts orders Green Lantern to summon the rest of the League with his emergency signaling device. As the Leaguers arrive, the crook instantly waylays them with the cyberniray. Soon, the entire JLA is under his control. Except for Batman and Superman, who are busy on a mission in “Dimension X”. (Which is fortunate for Ricketts, since no doubt, the Man of Steel would be immune to the cybernetic device.)

Seeking to add to the million dollars he has received, Ricketts offers the gangsters a chance to recoup the money they have paid out. Pete will auction off each Justice Leaguer to the highest bidder, and then he will order that hero to perform whatever crime the winner desires. In short order, the six JLAers are sold off. However, the arrogant crooks begin to squabble over who has made the best deal.

To settle the issue, the enthralled heroes are set against each other in competition. Ricketts orders the Flash and the Green Lantern to both attempt to steal the Napoleonic Tiara, to see which one brings it in. Similarly, Aquaman and the Green Arrow are dispatched to rob the gambling ship, Deuces Wild; and J’onn J’onzz and Wonder Woman are sent after a million-dollar store of radium. To prevent Superman and Batman from being alerted, in case they return from Dimension X, Ricketts gives a command to each of the heroes, forbidding him from activating his JLA signal device.



Chapter Two opens with a brief interlude, revealing how and why Caleb West invented the cyberniray, and how it happened to fall into Pete Ricketts’ hands. This comes from a letter West sent to the Justice League, discovered by honorary member Snapper Carr when he arrives at the League’s secret sanctuary in response to the emergency signal which drew the active members into Ricketts’ possession. The scene leaves Snapper pondering on how he can get this information to his fellow members, when he receives a new pair of emergency signals.

The rest of the chapter is all action, as we see each of the three League pairings go head-to-head, attempting to beat out the other at successfully pulling off their assigned heist. In every instance, the Leaguers fight themselves to a draw. Not that it matters, because each time, the prize intended for stealing is mysteriously taken out of their hands.



The Justice Leaguers return to the Syndicate chiefs in Chapter Three, to report their failures. Disgusted, the gangsters fall back on “Plan B”---killing the super-heroes in pre-arranged death traps. Still under Ricketts control, the Leaguers compliantly submit to the murder devices, a separate trap for each member. Helplessly, they await the end as the traps are activated.

Seconds away from death, each JLAer suddenly finds himself inexplicably free of Ricketts’ control. Able to think for themselves again, the Justice League members resort to their legendary teamwork. One hero frees another from his doom-trap, who then goes on to free the next, until all are safe. It doesn’t take much longer for the super-heroes to corral the gang-chiefs.

Desperately, Ricketts digs into his pocket for the cyberniray device---and finds that he no longer has it! And that’s when the answer to the League’s rescue becomes known. Snapper Carr!

It was the Snapster who mysteriously absconded with the loot from each of the three robberies attempted by the JLA teams. By using the captured anti-gravity discs of Doctor Destiny, their foe from JLA # 5, “When Gravity Went Wild”, Snapper had been able to zoom to each location and prevent the heroes from committing their crimes by taking the valuables first.

And how did Snapper know where each of the crimes was taking place? From emergency signals transmitted by the JLAers themselves! Ricketts had ordered the Leaguers not to use their own signalers, but he had neglected to command them not to activate each other’s.



Afterward, Snapper simply followed Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter back to the Syndicate’s hide-out. Again using the anti-grav discs, the honorary JLAer was able to light-finger the cyberniray out of Pete Ricketts’ pocket and use it to free his pals from their mental blocks. Snapper was sure that they would find a way to extricate themselves from their death-traps---and they did!

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What escapes many fans’ notice is “For Sale---the Justice League!” marks the last time writer Gardner Fox would use his original formula for determining the participation of the League members in an adventure. That formula began ‘way back at the beginning, in The Brave and the Bold # 28 (Feb.-Mar., 1960). Fox would conceive of a menace which was divided in some fashion into three parts, then he would bring all of the JLAers on stage. After quickly shunting Superman and Batman out of the action, Fox would team the remaining heroes into three sub-sets to fight the component parts of the threat. Then they would regroup for the final showdown with the main baddie.

While this format had been violated a couple of times (Superman and Batman took full parts in JLA # 1 and 2), and discarded completely in JLA # 7, it was otherwise cast in stone for the first two years of the series. But things were about to change.

It didn’t take long for the Superman and Batman crowds to write in and ask why their favourite heroes were getting the short shrift. The answer was always something along the lines of the response that appeared in “the JLA Mail Room” in JLA # 7:

These two popular heroes have appeared in so many other DC magazines that we thought it would be more appropriate to play up the other members.


Actually, the real reason was a bit more territorial than that. In an interview published in the fanzine Batmania # 22 (Mar., 1977), Gardner Fox explained: “I didn’t use Superman or Batman very much in the first few years of the Justice League. [Superman editor] Mort Weisinger and [Batman editor] Jack Schiff didn’t want us to. They thought I’d overexpose the characters.”

However, by early 1962, the initially high sales of JLA had begun to sag. According to his autobiography, JLA editor Julius Schwartz met with DC publisher Jack Liebowitz over the falling sales, and he informed the publisher of Weisinger’s and Schiff’s territorial prohibitions against using their heroes in JLA. Schwartz and Liebowitz agreed that the best way to restore JLA’s rating was to utilise DC’s two most popular characters. According to Schwartz, Liebowitz instructed him to go back to his fellow editors and tell them “Superman and Batman belong to DC Comics and not to Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff!”

So Schwartz gave Fox his marching orders. JLA # 9 (Feb., 1962)---the issue following “For Sale---the Justice League!”---would be the last time that Superman and Batman were curtailed. That adventure did not fit the usual Fox formula, though, for instead of dividing the remaining Leaguers into sub-teams, we saw each of them in individual action.

Starting with issue #10 (Mar., 1962), Fox would employ an “everybody into the pool” approach, in which every JLAer, including Superman and Batman, would appear equally. This would be the second of ultimately four formulae that Fox used for determining participating of JLA membership.



It’s to Gardner Fox’s credit that he was able to vary the same standard format for nearly a dozen issues and still kept the stories from seeming stale. In the case of “For Sale---the Justice League!”, he took the novel approach of pitting the sub-teamed members against each other, rather than showing them working together. Unfortunately, each conflict was only two-to-three pages---not nearly long enough to satisfy any “________ Vs. ________” fanboys---but, still, it was different. And there’s the added frisson in the fact that the heroes were aware of many of each others’ secrets, something that their usual foes wouldn’t know.

The basic set-up---a petty hoodlum acquires a super-weapon which makes him a JLA-sized threat---is a tricky one to pull off. In fact, Fox only tried that tack one more time, with Joe Parry, in JLA # 31’s “Riddle of the Runaway Room”, to much less satisfying results. It’s tough to believe that a dumb crook with a gimmick would seriously pose a threat to the Justice League. (In fact, in JLA # 31, Fox left half the League at home, in order to make Parry an even half-way credible threat.)

With Pete Ricketts, though, Fox pulls it off pretty well. Ricketts thinks he’s being clever, and that’s what does him in. That, and his baser emotions. Now, if a smart fellow found himself in possession of a device which compelled people to do his bidding, he would likely keep himself very low key. Every once in a while, walk up to some armoured car-guard or a bank courier and order him to give up all the money, then forget who he was. One could go for a long time without being detected that way.

But Ricketts was impatient. He wanted big money fast. So, he sticks his neck out by getting involved with organised crime. And even when the gangsters do pay him the promised million dollars, instead of getting out fast, he gets greedy and auctions off the JLAers for even more mob money. And one can’t help but wonder, why didn’t Ricketts just use the mind-controlled Leaguers to do his robbing for him, the way he did when he sent the Flash to steal the Cope Nugget, as a test?

I found the climax, in which the JLAers escape their individual dooms, satisfying. I am a sucker for scenes like that, when a member ignores his own peril to save another, and on and on, until what goes around comes around. This particular instance is yet another example of Aquaman’s underestimated importance to the team, since it is his super-power which starts the cycle.

The best part of “For Sale---the Justice League!”, at least, for me, was having Snapper Carr save the day. A great many fans find Snapper an irritation, and I can understand that to some extent. I certainly could have done without the inane “hipster” comments Fox saddled him with. But as a character, Snap was often one of my favourite League members, if for nothing else, than his loyalty to his heroes.

“For Sale” is one of those tales---and there were a few---that showed that the youngster contributed more to the team than just sitting around snapping his fingers and spouting barely decypherable dialogue. The actions that awarded him his honorary JLA membership were questionable---he didn’t do anything other than be immune to Starro’s influence---but he certainly proved his worth on this case.

For my money, Snapper contributed more the Justice League than Rick Jones ever did to the Avengers in the Silver Age.