Mighty Comic # 43
Sometimes I think we just got lucky. It's not as if each and every cover of the classic Justice League of America series (that is, the Silver Age Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky series) made it onto the cover of Mighty Comic or All Favourites Comic. It's not even as if every classic or iconic DC cover made the cut in the K.G. Murray series (just think of the many unreprinted Silver Age Batman or Detective Comics covers).
Consider that the follow-up issue of the US Justice League of America didn't appear in the following issue of Mighty, but a month later in All Favourites Comic #45; consider also that one of the first four Crisis team-ups didn't get the cover treatment ("The Most Dangerous Earth of All" from Justice League of America #30 was on back-up feature duties for All Favourites Comic #48) and you begin to see why I'm grateful to see the cover of Justice League of America #21 reprinted on Mighty Comic #43.
But I'm also grateful because it's a better reproduction than the reprints in both the Crisis on Multiple Earths TPB and Justice League of America Archives Vol. 3. The inking in both these reprints is muddy and indistinct (unforgiveable on Murphy Anderson) whereas the Mighty copy is crisp and clean. It even manages to reproduce the colouring errors in the original issue (Dr. Fate's collar, Green Lantern's chest emblem) which were corrected in the TPB. And of course, the bold purple background is reproduced with integrity, albeit with a bit license - a deeper, richer shade than the original, which somehow imbues the scene with a greater sense of royalty and ceremony.
So sure, it's not quite the original cover. The image is cropped by the 100 Pages spine banner, and the text boxes have also been rearranged, and the masthead of the Mighty Comic arches over the smoke formation rather than nestling into it as the Justice League of America logo does, altering the arrangement of the elements (to greater effect, in my opinion).
So sometimes, we just got lucky. And sometimes, K.G. Murray just got it right.
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