This week, Comixology is celebrating the return of Jaime Reyes and Ted Kord in Blue Beetle: Rebirth with a big Blue Beetle sale, and that means a couple of different things. First and foremost, it means that you now have a chance to buy Blue Beetle #16 by John Rogers and Rafael Albuquerque, in which Jaime battles the villainous Eclipso and which will stand forever as the comic with the single greatest title of all time: "Total Eclipso: The Heart."

But it also means that there are a few other things you should pick up. If you dig a little deeper into what's on offer, you'll find that there's a ton of the '80s International era of Justice League on sale for a dollar an issue. And that means that for two bucks, you can get one of the single greatest Justice League stories of all time: the massive, world-shaking fight with Despero in Justice League America #38 and 39, from Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis, and Adam Hughes.

 

Justice League America #38
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In all honesty, if you've got the money, you really couldn't go wrong picking up the entire run, but given how influential it was, and how often it's been revisited, it's not like those early issues really need the press. This story, however, is often overlooked, and it's an all-time classic.

It's actually a sequel to a previous JLA story from the Detroit Era --- which, if you're curious, can be found in Justice League of America #251-254 from 1985 --- where the League took on the phenomenally powerful Despero and found that their new young members were in way over their heads. In this one, Despero returns, and if the old League couldn't stand up to him, then the super-powered sitcom characters who've been goofing off for the past three years don't have much of a chance either.

That's the trick to this story: It's great on its own, but it works really well in context. For all the bwa-ha-has and goofy personality clashes in the JLI era, Giffen and DeMatteis were experts at how to get serious, and the laughs only make the brutal violence and danger of this issue even more thrilling. Plus, Adam Hughes does the interiors --- back when he was still doing those on the reg --- and if you like the covers that he did in the 21st century, his 1980s sequential work is going to blow your mind.

The only thing it lacks is a title as good as "Total Eclipso: The Heart," but then, so does every comic.

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