“The Silver Age” was one of the silliest crossovers of the Post-Crisis DC Universe, but ultimately led to one of Batman’s darkest decisions.
The Justice League have come up against all sorts of threats over the years, ranging from the ridiculous to the serious, world-shattering to deeply personal. But sometimes, one threat can have a lasting impact on future events, with one particularly goofy event in the Post-Crisis DC Universe directly leading to one of the Justice League’s greatest breaches of trust.
“The Silver Age” was a silly body-swapping story, the Justice League’s own Freaky Friday — but it ended up being a serious part of Batman’s motivations in the infamous “Tower of Babel,” which saw the Dark Knight betray his teammate’s trust by developing plans to bring them all down.
“The Silver Age” by Mark Waid, Terry Dodson, Eduardo Barreto, and a host of other creators via a number of tie-in stories, is set in the bygone Post-Crisis era of the DC Universe. The tone and events of the story are done in a way to mimic the more carefree superhero stories of the Silver Age of Comics. The storyline begins with the arrival of Agamemno on Earth, a powerful mystic villain from the depths of the cosmos. The alien comes to Lex Luthor and reveals his plans for galactic conquest, which involve collecting three powerful artifacts — the Thangarian Absorbascon, the Green Lantern Central Power Battery, and a piece of Jewel Kryptonite. To accomplish this, Agamemnon and Luthor agree to work together and recruit a new version of the Injustice League.
Their ultimate plan results in the villains swapping bodies with some of their worst enemies, giving them access to the items and the power to claim them. Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, and the Atom are forced to exchange bodies with Lex Luthor, the Penguin, Mr. Element, Sinestro, Black Manta, Felix Faust, Catwoman, Doctor Light, and Chronos respectively. Promised control of the Earth in exchange for their help, the Injustice Gang springs into action with their new bodies. However, the captured Justice League are able to break free and move to stop their enemies — albeit while being forced to fight off their other heroic allies, who are unaware of the body-swaps that have occurred.
Although the interference of Green Lantern eventually allows the heroes and villains to swap their bodies back to normal and a band of other heroes gathers to help the Justice League, Agamemno is able to collect all three items and combine them into a single weapon, but is subsequently seemingly destroyed by the creation of the weapon. In reality, Luthor had substituted the Jewel Kryptonite with a fake one, allowing the Injustice League to claim the power for themselves. The Justice League returns to Earth to confront the empowered villains as well as a restored Agamemno, eventually defeating all the villains with the use of the H-Dial — which transforms the heroes into new forms that allow them to take the villains by surprise and earn a victory.
At first glance, “The Silver Age” appears to be a harmless and silly adventure in the lives of the Justice League. But the storyline had a far more dramatic effect not long after. “Tower of Babel” from JLA #43-46 by Mark Waid and Howard Porter revealed that in response to this emergency, Batman secretly began preparing contingencies in case the Justice League ever lost control ever again. Without informing his teammates of his actions, Batman began designing ways to defeat the various members of the Justice League, learning more about their weaknesses through conversation and discovering how to exploit them. However, Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul are able to steal the dossiers and amplify the effects of the weapons, creating tools by which they almost bring down the entire League.
Nearly the entire team is killed by these plans, with the group barely figuring out the key to survival in time to defeat Ra’s. But the real damage was to the trust between the members of the group, and the Justice League completely lost faith in Batman, leading to him leaving the team for a time. Notably, Batman specifically mentions Agamemno and the events of “The Silver Age,” as the reasons for his actions. Even if “The Silver Age” remains one of the sillier DC stories of its era, it still had a serious impact on how the heroes of the DC Universe operate, having an effect on Batman that has remained a constant.
