Another survivor of my dad's collection, the one issue of the early (relatively) Justice League of America. I think Gardner Fox liked to come up with threats that required the team to split up, similar to the Golden Age Justice Society, but for this one at least, O'Neil just uses a 4-man roster. Batman had recently teamed-up with the Creeper, and thinks the League should settle whether the guy is good or bad. He's already on the "good" side, so he leaves it to Superman, Green Lantern, Flash and the Atom to investigate (they've at least heard of the Creeper, and Atom references his defeat of Proteus from the end of his brief ongoing series.)
Well that should be straightforward, especially since the Creeper's on the trail of some hoods planning to rob an atomic energy plant. Except a bunch of aliens passed by and tried to establish telepathic contact with a local. They unfortunately found Mind-Grabber Kid (in his first appearance), who, in a fit of teenage pique over his exploits being ignored in favor of a broadcast of Superman and GL playing catch with a comet, tells the aliens Earth is under the iron grip of the brutal Justice League.
You would think as much planet hopping as Superman and Green Lantern did, the aliens would have heard of them. GL even recognizes what planet they're from, but oh well. The aliens of course have special headgear that lets them copy people's powers, so they dispatch the four heroes with ease. Except Superman, who has so many powers the cap of his opponent explodes. Some Silver Age "science" works around that, so it falls to the Creeper and a late to the party Mind-Grabber Kid to fix things up. The Kid learns a lesson, the League conclude the Creeper's OK and let him go on his way.
Since this is the only issue I've seen, I don't know if this is typical for O'Neil's time writing the team or not. It kind of makes the League look incompetent. I know Hal Jordan's an idiot, but shouldn't he be used to dealing with yellow power rings from fighting Sinestro, who actually knows how to use the thing? I like Dick Dillin's art though. Kind of halfway between Gil Kane and Neal Adams (who drew the cover for this issue, with the Creeper playing marionettes with the League), though Dillin doesn't have Adams' dynamism in the layouts. He doesn't opt for the odd postures Ditko would use to make the Creeper seem weirder, but he does have the Creeper move and hunch and leap in markedly different ways from everyone else.
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