The Comic That Ended the Silver Age, #1: Gettin' Kookie

Let's talk about the DCU's greatest betrayal, the one that ended the Silver Age:

"Snapper Carr-- Super-Traitor!" Justice League America #77 (1969).  

By that I mean, 'betrayal of one character by another in-universe".  The greatest betrayal would otherwise be Identity Crisis (by DC of its readers), of course.

Maybe you are already familiar with this story, but I'll wager a lot of less experienced readers aren't.  It's one of the most important DC comics of all time, which makes its current obscurity all the more ironic.  

Let's start with a question for those of you under, say, 40: Who is Snapper Carr?  Most of you will answer this guy:

Kara Danvers extra-dickish boss on "Supergirl"

But it's not. That's just one of those examples of the CW-verse slapping a random name stolen from the comics on a totally different character (kind of like how "Felicity Smoak" is actually Firestorm's stepmom).  

Real Snapper Carr was the JLA's teen sidekick in the Silver Age.  Well, mascot, really, since Snapper had no powers or abilities (except super-annoyingness).

There's so much more and so much more WORSE I could show you about Snapper Carr.  
Google it.

Snapper seems to have been modeled on secondary character turned teen sensation Edd "Kookie" Byrnes from the teevee show 77 Sunset Strip; Snapper was introduced in 1960 when Kookie-mania was in full-swing. His look AND his tendency to speak in faux-hip-lingo are dead giveaways. Why put such a character in the JLA, already brimming over with eight of DC's biggest heroes struggling for screen time?  

Right now my fingers are ALSO expressing how I feel about your induction into the JLA, Snapper. At least, one of them is.

As always, writers must have thought that young readers needed "someone to identify with", overlooking the fact that we read comics to identify with the HEROES, not their hangers-on.  I have long suspected that Snapper Carr was really put in the League for Green Arrow's sake:

Leaving behind Snapper Carr would give ANYONE a broad grin.

Specifically, Snapper Carr was there to give readers someone to hate other than Green Arrow.

The universe -- both ours and DC's -- suffered under Snapper Carr for about nine years, thanks to his creator, Gardner Fox.  During which time Snapper was "The Wesley" of the JLA, despite being a total idiot (or sometimes because of it).

"Only SNAPPER CARR is ignorant enough to save us!"

Look how SAD Wonder Woman is that they have to be saved AGAIN by Snapper Carr. "It's bad enough being saved by a man... but by SNAPPER CARR?!  I miss Etta so much."

But a deadly meteor from another dimension was headed directly toward Snapper, heaven-bent on his humiliation and destruction. That meteor?  Denny O'Neil.

"Doom, Thy Name is...DENNY!"

More on that soon....