Thursday, October 22, 2009

1999 Hasbro Justice League of America Monopoly Game



A decade back, this collector's edition version of the classic board game Monopoly caught my attention. Initially, I only ever saw it online, with few details about its guts. I hadn't been running my first web site long, but already I'd been rooked by plenty of purported Martian Manhunter merchandise that only featured him on the packaging, a problem to this day. I wanted the game, but I was poor, and $30.00 seemed steep. Further, I only ever physically encountered it once, and have always regretted not buying it.

Along comes that beautiful hunk of man The Irredeemable Shag, who just posted an extensive article on the game, including tons of scans, at Once Upon a Geek. I highly recommend you check it out.

First, below are two variations on the game's packaging, and its manufacturer's details:



JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA MONOPOLY

Game includes:

• Game Board
• Power Cards
• JLA scrip issued by the Bank of Metropolis
• 8 custom pewter Justice League of America tokens: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter
• The Batcomputer Cards
• The Daily Planet Cards
• 32 Power pieces
• 12 Super Power pieces
• 2 Dice
• Exclusive reprint of the first JLA Comic Book, originally published as The Brave and the Bold #29 (March, 1960).

Eight collectible pewter tokens representing the core members of the classic Justice League of America from the 1960’s.

Ages 8 to Adult
3 to 8 Players


The Official Artist of all late '90s Martian Manhunter merchandise, Eduardo "Ed" Barreto, appears to have produced all the new images for this set. Among them were headshots for all the Justice Leaguers present here (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman & Green Arrow,) accompanied by brief legend summaries like:

MARTIAN MANHUNTER™
Real Name:
J'onn J'onzz (Martian),
John Jones (Earth)
Base of Operations: Middletown
Powers: Super-strength, flight, shape-shifter, reads minds


Nice Silver Age clarification there with Middletown, as opposed to the Post-Crisis revision Middleton, as in the Colorado ghost town. You can better look at the legends and the board here, courtesy of Shag. Manhunter represents all the light blue locations on the board, which in the classic game would be the Oriental, Vermont, and Connecticut Avenues. Here, they're the super powers Incredible Alien Power (Price $100,) Telepathic Powers ($100) and Shape-Shifter ($120, and featuring Detective John Jones, right next to Jail.) Per the pecking order, J'onn had the next least valuable properties after Green Arrow, and was followed by the Flash.

Not unexpectedly, the Manhunter from Mars was not featured on any currency, utilities, or railroads. He did make the cover to the rule book, on which he's trying to rip the dome off Xotar the Weapons Master's robot while the League does its thing. "Chance" cards were replaced by the "Daily Planet," as below...



"Community Chest" became "The Batcomputer"



Chairman indeed! Per Shag, these were pretty much all of J'onn J'onzz's contributions to the game, and I think they're plenty swell. Looking at those game tokens, it makes me wish I had 12-15 hours to spare for a single game of Monopoly. Thanks again to Shag for the wonderful scans! His more expansive article is right here.

4 comments:

Josh Hill said...

Man, it's so funny because I haven't played Monopoly in years, and out of the blue last night my wife and her sisters asked to play. So we brought this board out along with a Marvel version that is customizable and we used pieces from both. I think tonight we may play the Justice League version all by itself. I just thought it was ironic to find this article this morning, considering I was just playing the game last night!

Diabolu Frank said...

I forgot about the Marvel version. Mix-n-match is cool, especially if Marvel was still doing that thing where they ruined their artwork with cgi processing. I could see taking a Cap or Spidey token across the yard to escape that.

LissBirds said...

I had seen this on eBay and forgot to bid on it and missed out on it. Boy, it looks really nice. I really want to play Monopoly now!

The Irredeemable Shag said...

Frank - Thanks for the shout-out. When I re-discovered this game in my closet, I just knew you'd appreciate the Martian Manhunter items.

Personally, I love the shot of him flying over the "Go" space. He looks like he's out for a leisurely cruise.

Thanks again!

The Irredeemable Shag
http://onceuponageek.com
http://firestormfan.com