Comic Book History: A Society and League of Justice.

In yesterday's post about the new DC super hero TV series Stargirl, I referenced a super hero team known as the Justice Society. If you're knowledge of the DC Universe is limited to movies and TV and what not but does not include comic books, you might be confused. Isn't DC's big super hero team known as the Justice League? 

Well, the answer is DC has both a Society AND a League of Justice. Herein is a brief history to cover all of that. 

In 1940, the Justice Society of America first appeared in All Star Comics #3.  The team was composed of Doctor Fate, Hour-Man, the Spectre, the Sandman, the Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman. 

Here's a fun fact: not all of these characters belonged to the same company. The entity we know today as DC was actually two companies, National and All-American. So All Star Comics #3 was not just the first super hero crossover, it was the first intercompany super hero crossover nearly 4 decades before DC and Marvel would have Superman and Spider-Man meet for the first time.  


Here's another fun fact: the Justice Society of America did absolutely diddly squat in their first meeting. Basically the JSA got together for a meet and greet at a hotel banquet room and swapped stories. All Star Comics#3 is filled with a variety of solo stories of the assembled heroes with a framing device of the heroes handing off one to another to tell a tale of one of their adventures.  

The next issue, All Star Comics#4, was their first JSA mission. 

The JSA would continue in All Star Comics until issue #57.

By this point, super heroes were past their peak popularity and comic books were looking to other genres. Crime comics were particularly popular.  You may notice with the above cover how the guy with the gun has prominence over the much smaller figures of the heroes. 

Another popular genre for comics back in the early 1950's were western comics. So with issue #58, All Star Comics was renamed All Star Western and that was bye-bye to the Justice Society of America.

For the next few years, the only super heroes at DC to survive what we now call the Golden Age were Superman, Batman & Robin and Wonder Woman with Green Arrow and Aquaman holding down back up strips. 

Then editor Julius Schwartz decided it was time to try super heroes again. In Showcase#4, writer Bob Kanigher and artists Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert introduced a new version of the Flash. 

The Flash reboot was a big success and Schwartz worked with writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane do a reboot of Green Lantern.  

Eventually Schwartz paired up writer Gardner Fox (who wrote most of the JSA stories in All Star Comics) with artist Mike Sekowsky to launch the Justice League of America in Brave & the Bold#28.   The assembled JLA fought Starro, a giant starfish from space.

This is serious business, people! Starro is a giant TELEPATHIC starfish from space bent on world domination. 

Fun fact: Schwartz opted for the name "League" over "Society" for the new team due to the popularity of major league baseball.  

Another fun fact: Starro is a serious omega level threat as a giant TELEPATHIC starfish from space bent on world domination and should not be mocked. 

Over in the Flash's own comic book, writer Gardner Fox tells the story of who a super speed stunt propel's Barry Allen's scarlet alter ego into a parallel Earth that's like the one he knows but slightly different. In this alternate Earth, the Flash is Jay Garrick, the Flash of the Golden Age and a member of the Justice Society.  

Fun fact: this issue introduces the concept of the multiverse to DC. The current Flash and the heroes of the current line of DC heroes are designated to live on Earth 1. The Jay Garrick Flash and other heroes of the Golden Age are designated to be on Earth 2. 

Another fun fact: Barry knew who Jay Garrick was because he used to read Flash comic books when he was a kid. It seems the adventures of the Golden Age heroes on Earth 2 were duplicated in comic book form on Earth 1. 

And another fun fact: this issue established writer Gardner Fox as a character living on Earth 1 who picks up mental signals across the vibrational barrier that separates the two Earths and uses that info for the comic books he wrote when Barry Allen was a kid.  

You're not still laughing about the starfish, are you?  

Jay and Barry would team up some more including this classic issue where Vandal Savage instigates a revenge plot against the Justice Society. For the first time in over a decade since All Star Comics#57, the JSA appears in a new comic book adventure.  

Which leads us to Justice League of America#21 and the first ever JLA/JSA team up.  

In the 1970s, All Star Comics would be revived and the JSA once more had a regular berth of all new adventures on Earth 2. This revival lasted until the infamous DC Implosion of 1978.  

The JLA and the JSA would cross the dimensional barriers once a year until Crisis on Infinite Earths brought an end to the multiverse.  

Post crisis, the Justice Society became a World War II era precursor to the modern Justice League. Which meant the heroes of the JSA were really, really old. 

Explanations of comic book super science and/or strange magic explained some of the unusual longevity of these heroes. Around 1992, nearly 50 years after they first gathered in a hotel to swap stories, the Justice Society of America got their first ongoing series actually called Justice Society of America.

Reason for still being alive aside, these heroes were still really, really old and apparently upper management at DC wasn't keen on producing a series about really, really old super heroes and the series was unceremoniously dumped after only 10 issues.  

Spinning off from James Robinson's popular Starman series at the time, JSA took a more expansive approach to the team. Some of the old guard (such as Jay Garrick's Flash) were still active but the rest of the team were legacy characters, children and grandchildren of various classic JSA members.  

Fun fact: James Robinson is a writer and producer on the new Stargirl TV series. 

And... when Robinson left the JSA title as a writer, he would be replaced by Geoff Johns, the creator and showrunner of the new Stargirl series. 

This expansive legacy approach would continue with a relaunch of a new Justice Society of America series helmed by Geoff Johns. 

The Justice Society of America was written out of existence when the New 52 relaunch in 2011. With the Rebirth initiative a few years later, bits and pieces of the JSA legacy have peaked through the cracks. Doomsday Clock#12 shows the team restored but in what context, it's not completely clear. 

A recent issue of Justice League recently sent Green Lantern John Stewart and the Flash (Barry Allen) back in time to World War II where they are surprised to encounter the Justice Society of America. In current continuity, there is no knowledge of super heroes existing during WWII.  

Perhaps with the notoriety the JSA has in the current Stargirl series, perhaps DC will finally give the Justice Society of America a well deserved and respected place once more in the DC universe. 

In this old world, I think we can find room for both a society and a league of justice.  

Fun reminder: Starro is a SERIOUS omega level threat as a giant TELEPATHIC starfish from space bent on world domination and should not be mocked, EVER!

Yes, it's a starfish! Stop laughing.  

Remember to be good to one another.