Justice League

• 1. Introduction

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  The Justice League, also called the Justice League of America, made its debut in The Brave and the Bold #28, dated March 1960. Its premise was unusual. Superheroes who already headlined their own comic books would agree to share a single one. From that gamble came a team that has been rebuilt again and again, from 1960 into the 2020s, and has since crossed into television, films and video games. Why would a publisher gather heroes who already had their own stars on the newsstand? What happens to a team when its biggest names are replaced by unknowns? And how did a handful of costumed characters become the glue for an entire fictional universe? The answers begin with a team that had already vanished once.

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• 2. Reviving a Lost Team

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  Writer Gardner Fox and editor Sheldon Mayer created the Justice Society of America in 1940. Its last appearance came in All-Star Comics #57, dated March 1951. After World War II, readers drifted away from superheroes, and publishers cancelled many characters, the Society among them.

  A few years later, sales began to rise again. DC Comics started reviving retired heroes, and it reinvented some of them along the way. Editor Julius Schwartz asked Fox to bring the Society back.

  Schwartz changed the name to the Justice League of America. He believed the word "League" would attract young readers, because it recalled sports organizations such as the National League.

  The new team appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28, and then twice more in that title. After those three appearances it received its own series. That series quickly became one of the company's best sellers.

  The success spread. DC Comics went on to create other superhero teams, including the Teen Titans. Rival publisher Marvel Comics took notice and created the Avengers and the Fantastic Four.

  Yet the original lineup contained a curious twist, because two of its most famous members barely appeared at first.

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• 3. Seven Founders

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  Seven heroes who were already being published regularly made up the first lineup: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman.

  Fox also invented Snapper Carr, a character with no superpowers. Carr was meant to stand in for DC's teenage readers, and he joined the League as an Honorary member in the debut story.

  Superman and Batman played only small parts in the early stories. They already starred together in World's Finest Comics, and Fox worried that the two best-known heroes would pull attention from their lesser-known teammates. Readers kept asking for more of them, and over time the pair became far more prominent. Within about four years the roster also grew to include Green Arrow, the Atom and Hawkman.

  The Justice Society of the 1940s worked differently. In All-Star Comics, the Society mostly served as a framing device for its members' solo adventures. The Society would meet to discuss a new menace, split up for separate missions linked to that menace, and regroup to face the main villain. Most comic books of that decade were anthologies, so this was not a big departure. The League, by contrast, kept its members working together, which gave it a stronger identity as a team. Batman and Superman were full members, not honorary guests who dropped in now and then.

  Justice League of America (vol. 1) #21, from August 1963, brought the old and new teams together for the first time. Doctor Fate and the Black Canary were among the legacy characters who returned. Readers loved it, and such crossovers became a recurring event.

  Awards followed. The series took two 1961 Alley Awards, for Best Comic Book and Best Adventure-Hero Group. In 1963 it won Favorite Novel for the two-part story "Crisis on Earth-One/Crisis on Earth-Two," by Fox and Mike Sekowsky in issues #21-22. Murphy Anderson won an award for Artist Preferred on Justice League of America.

  That first volume ran from 1960 to 1987, but it would not always keep its stars.

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• 4. The Star Power Formula

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  Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman each carry their own solo books, and they usually anchor the League's roster. Around them sit a few lesser-known figures, such as Cyborg or the Black Canary, who gain attention by sharing the page.

  The arrangement was a commercial design. The League was built to lift the profiles and sales of these characters through cross-promotion.

  The heroes in this team normally work alone and assemble only for especially formidable villains. That separates the League from the Doom Patrol and Marvel's X-Men, whose characters were created for the team and defined by it. The Fantastic Four fits the same contrast.

  The approach helped DC build a shared universe. Characters guest-starred in each other's solo books and gathered regularly in team books like this one. Those meetings encouraged readers to buy more titles in the catalogue. Readers grew attached to the web of relationships among the heroes, not only to individual characters, and that built loyalty to the brand.

  Marvel copied the idea with teams of its own, the Avengers being the closest match. Because the two universes were large and did not overlap, some fans followed just one. The superhero audience split into communities of DC devotees and Marvel devotees.

  Inside the stories, the League is an independent group. It usually accepts limits from the U.S. government or the United Nations so that it can win official approval. In the early decades, DC wanted its heroes to look law-abiding, since children formed the main audience.

  The cast rarely exceeds a dozen, so that each character gets a fair share of the story. A chairperson is sometimes shown, but there is otherwise no hierarchy, and major decisions, such as inducting a new member, are settled by vote.

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• 5. Unknowns and Embassies

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  Justice League of America Annual #2, from October 1984, rewrote the roster. Every A-list name was removed, and the team was rebuilt from obscure characters such as Vixen, Vibe and the Martian Manhunter.

  Two motives lay behind the change. Lesser-known characters carried less tangled continuity, which gave writers room for character-driven stories. DC also wanted a younger, hipper feel like the Teen Titans and the X-Men, both of which were outselling the League. The original stars stayed away until 1986.

  The cast was multicultural. Gypsy was Romani, Vibe was Latino and Vixen was Black. Still, the writing of Vibe and Gypsy leaned on clichés of their ethnic groups. Writers Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton, well-meaning but out of touch, later expressed regret. Because the team was based in Detroit, this two-year period is popularly called "Justice League Detroit."

  The 1986 company-wide crossover "Legends" ended with a new team. It was first called the Justice League, then Justice League International. Its mandate was less American. The United Nations recognized it as a political entity, and it set up "embassies" around the world. The series had a quirky, humorous tone, focused on character, and readers liked it. Spin-offs followed, including Justice League Europe, Extreme Justice and Justice League Task Force.

  Some of its characters came from other publishers. In 1983, DC Comics bought Charlton Comics, whose creations from the 1960s included Captain Atom and the Blue Beetle. A few years later both joined the DC Universe. Captain Marvel, who first appeared in the Fawcett Comics universe, was folded in as well.

  In 1996, these series were cancelled for low sales. The answer arrived that September, in a miniseries called Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare.

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• 6. Gods and Reboots

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  Mark Waid and Fabian Nicieza wrote A Midsummer's Nightmare, which brought back the classic cast. In 1997, DC launched a monthly book titled JLA, with the first issue dated January. Grant Morrison wrote its first four years and gave it an epic scale by treating the League as an allegory for a pantheon of gods. Its villains threatened the whole world, or even the cosmos.

  The series went back to basics with the original seven or their successors. Wally West was the Flash, and Kyle Rayner was Green Lantern. JLA quickly became DC's top seller, a position it held on and off for years. It ended in April 2006 after 126 issues.

  In 2006, a second volume titled Justice League of America began. It continued the JLA habits of world-shaking stakes, plot ahead of character, and strong ties to the company's crossover events.

  The New 52 relaunch in 2011 changed the past of the DC Universe again. Cyborg, one of DC's premier African American heroes, became a founding member. The same year, DC released the spin-off Justice League Dark, a team of magic users that included John Constantine, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu and Swamp Thing.

  DC Rebirth followed in 2016, with a new Justice League volume written by Bryan Hitch. In 2017, after Justice League vs Suicide Squad, Steve Orlando wrote a Justice League of America volume starring Batman, Black Canary, the Atom, Vixen, the Ray, Lobo and Killer Frost.

  The New Justice era opened a fourth Justice League volume. Justice League: No Justice ran four issues, and Justice League Odyssey ran 25 issues from 2018 to 2020. In Odyssey, Darkseid lured Cyborg, Starfire, Jessica Cruz and Azrael into the Ghost Sector. A second Justice League Dark, led by Wonder Woman, ran 29 issues from July 2018 to February 2021.

  The fourth volume ended in June 2022 after 75 issues. From January to May 2022, the five-issue Justice League Incarnate gathered alternate heroes, among them a new character named Doctor Multiverse.

  In the Dawn of DC period, the League went on hiatus, and Nightwing led the Titans as the premier team. In 2024, DC All In introduced Justice League Unlimited, by Mark Waid and Dan Mora. Most of the world's heroes now enlist as League members, working from a new Watchtower in orbit above Earth.

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• 7. Headquarters and Rivals

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  In the 1960s, the League met in a hollowed-out mountain outside the fictional town of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. In 1970, Justice League of America #78 moved the team to a satellite. The Super Friends cartoons, which ran from 1973 to 1985, used the Hall of Justice in Washington, D.C.

  The Detroit team lived in a repurposed bomb shelter. In the JLA series of 1997 to 2006, the base was the Watchtower on the Moon. The center of each headquarters is a conference table where menaces are discussed. The satellite and Moon bases have teleporters for members who cannot fly there.

  The Legion of Doom was invented for the animated Challenge of the Superfriends, as a villainous counterpart. Each villain matched a hero: Lex Luthor for Superman, the Riddler for Batman, Sinestro for Green Lantern, Black Manta for Aquaman, Gorilla Grodd for the Flash and the Cheetah for Wonder Woman. Versions of the Legion have since turned up in other shows and comics.

  The DC Multiverse has produced many alternate Leagues. The Crime Syndicate of America, from Earth-3, is a team of villainous versions of the mainline heroes. Other versions are scattered through time. The Justice Riders of Earth 18 live in the Wild West, and the League of Earth 118, from Dark Knights of Steel, is medieval. Justice Legion Alpha belongs to the 853rd century, and Justice League 3000 is set in the far future.

  Some versions are stranger still. The Jurassic League is made of dinosaurs. The Justice Guild of Earth-11 swaps the genders of the heroes, and the Justice Titans of Earth-41 fuse the League with the Teen Titans.

  The Absolute Universe treats superheroes as underdogs. Its League is made up of Veronica Cale, the Joker, Ra's al Ghul, Elenore Thawne and Hector Hammond. They hold that their grip on the world is the natural order, and that keeping it is "justice."

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• 8. Crossovers and Theme Parks

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  JLA/Avengers, published jointly by DC and Marvel in 2003, remains the most recent meeting of those two companies' flagship teams. Such crossovers are rare because they demand heavy resources to settle legal issues and corporate politics. Licensing limits also block spin-off merchandise and media, which cuts profits.

  Marvel and DC now belong to major multimedia corporations, Disney and Warner Brothers respectively. That makes another project like JLA/Avengers even less likely. In 2017, Dan Didio remarked that the two companies compete fiercely and crossed over only when their sales were low. DC has still teamed the League with smaller publishers, including a 2019 crossover with Dark Horse Comics' Black Hammer.

  In 2025, Ian Flynn wrote the five-issue miniseries DC X Sonic the Hedgehog. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, John Stewart's Green Lantern, the Flash and Cyborg join Sonic and his friends when Darkseid invades their universe, seeking the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic and his friends also take on League identities. Sonic suits up as the Flash, and Tails wears armor modeled on Cyborg. Amy wears a dress like Wonder Woman's, and Silver takes a Green Lantern ring. Knuckles dresses as Superman, and Shadow wears a Batman suit. Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl and Supergirl also appear.

  The League has also entered amusement parks. Justice League: Alien Invasion is an interactive dark ride at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast, Australia. Riders join the heroes in blaster-equipped vehicles against Starro, who has mind-controlled the citizens of Metropolis.

  Justice League: Battle for Metropolis runs at seven Six Flags parks across the United States and Mexico. Lex Luthor and the Joker have captured Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash at LexCorp. Riders must help the remaining members and the Justice League Reserve Team free them. The vehicles, motion-enhanced and armed with stun blasters, were designed by A.R.G.U.S.

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