Comic book fans love their legacies, and there’s no group with more legacy out there than the Justice Society of America. Comics’ first superhero team debuted back in 1940 and 84 years on, they’re still out there, with many of the original members who fought during World War II carrying on fighting crime despite theoretically pushing 100 years old now.
But hey, kids, it’s comics, and even if the original Flash and Green Lantern might be a little long in the tooth, they’re still out there. The JSA was generally home to the second tier of the early DC heroes – Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Starman and the like. It was literally the first time superhero characters from different stories got together and decided to hang out. They inspired the more famous Justice League that started in the 1960s and have kept coming back, for decades now. The latest JSA revival is about to hit the stands.
I stumbled across a big ol’ pile of All-Star Squadron comics at a yard sale back in the day, which was writer Roy Thomas’ faithful reimagining of the Justice Society’s adventures in World War II, along with pretty much every other vintage comics character of the period thrown in the mix.
I fell in love with Thomas’ amiable, corny comics – nobody is more of a comics history buff than he is, and even if his dialogue can sometimes be embarrassingly uncool, his love for the characters always shines through. The All-Star Squadron’s whole vibe was retro without being childish, and for 70 issues or so in the ‘80s it brought the JSA back to life again. (Heck, I even named my own team of goofy superheroes “The All-Spongy Squadron” in a tip of the hat to ol’ Roy Thomas.)
What I love about these comics was that there were so MANY heroes, from stalwarts like Superman and Hawkman to second-tier characters like Johnny Quick and Robotman to who-the-hell-are-these-people obscurities like The Jester and The Human Bomb. When we saw the entire All-Star Squadron in one heaving double-page spread, I wanted to know who all these guys were and what their deals were. That’s how comics hook you.
The thing I’ve always enjoyed about the JSA/All-Star Squadron in all its many incarnations is its sense of family and legacy. Newer heroes came along like Power Girl, a grown-up Robin and Batman’s daughter The Huntress in the excellent 1970s All-Star Comics revival, while Roy Thomas’ spin-offs Infinity Inc and Young All-Stars added even more characters into the mix.
The Justice Society’s 84-year-tenure is a history of the superhero comic itself, with all its ups and downs – the JSA went away in the 1950s as superhero comics dropped in popularity, swung back in the 1960s to inspire the Silver Age of Comics, and got a bit grim and gritty in the modern age just like everything else.
The biggest and so far best JSA revival was the 1996-2006 one spearheaded by writer Geoff Johns, which took all that hefty legacy and sense of history and stapled it to some ripping good modern action-filled superhero yarns. The Justice League are the big guys, yeah, but the JSA were the ones who started it all, and it was great to see a comic that embraced their legacy in a dynamic fashion.
You’d think superheroes whose whole existence is tied to being around since World War II would eventually fade, but the JSA just keep ticking along, and so far, nobody has really retconned their deep ties to the 1940s away yet. (Some of the old original JSA have died, but others have had their improbable longevity waved away by magic, science, being lost in limbo, speed forces, et cetera.)
Big super-teams out there like the Justice League and Avengers are constantly breaking up, reforming, et cetera. But while the JSA has gone dormant at times, their legacy has never quite been rebooted or erased and their core has remained refreshingly the same, with Hawkman, the original Flash or Green Lantern almost always in the mix.
Unfortunately the most recent 2022-2024 12-issue Justice Society revival by Johns was a disappointment, with an endless procession of new characters being introduced and very little being done with them and none of the pivotal characterisation Johns’ earlier work had.
The JSA and All-Star Squadron have always been crowded with heroes, but this latest Justice Society revival felt more like a list of soup ingredients than a pantheon of icons. It was an endless series of teasers in search of a story, something a little too common in the MCU-ified comics world these days.
Fortunately, we’ve already got the next JSA reinvention ready to go, with new writer Jeff Lemire taking on the team that won’t die. I’ll be checking it out, of course and always hoping for the best. Superhero teams are everywhere these days, but the one that started the whole thing off is still my club of choice.
Nik Dirga 