justice league of america symbol

Group of fictional characters of DC Comics

Justice League
Justice League: Rebirth #1 by Jason Fabok and Alex Sinclair Top: Green Lanterns Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz. Middle: Aquaman, Batman, Cyborg, and Flash. Front: Superman and Wonder Woman.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Brave and the Bold #28 (March 1960)
Created by	Gardner Fox
In-story information
Base(s)	The Hall Watchtower Satellite Secret Sanctuary Detroit Bunker The Refuge JLI Embassies
Roster
See: List of Justice League members

The Justice League (formerly known as the Justice League of America) is a fictional team of superheroes that appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The team first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28 (March 1960). The team was conceived by writer Gardner Fox as a revival of the Justice Society of America, a similar team from DC Comics from the 1940s which had been pulled out of print due to a decline in the popularity of superheroes.

The Justice League is an all-star ensemble cast of established superhero characters from DC Comics' portfolio. Diegetically, these superheroes usually operate independently but occasionally assemble as a team to tackle especially formidable villains. This in contrast to certain other superhero teams such as the X-Men, whose characters were created specifically to be part of their team, with the team being central to their identity. The cast of the Justice League usually features a few highly popular characters who have their own solo books, such as Superman, alongside a number of lesser-known characters who benefit from exposure, such as Cyborg.^[1] The Justice League was created to boost the profiles and sales of said characters through cross-promotion. A Superman fan might buy it because it has Superman in it, and perhaps in turn take an interest in Batman, who also appears as Superman's friend and comrade. The Justice League also helped develop the DC Universe as a shared universe as it is through teams like the Justice League that the setting's characters regularly interact with each other.^[2]

Beyond comic books, the Justice League has been adapted to a number of television shows, movies, and video games.

Fictional overview [edit]

Members [edit]

The members of the Justice League are heroes who normally operate independently but who occasionally team up to tackle especially formidable villains. This is in contrast to teams such as the X-Men or the Fantastic Four, who always operate as a team and for whom the team is central to their identity.

Most versions of the Justice League feature a select cast of highly popular characters from the DC Comics portfolio, such as Superman and Batman, to attract readers with their star power; and they often co-feature a few lesser-known characters who benefit from exposure, such as Cyborg or Black Canary. DC Comics has in several periods deviated from this formula, most notably in the late 1980s and early 1990s with books such as Justice League International, which deliberately featured a cast of purely lesser-known characters. The advantage of this was that lesser-known characters are not burdened by convoluted continuities, which gives writers more creative flexibility to write character-driven stories. This was done to emulate the model of Marvel Comics' X-Men books, whose stories were more character-driven and which favored more obscure or even new characters.

The Justice League is an independent group, although it usually accepts some constraints from the US government or the United Nations so as to receive their sanction. Particularly in the early decades, DC Comics was keen for its superheroes to not be perceived as vigilantes. The cast is rarely more than a dozen people in size so as to give a reasonable and equal time for each character. There is no formal hierarchy in the League; they are a small band of equals who make major decisions, such as inducting new members, by vote.

Headquarters [edit]

The Justice League operates out of a headquarters. In the 1960s, their headquarters was secretly in a hollowed-out mountain outside the fictional town of Happy Harbor in Rhode Island. In Justice League of America #78 (1970), they moved to a satellite. In the Super Friends cartoons which ran from 1973-1985, they operated out of the "Hall of Justice" located in Washington, DC. During the brief "Justice League Detroit" era, they were headquartered in a repurposed bomb shelter in Detroit. In the JLA comic book which ran from 1997-2006, their headquarters was on the Moon and called "the Watchtower". The centerpiece of the headquarters is a conference table around which the Justice League discusses menaces to deal with. The satellite and moon base headquarters are equipped with teleporters for those members who cannot fly to it.

Villains [edit]

The Legion of Doom was created for the Challenge of the Super Friends animated TV series as a villainous counterpart to the Justice League. In that original incarnation, it consisted of established villains associated with each of the Justice League's members, e.g. Lex Luthor for Superman, Gorilla Grodd for the Flash, and Cheetah for Wonder Woman. The Legion of Doom, or some variant of it, has since appeared in other TV shows and comic books.

Comic books [edit]

Since 1960, the Justice League has appeared in periodical comic books and graphic novels published by DC Comics. These constitute the bulk of Justice League fiction.

Silver Age and Bronze Age (1960-1984) [edit]

The Brave and the Bold #28, their first appearance. Superman and Batman do not appear on the cover but do appear in the story within.

In its inception, the Justice League was a revival of the Justice Society of America, created by editor Sheldon Mayer and writer Gardner Fox in 1940. After World War 2, superheroes fell out of popularity, which led to the cancellation of many characters, including the Justice Society, which last appeared in All-Star Comics #57 (1951). A few years later, sales rose again, and DC Comics revived some of these retired characters, reinventing a few of them in the process. Editor Julius Schwartz asked writer Gardner Fox to reintroduce the Justice Society of America. Schwartz decided to rename it the "Justice League of America" because he felt "League" would appeal better to young readers, evoking sports organizations such as the National League.^[3] The Justice League of America debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28 (March 1960), and after two further appearances in that title, got its own series, which quickly became one of the company's best-selling titles.^[4] This led DC Comics to create a bunch of other superhero teams, such as the Teen Titans. Marvel Comics, a rival comic book publisher, noticed the Justice League's success and created the Avengers and the Fantastic Four.

The initial Justice League lineup included seven of DC Comics' superheroes who were regularly published at that time: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman. Green Arrow, the Atom and Hawkman were added to the team over the next four years.

In the Justice Society stories from the 1940s (in All-Star Comics), the Justice Society was used more as a framing device for its members' solo adventures. The stories tended to have the following plot structure: the Justice Society meets to discuss some new menace, they split up to undertake individual missions that somehow connect to said menace, and finally regroup for the showdown with the main villain. In the 1940s, most comic books were anthologies, and All-Star Comics was in practice not a major deviation from that format. By contrast, the Justice League worked more closely as a team in their stories from the 1960s, thereby having a stronger identity as a team.

In another change from the Justice Society stories of the 1940s, Batman and Superman were now regular members of the cast, not mere "honorary members" who made occasional cameos.

Justice League of America #21 (1963) featured the first crossover story in which the Justice League meets and teams up with the Justice Society of America. In doing so, DC Comics brought back a number of legacy characters such as Doctor Fate and Black Canary. The issue was a hit with readers and such crossovers became a recurring event.

Detroit era (1984-1986) [edit]

From the Justice League's inception in 1960 up until 1984, the team's roster always included a number of A-list characters to draw in readers, such as Green Lantern and Superman. But in Justice League of America Annual #2 (1984), the Justice League was revised to entirely comprise more obscure characters, such as Vixen, Vibe, and Martian Manhunter. The original A-list members would not be brought back into the cast until 1996. This era of the Justice League, which lasted about two years, is popularly known as "Justice League Detroit". The motives behind this change were to sidestep the convoluted continuities of the classic characters by using lesser-known characters, thus allowing for more character-driven stories; and to give the team a more youthful, hipper feel similar to that of the Teen Titans and the X-Men, which were selling better.^[5] The cast was multicultural: Gypsy was Romani^[a], Vibe was Latino, Vixen was Black. However, the writing of Vibe and Gypsy was criticized for using clichés of their ethnic groups, symptomatic of writers who were well-meaning but out of touch with certain minorities, something for which said writers (Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton) later expressed regret.^[6] ^[7] ^[8]

Justice League International and its spin-offs (1986-1996) [edit]

The 1986 company-wide crossover "Legends" concluded with the formation of a new Justice League. The new team was dubbed "Justice League," then "Justice League International" (JLI) and was given a mandate with less of an American focus. The Justice League was recognized by the United Nations as a political entity and established "embassies" all over the world. The new series was character-driven and had a quirky, humorous tone, which proved popular with readers. Numerous spin-off teams such as Justice League Europe, Extreme Justice, and Justice League Task Force were created. In 1996, these series were cancelled due to low sales.

JLA (1996-2006) [edit]

The cancellation of the aforementioned spin-off books prompted DC to revamp the League as a single team in a single title. A new Justice League of America was launched in September 1996 limited series Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare by Mark Waid and Fabian Nicieza, which returned to the classic cast of the 1960s. In 1997, DC Comics launched a new book titled JLA. Grant Morrison wrote JLA for the first four years, and he gave the book an epic feel by making the Justice League an allegory for a pantheon of gods, and in their stories they regularly fought villains who threatened the entire world or even the entire cosmos.^[9] JLA was cancelled in 2006.

Return to the multiverse and reboots (2006-2016) [edit]

In 2006, DC Comics formally returned the DC Universe to a multiverse state similar to what it was in prior to the 1986 reboot. This change was effected diegetically with the story arcs of Infinite Crisis and 52. In the years since Crisis on Infinite Earths (1986), writers had been re-introducing piecemeal various aspects of the classic multiverse, so there was both a desire and utility in restoring the multiverse in a formal fashion.

In 2011, DC Comics fully rebooted its superhero books, calling its new setting The New 52. This was followed in 2016 by another reboot called Rebirth.

Inter-company crossovers [edit]

The Justice League has on a few occasions appeared in crossover stories with superhero characters from rival publishers such as Marvel Comics and Dark Horse Comics. In general, such inter-company crossovers are rare because a lot of resources must be spent in sorting out the legal issues and corporate politics of the two companies, which reduces their profitability.

The last crossover between DC Comics and Marvel Comics was JLA/Avengers, which they jointly published in 2003. Now that Marvel Comics and DC Comics are part of major multimedia franchises, those aforementioned hurdles are even more complicated, which makes another project like JLA/Avengers much less likely.^[10] In 2017, Dan Didio remarked that DC Comics and Marvel are very competitive towards each other and only did crossovers when their sales were low.^[11] However, DC Comics did go on to feature the Justice League in crossovers with smaller companies such as Dark Horse Comics, such as a crossover with Black Hammer in 2019.

In other media [edit]

Animated movies [edit]

The Justice League appear in Justice League: The New Frontier, which was based on Darwyn Cooke's comic book limited series & DC: The New Frontier, where the heroes of Earth unite to take on an evil entity called the Centre. It was released on February 26, 2008. The film received mostly positive reviews. Screener copies were sent to website reviewers a month before the DVD's official release. Most of the reviews were positive and geared up the film's release even more.
The team appear in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. In 2004, Bruce Timm revealed that a DCAU direct-to-videoJustice League feature was in development to connectJustice League andJustice League Unlimited. The film was titled asJustice League: Worlds Collide. Later the film was rewritten by the late Dwayne McDuffie for DC Universe Animated Original Movies asJustice League: Crisis on Two Earths, but removing all connections with the animated series. Based on Grant Morrison's 2000 comic bookJLA: Earth 2,Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths dealt with a heroic Lex Luthor from an alternate universe appearing to recruit the Justice League to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, a gang of villainous characters who are essentially evil versions of the Justice League. A sequel titled Justice League: Doom was released and is loosely based on JLA: Tower of Babel.
They appear in Justice League: Gods and Monsters. In July 2014, as part of the San Diego Comic-Con, DC Comics announcedJustice League: Gods and Monsters for a 2015 release. The movie, featuring an original plot, was written by Alan Burnett and directed by Sam Liu and executive produced by Bruce Timm and Sam Register. Along with the film, a three-part animated series entitledJustice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles was released before the film on Machinima with Timm as an executive producer in 2015.
They appear in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. The film received very positive reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating. Critics and audiences said that the film stays true to its source material. It is generally praised for its mature storyline and the way Flash obtains justice, but criticized for its excessive violence and use of blood that exceeds the comics it is adapted from.
The team are prominently featured in the DC Animated Movie Universe, making their debut in Justice League: War which was followed up by Justice League: Throne of Atlantis and Justice League vs. Teen Titans. They are also featured in Justice League Dark in which they aid John Constantine in a magical invasion, The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War in which the Justice League will team up with the Teen Titans, Suicide Squad and Justice League Dark to defeat Darkseid in one final epic battle to save Earth.

Animated TV shows [edit]

In 1967, CBS aired three animated shorts titled "Justice League of America" as part of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. The cast featured Aquaman, the Flash, Superman, the Atom, Green Lantern, and Hawkman.
The team appear in Super Friends. Super Friends is an American animated television series about the Justice League, which ran from 1973 to 1986 on ABC as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and was based on the Justice League of America (JLA) and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics. There were a total of 109 episodes preceded by two backdoor pilot episodes ofThe New Scooby-Doo Movies.
An animated television series titled Justice League ran from 2001 to 2006 on Cartoon Network. It is part of the DC animated universe. The show was produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It is based on the Justice League of America and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics. After the second season, the series name changed to Justice League Unlimited.
Another series titled Justice League Action was also released. It is an American animated television series based on the DC Comics superhero team of the same name. The series is produced by Jim Krieg, Butch Lukic, and Alan Burnett. This show debuted on Cartoon Network UK on November 26, 2016, and premiered in the United States on Cartoon Network on December 16, 2016.
The Justice League make minor appearances in the adult animated web television series Harley Quinn.

Live action movies [edit]

The Justice League makes their live action debut in the 2017 movie Justice League, consisting of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash and Cyborg. This movie is part of the DC Extended Universe, a series of interconnected superhero movies. These movies were made in response to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which Marvel Studios adapted the Avengers to live-action movies. Justice League was poorly received by both fans and critics, but Warner Brothers later released a director's cut of the film in 2021, and it was considered an improvement on the original version.^[12] The director's cut edition added a brief appearance by Martian Manhunter.

Live-action TV [edit]

The Justice League are mentioned in the first season of Titans during a conversation between Dick Grayson and Donna Troy during flashbacks.
At the end of the Arrowverse crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, the heroes of the newly created Earth-Prime gather at an abandoned S.T.A.R. Labs building and around a table; forming a team to defend their new world following a memorial for Oliver Queen / Green Arrow, who gave his life to save the multiverse. While never referred to as the Justice League, this group consists of White Canary, The Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman, Superman, Black Lightning and Martian Manhunter, with an empty seat in honor of Oliver.

Cultural impact [edit]

Most of the characters that appear in DC Comics' books are set in the same fictional universe, known as the DC Universe. They occasionally make guest appearances in each other's solo books, and more regularly in team books such as Justice League. Such crossovers encouraged readers to buy other books in DC Comics' catalogue, and readers became engrossed not just in the individual characters but in their web of relationships across the broader setting, thereby building brand loyalty. Marvel Comics copied this idea by creating a number of superhero teams of its own, the closest analogue being the Avengers, so as to promote and develop the Marvel Universe. Many readers devoted themselves to just one of these two comic book universes. Thus the superhero fan community developed sub-communities of DC and Marvel devotees.^[2]

Awards [edit]

The original Justice League of America series won two 1961 Alley Awards in the categories "Best Comic Book" and "Best Adventure-Hero Group."^[13] In 1963, the series won "Favorite Novel" ("Crisis on Earth-One/Crisis on Earth-Two" in Justice League of America #21–22 by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky) and "Strip that Should Be Improved." There also an award specific to the series, "Artist Preferred on Justice League of America," that was won by Murphy Anderson.^[14]

Theme park attractions [edit]

Justice League: Alien Invasion 3D [edit]

Justice League: Alien Invasion is an interactive dark ride at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast, Australia. In the ride, guests board vehicles equipped with blasters as they join the Justice League in the fight against Starro, who has mind-controlled the citizens of Metropolis.

Justice League: Battle for Metropolis [edit]

Justice League: Battle for Metropolis is an interactive dark ride at seven Six Flags parks across the United States and Mexico. In the ride, Lex Luthor and the Joker have captured Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash, and it is up to the combined forces of the remaining members of the Justice League and the Justice League Reserve Team to save them from their capture at LexCorp. Guests board motion-enhanced and stun blaster-equipped vehicles designed by A.R.G.U.S. as they ride through Metropolis and join the fight against the henchmen of Lex Luthor and the Joker.

Notes [edit]

^ This was later retconned in 2013

References [edit]

^ Hickey (2011), An Incomprehensible Condition, p. 19
^ ^a ^b Kaveney (2008), Superheroes!, p. 28: "One of the major driving forces of the creation of these universes was the commercial imperative to create brand loyalty to more titles within a single publishing house's products. Crossovers, in which a character from one comic produced by a house visited the story of another, meant that there was a chance that readers who were not buying the first comic would start to buy it in addition to the second. Team-up comics like the Justice League of America were even more likely to interest readers in characters they had not previously bothered with."
^ Rhoades (2008), A Complete History of American Comic Books, p. 70
^ Daniels, Les (1995). "The Justice League of America A Team of Good Sports". DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes. New York, New York: Bulfinch Press. p. 127. ISBN0821220764. Justice League was a hit. It solidified once and for all the importance of superhero groups, and in the process provided a playground where DC's characters could attract new fans while entertaining established admirers.
^ "Chuck Patton talks Justice League Detroit". DC in the 80s. December 4, 2018. : "I think it was Len Wein who ultimately decided that it was time for a change in the JLA, especially when all of the other major DC books started to crack under the weight of each other's differing storylines and changes in continuity. [...] Gerry [Conway] strongly felt that a new 'JLA' needed a younger, hipper roster to reflect the times, but most important, have little to no connection with the then-current DC roster and more freedom. I enthusiastically agreed with him, wanting to capture the same youthful spirit that made hits of X-Men and Teen Titans."
^ Bug Norman (May 27, 2021). "Where The X-Men Thrived, The Justice League Died". ScreenRant.
^ "Chuck Patton talks Justice League Detroit". DC in the 80s. December 4, 2018. : "However I really really wished we had avoided a lot of the gimmickry or played them a lot less clichéd from the jump. I do share responsibility in my part of that, but I always felt uncomfortable with Vibe's accent. It was meant to be a blind, something he hid behind to keep people from knowing he wasn't that "streetwise", but it was handled clumsily and we took our lumps for it."
^ "JLI Podcast – Meanwhile… Gerry Conway Interview on Justice League Detroit". The Fire and Water Podcast Network. April 25, 2021.
^ Rosie Knight (October 8, 2020). "How Grant Morrison's JLA Saved DC's Biggest Heroes".
^ Jermaine McLaughlin (June 15, 2015). "Marvel and DC team-up: An oral history of JLA/Avengers, the most ambitious crossover event ever". SyFy Wire.
Tom Brevoort: "Those were really the final days of both companies being "Mom & Pop" shops. Now, with both Marvel and DC being integrated multi-platform companies, the inter-mingling of competing IP is a much more complicated and complex situation, along with the fact that you wind up spending considerable resources on a project for which you only recoup half of the eventual profits (and that you cannot utilize across other lines of business beyond the publishing) make it a lot more difficult to justify. It's hard to justify both the allocation of resources and also the difficulties of navigating the politics between two competing corporate giants. So it's not impossible that it could never happen again, but the factors against it happening are considerable."
^ Brendan Hughes (March 19, 2018). "Could We Get A New Marvel/DC Crossover In The Near Future?".
"Dan Didio, DC's Co-Publisher, squashed the idea of any crossover with Marvel during the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con stating that the best way for DC to succeed is to compete with Marvel. He linked that the past Marvel/DC crossovers were a temporary measure due to the comic market reaching all-time lows."
^ See Metacritic ratings for Zack Snyder's Justice League and the original theatrical version.
^ "1961 Alley Awards". Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015.
^ "1963 Alley Awards". Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015.

Andrew Hickey (2011). An Incomprehensible Condition: An Unauthorised Guide To Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers. ISBN9781447780021.
Roz Kaveney (2008). Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN9781845115692.

External links [edit]

Justice League at DC Comics.com
Justice League of America at Don Markstein's Toonopedia WebCitation Archive
The Justice League Library
Justice League: Mortal at IMDb