New for Patrons: Guide to Justice Society of America

After working on the Guide to Doctor Fate launch earlier this week for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK, I realized it was time for me to finally dive into one of the few corners of DC Universe continuity that I still find intimidating. That’s because this team has been repeatedly in and out of continuity, they’ve been residents of multiple Earths (and at the center of several crises), and their membership spans multiple generations of heroes. I am talking about the original comic super-team that first debuted back in 1940, now completely explained in my Guide to Justice Society of America!

This guide will debut to the public the week that the Black Adam movie releases to theatres!

This is one of those times where I always hoped someone else on the internet would have explained things by now, but they didn’t so I had to take things into my own hands. Yes, I read Wikipedia and Fandom. Yes, I checked out some sites dedicated to the Justice Society. All of them explained the timeline of the JSA either with needless complexity or with the assumption of the reader being a DC Insider.

That’s not good enough for me. I want my guides to be able to explain things to someone who decided to read a comic for the very first time and just happened to pick the title covered by that guide. Many of my older guides are way too complex for that – I have a lot of work to do! But, my newer style of coverage strives for completeness but also clarity.

As it turns out, creating a Guide to Justice Society of America doesn’t have to be all that complicated. If you’ve ever wanted the cliff notes on the team, here’s the simplest way I can explain it:

In 1940, DC assembled the first super-team in All-Star Comics (1940) out of the many characters starring in their anthology comics who did not have titles of their own. This was the Justice Society of America. It included the original Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern, Jay Garrick and Alan Scott, as well as Doctor Fate, Hawkman and many other recognizable heroes. DC would add many more stories to the 1942-45 period of the JSA over the decades.

In 1956, DC began the Silver Age of comics with the introduction of a new Flash – Barry Allen. Over the first few years of the Silver Age, it became clear that their new continuity was different than the Golden Age WWII-era comics that featured some of the same heroes (though sometimes with different civilian identities). When original JSA writer Gardner Fox wanted to reference Jay Garrick and the rest of his original JSA cast, they were established as living on “Earth Two.” Earth Two was the Earth of DC’s Golden Age continuity, where time continued to move forward for these now-middle-aged JSA members mentoring a new generation of heroes.

DC started a tradition of annual Justice League / JSA “Crisis on Multiple Earths” stories in Justice League of America (1960) that ran for 22 years from 1963 to 1985. Along the way, the JSA regained enough popularity to garner a brief present day Earth Two series (a 1976 All-Star Comics revival), a long-running series set during the Golden Age of Earth Two in 1942 (All-Star Squadron (1981)), and a series in the present day of Earth Two following their children and mentees (Infinity, Inc. (1984)).

In 1985, DC used Crisis on Infinite Earths to simplify all of their many Earths. That meant that the JSA’s Earth Two WWII history was finally the history of the main DC Universe! However, this created some Post-Crisis complications. For example, the relaunched Wonder Woman of 1987 had never been the JSA’s secretary and the JSA’s Batman was dead, survived by his daughter, The Huntress. Crisis killed the majority of these duplicated or conflicting characters, and Post-Crisis continuity replaced others. However, there was also the matter of the many non-duplicated elder JSA characters surviving in the modern day, which added a lot of extra narrative weight to a simplified DC Universe. While their children got to make the jump to Post-Crisis continuity, DC sent all of the surviving JSA back to get stuck in a time loop in 1945 saving their past selves (and the entire world) from Hitler trying to invoke a Norse Ragnarok.

To smooth their new continuity, DC continued to insert WWII-era JSA series that tweaked the team’s historic cast to fit their new merged Earth history. The surviving elder JSA members returned from their time loop to the present day in 1992 for a brief series only to have their aging accelerated to their actual-years (they were still quite young for WWII heroes!) in Zero Hour, killing several of them. After yet another historical insert story in 1999, James Robinson, David Goyer, and Geoff Johns launched the first present-day, main-Earth JSA that mirrored the intergeneration Earth Two version. It was anchored by Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, and Wildcat, plus other incarnations of the classic line-up and various legacy heroes and mentees.

The JSA remained a present-day team through a 2007 relaunch until 2011 and Flashpoint. They were entirely absent from New 52 – once again, the victims of DC simplifying their history. However, starting with Doomsday Clock in 2018, their absence was given an in-universe explanation, which was resolved by Dark Nights: Death Metal in 2020. As of 2022, we once again have a present-day, main-Earth incarnation of the JSA focused being a multigenerational team mentoring new heroes.

If you are a $1.99/month Patron of CK checking out this Guide to Justice Society of America upon its launch, you’ll see there’s one tiny helper guide it needs to support it. Keep an eye on this page (or on your Patron benefits) for breaking news on that in the very near future.

Patrons of Crushing Krisis currently have access to…

Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 28 Guides!

DC Guides (6): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men