SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Justice League #1 by Scott Snyder, Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, Tomeu Morey and Tom Napolitano, on sale now.


The Justice League of America represents the very best of the best in the DC Universe, but they weren’t there first. The heroes of the Justice Society of America predate the Justice League by nearly twenty years and have been enduring icons for nearly eighty.

They’ve been missing from the DCU for quite some time now, but all signs indicate that they're coming back in the very near future. Hints in titles such as The Flash and Doomsday Clock point to a larger mystery surrounding the Justice Society of America, but a small tease in this week’s Justice League #1 may have given us a hint as to what happened to them.

Hidden Heroes

It seems the Justice Society gets taken off the board every few decades when the powers that be decide that people don’t want to read about older superheroes. The team first vanished during the lull in superhero popularity following World War II, but the Golden Age Flash’s appearance in the iconic “Flash of Two Worlds” story kickstarted the return of the entire Justice Society of America. Perhaps more importantly, it established the DC Multiverse, with the JLA existing on Earth 1 while the JSA lived on Earth 2.

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For a time, the Earth 2 heroes were popular enough to have their own line of comics, including All-Star Squadron which followed the World War II adventures of the Golden Age heroes and Infinity Inc, which starred the next generation of heroes such as Jade, Fury and Silver Scarab. Crisis on Infinite Earths did away with the multiverse as a concept, and the history of Earth 2 was merged with four other Earths. It wasn’t long until the Justice Society was shuffled off away again, sacrificing themselves by entering a limbo dimension to fight a never-ending battle.

The Justice Society were rescued from that limbo by the time-traveling Waverider, but the events of DC's Zero Hour event saw many of the original members die and the rest retired to let the younger generation lead the way. A revival of the JSA followed years later as the elder-statesemen oversaw the development of legacy heroes such as Mr. Terrific, Doctor Mid-Nite and Sand. The new JSA combined the original Infinity Inc idea with fan-favorite characters like Alan Scott, Jay Garrick and Ted Grant and was incredibly popular, running for over a decade across numerous volumes and titles.

Then Flashpoint happened, rewriting DC's continuity, and the Justice Society of America was once again erased from the history of the DC Universe.

The New 52 launched with the idea that superheroes have only existed for five years, with Action Comics and the core Justice League title showing those early days of the DCU. Once again, the characters of the Justice Society lived on Earth-2, but it was a different Earth-2, where the JSA heroes were re-imagined as younger characters with different origins and backgrounds. Jay Garrick was granted his speed by the dying Greek god Mercury, while Alan Scott was an out gay man whose powers were linked to spirit of the Earth itself.

Eventually, the Earth-2 characters were phased into the background, as DC's publishing line focused more on a new Superman and Batman, and started to show signs that the history of the DC Universe was a lot grander than we were led to believe by The New 52.

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Stolen Time

DC Universe Rebirth #1 brought back the original Wally West who revealed that some incredibly powerful force or being had interfered with the history of the DC heroes and removed a decade of time from their lives. Not in one fell swoop, but in the moments of friendship, love and bonding. The DC Universe in front of us should look a lot like the one we remember, if not for the meddling of that outside force, implied to be Doctor Manhattan of Watchmen.

Since then, there have been hints that the Justice Society once existed and something happened to them, though we may have someone else to blame. Also in the pages of DC Universe Rebirth #1, we saw Johnny Thunder as a man well past one hundred years old, living in a care facility plagued by regret and blaming himself for the missing Justice Society.

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During “The Button,” a storyline that officially brought the Watchmen/Rebirth mystery to the forefront of the DCU, he raged at the sky for his Thunderbolt to return to him and bring the Justice Society back. Most recently, in the pages of Doomsday Clock, Thunder traveled to Philadelphia on the trail of Alan Scott’s Green Lantern.

Jay Garrick's Flash confidently runs at full speed.

Another key moment in the return of the Justice Society also took place in "The Button," when Jay Garrick briefly returned from the Speed Force. Unlike the return of Wally West, Barry Allen’s connection to Jay just wasn’t as strong, thus the hero wasn’t able to remain grounded, and was instead sucked back into the Speed Force.

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Current events in The Flash posit that this might be separate from the missing members of the Justice Society, as Hunter Zolomon has propositioned Wally West to work together to rescue the missing speedsters for the Speed Force. But if Jay were to return during Flash War, he may be able to help with the search for the missing heroes.

Which leads us to the quick, yet significant scene in Justice League #1.

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So where does this week’s Justice League #1 come into play? The death of Vandal Savage at the hands of Lex Luthor broadcasted the secret history of the DC Universe into the mind of the Martian Manhunter, and among its secrets is what looks to be the green and purple gauntlet of Lex Luthor’s power armor choking the life out of a familiar looking hero. That character is almost certainly Starman, a hero whose legacy lasts from the Justice Society of America right through to the Legion of Super-Heroes... but which Starman is it?

James Robinson, Tony Harris and Peter Snejbjerg’s classic eighty issue Starman series was all about legacy, and tied in the disparate Starmen throughout DC’s history into one cohesive timeline. It primarily followed the Knight family, starring Jack Knight who took on the mantle of Starman following the death of his brother David, who sought to take over from their father Ted, only to be murdered before he had the chance to make his mark on Opal City.

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However, it also featured every other hero to bear the name, whether they were connected to the Knight family or not, from the blue alien hero who featured in one issue in the mid-'70s, to the two Starmen of the '80s who were revealed to have a shared destiny. The Starman mantle represents legacy within the DC Universe, so showing the death of a Starman at the hands of Lex Luthor is a pretty bold statement for Justice League #1 to make.

The identity of this Starman remains a mystery; prior to Flashpoint, all Starmen were accounted for but it’s a whole new world thanks to Dark Nights: Metal and he could be anyone. Whether this means we see the return of the Knight family remains to be seen, though it’s unlikely that we see Jack Knight again as he remains one of the very few superheroes allowed to retire happily.

However, with DC meddling with sacred cows like Watchmen, Sandman and Promethea in recent years, and Jack Knight’s creator James Robinson currently being at DC as the writer of Wonder Woman, it’s not completely out of the question that he'll somehow be drawn back into the superhero life, particularly if it means his father's legacy being brought back from its unceremonious Flashpoint demise.