Warning: the following contains spoilers for The New Golden Age #1, on sale now from DC Comics.

The Justice Society of America has existed since the Golden Age, but they've been mostly defined by the work of three men -- James Robinson, David Goyer and Geoff Johns. In the case of the latter, he's been penning the team's adventures more than any other writer. Now, Johns has finally returned to the Society's pages, and he does so with a familiar bang.

As with any big event story, death and turmoil are part of the equation, with these problems befalling a futuristic version of the Justice Society. With Dr. Fate being the first to fall, Johns' story homages the beginning of the team's first new Golden Age back in the '90s. Here's how the death of Dr. Fate has become a JSA trope.

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The New Golden Age Quickly Kills Dr. Fate - Again

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The story of The New Golden Age (by Geoff Johns, Jerry Ordway, Steve Lieber, Todd Nauk, Scott Kolins, Victor Bogdanovic, Brandon Peterson, Gary Frank, Diego Olortegui, JP Mayer and Scott Hanna) jumps across various time periods, including the original Golden Age setting of the Justice Society's origin. From there, it cuts to the Bronze Age formation of Infinity Inc., as well as the childhood of Helena Wayne, the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. The latest time period is in the era of the Legion of Superheroes, in which a new Justice Society began forming.

Their ranks included a futuristic version of the Alan Scott, Starheart-powered Green Lantern, a successor to the Atom/Atom Smasher legacy and a female version of Dr. Fate. Unfortunately for the fledgling new JSA members, their days are short and numbered. The time-traveling villain Per Degaton targets them and the Justice Society as a whole, with his first victim in the future being Dr. Fate. He notes that it always begins with the death of Dr. Fate, and this is more than just an idle statement.

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Dr. Fate Is Always the First JSA Member to Die

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The death of Dr. Fate -- or at least, a Dr. Fate -- is what kicked off the JSA run from Robinson and Goyer back in 1999. In this version, it was the rather infamous Jared Stevens Fate, who embodied the grim and dark excess of the earlier '90s. He was unceremoniously killed off in the first issue of the 1999 JSA series, with this killing showing just how little of a mark he had made. This wasn't the last time that Dr. Fate would be targeted among other JSA members, however. The Kent Nelson version of the character died in the first season of the animated series Young Justice, with other JSA members living long afterward.

In the recent movie Black Adam, Nelson's Dr. Fate is the only member of the Justice Society to die, furthering this weird trend. Thus, having Per Degaton note that Fate is always the first to fall isn't without precedent, and it's perhaps become the thing that the good doctor is now most known for. Geoff Johns paying homage to that run on JSA also makes sense, as he would later take over writing duties and make the book and its cast his own. Since then, he's been the veritable writing god of several DC properties, with the JSA being chief among them. Unfortunately for Dr. Fate, however, the Helmet of Nabu would seem to put a target on the back of anyone who wears it, whether Geoff Johns is writing the story or not.