Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I've done over the years.
In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, we saw the origin of the DC Cinematic Universe version of the Justice League. I thought it would be fun, then, to look at the top five origins of the main Justice League team in the DC Universe (Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis and New 52). So no spin-off teams, just the main team.
HONORABLE MENTIONS (WELL, "MENTIONS," AT LEAST - A FEW OF THESE WERE PRETTY TERRIBLE)
The 52 Justice League (52 #4)
This one was pretty much a joke, but since there were no other Justice Leagues during this point in time, I guess they kind of sort of/sort of kind of count as the "main" Justice League team. That's really just a technicality, so feel free to ignore this one. It was just a joke by the 52 writers, really.
The Detroit Justice League (Justice League of America Annual #2)
I don't know if you count this as the formation of a "new" League. For instance, I don't think Donna Troy and Hal Jordan rebuilding the League post-Blackest Night counts as a new League. This one, though, had Aquaman disbanding the League officially, so I think it counts. So here is Gerry Conway, Chuck Patton and Dave Hunt with the formation of the new League, which would add younger members Vixen, Steel, Vibe and Gypsy to their ranks by the end of the issue...
Justice League Spectacular #1
This was such a weird time for the Justice League. Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis left the book, which was still one of DC's most popular titles, so DC naturally didn't want to just jettison this version of the League, but the guy taking over the main book, Dan Jurgens, clearly was not a fan of the humorous book that the title had become (to clarify by "not a fan," I mean in terms of that was not the approach he wanted to do with the book - I have no idea what Jurgens thought about the book in general), so you had this weird thing where Jurgens' more serious approach was being applied to the humorous characters of Giffen/DeMatteis' run, with unsurprisingly poor results (Jurgens did this one arc that seemed to be more in line with his vision of the book, involving an alternate reality Justice League, and it was really good - so it was more a case of him being stuck into an awkward situation than anything). So anyhow, in a one-shot that was split between Jurgens and Rick Burchett and Gerard Jones, Ron Randall and Randy Elliott (the upcoming creative team of Justice League Europe), we see the new League formed, as a hostage situation occurs when Elongated Man is on holiday. Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are arguing when Fire and Ice run into them, and they all decide to help out their friend Elongated Man...
Then we see Superman head off to deal with the emergency, with Batman posing him a challenge...
While Ted, Booster, Fire and Ice head to help their friend, we learn that Ice called some of their OTHER friends to help...
Once there, Ice calls Hal Jordan for MORE help, and Hal travels to Earth and collects more heroes, including Crimson Fox for some reason. I don't believe the two had ever met at this point in time...
So the heroes win and they decide to form a new Justice League...
That last page was a perfect encapsulation of what was wrong with this new League. If you liked more serious heroes, you were still stuck with the same cast as the previous League. If you liked the previous League, you had these other heroes coming in to say how bad the previous League was. It was just a ill-considered editorial decision (although one I totally understand - it was a very tough call to make. How DO you follow up something as unique as the Giffen/DeMatteis League?).
Post-Zero Hour Justice League (Justice League of America #0)
An even MORE ill-considered new League came after the various Leagues disbanded following the events of the Overmaster saga, which ended up with Ice dead and Booster Gold nearly dead.
Gerard Jones, Chuck Wotjkiewicz and Bob Dvorak did a new League that was, in effect, just a big hangout space for whoever felt like hanging out....
Again, clearly they were working under some very strict editorial guidelines, in effect "None of the major heroes outside of Wonder Woman and Flash are available to you, so....GO!" It was a tough situation for Jones to be in. I certainly don't begrudge him for taking it and then saying, "Let's try something COMPLETELY different than your typical superhero book." I feel for him. It was still not a good comic book.
Post-Infinite Crisis Justice League of America (Justice League of America #1)
Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman vote on heroes to be in the Justice League in this Brad Meltzer, Ed Benes and Sandra Hope comic.
It's not awful, but it's still kind of weird to see a comic of just the Trinity voting in their peers.
Go to the next page for the start of the top five!
5. The New 52 Justice League (Justice League #1-5)
Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and Scott Williams deliver a nice foundation for the origin of the Justice League, namely that a disparate group of heroes comes together to fight off an invasion by Darkseid.
That's a nice, solid basis for a team's origin.
4. Post-Crisis Justice League (Legends #5-6)
Darkseid was at the beginning of ANOTHER League's formation, as Len Wein, John Ostrander, John Byrne and Karl Kesel saw the people of Earth turn against superheroes at the behest of Darkseid in the Legends crossover. Throughout the story, a select group of heroes kept being thrown into the mix. By the end of the series, Dr. Fate puts them all together to save the day...
Once the day has been saved, some of them decided to stick together...
Again, a nice, solid setup for a superhero team.
3. The JLA (Justice League: A Midsummers's Nightmare)
Eventually, the era of "The most famous characters can't be on the Justice League " ended (it later returned a number of times in the years since) and Grant Morrison's awesome JLA run started.
Before it began, though, Mark Waid and Fabian Nicieza, along with artists Darick Robertson and Jeff Johnson, did a mini-series to show what brought these seven specific superheroes (who happened to be the same seven who formed the original Pre-Crisis Justice League) together. As it turned out, the villainous Know Man used Doctor Destiny to manipulate the whole world to forget about superheroes entirely, even as a large chunk of the population developed superpowers.
Eventually, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne were able to see through their illusory lives...
they teamed up...
They eventually tracked down other heroes (Doctor Destiny likely made it so that the only ones they could find were former Justice League members) and brought them out of the illusion, as well. Here's an awesome scene with Bruce and corporate head Arthur Curry...
So they save the day and decide to stick together as a brand new Justice League team. Later, we learn that the United Nations also asked them to be a team.
Go to the next page for #2-1!
2. The original origin of the Justice League (Justice League of America #9)
When we first met the Justice League of America, they've already been a team for a while. So in Justice League of America #9, Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky and Bernard Sachs showed us how the team got together. It was an old fashioned "each hero had their own adventure before coming together" story with special alien meteors hitting the Earth, leading to various heroes taking care of them before they each end up falling victim to a wood creature. There we see that the sum is greater than the parts when teamwork is involved...
Now free, they go to end the whole menace, but discover that Batman and Superman were already on the job...
In Secret Origins #32, we see that that story remained the origin of the Justice League Post-Crisis, only now Black Canary was put into the place where Wonder Woman was, since the change in continuity had made it so that Wonder Woman wasn't around at the time the League first formed. Keith Giffen, Peter David and Eric Shanower delivered this slightly altered version (it was basically the same story, Gardner Fox even got a plot credit, so I'm not counting it as a separate origin)....
Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Barry Kitson expanded on this story for JLA Year One and John Ostrander and Val Semeiks also did a version of it for JLA Incarnations.
1. The "secret" origin of the original Justice League (Justice League of America #144)
Early in his career, Steve Englehart had a knack for turning continuity minutia into actually very fun stories. Like how he explained away the Communist era Captain America (who shouldn't have existed in Marvel continuity since Captain America went into suspended animation before the war ended), how he turned a pre-superhero era comic book character, Patsy Walker, into a superhero and here, how he explained away a SUPER minor error in Justice League of America #9. That story was set in 1962, but it said that the Justice League formed three years earlier. However, Green Lantern had not yet debuted. So Englehart, along with artists Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin, showed how the League REALLY formed six months earlier, in response to a Martian invasion that brought in all of the heroes of 1959!
The end result was an old-fashioned, awesome "Throw everything in but the kitchen sink" adventure story (it was an extra-sized story, as well - 33 pages long, so Englehart really got a WHOLE lot of cool stuff into the comic) that ended with the invasion repelled, but the heroes worried about anti-Martian sentiment...
There is NO reason that a story explaining such a minor plot point would turn out to be so much fun, but it happened! And it is my pick for the #1 Justice League origin.
What's YOUR pick for the top Justice League origin?