Team Roster: The Sandman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hourman, Doctor Fate
The Atom, The Spectre, The Hawkman ( founding members ), Johnny Thunder, Starman, Dr. Mid-Nite
Wonder Woman2, Wildcat, Mr. Terrific, Black Canary, Star-Spangled Kid, Power Girl,
J. Edgar Hoover ( associate member )
Base of Operations: Manhattan, NY; later Washington DC, Gotham City, Civic City, now New York City
Current Status: semi-active
First Appearance: All-Star Comics# 3, Winter 1940.
.....After agents for US Army Intellegence detected spy activity, the Police Commissioner of Gotham city was asked to contact any of the "mystery men" that he could. Attracting the attention of The Flash and The Green Lantern, they were sent by an Agent Smythe to investigate a castle in Scotland.
.....Falling to the superior firepower, the two were taken to Berlin, Germany to be executed by the Nazis. At the last moment, they were rescued by Doctor Fate and The Hourman. The four found that Adolf Hitler had aquired the Spear of Destiny and was using it to summmon the Norse Valkyries to lead an armada against England. Doctor Fate used his mystical abilities to summon four others from America: The Atom, The Spectre, The Hawkman and The Sandman to aid them in stopping the vessels from reaching England's shore.
.....After saving President Roosevelt from an attacking valkyrie, it was suggested that they form a group or society to band together and defeat foes that might prove too powerful for any one hero. Later that same month, they met together with gate-crasher Johnny Thunder and assisted the FBI in rounding up fifth column spies in America.
.....For the next few months, the teaming of the heroes would involve them doing work for the government, finding spies in America and the Western Hemisphere. The Flash left the group due to pressing business ( even the World's Fastest Man can't be everywhere at once! ) and his place at the Round Table was taken by Johnny Thunder. In late June, 1941, however, certain events unfolded leaving the team altered. During the defeat of scientist/wizard Ian Karkull, The Green Lantern faced his first failure with the Power Ring and decided to leave the group for a while, turning over the chairmanship to The Hawkman, who would hold it for the next ten years. Hourman became aware that the drug that he used to give him super-human abilities was becoming toxic to his system and he also left the group. Doctor Fate, also noticed that the mystical hemet he wore was slowly becoming the dominant personality, he stopped wearing it and adopted a "half-helmet that granted him no great mystical powers, but allowed his mind to remain unclouded. Aided on this adventure by Starman, the entire group was bathed in "chronal energies" that retarded their aging process, though this would not become evident for many years.
.....As Starman and Dr. Mid-Nite joined the group, replacing Hourman and Green Lantern, the team's adventures became more important to America's defense... travelling to the 25th century to gain a 'bomb defense formula" that later proved unusable and saving the greatest minds from Nazi espionage.
.....In early December, 1941, a time travelling villain from 1947 using advanced technology sought to defeat the US before it enterd World War II. Per Degaton captured all the available JSA members( except Hourman ) and was defeated by three members and several unaligned heroes. These heroes and the JSA formed the basis of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON. Soon afterwards, Miss America and a time-travelling Queen Hippolyta ( adventuring under her daughter's nom du guerre as Wonder Woman ) aslo joined the team, but spent more time with the ASSq than with the JSA.
.....During the War, the team members felt that since they could not devote a full amount of time as civilians in the Armed Forces, they put their services under the authority of the War Department. Thru 1943, they were known alternately as The Justice Battalion. Why they stopped using this name is unknown, but after 1943, they stopped using this name. During the war, under unknown circumstances, both Wildcat and Mister Terrific both joined the team for brief periods, though their memberships were considered as temporary or associate memberships. After 1945, both were not active with the team. It was at this point that Green Lantern and The Flash rejoined the team on a full time basis. This also offset the retirement of Starman, The Spectre, Sandman and Doctor Fate by the war's end.
.....During the spring of 1947, the JSA battled Per Degaton, whom had attempted to destroy the team six years earlier, but due to the vagrities of time travel, neither remembered the earlier meeting. It was at this time that a group of the villains that had battled the heroes seperately gathered together to try and take over America. Self-dubbed THE INJUSTICE SOCIETY OF THE WORLD, the group would reteam with different members to battle the JSA over and over again during the next 50 years. During the next battle with the group in the spring of 1948, The Injustice Gang ( as it called itself then ), was infiltrated with two heroines; The Black Canary, a self-styled female "Robin Hood" that had jousted with Johnny Thunder, and The Harlequin, who began as a Green Lantern villainess, but later reformed and worked for the FBI undercover. The Black Canary was invited to join the team, in sense a replacement for the retiring Johnny Thunder.
..... After World War II, America's energies turned on fighting the percieved Communist enemies abroad and at home. Anything not immediatly identifiable as "100% American" was considered wrong and evil. The Justice Society, after escaping a trap of one of their enemies, was called into question due to the ties of one of their captors to an unfriendly foreign government. Called before a House of Represenatives committe investigating "Un-American Activies", the government asked the Justice Society to reveal their ID's to the panel, to ensure their loyalty to America. The heroes refused, and all went into retirement, with the exception of Wonder Woman, who returned to her own time.
.....Most of them retuned to their civilian lives, but several of the heroes continued to fight crime, at least locally. Starman and The Flash in their respective cities, Doctor Fate in distant magical realms. Several of them married their sweethearts, and began to rase families. On occasion, one or more would do covert work for the government.
.....As any group of friends would, they stayed in touch and had group meetings and parties in their civilian IDs. Once, when Green Lantern was injured fighting a new vigilante in Gotham City named The Reaper, the team put on their costumes and covertly sought out the perpetrator, but did so without success. As the years wore on, a new group of heroes sprouted up, but were killed off by a psychotic named Doctor Trapp, who was ultimatley brought to justice by several members of the JSA. Even the disappearance of Keystone City and the Flash was not enough to bring out the entire group, though their memories may have been clouded by the villains responsible.
.....An invasion ten years ago, brought out most of the members, who retained their vitality 40 years later due to chronal radiation asorbed on one of their cases. After the second-generation Flash freed his elder counterpart and his city, the Flashes freed the captured JSA from Vandal Savage, an immortal villain who menaced Green Lantern and the JSA in the 1940's and '50's. Whether it was nostalgia or a sense that they could still contribute to the war on crime, several of the JSA members became at least semi-active; Hawkman ( and later Hawkgirl ) joined the Justice League of America and many of the cases that the JSA fought were in conjunction with the new group.
.....There were even new members, such as the android Red Tornado, named after the heroine who briefly appeared at their first meeting. After a case with the Justice League, a time-lost Seven Soldiers of Victory was returned to the present. Soon after this case, though, The red Tornado joined the JLA as an active member. One SSoV member, The Star-Spangled Kid, joined the group with Power Girl, a young woman who believed herself to be Superman's cousin. It was during this period that the team became briefly more active, taking cases outside of their team-ups with the JLA.
.....It was during this period that the team suffered its first casualty as Mr. Terrific was killed during a battle with The Spirit King. It was also at this time that the Star-Spangled Kid stepped down as an active member to follow up on the remaining threads of his personal life.
.....Through his soul-searching, The Star-Spangled Kid decided to form his own team on the West Coast, filled ultimately with the children and godchildred of the original JSA members. This group, called INFINITY, INC. saved several members after they had fallen under the will of The Ultra-Humanite.
.....Along with Infinity Inc, and nearly all of the heroes on Earth, the JUstice Society saved the universe from The Crisis, only to have several members gravely injured. Soon after, the group met to decide whether to retire when an injured Spectre drew them into a mock gotterdamerung, where they had to stay and battle the evil Norse gods for eternity. All save The Star-Spangled Kid, Power Girl, The Spectre and Doctor Fate were trapped, seemingly never to return.
.....After a year in that limbo, though, they were returned to earth. They resolved to stay at least semiactive until they met the Hypertime villain Extant, who acting as the unknowing puppet of Parallax robbed the JSA of their youthfulness and three members of their lives. Dr. Mid-Nite, The Atom and Hourman died of severe aging, and the others were severely affected. Doctor Fate was seperated from his artifacts, which were picked up by Jared Stevens. Both Kent and Inza Nelson died soon afterwards. Both Hawkman and Hawkgirl, as a side effect of Zero Hour, were drawn into Katar Hol, the modern day Hawkman and the current Hawk Avitar. Starman retired, due to his old age and passed the Starman name onto his son David, and after his death, to his son Jack. Johnny Thunder, now elderly, was incapasitated by senile dementia, possibly brought on by Alzheimers' Disease.
.....Recently, the team has gathered together only for either cased affecting its members personally or for the events that threaten the entire world, such as Final Night or the Genesis Godwave or the Day of Judgement. The surviving members gathered together to make sure that Kent and Inza Nelson's spirits were properly laid to rest, and to see Jim Corrigan, the Spectre's guiding soul, off to its final reward. Recently, the surviving members gathered together for the funeral of The Sandman and the rebirth of Doctor Fate, and the induction of Jack Knight ( the modern day Starman ), Sand ( the grown-up Sandy the Golden Boy ), Hourman ( the 853rd Century mechanical decendant of Rex Tyler ), Black Canary ( the daughter of the original ), Hawkwoman ( the grand-neice of the original Hawks ), Atom-Smasher ( the godson of the Atom ) and the Star-Spangled Kid ( Stripesy's step-daughter ) into a new multi-generational version of the team with The Flash, Sentinel, Wildcat and Doctor Fate.
This Page was Created September 17, 1999.
This Page was last updated January 15, 2002.
© 2002 dotymo@webtv.net
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