Justice League of America (Earth-One)

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"The League leads. When there is a Crisis, the other heroes -- and the world -- look to us first to deal with it, to rally others. We set the example."

--Martian Manhunter

Contents 1 History 1.1 Pre-Crisis 1.1.1 Happy Harbor 1.1.2 Satellite League 1.1.2.1 Identity Crisis Origins 1.1.2.2 The Satellite is Destroyed 1.1.3 Justice League Detroit 1.2 Post-Crisis 2 Paraphernalia 3 Notes 4 Recommended Readings 5 Trivia 6 See Also 7 Links and References

History

Pre-Crisis

The Justice League's origin ^[1] began when Earth was invaded by Appellaxian warriors sent to the planet to see who could conquer Earth first, as a means of determining who would become the new ruler of their home planet. Each alien warrior possessed a different power or ability, and attacked a different portion of Earth, which drew the individual attention of the Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter. While most of the Appellaxian invaders were defeated by the superheroes individually, the heroes themselves fell prey one by one to a single competitor's attack; they soon discovered that only by working together could they defeat the competitor. Afterwards, the group decided that they should form a permanent organization to confront menaces that required a similar pooling of resources, and dubbed themselves the Justice League of America.

Happy Harbor

Main article: Secret Sanctuary

During this period, the team operated from a secret cave outside of the small town of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. They also had a team "mascot" that tagged along on some missions, a teenage sidekick named Snapper Carr, noted for speaking in "hipster" dialect. Snapper had earned this status in the team's first appearance, after helping them to defeat Starro the Conqueror.

The five founding members of the Justice League were Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), the Flash (Barry Allen), Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and the Martian Manhunter. After each showed up independently to handle an emergency, they decided to stick together and form a new team. They decided to call themselves the Justice League of America and announced their new team in a press conference. They decided to consider other recruits, but for the whole first year they operated as just the five of them. There was a crisis in the League when it was discovered that Martian Manhunter had secretly created files on not just the other members but on many other superheroes as well. After the team had to band together to deal with a global threat, the five members all revealed their secret identities in a gesture of trust. One of the benefactors to the League in those early days, unbeknownst to its members, was none other than Oliver Queen. The Justice League proved their mettle by being all that stood between the Locus and a conquest of Earth.^[2]

Snapper was tricked into betraying the secret location of the cave headquarters to the Joker, which resulted in his resigning from the team in shame ^[3].

The team eventually recruited the Atom (Ray Palmer) and Green Arrow (Oliver Queen). After a vicious battle with Wotan which involved former members of the Justice Society, the team decided to bring in Hawkman (Carter Hall) to act as a liaison between the League and the JSA.

After repeated requests to join, a reluctant Superman and Batman finally joined the League on reserve status (although they ended up in the field more often than not). The team soon expanded to include Elongated Man, Zatanna, Firestorm, and Hawkgirl.

Satellite League

Main article: Justice League Satellite

The team then built a geosyncronous (22,300 miles above the equator) space station "satellite" headquarters ^[4], which they had to defend from Kobra and other threats.

Through this period, the membership was limited to the seven founders along with Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Black Canary, Phantom Stranger, Elongated Man and Red Tornado. It was the largest and most powerful lineup of the League to date, although seldom did all League members assemble. The League's twelve-member limit (sometimes explained as a "no duplication of powers" policy) was conceded ^[5] to simply have been a charter provision about numbers, once the League had formally removed the limitation and admitted Hawkwoman and hoped to admit more members. (Indeed, through this period, several League members challenged, and joked about, the notion that they shared skills and talents, for example, with speed races between Superman and Flash, and Hawkman's use of archery in combat.) The policy change allowed Zatanna and Firestorm to be admitted as well.

The satellite would be the League's home for the next several years. Members were able to teleport to and from the satellite using teleportation centers located across the planet. League members took turns on watch duty, monitoring Earth from the satellite and dispatching the League as needed. This era of the Justice League (and its roster of heroes), is commonly referred to as the "Satellite League".

Identity Crisis Origins

It was during this period of time that the events that would eventually culmunate in the Identity Crisis occured.

After the JLA's return from a comrade's funeral, the Secret Society of Super-Villains attacked and switched bodies with several JLAers, tricking the other Leaguers into capturing their own comrades ^[6].

Zatanna freed the other JLAers and transfered them back to their own bodies. Because the SSoV had gained the knowledge of the Leaguers' secret identities, Zatanna used her magic to "mind-wipe" their memories of this information ^[7].

The Satellite is Destroyed

The underpinnings of the League began to strain, as many of its most important members found themselves devoting less time to the JLA for a variety of reasons; Black Canary and Flash experienced tragedy in their personal lives, while the "big three" of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were committed to their own caseloads. When the satellite was destroyed by the Debris, Aquaman decided the destruction of the satellite provided an opportunity to disband the JLA and start over.

The satellite met its final and complete destruction during the Crisis On Infinite Earths, when it was destroyed by a self-destructing Red Tornado that had been sabotaged and tampered with by the Anti-Monitor. It was never rebuilt, but the League would return to a spaceborne base of operations when it relocated to the Overmaster's orbiting base known as the Refuge.

Justice League Detroit

Main article: Justice League Detroit

The satellite was heavily damaged and rendered effectively inoperable just prior to Aquaman's decision to disband the team ^[8]. The League was in a time of transition, not only in its choice of headquarters, but also in its membership. The deepening detachment of members such as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman caused the three charter Justice League members to resign from active duty with the League. At the same time, the Flash left the team to confront his manslaughter trial and investigate the disappearance of his wife. The death of her mother led Black Canary to leave the team and move to Seattle with Green Arrow. Green Lantern had been temporarily expelled from the Green Lantern Corps and resigned from the League as well to sort out his life.

Aquaman subsequently reformed the Justice League, which now included himself, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Elongated Man, Vixen, Gypsy, Vibe, Steel, and later, Batman. Based in Detroit, this era is referred to as "Justice League Detroit".

Post-Crisis

Main article: Justice League of America (New Earth)

Paraphernalia

Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.

Notes

• The original team first appeared in The Brave and The Bold #28 (1960) as a revival of the Justice Society of America (or "JSA") under a new, more dynamic name of "League" and soon gained its own title that same year. The creator was a writer named Gardner Fox, who was inspired by the Justice Society to create a similar, contemporary concept, and who decided upon the word "league" influenced by the National Football League and Major League Baseball. The artist for the first five years of the comic was Mike Sekowsky.

• An alternative "origin" was presented in Justice League of America #144.

• The JLA comic was initially amongst the most popular of DC Comics' publications, but by the end of the 1960s, it had become overshadowed by Marvel Comics' equivalent super-team book, The Avengers, in sales and quality. Various changes were made as an attempt to boost sales; the first of these changes included dropping Snapper as a "mascot."

• The team was rebuilt in the 1987 company wide crossover miniseries, Legends. This new team was given a less America-centric mandate than before, and was dubbed the Justice League International (or "JLI" for short); the new comic was written by Keith Giffen and DeMatteis, with art by Kevin Maguire. This new and very popular series added a quirky sense of tongue-in-cheek humor to the stories, with an occasional slant toward excessive silliness.

• In 1989 Secret Origins #32 updated the JLA's classic origin from Justice League of America #9 (1962). See more below in "Origin of the JLA".

Recommended Readings

• JLA: Year One
• JLA: Incarnations
• JLA: New World Order
• JLA: Rock of Ages
• JLA: Strength in Numbers
• JLA: World War III
• JLA: Tower of Babel
• JLA: The Obsidian Age, Parts I & II
  

Trivia

• No trivia.
  

See Also

• Appearances of Justice League of America (Earth-One) (Chronological)
• Appearances of Justice League of America (Earth-One) (Unordered)
• Team Gallery: Justice League of America (Earth-One)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Justice League of America (Earth-One)

Links and References

• Justice League at the DC Animated Universe Wikia
• Justice League of America at Wikipedia
• Justice League Library containing chronologies and source references.
• The JLA Ages
• Justice League Pilot Info on the unreleased live action movie from the 90's.
• The World's Greatest Super-Heroes. . . . . . the Justice League of America! Unca Cheeks' article on the JLA
• PANNING FOR SILVER - ON GRANT MORRISON'S JLA . . . AND THE SENSE OF WONDER Part 1at Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
  

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