Modern Origins: What's a plausible reason for the formation of Justice League?

[marhawkman]

One thing I always appreciated about pre-Crisis continuity (and post-Crisis, for the most part), was the fact that the Justice League was already an experienced team by the time Darkseid started poking around on Earth. And even then, they rarely confronted him directly. Superman had some dealings with his minions in Jimmy Olsen. He puttered around with the Secret Society of Super-Villains, indirectly coming into contact with some JLAers. But the whole team didn't take him on until issue 183 of the JLA, nearly 9 years after Darkseid's introduction, at the height of the satellite years. Now that's how you slow roll a villain.

So yeah, pushing Darkseid as a reason for the JLA forming doesn't sit well with me. Stick with Appelaxians or Starro.

yeah this is why I think the best option is for a super villain team of previously established villains. Like the Society. You can just start them as a few villains working together to fight individual heroes.

[Adekis]

I don't think alien invasions or super-villain teams are necessary.
Maybe the Justice League was just a group of people with powers who met on the job and once there were enough of them, somebody said, "Why don't we start a club to talk shop and help each other out sometimes?"

There's a hint of that implied (though it would change) in the first JSA story, where the heroes don't so much have a "team up" as a meeting. The heroes just all get together in a hotel dining room and tell stories of an adventure they each had recently! I bet super-heroes would relish the chance to talk to people who relate to their otherwise extremely rare experiences!

[Frontier]

There's a hint of that implied (though it would change) in the first JSA story, where the heroes don't so much have a "team up" as a meeting. The heroes just all get together in a hotel dining room and tell stories of an adventure they each had recently! I bet super-heroes would relish the chance to talk to people who relate to their otherwise extremely rare experiences!

Although didn't the JSA initially come together to stop Hitler from getting the Spear of Destiny? I feel like there was some version of their origin that had that.

[John Venus]

I don't think alien invasions or super-villain teams are necessary.
Maybe the Justice League was just a group of people with powers who met on the job and once there were enough of them, somebody said, "Why don't we start a club to talk shop and help each other out sometimes?"

It would be hilarious if they all met accidentally while trying to capture a complete no-name C-lister then decided to be a team. Somebody like, Amos Fortune and all the heroes happened for entirely different reasons: Batman because he was investigating Amos casino as Bruce Wayne, Clark was doing the same as a reporter, WW was exploring Man's World and was curious about Las Vegas, J'onn because he detected weird pyshic energy emanating from the Casino, GL was there dealing with some other emergency, Zatanna was performing at a nearby venue and Flash was following a lead on Mirror Master with Black Canary helping him. Amos is beaten in 0.5 seconds and the League decides to go grab some drinks.

[MajorHoy]

Although didn't the JSA initially come together to stop Hitler from getting the Spear of Destiny? I feel like there was some version of their origin that had that.

Well, not "initially" in real-world time because the JSA first appeared in late 1940.

Their origin story with the Spear of Destiny didn't appear until almost forty years later (cover-dated August-September 1977)

[Jim Kelly]

Although didn't the JSA initially come together to stop Hitler from getting the Spear of Destiny? I feel like there was some version of their origin that had that.

I much prefer the original origin story, where they all got together for Thanksgiving dinner. That seems more authentic than the later adventure. But I look at that untold origin in the same way as the Englehart one for the League, as not really the origin but an adventure that comes before it. Some mystery men may have met in this way, but they didn't actually sit down and formally organize the group until later. And for the Society that's at the Thanksgiving dinner--the first group adventure happens in the next issue, with a teaser at the end of issue 3 where Flash comes to tell them about it.

[Alan2099]

It would be hilarious if they all met accidentally while trying to capture a complete no-name C-lister then decided to be a team. Somebody like, Amos Fortune and all the heroes happened for entirely different reasons: Batman because he was investigating Amos casino as Bruce Wayne, Clark was doing the same as a reporter, WW was exploring Man's World and was curious about Las Vegas, J'onn because he detected weird pyshic energy emanating from the Casino, GL was there dealing with some other emergency, Zatanna was performing at a nearby venue and Flash was following a lead on Mirror Master with Black Canary helping him. Amos is beaten in 0.5 seconds and the League decides to go grab some drinks.

It's probabaly no longer canon, but at one point the first Superman/Batman team-up was them stopping some D-list jewel thief called Magpie.

I much prefer the original origin story, where they all got together for Thanksgiving dinner. That seems more authentic than the later adventure. But I look at that untold origin in the same way as the Englehart one for the League, as not really the origin but an adventure that comes before it. Some mystery men may have met in this way, but they didn't actually sit down and formally organize the group until later. And for the Society that's at the Thanksgiving dinner--the first group adventure happens in the next issue, with a teaser at the end of issue 3 where Flash comes to tell them about it.

I'm thinking of how this would work with the Justice League and part of me just really like the idea of a rookie Superman trying to contact as many heroes as he could to invite them to dinner.

[John Venus]

My first thought was Wonder Woman as part of her role as a ambassador to Man's World and wanting to explore the world.

I can see Superman snooping around as Clark Kent before initiating a meeting with the heroes as Superman himself.

I think Ostrander did something similar during his run on Martian Manhunter when he had the latter watch over Clark since he was a baby before meeting him as an adult and later meeting Batman during his early years. There may have been a few other stories but those are the ones I recall, especially since the thing with Superman was later adapted into Smallville and the Man of Tomorrow movie.

[Ascended]

I don't think alien invasions or super-villain teams are necessary.
Maybe the Justice League was just a group of people with powers who met on the job and once there were enough of them, somebody said, "Why don't we start a club to talk shop and help each other out sometimes?"

There's a hint of that implied (though it would change) in the first JSA story, where the heroes don't so much have a "team up" as a meeting. The heroes just all get together in a hotel dining room and tell stories of an adventure they each had recently! I bet super-heroes would relish the chance to talk to people who relate to their otherwise extremely rare experiences!

I think these guys operate on such a large scale it makes a lot of sense for them to network. They can vent and talk about things nobody else understands, get help from each other when needed...imagine how less stressed out you'd be, trying to save all reality, if you knew that you could call a couple buddies if things go sideways? I imagine that's probably how a lot of these relationships began; much like Clark and Bruce or Hal and Barry, the friendships (or at least introductions) began before the big fight that forms the official team.

But swapping war stories and setting up a group chat isn't the same thing as forming an official team, with monitor duty and bylaws, and all this other stuff that gets in the way of the mountain of responsibilities these people already carry.

No, to form the League I think there needs to be a reason. A day unlike any other. I think the various alien invasions all work fine, at least conceptually, but I've yet to see an origin that really blows me away. But without an express need for a team as organized and involved as the League, what you end up with is a bowling team; a bunch of people who get together on Fridays to talk shop and vent about their week, and maybe help each other out once in a while when somebody is moving and needs a truck.

Mostly I think the heroes need to be confronted by a threat that not only surpasses all their individual ability, but there need to be elements where the threat hits directly at a hero's weaknesses in a way that only these other heroes can cover. I don't mean a weakness like kryptonite, but a hero's blind spot. There has to be a wrinkle to the threat where each hero can't possibly win, via their own shortcomings and flaws, that the others balance out. Maybe Bruce's paranoia actively works against him and helps the bad guy, and it's Barry's optimism that provides the perspective both need to unravel that critical clue, yknow?

And of course there has to be elements to stopping the threat that only these particular heroes can pull off. A mystery only the Dark Knight can solve. Science that only a time jumping Flash could wrap their heads around. Something really heavy for Clark to lift. Someone really bad for Diana to battle.

But no New Gods. Darkseid should never, ever, have anything to do with the League's formation. He's far too big a threat for that, and once you defeat him where do you go from there? I'm fine with the Appelexians, and I can see a glorious Starro story for the League's origin where it really does take over the world and the remaining heroes team up to take it back....but New Gods? No. Not even a squadron of parademons that went through the wrong Boom Tube by mistake and got lost. The hordes of Apokolips are something you slowly build up to, not the place you start from. Darkseid is far more "final battle" than "opening act."

[Lee Stone]

Ignore this... I didn't read the other pages before posting.

[Mutant God]

A villain of the JSA has returned but the JSA are too old or dead to stop them.

[Alan2099]

Some supervillain is catching superheroes and teleporting them to some other dimension/reality/alien planet/whatever. The heroes that make up the Justice League are mostly strangers to each other and have to learn to work together to get back and stop him.

[Lightning Rider]

I
Mostly I think the heroes need to be confronted by a threat that not only surpasses all their individual ability, but there need to be elements where the threat hits directly at a hero's weaknesses in a way that only these other heroes can cover. I don't mean a weakness like kryptonite, but a hero's blind spot. There has to be a wrinkle to the threat where each hero can't possibly win, via their own shortcomings and flaws, that the others balance out. Maybe Bruce's paranoia actively works against him and helps the bad guy, and it's Barry's optimism that provides the perspective both need to unravel that critical clue, yknow?

And of course there has to be elements to stopping the threat that only these particular heroes can pull off. A mystery only the Dark Knight can solve. Science that only a time jumping Flash could wrap their heads around. Something really heavy for Clark to lift. Someone really bad for Diana to battle.

I really like this angle as it's character-driven.

I roughly outlined a story idea about the Legion of Doom mixing and matching their members to different heroes they might be better equipped for; not as an origin, but it could work that way, as it would make some sense that the villains would seek to collaborate and maximize their abilities to finally take down their respective enemies on the league.

[Frontier]

I really like this angle as it's character-driven.

I roughly outlined a story idea about the Legion of Doom mixing and matching their members to different heroes they might be better equipped for; not as an origin, but it could work that way, as it would make some sense that the villains would seek to collaborate and maximize their abilities to finally take down their respective enemies on the league.

That's kind of like how the DCAU handled the Legion.

[Jim Kelly]

World building should build up from small things to larger things. You don't start out with THE LORD OF THE RINGS. You start out with THE HOBBIT.

When the heroes begin, it shouldn't be in a densely populated reality. It starts out with a small number of characters and relatively low stakes plots and then introduces more characters and higher stakes.

The problem is everything is retroactive continuity now. So even though an origin pretends to be the starting point, it's informed by the writers knowing all the continuity and loading that into the starting point. The reader isn't discovering the characters for the first time and following their journey into a greater and greater world.

It's all been done, it's all been done, it's all been done before.