The Difference between Justice League, JSA and Titans

[LAWtoyoto 432]

Does anyone can differentiate between these teams and its relationship and works?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

JSA is the old guard while Titans are the new.

[Factor]

Justice League - the world's premier super-hero team.
Justice Society - the world's first super-hero team, typically trains the next generation of heroes to keep the super-hero legacy alive.
Titans - former teen heroes and sidekicks who stroke out on their own and evolved into a powerhouse team in their own right. Lately they stole the JSA's MO and were mentoring younger heroes, but that seems to be over for now. Sadly DC never seem to figure out how to give the older Titans their own unique mission statement, so they're the least defined of the three in terms of their active role in the DCU.

In terms of relations, The Titans are usually portrayed more as a family/close friends, whereas the League has more of a co-worker vibe most of the time. The JSA veterans also share a close bond and a lot of them are actually blood-related.

If I had my way, I'd update each team's missions to be more distinct:

Justice League - the first responders to major global catastrophes. With some of the busiest heroes in their roll call, the League decide to focus on massive emergency situations. They're basically gods among men, handling world ending scenarios.
Titans - a superhero team always on call to protect people all over the world. They'd be a lot more accessible than the League, because most of them don't have as busy individual commitments. They keep the world turning on a day to day basis. I'd give them multiple Titans towers across the globe.
Justice Society - the protectors of the superhero legacy, using their experience and historical knowledge to make sure the new generations of heroes are prepared for whatever comes next. They also regularly deal with unsolved mysteries and recurring enemies from the past, in addition to predicting new threats based on historical patterns.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, the League deals with threats that are too big for just Superman alone. Titans would deal with smaller threats but still be global - both should probably have multiple squads.

[bat22]

The way I see it...

JUSTICE LEAGUE: Assembly of individual, usually adult heroes. Some established and others starting out.

JUSTICE SOCIETY: The original mystery men, establishing a social network that endures across the generations.

TITANS: Founders were sidekicks. Still a place for sidekicks as well as similarly young and fresh-faced heroes.

[Jim Kelly]

The Justice Society of America was created in 1940 as a framing device for ALL-STAR COMICS, to give the anthology a way to present the stories of individual characters (All Stars) with connecting sequences. From there the group evolved into actually having team adventures.

The Justice League of America was created in 1960 as a way to revive the concept, with Society changed to League because that sounded more modern.

The Teen Titans were an attempt to do a Junior Justice League in 1965, by using the sidekicks of the super-heroes--Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Arrow and Wonder Woman (mistakenly thought to have a sidekick, when she was actually Wonder Girl herself).

[Digifiend]

Yeah, Donna was created by accident. Didn't even get a civilian name for a while as a result. The only actual option for a female Titan short of creating someone new (which they did, but hadn't intended to) would've been Supergirl I believe, as they didn't own Mary Marvel yet and the other teen girl heroes were created later.

The JLA was created in 1959, by the way. Easy mistake though as Brave and the Bold #28 was released on the last week of December and it had a March cover date.

[Captain Nostalgia]

I think at one point in time you could say....

JSA - Past (old guard)
JLA - Present
Titans - Future

But now, despite recent events with Infinite crisis it's probably...

JSA - old and new guard - secondary back up to JLA
JLA- DCU's premier team
Titans - Former sideckicks and backups - secondary to the JLA

[Jim Kelly]

Yeah, Donna was created by accident. Didn't even get a civilian name for a while as a result. The only actual option for a female Titan short of creating someone new (which they did, but hadn't intended to) would've been Supergirl I believe, as they didn't own Mary Marvel yet and the other teen girl heroes were created later.

The JLA was created in 1959, by the way. Easy mistake though as Brave and the Bold #28 was released on the last week of December and it had a March cover date.

I know that it was 1959, but I said 1960 because I didn't want to explain the fine details. I was trying to be as simple as possible.

Supergirl was already at Stanhope University by the time the Teen Titans appeared. I guess she was still 18 or so years old--and still a teen--but she would have been older than the guys in the group. Not that they would have minded, I'm sure.

[Jim Kelly]

In the 1st issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (October-November 1960)--in the new letter column with responses to the team's debut in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD--David and Ralph Goldberg of Wilmington, Delaware, suggested a Junior Justice League consisting of Kid Flash, Robin, Speedy, Aqualad and Supergirl. The editor (Julius Schwartz) said they would consider it. David and Ralph also suggested a League of Super-Pets.

[Gaius]

JSA and Titans get discounted movie tickets, JL pays full price.

[M L A]

JSA has more than three good runs.

[Digifiend]

JSA and Titans get discounted movie tickets, JL pays full price.

Except for people like Naomi (who might be young enough to still pay child prices), and Power Girl (a JSA member who's definitely an adult and not visibly a pensioner) that's probably true! Well, Teen Titans rather than Nightwing's team, anyway.

[Ascended]

The League are co-workers. There's friendships among their ranks, just as any workplace has, but the League is a job first and foremost. When the job isn't pulling them together they usually go their own way.

The Titans are essentially a college dorm fused with intern work. They're learning, figuring things out together, and finding their footing in the adult world. There's friendships and bonds built here that'll last a lifetime, and those relationships tend to be as important to them as the work itself.

The JSA are the veterans who built a brotherhood together during their service, and afterwards brought and built their literal families into that. Kids have inter-married, everyone is somebody's godparent or registered next of kin, and everyone is "uncle" or "aunt" regardless of bloodlines. The line between "co-worker" and "old buddy" is entirely dissolved and even the people who don't like each other have been together so long they're friends by default.

[Jim Kelly]

Hm, I think people graft onto these teams interpretations that have developed over time. But in essence, when they started, they were all cut from the same cloth. They were all All Star teams. Teams composed of characters that appeared in other books, brought together to exploit their popularity from those books. As compares with teams that are built from the ground up like Blackhawks and the Fantastic Four.

However, once those other books started to disappear, then many of the characters in these All Star teams only had the team--and nowhere else to get exposure. At that point, they start to act more like a family or a group of friends.

The J.S.A.lost their individual books in the late 1940s and then only had ALL-STAR COMICS. When they were revived--they were revived mainly as a group.

In TEEN TITANS, a lot of the members by the late 1960s mainly had that book for exposure.

In the mid-1970s, everyone in the League except Superman, Batman and Flash (and Wonder Woman, but she was on leave from the League at the time) had lost their books and only had JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA or sporadic back-up features in other comics--so the Satellite League becomes more like a group of friends.

Attempts to revive the Titans eventually ended up with THE NEW TEEN TITANS, where the team was written to be a family. This caused the Justice League to be restructured to follow that formula--the Detroit League.