The Justice League opened the door for the present of superhero comics. The team was so popular when it came out that Marvel got back into the superhero game. The group also was the genesis of the modern day event comic, with its numerous multiversal crossover stories, and showed exactly what a top superhero team can be. DC Comics‘ greatest team has had its ups and downs over the years, but when they’re on fire, they’re something special. However, the nature of the DC Multiverse, especially in the last 40-some odd years, has meant that the team’s history has changed many times, and this has meant that the origin of the Justice League has had to change as well.
Crisis on Infinite Earths changed DC forever, and it wreaked havoc on the origin of the League. See, back in the Silver Age, Wonder Woman was one of the founding members of the team, but Crisis changed all of that. Post-Crisis Diana didn’t appear until the present day, so the origin of the League had to be changed. However, it wouldn’t be until 1998 when readers finally got the complete post-Crisis origin of the team in JLA: Year One, by Mark Waid, Bryan Augustyn, and Barry Kitson. The team gave readers the perfect origin for the group, one that combined the past and the present amazingly.
JLA: Year One Is a Perfect Example of the Timelessness of the Justice League
Mark Waid is Silver Age DC’s greatest soldier and he always has been. Waid was able to become popular because he was the kind of writer who had an encyclopedic knowledge of DC and Marvel from the “good old days”. He was able to use classic ideas in modern ways, and his work on books like The Flash, Legion of Superheroes, and Legionnaires made him a star. Waid’s work with editor Bryan Augustyn was especially good, but Augustyn wasn’t just a great editor, but also the writer who created the idea of “Elseworlds” with Gotham by Gaslight. Finally, Kitson was an artist with a simple, classic style that worked beautifully for old school storytelling.
The three of them were perfect to change the origin of the JLA, and they did that in the easiest way possible: by copying. In The Brave and the Bold #28, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman battled Starro the Conqueror together. However, that was changed to include Black Canary instead of Diana. JLA: Year One starts after this battle and the team’s next adventure against the Appellaxians, alien invaders from the Silver Age, and it does something that no one would have ever expected: focuses on the characters and not the spectacle.
JLA: Year One definitely has a lot of big superhero action over its 12-issue run, but what really makes it work so well is the way Waid and Augustyn focus on the characters. This book is a character piece about the how the team gelled into, well, a team. Waid and Augustyn knew that readers knew the events of the beginning of the League, but used more modernized versions of the characters. Hal is arrogant and think he’s the leader, Black Canary is constantly dealing with the legacy of her mother and the JSA, Barry is the heart of the team and the one everyone looks at as the leader, Aquaman is quite literally a fish out of water not knowing how to live on land, and Martian Manhunter is constantly keeping secrets, afraid that he won’t be accepted. Their interactions create as much drama as the plot itself.
There’s a entirely new plot line that brings the disparate stories of the book together, leading to the end of the book, which shows how the Justice League was able to become the most trusted team in the world. Waid, Augustyn, and Kitson were able to take Silver Age DC ideas and make them interesting in a time when that sort of thing wasn’t cool. The book had just the right mixture of things that we knew and all-new ideas, hooking everyone who read it. Even today, with much of it rendered non-canon, it still stands up.
JLA: Year One Is the Best Justice League Origin Comic Ever
JLA: Year One is a flawless origin comic. It finds a way to take a lot of old stories and make them new again. Waid and Augustyn took the basics of the five starring heroes — Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Aquaman, Black Canary, and Martian Manhunter — and extrapolated, creating all-new characterizations for each character that felt perfect for them. There are so many little DC Easter eggs throughout the book, and the story’s various twists and turns take readers on a better ride than they could imagine.
The Justice League has had quite a history, and there have been many origins for the team over the decades. However, once you read JLA: Year One, you’ll have read the best one. Sure, it’s not canon anymore, but it’s such an in-depth character piece that it doesn’t matter. This is one of those classic comics that the shifting tides of DC continuity have gotten rid of, but it’s still worth reading if you love the team and the characters. It’s a basically perfect comic, and if you have a chance to read it, jump on it.
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