10 fun facts about the Justice League
1. The Justice League of America was created in 1960, but was based on the Justice Society of America. The JSA, which ran in All-Star Comics from 1940 to 1951, was the first superhero team in comic books.
2. The members of the JLA in its 1960 debut were Aquaman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Superman and Wonder Woman. (Cyborg didn’t exist yet.)
3. The Justice League has had three origins. The 1962 origin brought the team together to battle an invasion from the planet Appelax. The 1977 origin brought the team together to battle an invasion from Mars. The 2011 origin brought the team together to battle an invasion from Apokolips. (The second was adapted for the Justice League animated TV show, the third is being adapted in the movie.)
4. The first Justice League story depicted the team battling Starro, a giant starfish from outer space. (Who knew kids in 1960 were so into echinoderms!)
5. Justice League Of America may have created Marvel Comics. A much-repeated story, possibly apocryphal, recounts Jack Liebowitz, who published Justice League Of America, bragging in 1961 about its sales to Martin Goodman, publisher of Timely Comics, over a game of golf. That inspired Goodman to order his editor, Stan Lee, to come up with a comparable book. Having no existing superheroes to draw upon, Lee and Jack Kirby invented Fantastic Four out of whole cloth, beginning the deluge of new characters like Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, X-Men and Hulk for what would soon be called Marvel Comics.
6. In 2003, the Justice League met Marvel’s Avengers in a crossover that involved The Grandmaster, who appeared in Thor: Ragnarok, played by Jeff Goldblum. (Don’t hold your breath for Marvel and DC to get along well enough for JLA/Avengers to become a movie.)
7. Cyborg first appeared in 1980 as a member of the Teen Titans. His history was re-written in 2011, erasing his Titans tenure in favour of being a founding member of the Justice League, instead of Martian Manhunter. (It’s not easy being green.)
8. The JLA met in their “Secret Sanctuary” in the 1960s, a cave in a mountain near Happy Harbour, Rhode Island. They graduated to a geosynchronous satellite headquarters in 1970, which is how they are usually depicted. (This is where my generation learned the term “geosynchronous.”)
9. Currently, the Justice League consists of Batman, Cyborg, Flash, two Green Lanterns, Mera (Aquaman’s fiance), Superman and Wonder Woman. (I’d settle for even one Green Lantern in the movie.)
10. In 1994, a character named Triumph was revealed to have been a founding member of the Justice League, but on his first mission was teleported into a dimensional limbo that also affected the timestream, erasing all memory of him. (Got that? OK, now go back to forgetting him.) – Tribune News Service