History Comicbook / JusticeSocietyOfAmerica

* ZettaiRyouiki: Cyclone's costume features a Grade A variety (high socks, short skirt), but features a slitted skirt/dress that's actually quite long, instead of a regular short skirt.

* NotThatKindOfDoctor: Doctor Fate. Averted by both the first and third Doctor Mid-Nites, who actually ''are'' medical doctors, to the surprise of other heroes.

Over a decade later, superheroes were on the rise again and Franchise/TheFlash (the [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] Flash, a totally different guy than the one in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII) discovered another world inhabited by the older [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] characters. Continuity had been invented by this point, so the explanation was, "All those JSA stories took place on [[AlternateUniverse Earth-2]], which has its own version of Superman, and everything from, uh, [[TheInterregnum circa-1955]] on is from Earth-1, which has the Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica. Superman versus aliens? That was Earth-1. Superman versus [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]]? Earth-2." Thus, every summer, the JLA and the JSA would [[{{Crossover}} team up]], in some of the few multi-part storylines of TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks. These were often titled "Crisis on Earth-Something", and involved the two teams responding to multidimensional disasters.

!!Tropes used by the team include:
* AbortedArc: This is a bit subjective, but Johns and Goyer were clearly planning a major dust-up between the [[TheMenInBlack Department of Extranormal Affairs]] and the JSA. The Black Reign arc probably overtook it. Also, there's the business with the Council, which again was overtaken by Black Reign [[spoiler:when Black Adam slaughtered them off-panel to court the support of Nemesis]].
* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: Wildcat and the Golden Age HawkMan specifically. As an honorary member who participated in a single adventure, Batman also counts.

* ApronMatron: Red Tornado.
* TheAtoner: Black Adam, a former super-villain. Later [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor reverted to form]]. Currently Atom-Smasher, who followed Adam in his descent back into villainy, is filling this role.
* AuthorFilibuster: In issue 50 of the current series, Jay Garrick is being interviewed prior to being sworn in as mayor. One of the questions involves the way in which the JSA has abandoned the whole "legacy" concept, where the younger generation is trained by the older generation, despite the fact that this is not something that's really happened yet in the actual storylines. Jay's response of "I see no reason that JSA membership should be restricted to a certain pedigree" could easily be read as author Marc Guggenheim responding to reader complaints. It certainly breaks the fourth wall.

** Currently, this role is filled by Mister Terrific, the third-smartest man in the world (and therefore smart enough to know that "Working Out = Good"), Hawkman (who graduated to Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian with wings), and Wildcat, advertised as the man who [[BadAss taught self-defense classes to the JLA]].
* BadFuture: Involving ThoseWackyNazis of course.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The Thy Kingdom Come storyline had [[spoiler: Doctor Mid-Nite regain his eyesight at the cost of being able to diagnosis medical conditions at a glance, ComicBook/{{Starman}} regained his sanity when [[InsanityImmunity he needed to be crazy]], ComicBook/PowerGirl learned the hard way that the ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis had [[YouCantGoHomeAgain caused her to be replaced with a double on Earth 2]], and Damage's face was fixed and he became increasingly vain.]] Luckily because StatusQuoIsGod most of those issues were resolved.
* BigBad: [[EvilOverlord Mordru]] in the first half of the JSA series, and Black Adam in the second.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Most of the inner turmoil in the JSA was caused by the original Atom, Al Pratt's kids. Atom-Smasher was Pratt's godchild, and more recently, Pratt's son Damage (it's a [[ItMakesSenseInContext complicated story]]) betrayed the team by siding with Gog.

* TheBusCameBack: All-Star comics and the JSA made their last appearance in issue 57, 1951. The team returned as guest stars in the JLA book, and then finally All-Star itself was revived with issue 58 in 1976. That bus was gone for 25 years!

* ClothingDamage: Power Girl frequently suffers this, being MsFanservice. Atom Smasher's mask is also unusually fragile, often tearing from a flung bottle or somesuch object.
* ComedicHero: Johnny Thunder and the Red Tornado in the original WWII comics.
* ComicBookTime: The JSA characters have an odd relationship with this trope. The original Golden Age characters generally avert it, having aged in real time despite being well-preserved for their age. The younger members of the modern day team firmly adhere to ComicBookTime, meaning aging characters exist right alongside unaging characters. The book avoided the problems this caused by generally ignoring it.
* CoolOldGuy: What, you can't see it? The original members ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome pantsed Hitler]]'', for crying out loud. The whole flying, bend-steel-with-their-bare-hands thing is a bonus.
* CoolShip: Following the return of their [[InformedAbility ace pilot]] Atom Smasher, the All-Stars gained one in the form of the appropriately named Star Eagle.
** The android Hourman's time-ship
* DarkerAndEdgier: Mark Guggenheim's run had all the hallmarks of this, with plenty of violence, destruction, and the normally polite and in-control Jay Garrick referring to the villain as a "bastard".
* DemotedToExtra: Reading this series can be a bit jarring if you're a fan of ''SandmanMysteryTheatre''. After the Golden Age Sandman spent years as the hero of his own cult classic series, he's reduced to a mere scene-filler here.
* DeadpanSnarker: Johnny Thunder's genie, the Thunderbolt, as well as Power Girl on occasion.
* DependingOnTheArtist: Cyclone's costume is pretty hard to draw, so various artists raise or lower the slit on the side (or remove it entirely), alter the amount of strips on the leggings, change the size or colour of her emblem, and change how baggy or large the overhanging pouch is. Even her hair is subject to this, either having long bangs, or none at all.
** Quite common for some other members of the team. Power Girl's costume is explained in-universe as having multiple variations after years of varying Boob-Window-sizes, and Stargirl is often shown looking more or less young and busty.
* DivergentCharacterEvolution: Even though the Justice Society came first and the Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica was just a [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] update of the Justice Society, because the Justice League was more popular, it was decided that the Justice Society needed to find a new core concept to differentiate it from the Justice League. Several different ideas were tried such as being an AlternateUniverse equivalent to the Justice League, being a group of middle-aged superheroes, being a group of senior citizen superheroes, until finally, they found a concept that worked sales-wise: a multigenerational family of superheroes training the next generation.
** This concept behind the team was explicitly abandoned by Marc Guggenheim.
* DontYouDarePityMe Damage is quite belligerent about his scarred face.
* {{Elseworld}}: There have been two notable JSA stories published under the Elseworlds imprint...
** In ''TheGoldenAge'', America's mystery men, including the JSA, return home after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and find themselves obsolete, unable to go back to catching bank robbers after spending years fighting ThoseWackyNazis. Unfortunately for everyone, though, the Nazi menace isn't quite finished...
** In ''The Liberty Files'', the Golden Age superheroes are reinvented as super-spies who fight arms dealers, Nazis, and aliens in the '30s through the '50s.
* EnergyBeing: Although he was unaware of this at first, Alan Scott's body is now composed entirely of the green energy he's channeled through his ring for 70 years.

* {{Expy}}: When the teen supervillain Kid Karnevil attempted to infiltrate the Justice Society Of America, he did so by posing as a patriotic superhero named the All-American Kid. All-American Kid's costume and backstory were extremely similar to those of Bucky, the sidekick of CaptainAmerica.
** Magog is one of Cable.
* FaceHeelTurn and HeelFaceTurn: Atom Smasher does ''both'' over the course of the series, quitting the team for glad-handling super-villains and going easy on them (he'd murdered a villain to save his mother's life), then asking to rejoin them after realizing the life of a killer wasn't for him.
** Black Adam is caught in a [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor tailspin]].
* FanService: Power Girl's huge bustline makes her a recurring subject of "focus on bustline while she's flying towards us" angled shots, and she often suffers ClothingDamage. Unusually, however, the entire rest of the female cast tends to be either modestly-endowed (the three teenage characters) and/or full-clothed without even the form-fitting wardrobe normal for comics (Cyclone and Liberty Belle).
* {{Flanderization}}: Hourman was initially an action-loving hero with many aspects, who took major issue with Atom Smasher's betrayal, and had feelings for Jesse Chambers. Fast-forward one year, and now his entire personality seems based around fawning over his wife Jesse, or screaming at Atom Smasher for betraying the team. Thanks to LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, his few appearances in the book can only consist of just that.

* ForcedPrizeFight: Roulette's arena.

* GenkiGirl: Cyclone, possibly the only example in DC comics. Generally just a hyperactive, over-talkative motor-mouth who ends up with her mouth finally covered by another character at least twice.
* GirlsNightOutEpisode
* TheGambler: Roulette
* HandwrapsOfAwesome: Hawkgirl, except in her case they go halfway up her arms to hide the cuts on her wrists.
* HeroesUnlimited: ''ComicBook/AllStarSquadron'' was basically this for the team, set in the 1940s.
** The final pre-ComicBook/{{New 52}} ''JSA'' run went this route, adding in a ton of new heroes in addition to bringing back all of the teen JSA members who had left to join the ill-fated All-Stars title.
* HeroicSacrifice: This one doesn't get used as often, but we've seen a few. Wesley Dodds committed suicide because his long-time girlfriend Dianne had died the year before, and because he knew that with the knowledge he had obtained, he was as good as dead anyway. Worse than dead, if Mordru's threats to him carried any weight. Before the end, he sent a warning to his old teammates about Mordru.
** And Mister America, after his entire family was murdered. He beats up the killer, stakes out the [[TheChessmaster mastermind]], loses (hard), and then runs from the [[HollywoodNewEngland Boston dockyards]] to [[BigApplesauce Battery Park]] with an arrow in his lungs, jumps through a skylight and lands back first on the JSA's round table. His final words? "[[DeTerminator I can't let justice die.]]"
* HolierThanThou and HollywoodAtheist: ''Both'' averted with Doctor Mid-Nite, a devout Catholic, and Mister Terrific, a staunch atheist, who are both heroically upstanding ''and'' [=BFFs=]. Score one for tolerance!
* HumanoidAbomination: Johnny Sorrow and the King of Tears (which would make a great name for a rock duo, but I digress).

* IWillWaitForYou: Stargirl promises this to Atom Smasher during an interview with a reporter, as he goes away to prison for his war crimes. "No matter how long it takes".

* JerkAss: Hawkman turned to this after a while, being grouchy and yelling at the younger members, then demanding leadership of the team during "Black Reign". Magog completely took this role later, suddenly developing an asshole streak a mile wide. He's an order-barking, gruff, grim, "killing the bad guys is OK" type who disrespects the entire team in his own inner monologues.

* LegacyCharacter: The raison d'etre for the modern team.

* TheLoad:
** Johnny Thunder in [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks the silver age]], [[PostCrisis modern]] comics have managed to avert this by making him a hero in his own right.
** The Golden Age ComicBook/RedTornado was part this, with a heaping dollop of comic relief. She was tough enough to at least hold her own in a fight against non-super-powered thugs, though.

* MagicalSeventhSon:Johnny Thunder got his powers from being the seventh son of a seventh son, born on the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month of 1917.

** The original Doctor Fate, Kent Nelson, decided to go to medical school and become an actual doctor, much to the approval of his fiance Inza. He became an intern in a clinic once he graduated, and many of his stories involved mysteries requiring the use of his medical knowledge to solve.

** During the GoldenAge, members were routinely PutOnABus when their solo series ended, or in the case of the Flash or Green Lantern, PutOnABus because they got a solo series of their own. Characters would often disappear with no farewell scene. Hourman, Starman, and Doctor Fate are all examples of this.
** The team was PutOnABus following the ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths, when they decided to disband after the merging of the Earths but were called to alter the outcome of the Norse gods' Ragnarok in order to prevent Adolf Hitler from retroactively destroying the universe in 1945, which caused the team to remain trapped in a never-ending fight cycle [[TheBusCameBack until several years later]] in ''Armageddon: Inferno''.
*** The team was PutOnABus again when the DC universe rebooted in August 2011, before reappearing in Earth-2 as part of the second wave of new titles. Of course the new JSA seen in that title starts from the beginning and portrays the founders as young men and women, meaning most of the younger legacy heroes (especially those who joined recently) are likely out of luck. Want to see Cyclone, Jade, Obsidian, Atom-Smasher, Damage, Liberty Belle or Hourman III? Too bad, none of them exist any more in the New 52. Stargirl is still around, but has been reinvented entirely since she's no longer tied to any legacies.

* SdrawkcabAlias: It once took the JSA an entire issue of ''All-Star Comics'' to realise that evil Professor Elba and kindly Professor Able were one and the same. Not exactly their finest moment.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: In the original ''All-Star Comics'' (predating the Justice League by decades), Wonder Woman was originally the only female character, and had to be the secretary and never took part in storylines, so JLA Wonder Woman actually came out ahead. That was in the 1940s however, and the reason she didn't take part in storylines was because she had her own book. As a rule the JSA active members were limited to popular characters who didn't support their own title, and even Franchise/{{Superman}} and Franchise/{{Batman}} were limited by it. The JSA did, eventually, get a second female character: Black Canary. Huh. Pattern?

* StepIntoTheBlindingFight: Dr. Mid-Nite used blackout bombs to get a drop on fighting his foes.

* StrawFeminist: Power Girl in the 70s All-Star revival series.

* TwoGirlsToATeam: For the longest time, the only woman on the JSA was Wonder Woman, and she wasn't allowed (by her creator) to participate in any major way. In the later years of the 1940s, both Wonder Woman and Black Canary were active members of the JSA, making the ratio 5 men and 2 women.

* WarInAsiaAndThePacific: After the attack on Pearl Harbor, every active member (except the Spectre) join the military to go fight the Japanese. They all end up fighting in the Pacific, or off the west coast, repelling (fictional) Japanese incursions. Even Wonder Woman gets a full adventure, even though she's not an official member at this point.

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** The original Doctor Fate, Kent Nelson, was actually a medical doctor for awhile, before giving up that career to become an archaeologist.

** During the GoldenAge, members were routinely PutOnABus when their solo series ended, or in the case of the Flash, Green Lantern, PutOnABus because they got a solo series of their own. Characters would often disappear with no farewell scene. Hourman, Starman, and Doctor Fate are all examples of this.

* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: Wildcat and the Golden Age HawkMan specifically.

* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The early-'90s series, because DC editorial believed that no one wanted to read about senior citizen superheroes. David Goyer and Geoff Johns later proved them wrong.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: In the original ''Justice Society Of America'' comic (predating the Justice League by decades), Wonder Woman was the only female character, and had to be the secretary and never took part in storylines, so JLA Wonder Woman actually came out ahead. That was in the 1940s however, and the reason she didn't take part in storylines was because she had her own book. As a rule the JSA active members were limited to popular characters who didn't support their own title, and even Franchise/{{Superman}} and Franchise/{{Batman}} were limited by it. The JSA did, eventually, get a female character: Black Canary. Huh. Pattern?

* HeroicSacrifice: This one doesn't get used as often, but we've seen a few. The best example is Wesley Dodds, the Golden Age Sandman, who threw himself off a mountain [[ThanatosGambit just so the JSA would attend his funeral]] and fight some new villain.
** He was actually committing suicide because his long-time girlfriend had died the year before, and because he knew that with the knowledge he had obtained, he was as good as dead anyway. Worse than dead, if Mordru's threats to him carried any weight. The warning to his former teammates was an act of friendship, not necessarily a plan to get them to reform the team.

In the ComicBook/{{New 52}}, Robinson is back writing the team, with the second-wave title simply called ComicBook/{{Earth 2}}. The Justice Society again originates and operates in the titular corner of TheMultiverse, however, the team is no longer tied to World War II, with the characters being reintroduced as younger versions from a modern background, and with updated abilities and looks.

Tropes used by the team include:

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: The 1940s JSA started out with no women on their roster, until Wonder Woman joined. This was later averted when Black Canary became a member of the team, changing to the status quo to TwoGirlsToATeam.

* ShoutOut: When the [=JSA=] All-Stars were looking for a team name, Judomaster suggested ''[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman]]'', to which one of her teammates even mention ''G-Force'' (Americanized version of the anime).

* TheWorfEffect: Green Lantern Alan Scott is becoming a regular victim of this. Happened at least once in JLA's run when Blackbriar Thorn stabbed him through the heart and almost killed him. Happened again in ''two consecutive storylines'' when the Nazis killed him (sending Jay Garrick into a rage) and again in Marc Guggenheim's first issue as writer when the unknown super-terrorist broke Alan's neck in five seconds flat (sending Jay Garrick into a rage).

** Johnny Thunder in [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks the silver age, [[PostCrisis modern]] comics have managed to avert this to an extent, such as by making Jimmy a closer friend of Clark Kent's than Superman's, or by making him a hero in his own right.

-->''"During the days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, a group of costumed mystery men gathered together to form the first and greatest super-team of all time."''