It’s time to map the DC Universe! In June, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll! This post explains every Justice Society omnibus that does NOT exist – all of which will appear as options on the 2025 poll.
Through the end of May I’ll be covering DC entire publishing history by mapping missing omnibus volumes to fill in every gap in your DC oversize shelf! That’s all leading to the kickoff of the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll on Near Mint Condition the first week of June.
The Justice Society of America is one of the most confusing concepts in DC continuity – so confusing that they have repeatedly decided to erase it from continuity, only to bring it back!
Here’s the most basic explanation: The Justice Society was the Justice League of the Golden Age, gathering together a number of popular solo heroes into a team – including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. However, when DC created the Justice League in the Silver Age, it no longer made sense for earlier incarnations of the characters to have been on a team together.
As a result, the JSA stayed firmly rooted in Golden Age “Earth-Two” continuity – which DC then began to bring back for their annual “Crisis on Multiple Earths” stories in Justice League. This eventually blossomed into the JSA getting their own alternate-Earth title in the 1970s and 1980s. However, that was deemed too confusing, so Crisis on Infinite Earths merged the Earths. In the process, it did away with any JSA character that conflicted with a main continuity version (like Wonder Woman), but kept unique characters (like Jay Garrick as Flash and Alan Scott as Green Lantern).
Got it? Good, because there’s more.
After a decade of tellings JSA stories set largely in the past (which were now in continuity), in 1999 the surviving modern day JSA members reformed the JSA with a focus on mentoring younger heroes. That lasted until Flashpoint in 2011! Since Flashpoint collapsed all of DC’s history to have occurred in just five years, it once again erased the JSA – relegating those characters to exist only in a revised version of Earth Two. However, in Rebirth DC decided that the erasure of the JSA was actually THE CAUSE of New 52 happening, as explored by Doomsday Clock, which led to Scott Snyder & James Tynion bringing the team back (both to the present day and to DC’s history) during Justice League (2018).
Whew!
Maybe owing to that intense level of continuity confusing, the JSA have only ever merited omnibuses in that 1999 modern day run, mostly written by James Robinson & Geoff Johns. However, as you can imagine from the explanation above, there is a lot more to collect than that! To see my full bibliographic coverage of every JSA comic book, check out the Guide to the Justice Society of America (JSA).