Justice Society of America/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Creator's Pet: Magog seemed beloved by DC--he was given his own solo series and a major starring/leadership role on JSA: All-Stars. The fans hated him--his series sold poorly, and every internet post about him decries his Jerkass ways and the gigantic push he received from the company. DC apparently heard and killed him off in Brightest Day.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Atom-Smasher shows more of these than almost the entire rest of the team. Single-handedly nearly killed Kobra, ripped the Worlogog off of Extant (and having him killed in place of his mother), and willingly gave up his life for the people of Kahndaq against The Spectre.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: The entire team's CMoA is the Black Reign arc.
  • Crazy Awesome: The time Doc Mid-Nite's pet owl Hooty killed a bunch of Nazis while on a drug-fueled rampage (thanks to Hourman's Miraclo pill) when Doc Mid-Nite was down for the count.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Wildcat. Few readers of the forgotten character from the '40s would've expected a Batman ripoff to become a major part of the team, and one of only four Golden Agers left alive.
    • Many of the original members of the team count as this. Characters like Wildcat, Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite were also-rans of the 40s, vanishing after a very short time period in the books. Effectively failed concepts, they would have never seen the light again if not for their links to the JSA- so when the JLA/JSA team-ups started happening, out came these obscure failed characters. Fast-forward to modern times, and now many of these originals and successors are now popular heroes in their own rights.
    • Cyclone is quite popular, what with her ubber woobieness and funny scenes.
  • Ethnic Scrappy: Jakeem Thunder is considered this a bit, as he talks in ghetto slang, swears a lot, and acts like a buffoon.
    • Fans mostly have this reaction to Amazing Man on message boards, not only because of notable suckiness, but because he has so little characterization and moments in the sun, being just a background guy who doesn't say or do anything.
  • Ho Yay: There's the almost downright coy bromance between the murderous Black Adam and the (relatively) young and naive Atom-Smasher, who is twice convinced by Adam to abandon the JSA and fight at his side. It makes sense that Atom-Smasher chooses to wear a full-face mask like his godfather Al Pratt: he's hiding the goo-goo eyes he's making at Adam behind it.
  • Les Yay: A little between Stargirl and Cyclone, at least in the eyes of some fans.
  • Mary Sue: Stargirl avoided this in recent years, despite being based off of Geoff Johns' late sister. She's respectful, virginal, and always shown to be in the right in any debate, and is always mentioned by others as being pretty, nice, full of potential, and has various other superheroes trying to date her. But she avoids this by still being occasionally immature, and she's one of the least powerful members of the team.
  • Memetic Mutation: Not much, but because of Alex Ross's...sugestive depiction of Maxine's costume, lead to many making jokes about her apparent lack of underwear or commenting that she forgot it.
    • Ascended Meme: Which was once noted in story, when a bunch of comments are made about her, from calling her a joke, insulting her former use of wearing a hat, and refering to her as the 'team mascot' or pet, one of the comments heard included 'Does she even wear underwear?' While sorta funny, combined with her face and the other comments, makes it just fuel to her woobieness.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Bill Willingham said this was the goal with Mr. America III, to make something out of a character with so-far zero personality and no powers. He ended up just giving him explosive-tipped whips and a crush on the teenage Lightning (keep in mind that she's a contemporary of Stargirl, while he is likely much older than Atom Smasher, and the JS Aers weren't too keen on that relationship. He left the book without doing anything else with him.
  • Shipping: Many fans want to see Captain Marvel hook back up with Stargirl, even badgering the new writers of the book about it. It ain't happening, since they're now handled by two different editorial teams.
  • Tear Jerker: Three particular incidents stand out--Jakeem Thunder begging the Thunderbolt to bring the dead Johnny Thunder back to life. Stargirl openly weeping over Atom Smasher's dead body (in the process, showing her true feelings for him). And Stargirl's reaction to finding out her hated birth father has died- she breaks down, unable to understand why she cares. "Because you're a wonderful daughter", her stepdad tells her.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A storyline of Cyclone's atypical depression would've been interesting since it was never touched upon in either All-Stars or Justice Society.
  • The Woobie: Cyclone so much! She's been revealed to have no friends, atypical depression, formed a "JSA Fanclub" that everyone bailed on thanks to her motormouth, and has a crush on an older, unavailable Damage. Has settled down now thanks to a friendship with Stargirl.
    • Stargirl's step-brother Mike, who appears simply so that Stargirl and his dad (STRIPES) can yell at him whenever he brings up how Star Girl stole his birthright to be the next Star Spangled Kid from him.
    • Power Girl, what with her angst over her convoluted past and the revelation that she's not wanted on the newly reformed Earth-2 since the universe created a new Power Girl to replace her in that world.
    • Lyta Hall, if you take into account her full past. All the shit she's been through, and then she finally gets her husband back, only for them both to be offed when Spectre goes berserk.
  • Too Good to Last: The 1993 series. It received high acclaim from those who bothered to read it, and had a lot of things going for it. ...Unfortunately, due to some Executive Meddling, on account of their editor not believing that old farts in spandex are awesome, the book was canceled with the third issue, (though they still allowed 10 issues to be published,) and much of the group was either aged up or killed off in Zero Hour.
    • It might have also had to do with the time it was made. Back in 1993, the Nineties Anti-Hero, big guns, Lefieldian art, Darker and Edgier, etc, was all the rage, and the JSA was anything but.