The Justice League is obviously the pinnacle of superheroic power in DC. It was founded by seven of the greatest, most inspirational heroes in the company’s catalogue, and over the years, it has expanded to include more and more incredible crimefighters. The Justice League has battled everything from small-time crooks to world-ending threats. In fact, they battled DC’s first true world-ending threat when they took on Starro the Conqueror in their very first appearance. The Justice League has saved the world more times than anyone can count, but as essential and rightfully loved as they are, they’re far from DC’s only great team.
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DC has dozens of superhero teams. They have the next generation’s warriors taking center stage in Young Justice and an entire army’s worth of ring-slingers patrolling the cosmos in the Green Lantern Corps. Every team highlights a different group of heroes and an aspect of the DC Universe that makes it so entertaining. Today, we’re giving the non-Justice Leaguers their due by looking at five teams that have saved the world, even when nobody expected them to. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
5) The Outsiders
Batman founded the Outsiders to save the world in a way that he felt the Justice League, constrained by public opinion, couldn’t. They charged into conflicts most people considered messy, where the very act of interfering in them could cause international unrest. Batman created the Outsiders after leaving the Justice League, and as such, staffed it with underrated heroes instead of his classic teammates. A team that focused on Black Lightning, Geo-Force, and Katana had a ton of potential and turned these characters into fan favorites.
They saved the world plenty of times, but one of their most important operations came in “The Truth About Looker” storyline, which ran from Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #28 to #31. The team battled the Abyssian monarchs, Prince Mordo and Princess Tamira, who brainwashed the future Outsider Looker into using her powerful psychic energy to draw Halley’s Comet to Earth and destroy the surface world. They overcame this threat through heroism instead of violence, helping Looker to break out of her control by remembering her husband. This was definitely one of their most climactic moments and gave them a brand-new teammate to boot.
4) Teen Titans
The Teen Titans, at one point, were DC’s most popular team. They were founded by a group of sidekicks who wanted to prove that they could make it on their own, but over time, they became a family of people who had lost their place in the world but found solace in each other. The Teen Titans are the Justice League of the next generation, basically acting as the highest position a teenage hero could aspire to hold. The Teen Titans are a vehicle to showcase just how incredible DC’s next generation will be, and every incarnation showcases a new decade’s greatest young heroes.
Their best-known incarnation rose to comic book dominance in New Teen Titans (1980), and they saved the world on their very first adventure. The first six issues of this volume saw Raven assemble the team to defeat her evil father, Trigon, who intended to lay waste to the entire universe and subjugate Earth. They demonstrated their teamwork and strength of character when they worked together to throw Trigon back into his own dimension, a maneuver that saved the entire realm, as Trigon’s later outings would show him conquering the world with little resistance.
3) Titans
While the Teen Titans have come to represent the concept of the next generation’s heroes uniting to form something greater than themselves, the Titans are a lot more specific. They were founded by the original and second wave Teen Titans, who were like family to each other. Where the Teen Titans were fearless kids who wanted to prove they could be as useful as adults, the Titans were a found family who wanted to support each other through and through. Over time, they became just as essential to the DC Universe as the Justice League, even taking over for them as the primary team following Dark Crisis.
Much like their Teen Titans incarnation, the Titans were founded to defeat a world-ending threat in JLA/Titans. In fact, this battle perfectly showcased what makes the team so special in the first place. Cyborg had bonded to an alien robot known as Technis, and his homesickness combined with Technis’s desire to catalogue the universe, creating a system meant to contain and protect his family, the Titans, above all else. In the end, the Titans saved the day by convincing Cyborg to accept his humanity again. They showed that the Titans were more than a team. They were a family that always pulled each other back from the brink and made each other better.
2) Justice Society of America
Before there was the Justice League, the Justice Society showed everyone what DC’s superheroes could do when they put their minds and hearts together. The team was founded in the wake of World War II, fighting real evils as much as they did fictional ones. Ever since, they’ve come to represent the old-school style of heroism, where Mystery Men raced out to battle grounded threats and supernatural war criminals. These heroes inspired the generation of heroes we have today and forged a path for them that was absolutely necessary.
As revealed in Secret Origins (1986) #31, the team was founded to save the world from Hitler, who wielded the Spear of Destiny. At first, President Roosevelt only sent in Green Lantern and the Flash, but when they were captured, the entire JSA was assembled, becoming their own team by the end of the story. They were determined not to be soldiers, but citizens dedicated to doing whatever they could to help however they could. This was their first time saving the world, but far from their last.
1) Legion of Super-Heroes
The JSA are the heroes of yesterday, the Justice League are the heroes of today, and the Legion of Super-Heroes are the heroes of tomorrow. They are a group of young do-gooders from planets all across the universe, coming together to make all of existence a better place. They were directly inspired by Superboy’s actions and even invited the Boy of Steel to join them. The Legion represents the idea that everything the heroes fight for today is worth it. Superman has always led the charge for a better tomorrow, and the Legion is living proof that hope and heroism will make the world a better place.
The Legion has saved all of reality countless times, but their greatest adventure is most definitely “The Great Darkness Saga,” which ran from Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #290 to #294. Far into the future, Darkseid still stalks the universe, and this tale was all about one of his greatest rises to power and how it took the entire Legion to stop him. This story was so massive that it took every single Legionnaire and Legion ally working together to save the day, even bringing back heroes who had long since left the team. This is one of DC’s best underrated stories, and the event that showed the Legion was a hero team that nobody should ignore.
Which non-Justice League superhero team is your favorite? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
