5 Times the Justice League Lost, Because Even the Heroes Need to Fail

The Justice League has a certain reputation among DC fans. While teams like the Teen Titans, the Justice Society, and the Legion of Superheroes are all heavy hitters, they don’t have the prestige of the League. They are the pinnacle of the superhero community, the group that everyone wants to be a part of. They are the ones that everyone looks to the chips are down, the heroes who will save the day even when things are at their darkest. They’ve faced every kind of threat you can imagine, saving the multiverse time after time. Basically, once the League shows up, it’s all academic. Or at least, that’s what’s supposed to happen.

The League clashes with threats on another level from other teams. They aren’t just facing powerful supervillains; there are also beings who can devour universes all by themselves, powerful forces of darkness, and the kind of threats that destroy planets like they’re nothing. They may seem like an unstoppable force of heroes, but they lose sometimes, too. Their foes have gotten the best of them, forcing them to come from behind and win the battle. These five Justice League losses are some of their most grievous, proving that even the best heroes fall short sometimes.

5) “Forever Heroes”

The New 52 was a long-term failure, but there were some cool stories. The Justice League was one of the main fixtures of this universe and Justice League (Vol. 2) was the epicenter of several lackluster events. It also built into Forever Evil, with the story “Forever Heroes” setting things up. Running through Justice League (Vol. 2) #24-29, by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, and Doug Mahnke, “Forever Heroes” introduced the Crime Syndicate to the New 52. When Earth-3 is destroyed, they decide to attack Earth-0 and take it over. The Justice League does their best to stand against them, but the Syndicate is able to overcome them, capturing Nightwing and taking the team off the board, allowing them to begin their mission to take over a new world. The Crime Syndicate has long been one of the most dangerous enemies the League faces, so them beating the team isn’t all that much of a surprise, especially with the element of surprise. Without the League, the villains have to step up to stop the Syndicate in Forever Evil, one of the better New 52 stories. I’m not really a fan of Justice League (Vol. 2), but the last run of stories starting with “Forever Heroes” makes up for the lackluster beginning of the book.

4) The War Against Perpetua

The Justice League went through something of a dark time from 2011 to 2018, with the Johns and Hitch runs leaching the team of a lot of the popularity that had regained in the late ’90s and ’00s. However, DC had the perfect antidote to that, getting writer Scott Snyder to relaunch the team with Justice League (Vol. 4). Snyder wrote the book for 39 issues, with the various story arcs telling the story of the war between the Justice League and the creator of the DC Multiverse Perpetua, who wanted to use the multiverse as a weapon to destroy her fellow Hands. She used the Legion of Doom as her cat’s paw, with the League losing most of the major battles of the war. This leads to a final confrontation with Perpetua. We never get to see the actual fight; issue #39 ends with them on their way to fight her and Dark Knights: Death Metal opens with them after their loss – Superman has been captured, Wonder Woman surrendered and works with Perpetua, all while making her own plans for victory, and Batman was killed. The League couldn’t defeat Perpetua, and the entire omniverse almost paid the price.

3) “Rock of Ages”

“Rock of Ages” is the best Justice League story ever, and the centerpiece of Grant Morrison’s amazing, team redefining run on JLA. The story began with Lex Luthor finding the Philosopher’s Stone, an object of great power, and decided to use it against the League. He recruits the Injustice Gang – Circe, Doctor Light, Joker, Ocean Master, and Mirror Master – and decides to use corporate raiding tactics against the heroes, finding a lot of success while playing into Batman’s hands. Kyle Rayner, Wally West, and Aquaman are thrown into a future where the defeat of the Injustice Gang and the destruction of the Philosopher’s Stone allows Darkseid to take over the world (Morrison did a meta-storyline that connects their DC work; the dark future of “Rock of Ages” takes place after Final Crisis in the Morrison timeline, but in that timeline, the heroes lost all of the battles). The three of them are able to get back to the present and stop the League from destroying the Stone, allowing the Injustice Gang to escape. The League is forced to allow themselves to lose the battle so they can save the future, making this their “best” defeat.

2) Final Crisis

Speaking of Morrison’s meta-storyline, it’s time to look at Final Crisis. This story was advertised as “the day evil won” (there was even a t-shirt that said that at Hot Topic in 2008; I bought the one with the above picture and not that one) and it lived up to that. Grant Morrison, J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, and Doug Mahnke gave readers the ultimate Darkseid story, placing him as DC’s greatest villain. The New Gods were destroyed, but the spirits of Darkseid and his Elites make their way to Earth with the Anti-Life Equation, taking human bodies and building a plan to take over the world. The lord of Apokolips releases the Equation on the world, taking control of half the population of the planet at the end of issue #3. The next issue picks a month later, with the League and the superhero community defeated by the forces of Darkseid. The team was able to win in the long run, but it was touch and go until Superman showed up, which is pretty normal in Justice League stories.

1) Justice League (Vol. 4) #75

Infinite Frontier and Justice League Incarnate began a story that saw the return of Pariah, one of the heroes of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Pariah had been forced to watch the deaths of countless universes, which drove him mad in the long run. He decided that he wanted to bring back the multiverse that had been destroyed, tapping into the power of the Great Darkness while thinking that it was controlling him. His plan needed more power, though, which led to Justice League (Vol. 4) #75. The multiversal Justice League Incarnate called the League in to help them battle Pariah’s Dark Army – basically every major DC villain controlled by Pariah with the Great Darkness. This was all part of Pariah’s trap, though. While the League was able to beat the Dark Army, the insane villain was able to “kill” the team, pulling them into Earths he’d created to drain their power. This led to Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, forcing the world to face off against the greatest threats without their most powerful defenders.

What’s your favorite Justice League defeat? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

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