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Remembering The Junior Justice Society
The surprise success of DC’s Stargirl on The CW television network The Club Concept
has introduced many viewers to the Justice Society of America, the By the time the Justice Society of America was born, comic
precursor to the Justice League of America, and the first team of character clubs for children were no longer a new idea. While the
superheroes in comic book history. exploitation of the information they generated was limited by today’s
The group first appeared in All Star Comics #3, the December standards, they must be considered not only as pioneering efforts but
1940 cover-dated issue, with The Flash, Green Lantern, The Spectre, by and large as incredible successes.
Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Hour-Man, Sandman, the Atom, and The reader participation concept for comic characters can in some
Johnny Thunder as members. While the membership would change sense be dated back to the Yellow Kid, noted as the first regular comic
over the years, the concept of the super-team took hold in the strip, which appeared in the New York World and subsequently the New
public’s imagination. York Journal. Created by R.F. Outcault, who also created Buster
Brown, the Yellow Kid inspired theatrical
Two Companies, One Face productions, songs, and dozens of licensed
Toward the end of 1938, comics products. The images on these items in turn
pioneer M.C. Gaines entered into an directed readers back to the newspapers or the
agreement with DC Comics’ Harry strip itself. A series of celluloid buttons, in
Donnefeld. Their bargain created a particular, made the Yellow Kid part of a con-
marketing arrangement that presented sumer’s apparel and helped to create an early
one public face to two distinct compa- sort of brand identification generally associated
nies. DC and its new counterpart, with much more sophisticated marketing
All-American, both displayed the DC programs decades later.
logo on their comics. Advertising cross- The evolutionary course of the club
promoted the lines in each other’s titles, concept became associated with comic
and there was little to distinguish for characters as it developed through the
readers that they were in fact not one newspaper comic strips, the pulps, comic
company but two. books, and radio shows. A series of significant
It has been noted that All-Star Comics manifestations of the club concept
came about following on the heels of corresponds directly with the marketing of
DC’s New York World’s Fair Comics aviation heroes (both real and fictitious) in
annuals in 1939 and 1940 (precursor of the late ‘20s and through the ‘30s.
their World’s Finest Comics title), particu- The Junior Birdmen of America, one of
larly since the 1940 edition featured those aviation-themed clubs, was one of the
Superman, Batman, and Robin on the most successful. Starting in 1934, Hearst
cover. Whatever the actual genesis of the Newspapers successfully invited the partici-
notion, it’s not a huge series of leaps to pation of the nation’s youth through at
go from co-cover features to team-ups to a least 22 of their papers. By the time DC’s
permanent team-up. Supermen of America club rolled around
Regardless of their direct or indirect there was already an art, if not a science, to
inspirations, writer Gardner Fox and editor getting kids involved.
Sheldon Mayer are credited with coming up On the trailing edge of the Great
with the team. Through the DC/AA Depression, before America’s involvement
relationship, they were permitted to choose in the Second World War, the Supermen
both DC and All-American characters to One of the Junior of America was simultaneously marketing
Justice Society of America club kits.
populate the comic. They did so, and the at its most cynical and most inspired. The
photo: Heritage Auctions
Justice Society was born. readers of the Superman comic books,
Almost any thorough account of the period’s incredible dynamic unlike the readers of the newspaper strip or listeners to the radio show,
between publishers and their creators, as well as between publishers and were overwhelmingly children. This club recruited Superman fans and
their competitors, reads like pulp fiction. That might be why Michael enlisted them to recruit others. In other words, it took the standard
Chabon’s well-researched novel, The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier advertising tactic of going straight to the kids and getting them to
and Klay, wrung so true and eventually won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. pester the parents into buying a product one better: it got kids to not
The relationship between All-American and DC was not as seamless as only work on their own beleaguered parents, but it also got them to get
its public face, and there would be difficulties later. their friends to work on their own parents, too. For successfully recruit-

42 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles