Once upon a time, DC Comics was the first name people thought of when they thought of superheroes. Sure, Spider-Man was popular, but when most people thought of costumed do-gooders, they thought of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Justice League. A big part of that was the cartoon SuperFriends. This Saturday morning classic brought together Supes, Bats, Wondie, Robin, and Aquaman, with young kids Wendy and Marvin (and later the Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna). Their adventures were the definition of low stakes, but the cartoon would eventually incorporate the entire Justice League. I am part of the last generation raised on the show; I still remember Challenge of the SuperFriends and having my very young mind blown by Darkseid. I grew up on SuperFriends and Kenner Super Powers figures, like millions of other ’80s baby.
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As far as it goes, SuperFriends was an important part of pop culture in the late ’70s and early ’80s, making DC the premiere purveyor of superheroes at the time. Unfortunately, most of it doesn’t really stand up (although Jack Kirby wrote and drew the tie-in series) and it has a reputation as one of the lamest pieces of superhero media ever. If you ever thought Aquaman was the useless guy who just talked to fish, it’s because of this show. I’m not the only one who grew up on the series; a young comic fan named Alex Ross did as well. Ross would go on to become one of the greatest comic artists of all time and 21 years ago, he set out to do the impossible – make a SuperFriends story for the 21st century. What followed is one of the most underrated series in Justice League history – Justice.
JusticeIs a Love Letter to the Bronze Age Justice League Classics
The seeds for Justice were planted, strangely enough, at Marvel Comics. After Kingdom Come came out, Wizard magazine asked Ross to Kingdom Come the Marvel Universe. A booklet was included in the magazine, with Ross giving readers new designs of heroes and villains. Fans loved it and Marvel took notice. Ross teamed with writer Jim Krueger and the late, great John Paul Leon and gave readers the Marvel masterpiece Earth X. While the story was set in a dystopian future, it was a love letter to the Silver and Bronze Age of Marvel. Krueger and Ross grew up with those books and they find interesting ways to homage them.
They finished the EarthX trilogy and it was soon announced that the two of them would team with Universe X/Paradise X artist Doug Braithwaite for Justice, with Ross painting over Braithwaite’s pencils. From the beginning, the team said that they were doing SuperFriends for the 21st century, so some readers were a bit reticent, but the first issue showed what readers were about to get. It kicked off with the end of the world, as the League failed to save the world. It’s revealed that this was a vision that the heroes and villains have been seeing, leading the Legion of Doom deciding to use their super-tech to “fix” the world so the visions never come true, with the League trying to figure out what’s going on as they are attacked from all sides.
Justice pit the two groups against each other, giving readers big superhero action set in the days of the Satellite League, when the team was at their strongest. It’s one of the best ’00s Justice League stories, with Braithwaite and Ross’s painted art giving the book an old school (Ross’s painting style was influenced by Norman Rockwell, so I always get an old school Americana feel from his work) vibe that definitely puts you in the mind of those old Justice League of America comics, all while feeling like what SuperFriends would be if it was set in the 21st century. In fact, when I look at Justice, I see the perfect prestige format TV show starring the League, proving that the SuperFriends format has legs.
Krueger and Ross were aware of what they were doing and one of the best examples is Aquaman. Ross has been talked about falling out of love with DC after the death of Arthur Jr., which was definitely a turning point in DC history. This book teases that event the whole time, all while doing everything it can to make Aquaman into a hero that you can respect, trying to undo the damage of SuperFriends. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about this story; you can feel Ross, Krueger, and Braithwaite showing us how cool the concept of SuperFriends could be with a little work. The Justice League can be something of a hard sell in 2026, but a story like Justiceproves that the team can work, even when it seems they are kind of lame.
Justice Was Able to Become the 21st Century SuperFriends In the Best Possible Way
As a SuperFriends kid, I’ve tried to go back and watch the show. It can be rough at times, because it was made for a totally different audience. However, there’s always a certain charm to seeing the greatest superheroes together. It’s why the Justice League works so well as a concept and it’s one of the reasons that Justice soars. I didn’t really go into the particulars of the story and there’s a good reason for that – I want you to go into this with the bare minimum, so you can experience the ride and what makes the book so amazing.
It takes a simple story concept – the Justice League versus the Legion of Doom – and Justicemakes it sing. There’s an argument to be made that the story was as much an advertisement for the DC Direct Justice figures (Ross-ified Bronze Age versions of numerous heroes and villains; they aren’t very poseable, but they are gorgeous) as an actual story and by the time we get the armored versions of the characters, you can see that. It was SuperFriendsin a nutshell, except instead of being the most milquetoast version of the Justice League possible, it’s become one of the coolest stories starring the team ever. It’s the perfect way to make someone a fan, which also isn’t unlike SuperFriends.
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