Justice Society Of America - Explained

Slated to appear in The Rock's Black Adam movie, what do fans need to know about the JSA?

by Ewan Paterson
Justice Society of America Alex Ross
DC Comics/Alex Ross

DC film discourse might all just be 'Justice League' this, and '#ReleaseTheSnyderCut' that, but there's another super-team fans may want to keep an eye on.

The Justice League's forebears, the Justice Society of America, have been slated to appear in Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's long gestating Black Adam film when it finally releases December 2021. Word of their involvement comes straight from Johnson himself, who revealed that they'd have a part to play while speaking to Screen Rant in November.

Dwayne Johnson: "JSA. We will introduce you to that, the world to JSA."

News of the JSA's involvement is sure to get longtime DC readers excited, with the group being comprised of some of the more beloved if not overlooked DC superheroes of the company's Golden Age back in the 1940s. Later incarnations have brought together all of the DC universe's different generations under one banner, but the JSA are still largely synonymous with the publisher's WW2 era comics.

Given word that Black Adam will be an origin story, the team's involvement actually makes a lot of sense. Not that fans less familiar with the team won't need clueing up on who they are though. Heck, even longtime readers have found the JSA's history rather convoluted, which makes their position in recent DC media all the more intriguing.

So, from its beginnings to their middle and end, here's everything DC fans need to know about the Justice Society of America...

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.