The Justice League is a Cornerstone of Superhero Mythology. First appearing in 1960, the Justice League transformed the superhero genre by consolidating DC Comics’ most powerful and recognizable characters into a single, cooperative entity. The League was not merely a team but a conceptual shift in how superhero narratives could operate—emphasizing collaboration, shared universes, and escalating stakes that exceeded the scope of individual hero stories.

Recommended reading list for this episode:

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes by Brad Ricca

Julius Schwartz: Man of Two Worlds by Brian M. Thomsen

The DC Vault by Martin Pasko

Superheroes: A Modern Mythology by Richard Reynolds

The New Mutants and the Golden Age by Marc Singer

Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet

COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.

Hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated, and TV Comics. Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine. Kevin was also the Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic, card, and toy distributor in the country, and the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic related merchandise.

Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.

This podcast is made by humans.

© Kevin Cleary 2026