The Justice Society of America is one of the oldest teams in DC Comics history, but in a new variant cover by Joe Quinones they are really showing their age and channeling Marvel's X-Men in the process. The new artwork for Justice Society of America #1 is straight out of the '90s, and shows off the team's more extreme side —with a big emphasis on the "X."
The Justice Society of America is both canonically and chronologically DC Comics' first and oldest group of superheroes. Their first appearance dates back to the 1940s, in All-Star Comics #3 by Gardner Fox and Everett E. Hibbard. The original roster consisted of the Atom, Doctor Fate, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hourman, Sandman, the Spectre, and the Jay Garrick version as the Flash. This team would go through several retcons over the decades, becoming first an alternate Earth-Two version of the Justice League of America, and then the established Earth-Prime predecessors to the JLA. Most recently, the Justice Society returned to the center stage after the death of the Justice League in Dark Crisis of Infinite Earths.
They are now headlining their own new series, and to celebrate the release of Justice Society of America #1 by Geoff Johns and Mikel Janin, artist Joe Quinones created this 1990s inspired variant cover. It shows the team remade in glorious costumes reminiscent of an era in comics when everything had to be extreme and clad in leather jackets. In fact, no team better optimized this time in comics history than the X-Men, and there is no doubt the Quinones is drawing heavy inspiration from the Marvel team of mutants.
Each JSA member appears to embody a member of the X-Men from the time of their iconic cartoon show. First and foremost, Doctor Fate looks a lot like Cable or even Shatterstar, with his tattooed glowing eye, oversized shoulder pad, and unnecessarily large knife. Behind him stands a bear-chested Wildcat taking on a very Wolverine-like pose. Flying above them, Black Canary is wearing an outfit that is a combination of her own costume and Psylocke. Green Lantern strikes a Gambit-like pose, while Hawk-Girl flies in wearing her best Rogue cosplay complimented by Arc-Angel wings. Flash zooms by in a jacket that hints at an influence from Longshot, while Starman crouches in Hot Topic's most extreme black leather trench coat.
While the JSA has returned to comics, they will never be able to escape their classic Golden Age aesthetics. However, in new variant artwork for Justice Society of America #1, Quinones takes that idea and plays with it. And in the process the Justice Society of America evokes Marvel's iconic '90s version of the X-Men, another super-team from a bygone era.