In the 80s, shortly before Crisis on Infinite Earths the Justice League was transformed into what may be its lowest form of all time - Justice League Detroit. Justice League Detroit was the result of, I believe, comic writers having an identity crisis in an attempt to revitalize the League and appeal to 'the kids'. It was a truly spectacular rejection of everything that made the JLA good, in favor of doing a terrible parody of another successful comic.

First, what was the JLA? Well, the idea behind the Justice League of America was that it was a place to see the greatest superheroes DC had to offer. It was supposed to offer a wide variety of different heroes who would not otherwise interact, and it would showcase both the most popular DC characters and up-and-coming heroes DC wanted to promote. This is an important point when it comes to the kinds of heroes who were on the League. There were two main criteria for would-be joiners - they had to be established heroes, and (for a long time) they couldn't be duplicates.

The established heroes rule meant that DC did not invent new heroes to put on the League - all members had to be established in other DC properties. The duplicate rule is a little more complicated as I am unsure as whether it was a rule for the writers or just a retroactive rule in continuity, but it prevented multiple heroes with the same power or gimmick from being on the League. For example, you couldn't have two arrow-guys, or Kryptonians. This effectively kept out many Leaguers female counterparts like Hawkgirl for a long time, and I may do a chapter on it later.

Overall, though, the League was a place for the best of the best, the big guns of the DC Universe. The draw was that they could take on the biggest villains, the greatest threats - that you could see the greatest heroes DC had to offer interact with each other every time you picked up a comic.

This concept kept the League in business for a while… which brings us to the New Teen Titans.

The Teen Titans in general are no stranger to inventing members from whole cloth. The character of Wonder Girl herself was invented for the original Teen Titans… even if her creation was an accident. When the New Teen Titans rolled around, the creation of the team was far more deliberate than DC had ever seen before. Instead of simply pulling all available existing characters, the selection process was made based on which characters had the powers and personalities the writers wanted to mesh into their perfect team.

Instead of reusing all the old Teen Titans, they were selective. Powerhouses Wonder Girl and Kid Flash were redrafted, along with, of course, their fearless leader Robin. Beast Boy, a previous side character, was renamed to Changeling and given a makeover. The remaining characters, Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg were all original creations, and they were custom built to serve multiple purposes - one of which being that they were all gender or racial minorities.

The New Teen Titans were situated in the middle of the city instead of in space like the JLA, their adventures were more grounded, and their interpersonal dynamics took front and center. They were fantastic, quickly became a world-wide phenomenon and began crushing other DC offerings, including Justice League, in comic sales.

While I have no confirmation of this, I am quite confident that DC looked at New Teen Titans and decided to turn the Justice League into the NTT in as many ways as possible. This went as terribly as you'd suspect.

In dedication to the cause, The Justice League proceeded to dump almost every heavy hitter and big name on the League, resulting in a significantly weaker team. They relocated the headquarters from space to an incredibly boring building in Detroit and they created several new members from scratch.

Now, every step of this is terrible, so let's break it down.

First of all - losing the big names. Characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and other long-time members were booted off the team, leaving precious few powerful members. The new team was led by Aquaman. Until he quit. The JLA was known for its important characters, so losing most of those characters lost a huge portion of the draw.

Second - the location. The stupid building in Detroit is one of the most boring headquarters known to man, but what they try to do with it is worse. Their presence in the nondescript brick building is supposed to be a secret, but the entire freaking neighborhood knows about it but keeps their secret because… you mess with one of us you mess with all of us? Literally everyone is just fine keeping this secret. Now, Teen Titans did a great job incorporating the city and having it feel important to their characters. Justice League Detroit… doesn't. At all. It is a set-piece and a backdrop, and when it is used, it's usually very heavy-handed.

Third - the new characters. Oh, the new characters. We're spending a lot of time here. So, the New Teen Titans did a great job crafting their characters. They came with complex personalities that would play well off each other, they each had their own plotlines and backstories - each character was a work of love that remains beloved to this day. Justice League Detroit introduced Vixen, Steel, Vibe and Gypsy. Now, Vixen actually did make an appearance in one or two issues before this, while the others were completely fabricated.

Steel is extremely boring - I don't have much to say about him. He's a white legacy character to a better character from All Star Squadron who operated in the 40s, and the comic takes the 'lets make an old character look bad to make our guy look good rout' which is… always great.

Everyone else is some kind of minority (again, think New Teen Titans) except unlike New Teen Titans… they're all complete stereotypes which is… almost impressive.

I have the least to say about Vibe so we'll start there. Vibe is latino. Defining personality traits include having been in a gang, extreme use of slang, being hotheaded and breakdancing. That pretty much sums him up. When they revealed his code-name in the Flash TV show and I realized Cisco was actually vibe from Justice League Detroit… I almost had a heart attack. He is good in The Flash, in case you were wondering.

Then we have Gypsy. First of all, Gypsy is white. This has not stopped DC from basing her entire character on stereotypes. She lives on the streets and steals for a living, which was a big deal back then. Readers were horrified that DC would bring out a hero who steals regularly, so I would like you to understand that this was not at all normalized for non-Gypsy characters. DC did say in an editorial that she doesn't steal things but this is never shown in continuity and no other explanation for her survival is given.

Gypsy's main personality trait is that she is a chronic liar. Or at least, this is what DC would like us to believe. Characters constantly talk about what a liar she is and how she can't be trusted because she keeps giving ludicrous explanations for her backstory - but they're always so over the top and ever-changing that she clearly isn't trying to convince anyone of anything, she's just avoiding the question. Still, it is very important to DC that you perceive her as a liar. Even her power is lying, because she casts illusions. In case you were wondering, Gypsy is a teenage girl and she got to join the League because she wouldn't stop breaking into their headquarters and hanging out, in case you needed more evidence of how incompetent JL Detroit is.

Finally we come to Vixen. Vixen is the first black person to join the League in an official capacity, as far as I can tell. Technically the League has teamed up with black characters before - notably extending an invitation to Black Lightning and working on several occasions with John Stewart when Hal Jordan was incapacitated, but neither of them properly joined. It took a long time to finally have not-white people on the League… and we get this. Now, Vixen is a fairly popular character now-a-days and I want to clarify that she has indeed improved over the years. Regardless I am quite annoyed with her initial appearance because I feel like I can imagine exactly what happened in the writers room.

For comparison, New Teen Titans did great with Cyborg. He has a fully fleshed out backstory, personality and powers. Even if you removed his race you'd still have a great character, but he's better because he is black. It's an important part of his backstory, and NTT did a great job of writing plots where it was explored sometimes - and when it wasn't being explored he was still amazing. His character came first, always. And while it is, of course, quite possible to have great characters for whom race does come first and is a cornerstone (you couldn't, for example, whitewash Black Lightning without losing huge chunks of an amazing character)... this greatness is not what happened with Vixen.

With Vixen I am confident that the writers room sat down and asked… 'What's a good character for a black woman?' and then proceeded to cram as many stereotypes as possible into one woman. Vixen comes from Africa, and her gimmick is a magical amulet that lets her channel the spirits of the animals. And when I say 'channel the spirit of the animals' I mean that she had a tendency to also become extremely animalistic and commit murder sometimes. Referring you back to Gypsy… normal heroes back then did not commit murder. Sometimes they would accidently get people killed - but not on purpose. And when I say normal I do mean white. Vixen kills a man and then proceeds to spend the rest of the comic evading the police and refusing to turn herself in which is also very unusual. Also she's a supermodel as well, so we can check the 'hyper sexualize the minority' box as well. Vixen's entire deal is being an attractive murderous animalistic magic woman and frankly it wouldn't bother me so much if every other minority character they introduced wasn't also a stereotype. I would also like to point out that there is a difference between a character like Black Lightning where race is a vital component of the character, and early Vixen where racial stereotypes are the character.

If it was just Vixen… well, maybe that's a fluke. Sure, it looks a little bad, but this could be an accident. But when every single new minority character you've created is such an extreme stereotype then you've got a problem. Thankfully Vixen has gotten more character nowadays, and Vibe has gotten lots of love from the Flash show. Gypsy and Steel seem to be mostly unknown, but I don't lose any sleep over that.

Needless to say, this… bold new direction was not very well received by fans, and the next iteration of the JLA would undo many of these steps.