Joshua Williamson killed the Justice League to make a point about how many times the Justice League has been killed
Earlier this year, Joshua Williamson had the curious experience of watching his fiction become reality. By the time DC Comics announced that the Justice League would die a spectacular death in Justice League #75, the writer had already finished writing the issue and writing introductory issues of Dark Crisis — the upcoming crossover about everything that happens afterward.
In his scripts, friends, families, and peers of the League grappled with the deaths of the world’s greatest heroes, choosing to mourn, disbelieve, freak out, or simply shrug and say “Whatever, they always come back.” And then, of course, DC Comics made its announcement, and Williams saw every one of those potential stances reflected in actual fans.
“It’s been fascinating to watch the range of reactions [to the death of the Justice League],” he told Polygon over Zoom. “Some people are skeptical and very dismissive of it. But on the other side of that there are people who are really upset, and really concerned, and they worry because they believe it. It’s just fascinating to watch that in the real world [...] [while] having our characters react the same way.”
That, to Williamson, seems very much the point of Dark Crisis. “I think the conversations that we [readers] have here, [the characters] would also have. If we want the characters to be smart, they’re going to also observe things that we observe of their lives. And every once in a while, they’re going to talk about it.”
“Some of them are going to believe it,” he said, referring to what’s to come in the pages of Dark Crisis #1, which hits shelves on June 7. “Some of them aren’t going to believe it, some are going to be like, Oh, they always come back. OK, nothing to worry about. Some people are
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