While the official origin-story of the Justice League had been re-told several times, Englehart decided to tell a "prequel-to-the-origin," which posits that a few dozen heroes rallied to prevent a Martian invasion but kept their activities quiet in order to prevent an eruption of mass hysteria. The invasion concerns the attempt of several White Martians to capture and slay J'onn J'onzz, who has not yet become publicly known as an alien, non-human hero. But because no League yet existed, nearly every hero who had a feature in 1959 ends up volunteering to suss out the source of the alien problem, including the Blackhawks, the Challengers of the Unknown, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Congorilla, and Rex the Wonder Dog. (Possibly for sentiment's sake, the script also includes Plastic Man, who was technically owned by DC at the time but who hadn't appeared on any comics-pages since his Quality title ceased publication.) Several other featured characters don't join the crusade but still end up making cameos, such as Rip Hunter and Adam Strange.
Englehart is clearly not claiming that he thinks this motley crew could've made a good Justice League. Rather, he's simply celebrating the curious history of DC Comics at that time, when the Flash was the only retooled version of a Golden Age character on newsstands. Hal Jordan, not yet in the role of Green Lantern, also gets a cameo, and also foreshadows the near-total dominance of superheroes over most though not all of DC's universe. Most of the non-superhero characters who appear in "Minus One" don't keep their features for the remnant of the Silver Age, and the few that survive a little longer are certainly not in the forefront of DC's publishing schedule. It's a story that celebrates the oddball era that gave birth to a lot of minor characters, but also to J'onn J'onzz, who probably would have died out along with Rex the Dog and Roy Raymond-- had it not been for the Justice League.
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