Should DC have let go of WWII?

[DrNewGod]

I love the JSA, and I dearly loved Roy Thomas' All-Star Squadron. It was a bold, and an amazing effort it comic book story telling.

That said, looking at DC's continuity problems more than 30 years later, I don't know how smart it was to anchor the JSA's original era in WWII. In fact, I consider it the second worst mistake DC ever made with its properties.

I get it: there's simply no more heroic American image than Fightin' The Nazi's To Prevent World Domination By Evil!

Still, it makes the characters a bit problematic as time goes by. Properties like Infinity, Inc. become untenable because their inception date is carved in stone, and you have a hard time explaining how a young Hector Hall can conceivably be Carter and Sheira Hall's son. So, would it have been better to unplug the JSA's roots from that moment in history, and allow their origins to "float" approximately "30 years ago?"

[DrNewGod]

Oops! Mod, I meant to put this on the DC forum. Can you move it?

[Trey Strain]

Absolutely they should have dropped it. That was the most obvious thing in the world. It was going to become more of a problem with each passing year.

Anyway, Americans have a romantic image of WW2 that Europeans and Asians don't share, because no battles were waged inside the United States and there were no mass slaughters of civilians here. Only Americans want to cling to it.

[Duskman]

Maybe the problem isn't WWII, the problem is insisting on continuously using the same characters in the present day who are anchored to a specific time. The various decades of the 1900s are all effectively period piece eras now, and I think if you really want to continue using characters constrained by a specific origin point, you should be doing stories set in those time periods, or, DC (and Marvel) should allow characters to age and pass on their legacies. If the mantles of Golden Age WWII era heroes would have passed down two or three generations by this point, than they should be allowed to pass down and progress.

[MajorHoy]

. . . Properties like Infinity, Inc. become untenable because their inception date is carved in stone, and you have a hard time explaining how a young Hector Hall can conceivably be Carter and Sheira Hall's son.

I wasn't aware the birth dates of the Infinity Inc. members were "carved in stone". Those can still float somewhat if their parents are aging at an unusual rate compared to "normal" people.
And Carter and Shiera are strange examples to use about parents and their ages considering the reincarnation angles.

So, would it have been better to unplug the JSA's roots from that moment in history, and allow their origins to "float" approximately "30 years ago?"

No. That would cause them to lose their uniqueness and just become another "old" superhero group with no real distinction or purpose.

Absolutely they should have dropped it. That was the most obvious thing in the world. It was going to become more of a problem with each passing year.

No, not really. It wasn't like they were trying to keep every single member of the JSA eternally young. Certain members did pass away, and some did remain somewhat younger/more active than others of their generation through various unusual means like magic and the Speed Force (or whatever was doing it for Jay).

Anyway, Americans have a romantic image of WW2 that Europeans and Asians don't share, because no battles were waged inside the United States . . .

You mean like Pearl Harbor? It may not have been a state back then, but it was still a U.S. territory.

[Powerboy]

Maybe the problem isn't WWII, the problem is insisting on continuously using the same characters in the present day who are anchored to a specific time. The various decades of the 1900s are all effectively period piece eras now, and I think if you really want to continue using characters constrained by a specific origin point, you should be doing stories set in those time periods, or, DC (and Marvel) should allow characters to age and pass on their legacies. If the mantles of Golden Age WWII era heroes would have passed down two or three generations by this point, than they should be allowed to pass down and progress.

Depends on what you mean. If the DC characters who started in the 1930s and 1940s (not retcons but actual characters like Superman and Batman) were gone by now and passed on their legacies, Marvel would roll over them like a tank.

If Marvel had the characters who really started in the 1960s simply pass on their legacies and age and die, DC would roll over them like a tank.

Now maybe that's not what you mean. Maybe you just mean the Justice Society but that also was a choice. They don't have to be anchored to a past time. Some characters are better for being anchored to a certain time period. I almost can't imagine Captain America not being locked into WWII though I could see an opposite kind of Cap by this time whose origin was in Vietnam, gets frozen and comes to the present with an anti-government, huge distrust of the military factor.

[CaptCleghorn]

I wasn't aware the birth dates of the Infinity Inc. members were "carved in stone". Those can still float somewhat if their parents are aging at an unusual rate compared to "normal" people.
And Carter and Shiera are strange examples to use about parents and their ages considering the reincarnation angles.

The dating can come from the age of the mothers of II needing to be young enough to give birth plus the 20ish age of the Infinitors making the spread of then to now less and less likely as time progresses.

[Duskman]

Depends on what you mean. If the DC characters who started in the 1930s and 1940s (not retcons but actual characters like Superman and Batman) were gone by now and passed on their legacies, Marvel would roll over them like a tank.

If Marvel had the characters who really started in the 1960s simply pass on their legacies and age and die, DC would roll over them like a tank.

Now maybe that's not what you mean. Maybe you just mean the Justice Society but that also was a choice. They don't have to be anchored to a past time. Some characters are better for being anchored to a certain time period. I almost can't imagine Captain America not being locked into WWII though I could see an opposite kind of Cap by this time whose origin was in Vietnam, gets frozen and comes to the present with an anti-government, huge distrust of the military factor.

No, I've always had a problem with the failure of Legacy to take hold in DC and Marvel. I totally understand why they do it, people expect Batman to be Bruce Wayne, not Dick or Tim or Bruce Junior or whoever. But multiple times, it seems DC at least has tried to move on with a character by having a kid or a sidekick take up the mantle, only for the original hero to have to come back, usually through convolution, to retake the mantle, while the intended inheritor gets relegated to the side again, if not totally forgotten.

The last time a legacy passing worked, it seems was the Silver Age, which DC did via reboots and multiverse shenanigans (Barry wasn't Jay's sidekick, Barry was a re-imagining of the Flash that actually stuck). Yeah, the original Superman and Wonder Woman could still be around today even if they canonically first appeared in the late 30s, but really, Bruce Batman should be long dead or retired by now, hell, Dick Grayson should be retired by now after a stint as Batman, and maybe Tim was his Robin and is now Batman. You could probably do a Lazarus Pit story to keep Batman young and strong in the modern era, but some might say that's a step too far for his character concept (despite his other blatantly superhuman attributes).

It's wishful thinking that'll never happen, but it would be one way to solve the issue. The other way would be to just do a full reboot every ten years, and rejig the timeline to account for the increasing gaps in time between, say, the JSA showing up in the 40s, and whatever the modern rendition of the recycled hero is now. Which DC's done several times, to be sure, but I don't know that it's really worked out that cleanly.

[DrNewGod]

No, I've always had a problem with the failure of Legacy to take hold in DC and Marvel. I totally understand why they do it, people expect Batman to be Bruce Wayne, not Dick or Tim or Bruce Junior or whoever. But multiple times, it seems DC at least has tried to move on with a character by having a kid or a sidekick take up the mantle, only for the original hero to have to come back, usually through convolution, to retake the mantle, while the intended inheritor gets relegated to the side again, if not totally forgotten.

The last time a legacy passing worked, it seems was the Silver Age, which DC did via reboots and multiverse shenanigans (Barry wasn't Jay's sidekick, Barry was a re-imagining of the Flash that actually stuck). Yeah, the original Superman and Wonder Woman could still be around today even if they canonically first appeared in the late 30s, but really, Bruce Batman should be long dead or retired by now, hell, Dick Grayson should be retired by now after a stint as Batman, and maybe Tim was his Robin and is now Batman. You could probably do a Lazarus Pit story to keep Batman young and strong in the modern era, but some might say that's a step too far for his character concept (despite his other blatantly superhuman attributes).

It's wishful thinking that'll never happen, but it would be one way to solve the issue. The other way would be to just do a full reboot every ten years, and rejig the timeline to account for the increasing gaps in time between, say, the JSA showing up in the 40s, and whatever the modern rendition of the recycled hero is now. Which DC's done several times, to be sure, but I don't know that it's really worked out that cleanly.

I used to feel the same way that you do, but I've come to agree that it's a selfish take on iconic character brands. They should be available for and accessible to the next generation, without them having to wade through 32 years of where did the cape come from?

The dating can come from the age of the mothers of II needing to be young enough to give birth plus the 20ish age of the Infinitors making the spread of then to now less and less likely as time progresses.

Yeah...that's a terrible idea in any era, but especially in the #MeToo environment, and it gets progressively creepier as the papas continue to get more ancient than the mamas.

...I almost can't imagine Captain America not being locked into WWII though I could see an opposite kind of Cap by this time whose origin was in Vietnam, gets frozen and comes to the present with an anti-government, huge distrust of the military factor.

Thing is, Cap's got a relatively clever out: he skipped over the passing time without aging through it. His man-out-of-time thing has proven a pretty durable schtick, and as long as Marvel time-shifts his defrosting date (as they continually have), there's no issue there. It's not the same thing that the JSA is experiencing.

[MajorHoy]

. . . I almost can't imagine Captain America not being locked into WWII though I could see an opposite kind of Cap by this time whose origin was in Vietnam, gets frozen and comes to the present with an anti-government, huge distrust of the military factor.

Is that sort-of what Marvel tried in the Ultimate universe? (Didn't read it, so don't know the specifics . . . )

The dating can come from the age of the mothers of II needing to be young enough to give birth plus the 20ish age of the Infinitors making the spread of then to now less and less likely as time progresses.

Well, how many of their mothers who weren't also members of the JSA have been specified as to who they were and if they were the same age (or thereabouts) as the fathers?
Also, since we haven't seen any of the members of Infinity Inc. since before Flashpoint (have we?) outside of Convergence, we don't even know if/how they may be coming back or not. (We don't even know what happened to the JSA besides the idea they supposedly disappeared from the HUAC hearing back in the early 1950s!)
As I've repeated before, until we know what DC is doing about returning the JSA and explaining what (if anything) happened with them between the time they supposedly disappeared and the "present", it's pointless to bring their offspring and how old they are into this. Until we know if/how much of the JSA's post-Golden Age history is kept, we don't know if any of the members of the JSA could be parents yet or not.

[CaptCleghorn]

Well, how many of their mothers who weren't also members of the JSA have been specified as to who they were and if they were the same age (or thereabouts) as the fathers?
Also, since we haven't seen any of the members of Infinity Inc. since before Flashpoint (have we?) outside of Convergence, we don't even know if/how they may be coming back or not. (We don't even know what happened to the JSA besides the idea they supposedly disappeared from the HUAC hearing back in the early 1950s!)
As I've repeated before, until we know what DC is doing about returning the JSA and explaining what (if anything) happened with them between the time they supposedly disappeared and the "present", it's pointless to bring their offspring and how old they are into this. Until we know if/how much of the JSA's post-Golden Age history is kept, we don't know if any of the members of the JSA could be parents yet or not.

It certainly could be a pointless discussion, but in all honestly, couldn't the vast majority of these threads be considered pointless?

[CaptCleghorn]

Thing is, Cap's got a relatively clever out: he skipped over the passing time without aging through it. His man-out-of-time thing has proven a pretty durable schtick, and as long as Marvel time-shifts his defrosting date (as they continually have), there's no issue there. It's not the same thing that the JSA is experiencing.

A timeshift seems to be a workable solution and one that could fit in with the JSA's 1950's disappearance. Given that Johnny Thunder's gone from almost 99 to pushing 101 since the Rebirth special, something like this is needed. If anyone is keeping track, this seems to be a likely outcome.

[MajorHoy]

A timeshift seems to be a workable solution and one that could fit in with the JSA's 1950's disappearance. Given that Johnny Thunder's gone from almost 99 to pushing 101 since the Rebirth special, something like this is needed. If anyone is keeping track, this seems to be a likely outcome.

The JSA already had a "timeshift"-shtick:


Ragnarök

[MajorHoy]

I haven't read any new DC books except Green Lantern books in a long time, but I wonder i Black Canary is still around?

Yes. She's been around since the start of the New52 back in 2011.

I believe Golden Age Dinah Drake used to be Green Arrow's lover after her husband was killed. Now it was retconned as her daughter.

Yes, that confusing mess lasted from 1983 until after CoIE in 1986.




Once there was the "single Earth" after CoIE, they just made the Black Canary who was now a founding member of the JLA the Golden Age Black Canary's daughter from the very start.

[DrNewGod]

The JSA already had a "timeshift"-shtick:


Ragnarök

Y ah, but they were already old when they went into Ragnarok. They got their youth back in hile there, but got instantly old again, and even aged more on returning.