Originally Posted by
bat39
I think now might be a good time to dust off my Earth 2 theory for the JSA again, since I feel it has the potential to address a lot of the issues you guys have been discussing.
I'm going to be a bit more elaborate this time.
Okay, so the JSA was active all through the 1940's during WW2, up till around 1951, when they were disbanded due to the House of Un-American Activities.
Sometime not long after this, some kind of event brings the JSA back together. I haven't figured out the exact nature of this threat yet. But this crisis leads to the JSA being removed from Earth 0. Either the threat (someone like Doc Manhattan maybe) purges the JSA from Earth 0 by shunting them off into another earth. Or to protect the JSA, or to protect earth from becoming a target because of the JSA, some more bening force (the early Rebirth comics hinted at Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt) sends the JSA to another earth. Either way, they're gone from Earth 0. Maybe all memory is wiped of them. Or maybe, since they had already disbanded, the world didn't notice them missing and as time went by, they faded further and further into myth (the US Government no doubt also further suppressed knowledge of the JSA's wartime activities and circumstances of their disbanding). So decades later, they are more like myths and stories - maybe inspirations for films, documentaries, conspiracy theories and of course, comic books! (the latter being read by one Barry Allen, among others).
Now, as for the JSA...they and their near and dear ones end up on another earth. Whether its some kind of artificially created realm, a pocket universe, or straight-up another earth in the Multiverse I'm not fully clear on right now. For the sake of simplicity, I'll just say its another earth that we're going to call Earth 2. The JSA themselves have no knowledge of what has happened. They just carry on living their lives on this earth. Many of them get married and start having kids.
In 1963, Jay Garrick is visited by the Flash of Earth 0, Barry Allen. Barry of course comes from what, to Jay, is the future - they chalk it up to how time runs differently on both worlds. This leads to the revival of the JSA on Earth 2, and frequent team-ups with the JLA on Earth 0 (they probably call it ''Earth One''). These team-ups continue over the course of the next 22 years for the JSA, while for the JLA, only a few years pass. By 1985, on Earth 2, the JSA heroes are in their sixties, and many of them have kids who are young adults, who form the Infinity Inc.
Then the Crisis hits, and in its aftermath, Earth 2 is either 'destroyed' or 'reabsorbed' into Earth 0. The JSA now find themselves back on Earth 0 in the 21st century. From the perspective of Earth 0, they've been missing for close to 60 years (and counting, with the sliding timescale) and have faded to myth, while for them, its only been around 30 years or so. I'm not clear on when and how they figure out that they were always from Earth 0 and who put them on Earth 2. Maybe they figure out the former after the Crisis, and the latter is something they will discover in the Infinite Frontier era.
Anyway, the end result is that the JSA is back on Earth 0. Another decade passes, during the course of which, we see the modern iterations of the team. The original JSA members are in their seventies or eighties - most of them old and retired, some of them have passed away. A few like Alan, Jay and Ted, have been kept artificially young by various means. The Infinity Inc generation are now in their late twenties or early thirties, same as the original Teen Titans generation.
Now, there are a few specific characters tied to both the JSA and JLA eras where I still need to work things out. They are:
1. Wonder Woman. This one is a bit straightforward. Diana was with the JSA in WW2 but returned to Themyscera before the early 1950's and thus wasn't sent to Earth 2 with the rest of them. Its possible however that her memories of the JSA too were suppressed when they went to Earth 2 (which explains why she didn't remember them during the JLA/JSA team-ups later). Or Diana died during whatever event sent the JSA to Earth 2 and she was resurrected on Themyscera with no memory of her past, to go to Man's World again. Or Wonder Woman does disappear from Earth 0 and go to Earth 2, but the Gods and Hippolyta, believing her dead, recreate/resurrect her and there are two Wonder Womans (and the JSA one dies during the Crisis).
2. Black Canary. This one is really tricky and I haven't figured it out to be honest. Either Dinah Laurel is a descendant of Dinah Drake (assuming Dinah Drake had a child on Earth 0 who then didn't get transported to Earth 2 in 1951), or Dinah Laurel was born on Earth 2 and moved to Earth 0 after the deaths of her parents during the JLA era. Maybe Dinah Laurel, as a child, when she developed her Canary Cry, managed to somehow break the dimensional barrier to Earth 0, but lost her memories in the process, grew up on Earth 0 believing herself to be an orphan, and only learns her true origins during the JLA/JSA team-ups? This one needs some work.
3. Power Girl. Somehow we haven't talked about her at all. Hers was already the most convoluted Post-Crisis origin of all the Earth 2 characters and its about to get worse now. I suppose the easiest thing to stick to would be ''She's a refugee from the original Pre-COIE Multiverse'' and leave it at that.'' But that doesn't do much to explain how she relates to the Earth 0 JSA (who also spent time on an Earth 2, but not necessarily the one PG came from). Another possibility is that she's native to the Earth 2 where the JSA'ers spent 30-odd years...maybe that earth had its own Superman and Lois and Krypton who resemble the classic Earth 2 versions? And that she made it to Earth 0 with them after the Crisis but unlike them, she doesn't actually belong to Earth 0? I dunno, this is a tricky one.
Thoughts?