As the JSA returns, how should DC handle the fact that they basically failed?

[DrNewGod]

You mean how they are viewed in universe by say the average person on the street, or how WE as fans view them? If it's the former, I'm not sure blame would attach to them for failing to stop the sort of societal ills they may be suffering; that was never their job after all. They exist to stop supervillains, alien invasions, bank robbers, and save people from natural disasters. Beyond that, it's the responsibility of society as a whole to fix societal level problems; no one person, not matter how physically powerful, can do that, and no small group can either, not without rather a lot of help. I think most people living in the DCU would think that the JSA are very, very good at their jobs, but that they aren't God.

As for us, well, the other thread shows that.

It's an interesting question though, about how much can such a group actually do. And one interestingly that has been addressed perhaps more with the League than the Society, though the Gog arc did sort of also address that issue, with Gog's gifts turning out to have strings, and perhaps to be unsustainable.

I recall a line from the "Justice League 1,000,000" arc, where (I think it was Starman speaking to Flash) on hearing what the far future was going to be like said (paraphrase) "That crazy dream we had of a better world actually came true."

I suppose part of the reason I posed the OP question came from looking at people aging now, and looking back on the older people I remember. Especially those who eagerly threw themselves into WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as idealistic youths, many seem to wonder how it all went so wrong. All they sacrificed and achieved, and they still watch on as the US declines as a world power. I suspect we're seeing a lot of that from 9-11 volunteers that isn't openly expressed, or that gets masked by other slogans of frustration, like MAGA.

I acknowledge that not everything that has occurred over the last 80 years has been bad. We finally seem to be looking systemic racism in the eye (I hope). There have been unbelievable advances in medicine. Technology has reached such heights that the most avant-garde science fiction of even 30 years ago seems cheesily quaint now.

At the same time, wealth is more concentrated in the US than it has been since the Gilded Age. Totalitarianism is at least as prolific and fecund around the world as it as ever in history. The US is more divided than it has been in 50 years. At least two of our branches of government are as corrupt as anything Washington has ever seen. In other words, many of the evils the JSA spent their glory years skinning their knuckles on seem to be thriving.

If dumped into the here and now, I could see guys like Wildcat and The Atom just shaking their heads and disgustedly accepting it. All they were ever trying to do was punch a few thugs in the face. But Flash? Green Lantern? They and Johnny Thunder held World Changing Power. They were - literally - miracle-makers, and they threw all of themselves into the fight for a better tomorrow.

I can't help wondering, if the JSA were returned to a DC here and now via something like a time jump how their various characters would likely to react to the kind of America they'd find?

[achilles]

I doubt they'd be too surprised. Remember, they're experienced and not stupid. Doesn't Superman call it the never ending struggle or something like that? They all known that it's always a struggle.

[feenix219]

They already did that with the JSA over the years. Starting back in the 80s when they wrote America vs the Justice Society.

It deal with the McCarthyism from the 1950s and the untold tale how the JSA had to deal with it.

Sad part is McCarthy was completely correct, and should have been listened to. Our institutions are infested with communists.

[Robanker]

Sad part is McCarthy was completely correct, and should have been listened to. Our institutions are infested with communists.

Communists aren't the Boogeyman and there are worse things gripping America than a different method of government. Take off the tinfoil hat.

McCarthy brought a second wave of witch hunts akin to Salem where Americans turned on each other, causing mass paranoia and making the populace easy to control. He was not right. He was a fear monger trying to divide a nation.

[Jon Clark]

Communists aren't the Boogeyman and there are worse things gripping America than a different method of government. Take off the tinfoil hat.

McCarthy brought a second wave of witch hunts akin to Salem where Americans turned on each other, causing mass paranoia and making the populace easy to control. He was not right. He was a fear monger trying to divide a nation.

The part that I'll never understand is that less than a decade after fighting the Nazis, the US fell under the sway of a movement that used the same tactics. Hitler targeted racial groups and tarred them all with a one-size-fits-all brush, and McCarthy/HUAC took the same brush to political viewpoints. The irony would be high comedy if it wasn't for all the lives ruined.

[Flash Gordon]

It's sad how quickly McCarthy and his ilk used Nazi tactics to create chaos and destroy people with a different opinion from his own warped worldview.

In a beautiful comic book world, HUAC should have ended with Alan Scott dragging McCarthy off to jail.

[Jon Clark]

It's sad how quickly McCarthy and his ilk used Nazi tactics to create chaos and destroy people with a different opinion from his own warped worldview.

In a beautiful comic book world, HUAC should have ended with Alan Scott dragging McCarthy off to jail.

Except these were legally elected officials. What precedent is set if you say the JSA can defy Congress and arrest it's members? What if it was the person "arrested" was who you voted for the prior November- would you see the JSA as heroic or as bullies? Is the JSA really less dangerous that McCarthy if they use their powers to arrest politicians who question them?

[achilles]

Except these were legally elected officials. What precedent is set if you say the JSA can defy Congress and arrest it's members? What if it was the person "arrested" was who you voted for the prior November- would you see the JSA as heroic or as bullies? Is the JSA really less dangerous that McCarthy if they use their powers to arrest politicians who question them?

True. While I support the idea of justice done to people like that, it HAS to be done by those with the right to do so; to do otherwise reeks nearly as much and for similar reasons as what the man actually did. And it would do irreparable damage to our system, which is something Alan and Jay would understand and respect, if not perhaps Ted or Carter. Besides, there is no takedown of McCarthy nearly as great as the actual one by US Army lawyer Joseph Nye Welch, with his famous and iconic lines "Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?", and Edward R. Murrow's great words from "See it Now". "Good Night and Good Luck" is a great movie about the era, and especially about Murrow, played there by David Strathairn.

[Flash Gordon]

Except these were legally elected officials. What precedent is set if you say the JSA can defy Congress and arrest it's members? What if it was the person "arrested" was who you voted for the prior November- would you see the JSA as heroic or as bullies? Is the JSA really less dangerous that McCarthy if they use their powers to arrest politicians who question them?

Legally elected in the state of Wisconsin, yet attempting to lord over the entire United States.

[Jon Clark]

Legally elected in the state of Wisconsin, yet attempting to lord over the entire United States.

And Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff were only elected by people in California but as members of Congress legally have influence over the whole country. That's how our system works- the states all elect people to go to Washington and those people make laws that affect the whole country. Joe McCarthy and HUAC were exercising the same power the Watergate Commission, the Impeachments of Clinton & Trump, the Warren Commission and Congressional committees have over the past two centuries.

You can see what McCarthy did as an abuse of power, but it wasn't an illegal one. You could defang the Senator as was done in the Army hearings achilles mentioned, but you couldn't arrest him or any members of HUAC as no laws were technically broken. Any of the JSA trying to arrest or remove those congressmen from office would be the actual criminals.

And while I love the work Roy Thomas put into America Vs the JSA I think the original story worked better as Paul Levitz stressed that the team was taken down by politics and not supervillains. The HUAC using democratically granted legal authority in real life did something no cosmic being in the comics ever did- took down the JSA so hard they vanished for over a decade. Makes ol' Tailgunner Joe more frightening than the whole ISA combined ... and he should be. In Thomas' story the puppet-master is a comic book character. It would be like having 9/11 in the comics shown to be planned by the Joker or Luthor. somehow undercutting the threat 19 everyday people actually posed.

[Flash Gordon]

That's something I don't think holds up about Robinson's THE GOLDEN AGE, and I love Robinson universally. The villain being an actual supervillain and not just a superhero turned fascist (which really is not a big stretch, as a lot of these might makes right types already dip deep into fascism) or a regular man. It undercuts the genuine drama.

[DrNewGod]

It's sad how quickly McCarthy and his ilk used Nazi tactics to create chaos and destroy people with a different opinion from his own warped worldview.

In a beautiful comic book world, HUAC should have ended with Alan Scott dragging McCarthy off to jail.

Except these were legally elected officials. What precedent is set if you say the JSA can defy Congress and arrest it's members? What if it was the person "arrested" was who you voted for the prior November- would you see the JSA as heroic or as bullies? Is the JSA really less dangerous that McCarthy if they use their powers to arrest politicians who question them?

Legally elected in the state of Wisconsin, yet attempting to lord over the entire United States.

Jon Clark has a point. Rather than dragging McCarthy off to the hoosegow, the better answer might have been for Green Lantern to out McCarthy's sketchy behavior, making it easier for the US electorate and institutions to defang him (that's basically what he did to the corrupt politician in his All-Star Comics #3 feature. Otherwise, the JSA only replaces the tyrant rather than defeating him. After all, locally elected politicians have also imposed their agenda on the nation in passing Civil Rights and Environmental legislation, usually over the blood-curdling howls of their opponents from other regions.

That's something I don't think holds up about Robinson's THE GOLDEN AGE, and I love Robinson universally. The villain being an actual supervillain and not just a superhero turned fascist (which really is not a big stretch, as a lot of these might makes right types already dip deep into fascism) or a regular man. It undercuts the genuine drama.

I agree with you on that. I can see how it was too tempting to pass up the shock value the Ultra-Humanite's signature technology provides, but Dan could easily have been a corrupted figure rather than the same, tired old retread-nazi trope, and the story really did need a home-grown fascist in the mix. The Atom played that last role to some degree, but not with commitment, and Robot Man was so alien in the story, it didn't convey the weight the idea needed.