Age Difference Between The Justice League

[Timothy Hunter]

DC has always been stubborn in terms of giving away the ages of their characters, but have there been any hints about which Leaguers are older and younger than others?

Here are all the clues I can gather

-Bruce Wayne was 26 when he started his career as Batman according to Batman Year One

-During the 80s and 90s, Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan aged more rapidly than their peers in the original Justice League. Queen turned 40 years old in the Longbow Hunters, and Jordan gained white streaks of hair in his 90s ongoing. This might insinuate that Green Lantern and Green Arrow are older than most of the original League.

Dinah might be the oldest in the current continuity due to Wonder Woman 750 retconning her to be actives during World War Two. This was NOT the case in Earth One, Post Crisis, and and the New Fifty Two.

[The Darknight Detective]

DC has always been stubborn in terms of giving away the ages of their characters,

Post-COIE, yes, but they were pretty straight about the ages during the Bronze Age.

[Jim Kelly]

29 all of 'em.

[BatmanJones]

29 all of 'em.

Pretty sure that this (or 28) was the official position up until the 70s at least. I feel like that was a direct answer from Bob Rozakis, DC’s “Answer Man.”

[Lightning63]

During the 80s and 90s, Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan aged more rapidly than their peers in the original Justice League. Queen turned 40 years old in the Longbow Hunters, and Jordan gained white streaks of hair in his 90s ongoing. This might insinuate that Green Lantern and Green Arrow are older than most of the original League.

Johns' run said that Hal's grey hair was caused by stress from parallax rather than age.

[Johnny]

Oliver and Hal can't be older than the rest anymore, not that it ever made sense for them to be in the first place. How can Hal Jordan be a decade or so older than a guy who's raised 4 generations of Robins.

[Tzigone]

Oliver and Hal can't be older than the rest anymore, not that it ever made sense for them to be in the first place. How can Hal Jordan be a decade or so older than a guy who's raised 4 generations of Robins.

Agreed. Canon and continuity being the wibbly wobbyly thing it is, I tend to go by starting age (age at hero debut) and adjust relative to how much the then-kid generation aged (and their aging may be determined by how old they were when subsequent kid-generations were introduced and how much those kids have aged) to more say how old they should be, rather that how old DC says they are. So Wally was 14 when Hal was introduced - how old is Wally "now"? Well, he turned 21 before Jason died, IIRC. Jason was probably 13 (was in 7th grade) when he died, though moved up to 15 later. Tim was same or two years younger (depending on timeframe) than Jason. I prefer same age, but most don't. So Tim was 17 (I think) when Damian was 10. Is Damian 14 yet - I remember him being made 13, but haven't read in a while. If he's 14, then Tim and Jason should be 21, and thus Wally almost 30. If Hal was in his late '20s when introduced (I remember shortly after he left Coast City, he was said to have fought in Korean War), then he's mid 40s now. But, of course, DC won't keep the relative ages consistent, and won't let heroes get too old.

Hope I have those ages straight and didn't futz up my math.

Ollie, I'm unsure on. I haven't read many golden age Green Arrow stories, and was never sure if he was actually an archaeologist or just a hobbyist collector (and I'm not talking about later retcons for Earth 2). The former would take additional years of schooling. Still would say no more than half a dozen years older than Bruce.

In silver/bronze age, I'm fairly sure Barry had his 10 year college reunion, then a few years later had his 10-year high school reunion. They call him "young" all the time in narration, so I tend to go with the latter, and make him 27ish on hero debut.

I prefer golden age continuity, where Bruce had been Batman only a year when Dick became Robin (at age 10-12), so generally set him 26 when Dick became Robin (based on the idea of him being 10 in the "15 years ago" flash back, but up to 13 is reasonable, IMO), then add on years for how old each old Robin was when each new Robin was introduced. Which, of course, has no bearing on current continuity.

Dinah, with her universe-crossing (I don't prefer legacy version), is a weird one, since the JSA gets pegged in time, and the JLA doesn't. I just say she debuted between WW and the Flash and was early-to-mid-twenties at the time.

Ray (the Atom) was a young professional at the time of his debut - both he and Carol were still trying to establish themselves in their careers (which involved further education after college). So similarly aged to Barry to me.

Never really had a sense of age for Arthur in the old days.

[Superfly Frankenstein]

If we go by the old Zero Hour timeline, the only TRUE age we know is that Clark became Superman when he was 23 IIRC. We can figure Batman first appeared a few weeks/months later, and he was 26. I’m not gonna touch WonderWoman. For Barry to have graduated college and secured a job with Central City PD, we will say he was about 23. Hal looks to have lived a life and isn’t completely wet behind the ears, so he got his ring at about 26. I always found Ollie to be older than the others, so I’ll put his first appearance as GA at 30.

We have a baseline there.

Let’s say 13 year old Dick became Robin in year 3. We can then peg Speedy, Wally, etc right around 13.

Dick was Robin until 18, making Batman 33. Jason was Robin at 14 for a year, then a year later, 11 year old Tim took the mantle. This would be year 10, the same year Superman died at the age of 33.

Now, it gets tricky.

Using the conundrum of the time issues presently, Superman returns within 3 months of his death, Batman’s back is broken at age 36, Barry died around year 8 at 31 making Wally 19 when he became Flash. Hal gets the Paralax treatment at age 36 and Ollie dies at 40. Somewhere around Final Night, Superman gets married and within two years, Jon is born. So we will say year 11, and Clark is 34.

Jon is (before the age up) 10 in present day (year 21) which means. Clark is 44, Bruce 47, Barry would be 44, Hal 47, and Ollie 51. Dick and his contemporaries are around 30. Tim and his group are just over 20.

Of course, this is head canon mixed with what little logistics I could apply.

[John Venus]

I thought Bruce was 24 when he started.

Hal and Ollie being older pre-Nu52 made sense to me. Ollie has a whole backstory about being a spoiled rich playboy before getting trapped on an island for x amount of years until he managed to escape. I could easily see him being 28-30 years old when he started operating. Hal is a test pilot when he started out. If he is experienced he should at least be in his 30's, Johns deaged him and whilst I can buy Hal having pre mature gray hair, I thought having it be a result of Parallax influencing him was a step too far.

[Timothy Hunter]

Johns' run said that Hal's grey hair was caused by stress from parallax rather than age.

That's right. Kevin Smith's Green Arrow also explained that Oliver's Resurrection deaged him slightly. The Parallax thing was a retcon by Johns to make Hal appear younger. The intent of giving him streaks of grey in his hair initially was to show his age in the present, compared to his youth in Emerald Dawn.