The “New” History of the JSA: *New Golden Age SPOILERS*

[Frontier]

Mediocre, in other words.

I actually thought her portrayal was pretty solid there. I know people harp on her fight with Aquaman (and forgetting about the Lasso of Truth) a lot but I thought they depicted her as an effective fighter, leader, and even romantic.

[dswynne]

I got it.

We know that certain characters are "time locked", depending upon the needs of DC. Superman, Batman and a few other characters can't be members of the JSA because they are "locked" as "modern" characters. However, we can solve this by having it that the JSA, on Earth-Zero, had interactions with alternate timeline/dimension versions of modern heroes. Example: Earth-S still exists, so you can still have it that the Marvel Family from THAT Earth visited the JSA on Earth-Zero, thus making the ALL-STAR SQUADRON #36 AND #37 in continuity. Batman and Superman? TIME TRAVEL. And besides, Superman and Batman were honorary members who only appeared in a few issues. And the reason for all this? Well, the so-called "golden age" had a mixture of super-science, mad science, occult mysticism, etc. thrown in, particularly from the Nazis and their Thule Society folks. You could make up a reason why suddenly, you had a huge influx of metahumans springing up, then a lull, then a spike. The reasons could be anything, from someone doing something, to a prelude of things to come. Just need to be creative about it. As to Alan Scott, Jay Garrick and other heroes still being around? A combination of things, ranging from being stuck in Ragnorak for a number of years, to the energies of the Green Lantern and Speed Force keeping their respective user young, etc. But the main thing is to have fun with the fiction. Wel don't have to over think anything about this...

[Bored at 3:00AM]

No, we need to kneecap an entire character so we can get her back to a team not even her creator wanted her on.

I don't think we want to dig too deeply into what Diana's creator really wanted

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

So far, Khalid hasn't been written well (and he's white-washed) in the story, but the story does seem to be treating Kent like an actual character and with prominence in the story too, which is promising, but I'd still hold off on the series if you're in it primarily for Doctor Fate.

The story has the whole "Doctor Fates are getting murdered!" and there's even a page of just *dead Doctor Fates. DC doesn't exactly have the best trek record when it comes to Doctor Fate. In general, they seem to treat the character(s) pretty damn terribly.

*By the way, shout out to any Jared Steven fans because they have the worst: the only times Jared Steven gets to appear is apparently as a corpse. That's his fun cameos.

It was really shitty that Goyer and Robinson basically did to Jared Stevens what the Kyle Raynor haters wanted done to him. Killed off in only two panels. And this was pre-Didio.

[Menacer]

This is kind of a chicken and an egg situation then. We can't restore WW's JSA history because DC messed up her backstory so if he do that we'd be messing up the backstory that we originally screwed up which would screw up her former backstory which screwed up the backstories of a bunch of other characters.

DC's continuity has been a mess since 1986. There's no putting the humpty dumpty of DC continuity back together again so I've got no problem with them adding back more elements that creators haven't been able to explore through a modern perspective yet. Diana's time in the JSA is exactly that kind of thing.

If any creators want WW to only be a modern age superhero, they don't need to mention her 1940s exploits, just like Superman creators don't need to bring up Superboy or Lex Luthor in Smallville...unless they want to.

Like I said, any hope of DC having some kind of tight internally consistent continuity sailed a couple decades ago. I say embrace the messiness of it all and just let creators tell the stories they want.

I doubt continuity was in any better shape in the 50s, 60s, or 70s either. Any long form serial stuff from any publisher anywhere with hordes of writers over decades has contradictions....

Peoples obsession with continuity is ridiculous.

And your point is exactly right. If a writer references it then it's relevant to the story. If not, then ignore it.

Continuity has never been a struggle for me... maybe partly cause my memory isn't as meticulously as some on here. But also cause I don't go looking for contradictions. I'm just here for a good time.

[Factor]

There really is no good way to keep Diana as World War II/JSA character AND a modern day hero. If it must be done, do a Earth-Prime/Earth-2 deal. Trying to have it both ways does nothing but hurt the character.

Her origin is simple, direct, and powerful. She was raised on Themyscira. Steve Trevor crashed onto the island, heralding it was time for a Champion. She wins the Contest, goes to the Man's World, becomes Wonder Woman.

Any solution to threading this needle demands extraneous lore dumps, reducing her and her supporting cast to interchangeable ciphers, and worst of all, cheapens and dilutes everything about her.

Steve crashed onto the island during World War II, but the one running around now is his descendant who happens to look the same, act the same, has the same relationship with Diana, and even has the same name. Did he also crash onto Themyscira? Did Diana find him and ponder, "Oh. Another one. Guess we're doing this again." Two Steves, zero substance.
Or he died and was resurrected. Or he was put in stasis. Or he went to Themyscira and it turns out time moves differently there.

When people say continuity keeps new fans from getting into comics, this is the bullshit they're talking about.

Then there's Diana herself. She fought in World War II and then gave up and went home for a couple of decades until she decided to come back. I think it's great that DC seems determined to make being a quitter who took her ball and went home an integral part of Diana's history.
Or she went to another dimension. Or she died and came back again. Or blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

And, of course, there's the added bonus of Diana being de-powered. Because whenever Wonder Woman is in World War II with the JSA, she can only operated at a fraction of her strength. Because otherwise why would she need a team and why didn't she win WWII by herself?
Oh, but let's dump more lore and contrivances to make sense of this. I guess the gods took away her powers on the first go, but gave them back when she returned in modern day. Or maybe she needed to earn them? Or maybe after WWII she went into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and became the legendary Super Amazon, and that's where she's been all this time.

And I have to ask, what benefit does this serve? What is gained by adding all this needless complication to Wonder Woman?

The Justice Society gets their secretary back. F**k-a-doodle-doo. Totally worth shackling Diana to this train and dragging her through the dirt because it makes a pretty picture.


Wonder Woman would be better off if she existed in her own universe unrelated to the DCU. The cons of a shared universe vastly outweigh the pros, and I would gladly bin the few positives she gets out of it.

And for the record, Superman and Shazam would also be better off on their own, but that's another topic.

I couldn’t agree more with this point, this “everything matters” BS just makes everything inaccessible, not only to new readers but also old ones.
It’s hard to form an emotional connection with characters if you never really know what were the formative events in their lives. It’s why a lot of current interactions between characters seem so void. There’s no history there anymore.
DC would be much better served by having one concise main continuity and exploring other concepts in books set in the multiverse.
WW debuting during WWII works great for a classic Earth-2 approach, not the main Earth as it is now.

[HsssH]

I doubt continuity was in any better shape in the 50s, 60s, or 70s either. Any long form serial stuff from any publisher anywhere with hordes of writers over decades has contradictions....

It was better simply due to there being less stories published.

[Alpha]

Wow, you guys don't understand what "Infinite Frontier" means. This isn't the same thing as Morrison's Batman run.

"Everything Happened" means that the history of the DC universe was rewritten many times by many reboots, and many characters can now remember the various versions of history. Wonder Woman remembers the golden age, the silver age reboot, the post crisis reboot, the Infinite Crisis reboot, the New 52 reboot, the Rebirth reboot. It's all from a different version of history, but she can remember it all.

What isn't clear is if Geoff Johns understands this and is following this. Helena Bertinelli seems to be from Earth 2 or something like it. Is the JSA we are seeing from Earth 2? That still has to be answered.

[red winter]

I'm really curious in fact, I got to say that I'm intrigued so much that I can't wait for JSA to come out.

[Dataweaver]

Wow, you guys don't understand what "Infinite Frontier" means. This isn't the same thing as Morrison's Batman run.

"Everything Happened" means that the history of the DC universe was rewritten many times by many reboots, and many characters can now remember the various versions of history. Wonder Woman remembers the golden age, the silver age reboot, the post crisis reboot, the Infinite Crisis reboot, the New 52 reboot, the Rebirth reboot. It's all from a different version of history, but she can remember it all.

What isn't clear is if Geoff Johns understands this and is following this. Helena Bertinelli seems to be from Earth 2 or something like it. Is the JSA we are seeing from Earth 2? That still has to be answered.

Geoff Johns understand it; he's the guy who introduced the notion that the history of the DCU was rewritten many times. See Doomsday Clock.

Bear in mind, though, that the “everything happened” notion started to get rolled back in Infinite Frontier, when it was revealed that the “restored memories of everything” were far from universal. This means that writers are free to use or ignore the “Everything Happened” concept.

[Dataweaver]

Just do what the 70s TV show did. Season 1 was set in World War II, but then it retooled to the present day. They kept Steve's actor on and had him playing Steve's namesake grandson.

Power Girl should just keep her original alternate universe origin.

When the All-Star Squadron comics were published, Shazam was still an AU, wasn't it (Earth-S)? And nowadays they're simply not there on account of having been rebooted at least twice (when they were folded into the DC universe, and in New 52).

Plastic Man is immortal, so yeah, it's entirely possible for him to be in the ASS.

Both Steve and Etta should just be descendants of 1940s namesakes. Of course this explains why modern Etta is black and classic Etta is white, too.
They definitely are not. You do know Karen's getting a backup story in Action Comics, right?

And if you don't like the ickiness of Golden Age Steve Trevor cheating on Diana or Diana eventually dating her own grandson (the two options you'd have to deal with by making modern-day Steve the descendant of Golden Age Steve), incorporate part of the post-Crisis retooling of Lyta's backstory: she was raised by Derek and Joan Trevor as much as by her biological mother. Then give Derek and Joan a modern-day grandson named Steve.

[Will Evans]

And if you don't like the ickiness of Golden Age Steve Trevor cheating on Diana or Diana eventually dating her own grandson (the two options you'd have to deal with by making modern-day Steve the descendant of Golden Age Steve), incorporate part of the post-Crisis retooling of Lyta's backstory: she was raised by Derek and Joan Trevor as much as by her biological mother. Then give Derek and Joan a modern-day grandson named Steve.

You guys are making it more and more complicated for new readers and whenever they adapt things to other media.

You’re just asking for another Didio situation, where the new new publisher comes in, sees your scenario and decides to kill off all of them because that sounds too complicated.

The goal is streamline not make it more convoluted.

[CaptCleghorn]

You guys are making it more and more complicated for new readers and whenever they adapt things to other media.

You’re just asking for another Didio situation, where the new new publisher comes in, sees your scenario and decides to kill off all of them because that sounds too complicated.

The goal is streamline not make it more convoluted.

That is the goal. However it is far more easily said than done. The continuity has shifted considerably for many of these characters and taking out and putting back years of life and story is not a simple task. I can easily accept the fact that a perfect solution and reassembling of a character's continuity is impossible. However, there is a level of careful work and research that should be done. DC has rarely done that in its near constant revamping of their characters' histories.

[Psy-lock]

And if you don't like the ickiness of Golden Age Steve Trevor cheating on Diana or Diana eventually dating her own grandson (the two options you'd have to deal with by making modern-day Steve the descendant of Golden Age Steve), incorporate part of the post-Crisis retooling of Lyta's backstory: she was raised by Derek and Joan Trevor as much as by her biological mother. Then give Derek and Joan a modern-day grandson named Steve.

The idea of Diana dating two military men who look and act exactly the same and have the same name is icky in itself.

[WonderLight789]

Yeah, I don't think removing Wonder Woman from parts of the DCU that haven't served her well is a great idea given that even her own solo book hasn't done a particularly great job at that.

You might as well just remove the character from the DCU entirely

That wpuld be perfect. Remove WW from the large dcu. She has heen treated like trash gor the majority of her 81 years in events and team book. It is obvious they will never treat her with any kind of respect. People expecting things to improve are fooling themselves.