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

[Dataweaver]

Helena Wayne: the idea here appears to be to transplant some semblance of the Golden Age Batman onto a possible future of the mainstream Batman, and then to time-travel the resulting Huntress from that future to the present. That works reasonably well; but more could be done with it. Since time travel is involved, one could theoretically have Helena wind up in 1977 at some point and spend almost a decade there, if you want to insert her into 20th century history. Just be sure to pull her out of the Crisis before her death.

You might even be able to salvage the Golden Age Robin in a similar way: have him be Dick Grayson Jr., future son of Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon; and throw him back in time to 1976 at some point, where he ends up teaming up with the original Star Spangled Kid and Power Girl.

I don't think that's in the cards at this point, mind you; but I could see it happening somewhere down the line.

[Dataweaver]

Power Girl: I prefer her as the last survivor of the pre-Crisis Earth 2. But if she had to be integrated into the existing timeline, you could do something similar with her that was fine with Huntress: make her Supergirl's daughter in the same future that Huntress comes from, then throw her back in time to 1976.

[WonderLight789]

I thought she fought Aquaman pretty well and she busted up nazi's amazingly.

She lost to aquaman twice. And beating up nazis is not impressive.

[Midnight_v]

She lost to aquaman twice. And beating up nazis is not impressive.

Jeez... it hero vs hero the only metric of worth in your eyes? I mean there's a problem in there and that problem is probabbly that the only thing that authors can think to do is
hero vs hero for "MUH HIGH STAKES". Is beating up other hero's somehow *Impressive* to you? I mean... she kills shazam though right?

Too much emphasis is put on "my dad can beat up your dad". I mentioned this to you in the other thread, and I'll ask it again here because I feel like I SHOULD like Diana but I really feel indifferent to her. Indiffernt to dislike actually. . . as a fan of WW other than railing about how she should be considered/displayed as "Smarter than Mr. Terrific and More powerful than the farm boy" would you mind running down what's there to like about her?
I mean that not as a jerk but just wanting to know what the fans want other than feats, because I... I feel like Diana is portrayed as the punisher more than Thor or even supes. How can they fix it so she doesn't feel like she's always about just killing people. . .

[WonderLight789]

Jeez... it hero vs hero the only metric of worth in your eyes? I mean there's a problem in there and that problem is probabbly that the only thing that authors can think to do is
hero vs hero for "MUH HIGH STAKES". Is beating up other hero's somehow *Impressive* to you? I mean... she kills shazam though right?

Too much emphasis is put on "my dad can beat up your dad". I mentioned this to you in the other thread, and I'll ask it again here because I feel like I SHOULD like Diana but I really feel indifferent to her. Indiffernt to dislike actually. . . as a fan of WW other than railing about how she should be considered/displayed as "Smarter than Mr. Terrific and More powerful than the farm boy" would you mind running down what's there to like about her?
I mean that not as a jerk but just wanting to know what the fans want other than feats, because I... I feel like Diana is portrayed as the punisher more than Thor or even supes. How can they fix it so she doesn't feel like she's always about just killing people. . .

Yes. I care about power levels a lot. And if dc has failed to properly represent ww, that just goes to show they suck at handling ww. Since they reduced her to generic warrior. And they failed there too. Because for all they hype her as the best warrior in DC. Her actual skills are nowhere to be seen. Her battles are boring, and she usually gets beat all the time. So much for the best and most badass warrior.

[SiegePerilous02]

Hmm, how about making Superman and Batman immortal heroes from the 40's with two sets of Lois Lanes, Jimmy Olsens, Jim Gordons and Selina Kyles?

This. And as long as you don't go overboard on “duplicating” supporting cast (two begins to stretch credulity; three or more is clearly too many), and maybe even explain the apparent coincidence (e.g., the modern Steve Trevor was named after his WWII-era counterpart, and maybe even took up a military career because of the stories he was told about his namesake; but otherwise, he's his own man), it should be fine.

There is precedent for the idea of Clark being long lived and aging extremely slowly. That's how Alan Moore approached it in Supreme. But they are ultimately just unwilling to to deal with the headache of Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Lex, Lana etc being around in both time periods. And they probably want to avoid messing with the supporting cast like that simply because they value Superman's cast more than Diana's. Because if we go by the thought process of preserving everything that was published as it was historically published, Superman and his cast were there in the 1940s, he was among the first superheroes and the trailblazer. That's actually more important to DC's overall history than Wonder Woman being the JSA's secretary.

If they are going to needlessly complicate Diana like they are possibly planning on doing, they need to do it with Clark and Bruce as well. If they don't want to do it, then they should embrace Earth-2. Which they should do anyway, because Power Girl has always been a bit redundant on the same Earth as Supergirl.

[Dataweaver]

Be careful with your quoting. The way you put it made it look like I agree with Psy-Lock when I don't.

I agree that you could say that Superman had been around since 1940 and not be in conflict with what's been established about his potential lifespan. I just don't see much point to it, considering that Superman was never more than tangentially associated with the JSA until 1976 retconned him in. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, joined the Justice Society during its first year of publication and was an active participant throughout its initial run. The situations are not parallel.

More to the point, let's look a bit more closely at what is: New Golden Age has established Wonder Woman as a long-time member of the JSA; it has not done the same for Superman. You don't get to just wish her out of the JSA lineup. So either whine about how she doesn't fit, or find reasonable way that she could fit. I prefer the latter.

[thwhtGuardian]

Why not just create a new supporting cast for Wonder Woman in the "modern" stories and have another book in the 40's with Steve and Etta?

[Gaius]

Why not just create a new supporting cast for Wonder Woman in the "modern" stories and have another book in the 40's with Steve and Etta?

Why not just not mess with her supporting cast so the JSA can have their secretary back?

[Mantis-Ray]

Why not just not mess with her supporting cast so the JSA can have their secretary back?

Wouldn't the progressive choice be to recontextualize her role in the JSA by making her a full equal member and not just the secretary?

I feel like thats the reason why Diana is being promoted alongside the JSA.

[Dataweaver]

Why not just not mess with her supporting cast so the JSA can have their secretary back?

Better: don't make her the secretary in this version. If you're going with the story in the 80-Year special where she was presented as the inspiration for the JSA, it would make more sense that if she was offered the position of secretary at all, she would have turned it down and insisted on an equal seat at the table.

[thwhtGuardian]

Why not just not mess with her supporting cast so the JSA can have their secretary back?

Why would she be the secretary now?

[Dataweaver]

Why would she be the secretary now?

In the original stories published back in the 1940s, she was the team's secretary. But I agree with you: there's no reason to stick to that notion in today's comics.

[CaptCleghorn]

Better: don't make her the secretary in this version. If you're going with the story in the 80-Year special where she was presented as the inspiration for the JSA, it would make more sense that if she was offered the position of secretary at all, she would have turned it down and insisted on an equal seat at the table.

Make her the secretary but with the meaning of the term in a job like Secretary of Defense or other cabinet Secretaries. Keep the title but make it mean something different than what it did in the original comics.

[Gaius]

Better: don't make her the secretary in this version. If you're going with the story in the 80-Year special where she was presented as the inspiration for the JSA, it would make more sense that if she was offered the position of secretary at all, she would have turned it down and insisted on an equal seat at the table.

Better option. We don't upend an entire character to regress them back to a team that hasn't been important to her longer than it ever was important to her.

Why would she be the secretary now?

Because apparently being a secretary in the 40s is important enough for DC and fans to try and justify regressing her character even though she's moved on and been better without the JSA.