Should the comic book origin of the JSA be revised to include Wonder Woman?

[HsssH]

I loathe these attempts at regressing Wonder Woman and completely upending her entire status quo and supporting cast just to shoehorn her back onto a team that hasn't been important to her longer than most fans have been alive. The only worse retcons in Wonder Woman history are Daddy Zeus and her deadbeat brother, a fitting collection of creatively bankrupt ideas.

Let's just get through all the arguments:

1. WW2 and the JSA are just not important enough facets of her character history to where they can't be easily replaced as has been shown in multiple stories like G&Ms, Year One, or even the first movie.

2 I've never heard a convincing argument for why she's more "tied" to WW2 than either Superman or Batman are to WW2 or the 30s who do not have to deal with this nonsense.

3 Pretty much all attempts I've seen to try and have it where she debuted in WW2, quit like a coward, came back in modern times so Supes can still be #1, and somehow Steve and Etta are still young (or their coincidentally identical descendants) are the kind of stuff that get superhero comics rightfully mocked and laughed at.

4 No interest in Hippolyta on the JSA either. Yeah, Diana ain't a Legacy character to a title that only exists because of her. You don't do that with Superman or Batman, you don't get do it with Wonder Woman. Hippolyta being an epic hero from the ancient past like seen in Perez's run or Historia is far more impactful for that character and Diana than having her run around failing to stop Hitler.

I like Zeus origin, but other than that 100% agree with what you wrote.

If WW is to be in original JSA then she should change the world and that is going to happen only on alternate Earth so no point in doing it on the main Earth.

[CaptCleghorn]

I like Zeus origin, but other than that 100% agree with what you wrote.

If WW is to be in original JSA then she should change the world and that is going to happen only on alternate Earth so no point in doing it on the main Earth.

I've long made the argument that bringing the JSA to DC's main Earth made their presence through the Golden Age years irrelevant. In order to maintain a planet like the one we live on for the arrival of the Silver Age heroes, the JSA (and ASS) did nothing to impact history. Wonder Woman not changing the world? I agree 100%. But the same should apply to the entire JSA as well.

[astro@work]

I've long made the argument that bringing the JSA to DC's main Earth made their presence through the Golden Age years irrelevant. In order to maintain a planet like the one we live on for the arrival of the Silver Age heroes, the JSA (and ASS) did nothing to impact history. Wonder Woman not changing the world? I agree 100%. But the same should apply to the entire JSA as well.

Didn't the Spear of Destiny explain why the JSA wasn't able to turn the tide in WW II regardless of which Earth they lived on? The Golden Age stories showed plenty of instances where they fought the good fight but didn't end the war. I do think the widening gap between World War II/The HUAC hearings of 1952 and the present creates a greater window of believability that modern generations wouldn't feel a connection to the JSA on Prime Earth and would therefore see the dawn of the Silver Age heroes as something brand new.

Not arguing for or against clutter Earth here, just saying the GA heroes didn't change the course of history on Earth 2 either, other than battling many homeland villains.

[Digifiend]

Yeah. In the real world, there are no supervillains either. That's the difference the JSA made. They defeated the supervillains so that everything else could play out as it did in the real world.

Yes, I wasn't blaming COIE but the tweaking that came afterwards in a lot of "re-introduction" of characters.

Byrne wiping out Superboy eventually destroyed the Legion. Wonder Woman and Hawkworld did the same to Donna, Katar, and Shayera.

Wonder Woman's reboot nuked Lilith Clay's origin as well.

[GreyFox]

I tend to think the JSA should be set on a separate earth for that reason, a closer to the original reboot "Earth-Two" set in the 70's where there is an Atompunk Solar System, the Soviets are a major presence, and the Magic Robot Nazis managed to escape from Antarctica to the Moon, and are now an interplanetary threat.

[CaptCleghorn]

Didn't the Spear of Destiny explain why the JSA wasn't able to turn the tide in WW II regardless of which Earth they lived on? The Golden Age stories showed plenty of instances where they fought the good fight but didn't end the war. I do think the widening gap between World War II/The HUAC hearings of 1952 and the present creates a greater window of believability that modern generations wouldn't feel a connection to the JSA on Prime Earth and would therefore see the dawn of the Silver Age heroes as something brand new.

Not arguing for or against clutter Earth here, just saying the GA heroes didn't change the course of history on Earth 2 either, other than battling many homeland villains.

The Spear of Destiny was the reason given for this. It somehow kept the super-powered heroes from going into and fighting Germany. But even that wouldn't have stopped Green Lantern from flying into space and raining meteorites down on Berlin and Tokyo. In any case, the JSA didn't win the war or change the world in any noticeable fashion. There was also a belief that having the JSA take a major part in winning the war would minimize the contributions and sacrifices of real life people fighting the war. But making a change would have been a lot more than just winning WW2. If we look at present day DC Earth, we see a planet that is superior technologically to ours. That is due to the heroes actions, other scientists in the DC Universe, and alien contact.

[bat39]

Yeah. In the real world, there are no supervillains either. That's the difference the JSA made. They defeated the supervillains so that everything else could play out as it did in the real world.

Yeah honestly I never get the argument that "The JSA did nothing during WW2".

In current continuity, Superman has been around 15-20 years and its not as though the 2023 in the DCU is radically different from our real-world 2023, barring the existence of superheroes and villains, and some advanced tech (a lot of it alien in origin). And there's not even a Spear of Destiny to restrain Superman and the JLA right now!

Its a conceit of the mainstream superhero genre that they inhabit a heightened version of the 'real world' - except for stories which specifically seek to delve into the implications that superheroes have on the world, and which are thus set in (or create) alternate realities. I'm talking about stuff like Watchmen, or Flashpoint, or Kingdom Come.

[jaygon]

I don't think it got fully rebooted out until the New 52, which took an axe to Wonder Woman's entire history. Prior to that it was still canon, just very rarely mentioned. Paul Dini showed Hippolyta as part of the JSA in a flashback from Streets of Gotham, so it still seemed to be in continuity before Flashpoint reset everything.

Has Hippolyta been depicted in this way (via flashback) in any other comic outside Streets of Gotham 2006-2011?

Also, I was never clear if her time as WW in the then-present had been erased post-IC. Her time with the JL, the Amazonian Civil War, her death in OWAW etc.

The only place I can remember seeing Hipployta depicted in costume post-IC is the cover for WW (Vol 3) 1 and a cameo in JSA Classified 11.

[Dataweaver]

Yeah honestly I never get the argument that "The JSA did nothing during WW2".

In current continuity, Superman has been around 15-20 years and its not as though the 2023 in the DCU is radically different from our real-world 2023, barring the existence of superheroes and villains, and some advanced tech (a lot of it alien in origin). And there's not even a Spear of Destiny to restrain Superman and the JLA right now!

Its a conceit of the mainstream superhero genre that they inhabit a heightened version of the 'real world' - except for stories which specifically seek to delve into the implications that superheroes have on the world, and which are thus set in (or create) alternate realities. I'm talking about stuff like Watchmen, or Flashpoint, or Kingdom Come.

Or The Authority, which I've heard described as “what if superheroes decided to fix the world's problems, whether we wanted them to or not?”

And bringing this back to Wonder Woman: the argument against putting her in the JSA appears to be that the JSA is somehow not good enough for her. Basically, it's an argument from people who have no respect for the JSA, viewing it at best as a “has-been” team. So putting her on the team during their Golden Age somehow lessens her? I just don't see it.

[bardkeep]

I loathe these attempts at regressing Wonder Woman and completely upending her entire status quo and supporting cast just to shoehorn her back onto a team that hasn't been important to her longer than most fans have been alive. The only worse retcons in Wonder Woman history are Daddy Zeus and her deadbeat brother, a fitting collection of creatively bankrupt ideas.

Let's just get through all the arguments:

1. WW2 and the JSA are just not important enough facets of her character history to where they can't be easily replaced as has been shown in multiple stories like G&Ms, Year One, or even the first movie.

2 I've never heard a convincing argument for why she's more "tied" to WW2 than either Superman or Batman are to WW2 or the 30s who do not have to deal with this nonsense.

3 Pretty much all attempts I've seen to try and have it where she debuted in WW2, quit like a coward, came back in modern times so Supes can still be #1, and somehow Steve and Etta are still young (or their coincidentally identical descendants) are the kind of stuff that get superhero comics rightfully mocked and laughed at.

4 No interest in Hippolyta on the JSA either. Yeah, Diana ain't a Legacy character to a title that only exists because of her. You don't do that with Superman or Batman, you don't get do it with Wonder Woman. Hippolyta being an epic hero from the ancient past like seen in Perez's run or Historia is far more impactful for that character and Diana than having her run around failing to stop Hitler.

100% agree with everything here. I'd rather Hippolyta be on the JSA than Diana but I'm not particularly into either. And unless they completely upend her entire origin story where Steve is the catalyst for her departure from Themyscira (which makes about as much sense as saying Superman wasn't raised on a farm in Kansas), you have no choice but to gut her supporting cast.

I'd add another thing, which is that Wonder Woman is a really bizarre choice for the first superhero. She's not Captain America or even Superman. She's (A) a woman, (B) obscenely powerful, (C) from a hidden island of women with magic and all sorts of mysterious tech, (D) raised by a culture with no concept of sexual orientation, race, gender roles, capitalism, etc., and (E) literal living evidence that the Greek gods are real. And that's something her most iconic writers have addressed at length - Perez and Rucka's first run spent a lot of time exploring the sorts of moral panics she'd cause, and those were stories set in the late '80s/early '90s and mid-aughts. Yes, it's comics and they're goofy, but making her the first superhero is like skipping past gunpowder and going straight to nukes.

[dswynne]

100% agree with everything here. I'd rather Hippolyta be on the JSA than Diana but I'm not particularly into either. And unless they completely upend her entire origin story where Steve is the catalyst for her departure from Themyscira (which makes about as much sense as saying Superman wasn't raised on a farm in Kansas), you have no choice but to gut her supporting cast.

I'd add another thing, which is that Wonder Woman is a really bizarre choice for the first superhero. She's not Captain America or even Superman. She's (A) a woman, (B) obscenely powerful, (C) from a hidden island of women with magic and all sorts of mysterious tech, (D) raised by a culture with no concept of sexual orientation, race, gender roles, capitalism, etc., and (E) literal living evidence that the Greek gods are real. And that's something her most iconic writers have addressed at length - Perez and Rucka's first run spent a lot of time exploring the sorts of moral panics she'd cause, and those were stories set in the late '80s/early '90s and mid-aughts. Yes, it's comics and they're goofy, but making her the first superhero is like skipping past gunpowder and going straight to nukes.

I don't know. Considering the times, if you see a) a woman who is (b) obscenely powerful, and who (c) hails from a mythological island with all sorts of magic tech, (d) raised by exotic women warriors, and who (e) worships living gods, I'd be amazed and inspired by this mysterious "woman of wonder" myself, especially as a "minority"/PoC.

BTW, I would highly recommend PROMETHEA (by Alan Moore and JH Williams III). IMO, hands down, the best "Wonder Woman" book out there.

[Sandy Hausler]

I'm all in favor of NOT changing JSA history any more than necessary. It's established that Diana was active in 1939, but that doesn't mean she needs to have been an active member from the get-go.
From The Golden Age/JSA#1 (forget which), it's also established that Diana was there at the HUAC hearings in 1952 (same as the original story), but unclear about when she joined the team.
She's also NOT present with the original membership seen in JSA#2.

Just my opinion, but I'd say let her join the JSA with the same timing as the original Golden Age All-Star Comics stories...but maybe let her be a little more active initially (like she was in the later All-Star stories).

I tend to agree. Of course, Wonder Woman should have been a charter member of the JSA, but so what that she wasn't. It was the 1940s.

[Lightning Rider]

So she's a quitter. A quitter and a loser who took her ball and went home because being a hero was too hard for her.
The mighty Wonder Woman, immortal warrior with god-like power who faces down the worst evils of the world, completely caved because Joe McCarthy yelled at her.

lmao, way to extrapolate the worst possible version of what I said. There could be a hundred reasons why she had to go back to Themyscira, HUAC or not, that don't diminish her character.

[John Venus]

I don't know. Considering the times, if you see a) a woman who is (b) obscenely powerful, and who (c) hails from a mythological island with all sorts of magic tech, (d) raised by exotic women warriors, and who (e) worships living gods, I'd be amazed and inspired by this mysterious "woman of wonder" myself, especially as a "minority"/PoC.

BTW, I would highly recommend PROMETHEA (by Alan Moore and JH Williams III). IMO, hands down, the best "Wonder Woman" book out there.

The point is that if someone like WW showed up in the 40's, the present day is not going to resemble anything close to what we are living now. The same can't be said for the other members of the JSA who could all conceivably be sweeped under the rug. WW was designed to be a status quo buster.

[Dataweaver]

I'll grant that Wonder Woman is more of a status quo buster than the others; but the others are status quo busters too, in their own ways.