Left Behind: Tethering DC Heroes to their Original Eras

[ducklord]

Here's a thing I've been contemplating about the DCU recently - tying certain characters to the eras they were originally introduced.

As we all know, the modern DCU timeline operates with a floating "now" that always nudges forward over time. Superman always debuted somewhere around 20 years ago, the Titans always formed for the first time around 15 years ago, and so on.

As a consequence, the gap between DC's Golden Age of super-heroes (aka the WWII era) and the Modern Age keeps getting wider and wider. And that's, y'know, fine. In some ways that widening gap between these two eras makes the explosion of modern day super heroes in the DCU all the more exciting - for decades after the Golden Age there were practically no super-heroes, then BAM, Superman shows up and suddenly the skies are thick with 'em. Cool.

But that also means that there are more and more decades in which the DCU, there's really a dearth of *any* established adventurers, 'cause DC keeps dragging *all* of them into the Modern Age.

Me, I say, leave a few of them in the past. The ones that are evocative of a particular era, that don't really stomp all over the (soft) "no costumed super-heroes between the Golden and Modern Ages" rule. Let the spirit of adventure live in the DCU during these decades, but at a low boil.

Here's a few of my proposals, by era:

The Golden Age
Pinned to the Past
As it is now, I'd keep almost all of the Golden Age super-heroes pinned to their original era. Most of them are so identified with WWII it'd be a hassle to move them anywhere else.

Allowed to Slide Forward
Zatara, since his whole story is tied to his daughter in the Modern Age (and since he's less of a super-hero and more of an adventurer) should be allowed to slide up in the timeline as necessary.

Debatable Characters
Should Plastic Man slide up? Should Wonder Woman debut in the Golden Age? What about Black Canary?

The Silver Age
Pinned to the Past
* Captain Comet - As one of the very first Silver Age characters, and one with an extremely Silver Age vibe, I believe that Mr. Blake's initial adventures should be set in the early 50's, more or less at the time they were published. Given his mutant status, and the fact that he spends so much time in space, him having decades of adventures far from Earth wouldn't muck up the timeline too much. Plus, I like the idea of a 90+ year old Captain Comet, nigh-immortal, wandering the universe looking for adventures.
* J'Onn J'Onnz - I imagine J'Onn, living in secrecy for decades, taking on any number of disguises, before Superman shows up and he decides it's time to go public.
* Challengers of the Unknown - The proto-Fantastic Four just feel like they should be fighting giant monsters in the 60's, don't they? Besides, I think they're immortal these days, too (there's a lot of that going around).
* The Sea Devils, Cave Carson, and Rip Hunter's Time Masters - All of these groups are extremely Silver Age-y in nature, fit the "adventurers, not super-heroes" bill, and probably should be characters of their time, sez I. The Sea Devils in particular seem ripe for having a multigenerational legacy that stretches into the Modern Age.

Debatable Characters
* The Inferior Five feel like characters that could have been failed attempts at a new generations of super-heroes.
* Some might suggest that Hawk and Dove could be tied to the 60's, but I think their concept easily shifts forward in time. Plus, they're wayyyy tied to the Titans.

Now it gets trickier, because the shared universe of the DCU starts getting more interconnected, making it harder to pin characters to the past. That said, I've got a few...
The Bronze Age
Pinned to the Past
* Prez - Granted, Prez's connection to the main DCU is tenuous at best. But as we get further and further into the future, the idea that in the late 70's, Prez Rickard was a successful president of the USA for two terms (a la Neil Gaiman) holds more an more appeal.
* Black Orchid - Just because.
* The Freedom Fighters - I don't know how, but I just really like the idea of an Uncle Sam-led team being active during the Bicentennial.

Debatable Characters
* Black Lightning - His original stories were SUCH a product of the time, that it would feel damn cool to pin his origins back to the 70's. But I realize that having a 70+ year old Black LIghtning running around the modern DCU is probably a non-starter.

After the, I've got virtually nothing. The post-Crisis DCU is so interconnected that the notion of making *any* character a period character seems too difficult to pull off. I suppose you could make an argument that Fate could retconned to be a character forever pinned to the 90's.

What do you think? Am I missing any obvious characters that should be pinned to the original eras? Is the whole idea silly in the first place?

[Jim Kelly]

I'm in favour of this idea. However, the one character from the 1940s you unpinned is one of the ones I would pin--Zatara. I have my own fan fiction for Zatara--not that that counts for anything--and I see Zatara as having certain mystic associations that would allow him to be around in the past and in modern times. Likewise, just how and when he fathered Zatanna is something that could be explained in the fantastic realm. I'm not a fan of the back story Gerry Conway invented for him.

Plastic Man is so indestructible (I was just reading one of his early stories where he's completely flattened by a steamroller and is no worse for wear), he could easily be immortal. And Woozy Winks was protected from harm by Mother Nature, so he also could be nearly immortal.

I agree with most of your choices for the 1950s and 1960s. I think the original Doom Patrol can be pinned to the 1960s--they all "died" by the end of the 1960s--the T.V. show put their origins in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s--that still allows the modern Doom Patrol to exist in the present. The Inferior Five should be in the 1960s, because it's a parody of the 1960s. There can be other Inferiors Five, but those should be parodies of the current era.

I would like somehow for the mod Diana Prince to exist in the late 1960s and early 1970s. If she was a separate character from Princess Diana--originally Diana Prince was Wonder Woman's double and had her own life--she could have had her own adventures with a blind gentleman from the far east.

Prez doesn't fit in the regular timeline. The comic was presented as a "What-If." It was also a parody and not meant to be taken seriously. There was one issue of SUPERGIRL where she met Prez--but that story makes no sense. I would put Prez in the 1970s, but keep him in a completely different universe from the rest of them.

Jack Knight has to be in the 1990s. He's a character that belongs to that era of so-called slackers. The 1990s define him. And since he's interacting with characters from the 1940s and 1950s, the further on in time he exists the more untethered he becomes to any of those supporting characters.

[Riv86672]

Really interesting idea(s).

Without going point by point,
Captain Comet being a fifties hero, gone to space and able to show back up due to his powers is pretty much his deal right now so that works.

Same w. Martian Manhunter. He fits w. that fifties alien invasion movie craze, and goes public when the time is right.

I def. agree w. The Doom Patrol and Challengers being sixties era characters.

Black Lightning being a seventies blaxploitation type hero works for me. And, his powers keeping him in his prime (a little grey in his hair to show his age) is an easy fix to have him around in the present, adding an extra layer to him as an elder statesman in the superhero community.

Jim Kelly’s Jack Knight suggestion is great and makes perfect sense character wise.

Maybe the Charlton characters could be eighties era heroes. Booster Gold being time traveler he could still befriend Ted Kord in that era. Speaking of, the Beetle legacy could have Dan Garrett as a fifties hero, passing the torch to Ted after being long retired, and Jaime Reyes picking up the mantle in the present.

[bat39]

Power Girl seems to have been tethered to the 1970's (and presumably 80's) as of the current JSA series, though they haven't really unpacked the implications of her being around for decades and preceding Superman in the modern DC timeline.

Black Canary is a tricky situation, especially since right now we don't have a lot of clarity about how the JSA's timeline is supposed to work and how they're still around in the present-day. If they can't find some way to keep Dinah Drake young to the point where she had Dinah Laurel Lance a lot later in life, then it might make sense to insert another generation or two between them.

I like the current idea of Wonder Woman having debuted during WW2 and being around for decades with the JSA. And her I-Ching era adventures could be slotted into the 70's, when they were published. Personally, I'd add another wrinkle to the WW timeline - at some point, in a nod to what happened to Diana in COIE, she's 'destroyed' and returned to the clay she was formed from. Then, Hippolyta basically 'resurrects' her after some amount of time, and the 'new' Diana becomes the modern Wonder Woman who works with the JLA (and who might not even remember her past with the JSA to begin with).

[Riv86672]

I like the current idea of Wonder Woman having debuted during WW2 and being around for decades with the JSA. And her I-Ching era adventures could be slotted into the 70's, when they were published. Personally, I'd add another wrinkle to the WW timeline - at some point, in a nod to what happened to Diana in COIE, she's 'destroyed' and returned to the clay she was formed from. Then, Hippolyta basically 'resurrects' her after some amount of time, and the 'new' Diana becomes the modern Wonder Woman who works with the JLA (and who might not even remember her past with the JSA to begin with).

^^^THIS is good!!!

[j9ac9k]

Hal Jordan was made for the Space Race era and while I wouldn't chose it over him being in the modern day, it would be fun seeing stories of Hal as a pilot in those days (like "New Frontier")

[bat39]

Hal Jordan was made for the Space Race era and while I wouldn't chose it over him being in the modern day, it would be fun seeing stories of Hal as a pilot in those days (like "New Frontier")

Sometimes I wonder what the DCU would look like if the Silver Age heroes were tethered to their original era as well. It'll never really happen of course, because those heroes became the faces of the DC brand alongside the Trinity, but still...

I'm talking about a world where Barry, Hal, Ray, Carter etc. all debut in the late 50's/early 60's. Diana is probably still around as Wonder Woman. An older Dinah Drake could still be Black Canary. J'onn J'onzz is around. I'd even put Green Arrow and Speedy in this time period too (though perhaps via time-travel, which is what they've done to restore them to the Golden Age). Maybe even Aquaman (either the Golden Age Aquaman, now older, or the Silver Age Aquaman). Basically, everyone except Superman, Batman and related characters.

Not a lot would be different actually. The Justice League would be pretty much the same with the absence of Superman and Batman. The Teen Titans are a bit harder to imagine without Robin - my fix is that they did exist, but Robin and Kid Flash were time-travelers from the modern era (more on that later).

The question then becomes who makes it to the Modern Age. Who become the contemporaries of Superman and Batman. And what does the "big gap" now look like?

I'd broadly go with some variation of Morrison's Big 7 line-up. Wally is the modern Flash. Now Wally is either Barry's sidekick from the 60's who jumped forward in time. Or Barry is long-lived and mentors Iris' distant relative (like a grand-nephew or great-grand nephew or something). Or Barry, while time-traveling to his future, mentored Wally. And Wally time-traveled to Barry's era early on and was part of the Teen Titans.

Kyle or John are the modern GL's. That's easy enough to achieve. I actually lean towards maybe Kyle being the modern GL, and John became GL during the 'gap years/decades' and was directly mentored by Hal Jordan...who might also still be around.

Aquaman is tricky...either the bearded modern Aquaman is the Silver Age version's son, or the Silver Age version is very long-lived. Or Atlantis was in a time-warp or something.

J'onn is easy enough, as is Diana.

Also, on this timeline, I'd probably have the Shazam family constantly get mystically resurrected/rebooted in-universe every few decades. So they were around in the 40's, then the 70's, then maybe in the 90's/2000's and now in the modern era.

Anyway, haven't fully thought this through, especially with regards to nitty-gritties like the age gap between the likes of Wally/Kyle and Bruce/Clark (and Dick for that matter).

[Digifiend]

Regarding Jack Knight, locking him to the 90s messes up Courtney Whitmore's transition from Star Spangled Kid to Stargirl, as it would mean she wasn't even born when Jack stopped being Starman. Her obtaining the Cosmic Staff and taking the Stargirl name would need a new origin.

[Riv86672]

Regarding Jack Knight, locking him to the 90s messes up Courtney Whitmore's transition from Star Spangled Kid to Stargirl, as it would mean she wasn't even born when Jack stopped being Starman. Her obtaining the Cosmic Staff and taking the Stargirl name would need a new origin.

^^^She was Stargirl (Edit: Star Spangled Kid) before she ever got the staff, using Sylvester Pemberton’s cosmic converter belt she found in her stepdad Stripesy’s belongings.

A middle aged post nineties Jack shows up after hearing good things about her, they talk (giving us the audience exposition on the overlap between the Knight and Pemberton legacies), and he gives her the staff.

Why he wouldn’t give it to his son Kyle, or why Kyle might not have wanted it are details the writer can fill in.

[ducklord]

Note to self: Never start threads just before the weekend

There's some good stuff in here. Just to nibble on a few:

Jack Knight
I go back and forth on this one. While he's kind-of-sort-of a product of the 90's, his rebel look is sort of timeless. On the other hand, since his story is *so* intimately tied to being Ted Knight's son, it does make a lot of sense to pin him to a an era where being a son of a WWII era character still makes some kind of sense. On the third hand, his adventures were deeply tied to the *modern* DCU, so leaving him back in the 90's without a ton of other DC super-heroes seems like kind of a shame.

So I'm torn.

Doom Patrol
Oh, definitely pin the original incarnation to the 60's. Let them get resurrected in the sliding Modern Age, and bingo-bango, it all works.

The Big 7 JLA
While appealing, I don't think the timeline would tolerate shoving Hal, Barry et al back to the late 50's. Best to leave that for a parallel Earth, methinks.

Wonder Woman
I also go back and forth on this one. While it's cool to think of her bopping in and out of Man's World from the 40's until her Modern Age "debut," something just feels "off" about it. I mean, as amusing as trying to sneak her "Mod" era into the early 70's is, those stories kind of sucked, y'know? Couldn't those be better left as story fodder for Modern Age homages? Or am I just being a sexist dude who feels threatened by the notion of Wonder Woman being the "first" of the Big Three?

Black Canary
My personal preference is to leave the Golden Age Black Canary as a post-War member of the JSA, and to make the Modern Age version her descendant (great-granddaughter now, add greats as timeline slides). The modern Black Canary's relationship with the original was always a retcon in the first place, and only a handful of stories ever touched on the mother-daughter dynamics (although that one Secret Origin story *was* pretty damn good). I say, pin the original and break the mother-daughter bond.

[Jim Kelly]

. . . her "Mod" era . . . stories kind of sucked, y'know?

I love those stories, I could go on and on about them--which I have before, but I won't here. If I didn't love them, I wouldn't be trying to find a way to include them. If we're stuck with Princess Diana only appearing in "modern times"--then I'd go with her double. But since it seems Wonder Woman was now around since the 1940s, then she could have gone through a mod phase.

John Byrne provided the answer, by having Paradise Island exist outside of time and space (which it also does in Sekowsky's "mod" adventures). Like the Rock of Eterntiy, one can access any time and place from it. If the Island and the Rock were made of Hypertemporal matter that might explain it. Wonder Woman could be popping in at different times--which would make it seem like she's been around for a long time--but for her, these visits could be brief. And, like River Song, her timeline might not conform to a linear timeline--as she could go backwards and forwards from her Paradise Island access point.

. . . On the third hand, his adventures were deeply tied to the *modern* DCU . . .

This "modern" world seems very much a product of the 1990s and early 2000s. So it's already vintage and a new kind of era ought to be emerging. By keeping Jack Knight in that time period you get to keep that so-called "modern" period, but allow the writers to move on and explore new ideas and concepts in the present.

Jack Knight doesn't have to be the one who gives the staff to Courtney. That zero issue always seemed a minor bit of housekeeping. The STARMAN run established there were many Starman characters (and at least one Starwoman)--so any Starman would be okay to hand off the staff--and on the STARGIRL show it was Stripesy who kept the staff that belonged to Sylvester.

Maybe Dinah Lance shouldn't even be a daughter or a granddaughter but rather a niece or a cousin. That gives the writers a lot more flexibility.

[kcekada]

Sooner or later, the JSA will either have to be untethered from the Golden Age/WWII era -- or DC will have to acknowledge that they were in stasis for a long period of time starting somewhere around late 40s, early 50s -- extending to just before Barry Allen meets Jay Garrick as the Flash. Otherwise, that story will have to be wiped from continuity. There is only so long DC can postpone the deaths of the JSA without rebooting their existence somehow. This problem really should have been addressed years ago, but DC just keeps kicking the can down the road.

[Jim Kelly]

Sooner or later, the JSA will either have to be untethered from the Golden Age/WWII era -- or DC will have to acknowledge that they were in stasis for a long period of time starting somewhere around late 40s, early 50s -- extending to just before Barry Allen meets Jay Garrick as the Flash. Otherwise, that story will have to be wiped from continuity. There is only so long DC can postpone the deaths of the JSA without rebooting their existence somehow. This problem really should have been addressed years ago, but DC just keeps kicking the can down the road.

I don't get the logic. You might as well say that Sgt. Rock and the Blackhawks need to be untethered from World War Two or Enemy Ace needs to be untethered from World War One. There's no problem where they are in time--the problem is only at the other end of the tether. And in most cases the other end of the tether is insignificant. The original Barry meeting Jay story was between two worlds. It only becomes an issue when that continuity is changed and Barry meets Jay on the same world--that retcon had Keystone City stuck in limbo for a long time.

The logic seems to be let's get rid of hundreds of stories so we can make one story work in a conventional way. Why not keep the hundreds of stories and just do what needs to be done to make the one story fit with that?

[bat39]

Note to self: Never start threads just before the weekend

There's some good stuff in here. Just to nibble on a few:

Jack Knight
I go back and forth on this one. While he's kind-of-sort-of a product of the 90's, his rebel look is sort of timeless. On the other hand, since his story is *so* intimately tied to being Ted Knight's son, it does make a lot of sense to pin him to a an era where being a son of a WWII era character still makes some kind of sense. On the third hand, his adventures were deeply tied to the *modern* DCU, so leaving him back in the 90's without a ton of other DC super-heroes seems like kind of a shame.

So I'm torn.

Doom Patrol
Oh, definitely pin the original incarnation to the 60's. Let them get resurrected in the sliding Modern Age, and bingo-bango, it all works.

The Big 7 JLA
While appealing, I don't think the timeline would tolerate shoving Hal, Barry et al back to the late 50's. Best to leave that for a parallel Earth, methinks.

Wonder Woman
I also go back and forth on this one. While it's cool to think of her bopping in and out of Man's World from the 40's until her Modern Age "debut," something just feels "off" about it. I mean, as amusing as trying to sneak her "Mod" era into the early 70's is, those stories kind of sucked, y'know? Couldn't those be better left as story fodder for Modern Age homages? Or am I just being a sexist dude who feels threatened by the notion of Wonder Woman being the "first" of the Big Three?

Black Canary
My personal preference is to leave the Golden Age Black Canary as a post-War member of the JSA, and to make the Modern Age version her descendant (great-granddaughter now, add greats as timeline slides). The modern Black Canary's relationship with the original was always a retcon in the first place, and only a handful of stories ever touched on the mother-daughter dynamics (although that one Secret Origin story *was* pretty damn good). I say, pin the original and break the mother-daughter bond.

Shoving Barry, Hal etc. in the 50's was not a serious suggestion on my part...at least not in 'mainstream' continuity Though the more I think about it, the more some kind of Elseworlds/Black Label take on such a world intrigues me.

As far as Wonder Woman goes, I don't think it's the worst idea for her to be the first of the Trinity. Let's face it, Superman and Batman both dwarf her in pop-cultural recognition/franchise power in the real-world. It'd be nice to give her something in-universe at least that allows her to stand out. Of the Trinity, Wonder Woman has always been the one most tied to the Golden Age/WW2 era in some form.The nature of the character (her being immortal and an outside to Man's World) lends itself to her being able to exist in multiple eras in-universe, unlike Batman and Superman.

With Black Canary, I'm inclined to agree with you, though the issue is tied in with the larger question of the JSA and how they can exist in both the Golden Age and the Silver Age/Modern Age.

[Digifiend]

Sooner or later, the JSA will either have to be untethered from the Golden Age/WWII era -- or DC will have to acknowledge that they were in stasis for a long period of time starting somewhere around late 40s, early 50s -- extending to just before Barry Allen meets Jay Garrick as the Flash. Otherwise, that story will have to be wiped from continuity. There is only so long DC can postpone the deaths of the JSA without rebooting their existence somehow. This problem really should have been addressed years ago, but DC just keeps kicking the can down the road.

Alan's Starheart makes him - and his kids - immortal, that explains Green Lantern still being around. The speed force slows Jay's aging, so while he's now over 100 years old his body is physically like one half that age. He'll die eventually but he can survive a few more decades yet. Wildcat is the one who doesn't make a lot of sense. He's apparently cursed with nine lives. If he dies, he just heals up. And the lives regenerate too, so as long as he doesn't die multiple times in quick succession (as happened in one bad future where he got executed) he basically has infinite green mushrooms. That doesn't explain how he avoids dying of old age though. Like Jay, he's somehow physically younger than he should be. Unlike Jay, he doesn't have a good excuse for it.