What would your ideal Earth-2 be like?

[Doctor Bifrost]

Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders-Amnesiac archaeologist.

Tough gig. :-)

[Starchild]

Tough gig. :-)

no idea where you're going with that. But okay.

[Robotman]

I was loving the world Robinson was building. I'd vote for going back to that and undoing the past year of Earth 2.

I just recently caught the first couple episodes of Flash season 2, and in that we see modern day Earth 2, which kind of has a Golden Age stylistic influence. Jay Garrick was young, but he felt old-school.

I'd vote for that.

I absolutely love the Earth 2 of the CW DCU! That Art Deco, atomic age mixed with some modern flare. Who ever came up with that look is a genius. It really helps to explain Jay's costume in a modern world. It feels like a world you'd see in Grant's Multiversity.
I wouldn't mind seeing an Earth 2 like this.

[BatmanJones]

Pretty much all the options offered.

Earth-2 would be a world where Superman debuted before World War II. His presence ignited a movement with people like Batman, Jay Garrick, Hawkman, etc also appearing along with powerful villains. This led to the eventual formation of groups like the Justice Society and the Law's Legionnaires. Except for the occasional untold tale the history of this time was largely related by the comics DC published in the 1940's.

As the 1940's wound down the heroes by and large vanished. Nearly a decade of fighting the good fight had led some to burnout and hang up their costumes. Others were moved to do the same by changes in their lives like acquiring a family. Still others died or suffered injuries that left them unable to continue. The final blow came in the early 1950's when the JSA were brought before a Congressional committee looking to co-opt them. In the aftermath of this with a few notable exceptions (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) heroes became less public if they operated at all.

This lasted nearly a decade until a series of events including the threat of Vandal Savage began a superhero renaissance with many of the JSA (who found that for unknown reasons they were still nearly as vital as they'd been when they retired) coming out of retirement. Alongside the JSA there were new heroes cropping up like the unpowered Blue Beetle who had assumed the name of a vanished 1940's powered hero, the government endorsed Captain Atom and even a new team called the Doom Patrol. As the 1960's came to a close the JSA were even joined by a team composed of their own heirs calling themselves first the Teen Titans and later the Justice League (Golden Eagle, Wonder Girl, the 2nd Robin. Jesse Quick ...)

The 1970's would have seen the death of the 1st Black Canary and her husband followed by the debut of the second Black canary with her sonic scream. The return of the time-lost Seven Soldiers followed by the debut of Superman's cousin, Power Girl, gave the JSA teo new members (the first since 1951) but also caused some friction with the league who felt they had been snubbed by not being offered membership themselves. More deaths followed including that of the original Batman (a fact never revealed to the public) and Mister Terrific.

The 1980's would see the loss of Superman and the second Batman (Dick Grayson) in the second Crisis, but also the debut of some 3rd generation heroes like the grandson of Commander Steel, a Latino female Wildcat, a new Starman (Will Payton)..

By 2016 you'd have a world where you could launch a new title focusing on a world where most of DC's prior stories occurred but with the writer not tied to sliding timescales or trying to keep everything in the present. Want a classic JSA line-up just set your tale in the 1940's or early 1960's. Miss Wally West- then work him in with a few minor tweaks (just to keep him from confusion with the guy in the new 52) and tie him to the legacy of Jay Garrick rather than Barry Allen. Want a re-imagined modern day take on a hero- then tell your tale in 2016 but just have the new hero acknowledge he is taking a page from the past.

This is not far off from what Geoff Johns (and Goyer and Robinson but mostly Johns) did and it was excellent. In the 40's, in the 60's, in the 70's, in the 80's, and then picking up again when Goyer/Robinson debuted their team. It was excellent in every major run until Willingham and Guggenheim. It was excellent under so many pens and pencils for nearly 70 years (with some breaks) and then it was just erased.

Anyway, I'd buy your pitch. It's what I've always wanted: an amalgam of the JSA/Infinity Inc/All-Star Squadron according to Roy Thomas crossed with years of great JSA stories by Johns. On its own earth, as it always should have been, so that when the team met up with the Justice League or whomever it was special and not a run of the mill team-up.

[stephens2177]

Have generic history,so it can work at present or 100 years from now.

Have superman show up,and be more golden age in powers and focus.
Other powered and non powered heroes show up,wearing capes and striving to be great heroes like superman.
That 1st generation of heroes get older,but some keep being active,while a 2nd generation emerges,some with unique names,but others taking the names of the originals.
3rd generation (present day),learning from two generations of heroes before them.
Superman during all this is getting more powerful,and is the hero to look up to.
Oh and please use Damage,he is the ultimate legacy hero,having the first two generations DNA or power bonded within him.

All three generations could possibly be active at the same time,the age differences are easy to notice,but like now where older ppl are living longer and more active lives,the same can be said for heroes.
JSA=a team for generations and legacies.

I kept this generic as I could so writers could use or create characters they wanted to

[RobinFan4880]

What the original Earth 2 was originally like - a world where heroes could grow and change and would never really be reset to the status quo.

[ThomasBlake]

I'm honestly less concerned with fixing the concept of Earth-2 than I am about undoing the current mess that was brought on Mike Cotton's interference, and basically just retconning all of his shitty ideas out of existence. The original concept of Earth-2 works fine, just establish age diversity amongst the heroes to create a sense of history and legacy. The classic JSA heroes like the Flash, Green Lantern, Doctor Fate, Hourman, and Hawkgirl should be the same age as the Earth-2 Trinity, IMO. Huntress, Power Girl, Fury, Jade, Obsidian, etc could easily be the second generation/modern JSA team. The WWII history is easily established by reinstating the All-Star Squadron and the Seven Soldiers of Victory that were active during that time into the current continuity and just have the more classic JSA team form at a later timeframe.

[Jon Clark]

This is not far off from what Geoff Johns (and Goyer and Robinson but mostly Johns) did and it was excellent. In the 40's, in the 60's, in the 70's, in the 80's, and then picking up again when Goyer/Robinson debuted their team. It was excellent in every major run until Willingham and Guggenheim. It was excellent under so many pens and pencils for nearly 70 years (with some breaks) and then it was just erased.

Anyway, I'd buy your pitch. It's what I've always wanted: an amalgam of the JSA/Infinity Inc/All-Star Squadron according to Roy Thomas crossed with years of great JSA stories by Johns. On its own earth, as it always should have been, so that when the team met up with the Justice League or whomever it was special and not a run of the mill team-up.

My idea is with a few unfortunately necessary retcons to make Earth 2 the repository for DC's history. So for the most part it's gonna be the same world we got in the published comics for the first 45 years.

My first major retcon would be to move some of Infinity Inc back to the 1960's and merge them with the original run of the Teen Titans, so that by and large the original Haney run happens but with things like the Wonder Girl role being filled by Wonder Woman's daughter (Donna Hippolyta Trevor?) or Hector Hall replacing Charlie Parker as Golden Eagle. Same with putting the original runs of the Charlton heroes like Blue Beetle on this Earth since again the current main DC Earth has radically different takes on them. I'd toyed with the idea of making Kyle Rayner into Alan's successor, but I wouldn't want to do that if Kyle was still front and center in the main universe. And as suggested I'd like to find a way to take Wally's time as the Flash and work it into Earth Two.

I'd have the "Titans" and the JSA together absorb as much as I could of the Satellite JLA era history. Replace some of the Silver Age Hawkman's Thanagarian tech with Northwind's. Possibly make a Doll-Man/Ray Palmer character so Ray exists without confusion next to Al Pratt's Atom. The JLA Black Canary works fine as the original's daughter using her Post-Crisis origin. Play with the timing a bit and you can even have the Seven Soldier's Green Arrow return as the JLA's Arrow with the loss of the fortune being that he simply can't reclaim his assets because they were disbursed when he vanished in the 1940's.

The other idea is to make the Earth Two Batman a bit like the Phantom. Bruce is the first Batman but somewhere before we start getting the zanier parts of the Silver Age he'd have been replaced by Dick Grayson. So the grim Bruce of 1939 would mellow out over time because of Dick's influence, but by the time we get to the guy who battles aliens and such you have someone whose grown up surrounded by the bizarre characters of Gotham in the suit. And in turn Dick would take on a new Robin (not Helena or a Bruce Jr) who has a more tragic origin and less optimism leading Dick to be a more serious 1970's era Batman. And that Robin would eventually become a grimmer Post-Crisis type Batman.

[Herowatcher]

I'd bring back the original Earth-2.

I'd have a comic that features the Justice Society of America and All-Star Squadron back in WWII.
Then have a second comic in the present, which features the current JSofA (legacy). Heroes like
Stargirl (Courtney Whitmore), Jesse Quick, Mr. Terrific (Michael Holt) and Dr. Mid-Nite (Pietor Cross)

[neonrideraryeh]

I voted for contemporary setting and first gen still young.
I thought James Robinson had set things up to be really good, but when he left the quality dipped and continued to dip. While the idea of a human race surviving on another world can be interesting, it isn't being done well here and doesn't really suit Earth 2 anyway. I'd like them to restore the Earth and undo the last couple years of stuff (time travel to save the world would be a cool story). Then they can go back to the awesome world-building series that it was before it became the Superman/Batman show. I'd also send Power Girl and Huntress back to Earth-0. Then the team can be GL/Flash/Hawkgirl/Atom/Dr Fate/Sandman and introduce Wildcat as well as others like Captain Steel being supporting characters. Killing Atom off was a bad idea.

[Zero Hunter]

I would go the time travel route. At the end of WW2 there was a climatic battle with Hitler using all his arcane artifacts to battle the JSA. In the end things go baddly when Per Degaton joins the battle and to save the life of his teamates Johnny Thunder uses all the power he can to try and save them but because of Degatons time travel abilitys he ends up throwing half the team (Green Lantern, Flash, Wildcat, Black Canary, Hawkman, and Doctor Midnight) into the timestream. The rest of the team manages to win the day and end the war. They go on with their normal lives.
Wonder Woman retires to Paradise Island to take over as the leader after her mother dies in some way and has a daughter (Fury).
Superman due the insane amount of magic unleashed in the final battle loses most of his powers and ages normally, but raises Kara as his daughter when she shows up on Earth a decade or two before the timelost JSA members return.
Batman continues to fight until he is killed in action with Robin (Richard Wayne as he was formally adopted by Bruce instead of just being his ward) taking up his mantle as the Batman. Dick after many years finally retires himself and gets married and has a daughter (Helana Wayne) who takes up the Huntress identity to her fathers displeasure.
Starman, Hourman, and Sandman all retire sometime after the war. Ted Knight and Rex Tyler go on to create their successful companys and continue to refine the things that gave them their powers as more hobbys than anything else. When the JSA returns it inspires Teds grandaughter (Courtney Knight who has been around her grandpas inventions all her life so knows how to use them) to become Stargirl. Her father David is not happy about it at all, but her uncle Jack encourges her. Rex Tyler's son Rick goes on to create the android Hourman who he names just Tyler in which he bases his personality on his fathers who passed away some years earlier. Sandman passes away in his 50's. A new character named Samuel Hawkins takes on the Sandman title after and accident in the lab he works for (Tyler Chemical) transforms him into a being with a silicon based body.
Kent Nelson has not put the helmet of Doctor Fate back on since the end of the war after seeing the massive damage caused by the magic being unleashed in the JSA's final battle, but because of his conection to it he is ageing very slowly and is still just in his early 40's in the modern times and has to decide if he will have to don it again when his old friends return.
The Spectre all this time has been using his power to seal all the magicical energy unleashed in that final battle until Mark Druson (a student of arcane knowledge who has no idea he is really the reincarnated soul the ancient wizard Mordru) start tapping into the small cracks in the Spectre's seals which transforms him back into Mordru proper, but is also what pulls the timelost JSA members into the modern day.

New heroes Amazing Man and Mister Terrific join the team.

Stargirl goes on to gather her own team made up of new heroes inspired by the return of the JSA made up of Cyclone, Hawkgirl, Damage, Steel, Red Arrow, Jade, and Obsidian. Young Justice.

[warzon]

The justice society(power girl n huntress leads a new generation jade.jesse quick.brain wave.hourman.atom smasher.ect.)
the new infinity inc.(star girl.jakeem thunder.tomcat.cyclone with new younger heroes)
the new squadron(older jsa members mixed with all star squadron members)green lantern.flash.wildcat.liberty belle.firebrand.ect
the freedom fighters(uncle sam n his band of heroes)

[Deniz Camp]

On the one hand, I like the notion of Earth 2 as the universe with a 'deep history', especially juxtaposed against the New 52's fresher/newer sensibility, where actions have consequences and things change. In some ways a retro universe with earlier ideals that reflect the old DCU, in other ways a look into the future, with generational heroic titles, the sons and daughters and sidekicks grown that could never exist in the main DCU with any sort of primacy.

On the other hand, I also like the retro-futurist pulp-aesthetic of something like Multiversity's Secret Society issue (so much so that I'm writing and producing a comic book in that vein!), and I would love to see a book in that vein.

[Ascended]

On the one hand, I like the notion of Earth 2 as the universe with a 'deep history', especially juxtaposed against the New 52's fresher/newer sensibility, where actions have consequences and things change. In some ways a retro universe with earlier ideals that reflect the old DCU, in other ways a look into the future, with generational heroic titles, the sons and daughters and sidekicks grown that could never exist in the main DCU with any sort of primacy.

On the other hand, I also like the retro-futurist pulp-aesthetic of something like Multiversity's Secret Society issue (so much so that I'm writing and producing a comic book in that vein!), and I would love to see a book in that vein.

Why not merge the two together?

Use the old WWII JSA style, generational heroes concept; but lace both the history and the contemporary setting with pulp influences? Imagine a world where, seventy-plus years ago, those old pulp/science heroes *did* influence the course of human history. What would the world look like after seven decades of Dr. Fate and Starman's cosmic energy technology and the two-fisted vigilante justice doled out by masked mystery men?

Tom Strong done DC style, with the volume cranked up the 11.

[Deniz Camp]

Why not merge the two together?

Use the old WWII JSA style, generational heroes concept; but lace both the history and the contemporary setting with pulp influences? Imagine a world where, seventy-plus years ago, those old pulp/science heroes *did* influence the course of human history. What would the world look like after seven decades of Dr. Fate and Starman's cosmic energy technology and the two-fisted vigilante justice doled out by masked mystery men?

Tom Strong done DC style, with the volume cranked up the 11.

Sure, that's an option, but I think you lose something appealing vital about each when you merge them together. You end up with a futuristic world, rather than a world that allows the juxtaposition of the mundane the fantastic. You lose the post-war element, and all that entails and applies. Unmoored for this time, you lose a lot of the period's optimism. Part of what appeals to me about going back to that is the sense of science as a powerful tool for good, something that changed after the full implications of the atomic bomb set in.

You likewise lose the iconography of having your Superman/Batman/whatever cognates, that simplicity. I think that's interesting, leads to a lot of options, but it's a loss of certain appeal, and also story avenues.

Not to say you can't make it work, Alan Moore certainly did, but Tom Strong was just a very different book than a Tom Strong book set in his early days would have been.