This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Ununnilium: Taking out "and Stargirl, who uses the supergear from the Starman comic and is otherwise normal. But totally badass." from Badass Normal, since the Cosmic Rod is a Green Lantern Ring-level device.
Puffy Treat: The events and timeline leading up to the in-universe "return" of the JSA are a bit off. Ted Knight -was- among the JS Aers confined to limbo by the events of "The Last Days of the Justice Society of America". The only members who escaped that fate were those who were already dead, Doctor Fate, the Spectre, the Golden Age Star-Spangled Kid, and Power Girl. (Later it was retconned that the Golden Age Black Canary lived on for a short while, but died while her friends were in limbo.)
The Justice Society remained in limbo until they were set free in issue four of the all-but-forgotten "Armageddon: Inferno" mini-series. A time-travelling hero named Waverider replaced them in Ragnarock with a demon named Abraxis. They were then spun-off into a short lived monthly series drawn by Mike Parobeck that introduced "next generation" heroine Jesse Quick.
A couple years after that series ended, the JSA were deliberately used as cannon fodder in the Zero Hour crossover...this was where Ted Knight lost the unnatural extended youth and vitality he and many of the JS Aers had gained over the years, leading to his retirement. It was also the first appearance of Jack Knight.
arromdee: Much of the first part was also almost-but-not-quite-right.
''In the winter of 1940, three years into the Golden Age, writer Gardner Fox was asked to come up with an anthology, to bring together all the characters that DC had that weren't so popular as Superman and Batman. The hope was, kids would read the anthology, like the character, ask for more, and give them all their own series.
So Fox wrote the first super-team comic. He called it the Justice Society of America. It had Hawkman, Hourman, Sandman, Doctor Fate, and the Spectre. In theory it also had Golden Age Flash, Golden Age Green Lantern and Golden Age Superman, but they were all doing well, and it was felt that they would detract from the leads.
Then the market took a downturn. To help the JSA, all of DC's heroes got shoehorned in. Sales continued to slump, and so the comic was cancelled.
Twenty years later, their successors, the Justice League Of America, discovered another world inhabited by the Justice Society.''
- Since comic books are dated in advance, and since writers write comics months before they're published anyway, the cover date (Winter 1940) isn't the date the writers made a decision.
- The JSA was introduced in issue 3. Issues 1-2 really were a normal anthology.
- The statement that in theory it had Flash and GL is misleading. It really did have them; they only left when they got their own solo comics.
- While it's true that characters with solo comics later got added to the cast, it's far from all of DC's characters (Green Arrow never got added, for instance.)
- The JSA was not reintroduced 20 years after they were gone. More like 12. (I believe it even said it on the cover.)
- Earth-2 was discovered by the Flash, not by the JLA.
biznizz: Wasn't there a post Crisis Justice Society before Zero Hour? I thought that they came back, had a short run, then Zero Hour happened and that's' where Ted Knight passed on the mantel of Starman to his son(s). Starman was launched after Zero Hour, and when it ended, the modern JSA was launched. Right?
arromdee:More corrections:
- Contrary to what the article said, Starman was part of the heroes caught in limbo. And the heroes were released long before the Starman series (which spun off of Zero hour); the series did not lead to the release of the heroes.
- I have no idea where the modern heroes dug out a hole stuff comes from.
- The JSA's first 90's series happened before the revival, not after it as the article implied (it was a 1950's flashback series).
biznizz, you're basically correct and the article wasn't.
Puffy Treat: I'm not so sure about Stargirl's virginity being included in the list of things that prove she's a borderline Mary Sue. She's a rather young teen character, owned by a massive corporation. They couldn't really write her any other way without courting controversy they may not want.
