And I didn’t even get into the whole Dr. Manhattan/Doomsday Clock thing.
Wayne sallies forth with this comment regarding the Justice Society’s continuing vitality into what should have been their 90s:
“Better than explanations like exposure to Dr. Fate’s magic kept them young. That excuse, or something close, was in some story or arc I can’t really remember. Possibly […] JLA: Year One. Hourman and Alan Scott are in a cage with Silver Age characters on the cover of the trade.”
I have to be honest, I don’t recall many wide-reaching explanations for the JSA still kickin’ around as long as they did pre-Crisis. Let’s say the youngest of them was, oh, 20 in 1941. By the time we hit the whole Flashpoint/New 52 thing in 2011, that theoretical 20-year-old JSAer (let’s face it, that would be Johnny Thunder) would be around 90. And again, going with my assumption in a previous post that the JSA essentially worked in “real time” (vs. modern superheroes, with their sliding 5/10/20 year-scales, depending on who you ask/where you jump in during rebootery), with heroes first becoming active in the late 1930s/early 1940s, at mostly college age or older, they’d all be well into their 90s or even pushing 100.
There were general excuses for characters still hangin’ on there, like maybe Jay “The Flash with the Hat” Garrick’s connection to the Speed Force, and didn’t Alan “Green Lantern” Scott get de-aged by the mystical energy of his lantern or somesuch (into “Starheart,” I believe). [EDIT: Sentinel, actually.] I mean, you could just say “their super powers kept them, and some of those around them, young” and not go into much more detail than that.
Another possible way their ages could’ve been their brief exodus from the DC Universe in Last Days of the Justice Society:
…in which they are pulled into another dimension and forced to fight an eternal battle until some years later when they were recovered in some event or ‘nother. This could have been the Steve Rogers/Captain America solution, where a WWII character is taken off the table and “preserved” for an indefinite amount of time, with his revival pushed farther and farther into the future as publishing of the character continues. When Captain America was first revived in the 1960s, he’d only been “gone” for 20 years. Now that we’re in the 2020s, that time he was frozen in the ice is now, what, 60 years? It’s attaching that modern hero “sliding scale” to Golden Age characters. (And my apologies…this sounds vaguely familiar, like this idea was brought up in my comments recently…I’m not plagiarizing you on purpose, honest.)
And also there’s just straight up immortality or extended lifespans because you’re a super-powered being from another planet (Superman) or an Amazon (y’know, Wonder Woman). I mean, yeah, sure, they aged, but c’mon.
Plus there’s also the possibility of simply unhooking them from the WWII era and making them just, I don’t know, older heroes who’d been around prior to the new generation. This is kind of he tack they’re taking on the Stargirl TV show, but it feels weird to not have them associated with that specific conflict. And moving them to another war would be…well, just postponing the problem, really, and honestly would you went them to be Vietnam War vets? Gulf War vets? That would be really strange, and as-is would be hard to retrofit the JSA into one of these more modern settings and have them retain the same sort of feel.
The one overall explanation I do recall is from the third All-Star Squadron annual from 1984 by Roy and Dann Thomas and a whole pile of artists. It’s a clever story, and set in the early 1940s, but I’m going to focus on the climax. Here, in the segment drawn by Rick Hoberg, the JSA is fighting the villain of the piece, Ian Karkull (you just can’t trust people named Ian), who’s been killing folks and absorbing “time energy” and that sort of nonsense:
And like any decent bad guy at the end of the story, he explodes:
…and the JSA and some associated cast members get bathed in the resultant rain of energy:
It makes our heroes feel weird, though it should be noted the greenish tint was not an in-story indicator that something peculiar has happened, but rather was an unusual printing issue in the original printed comic that left skin tones miscolored on several pages. I was hoping they’d fix this for the digital presentation I’m snagging these panels from, but alas:
Also, way to just dismiss Starman, GL, I mean seriously.
But here come Big Time Movie Star Dr. Fate and his ghostly pal the Spectre with some mystical explanations:
Lois Lane wonders how this energy would affect them, and Jay’s wife Joan just lays into her for no real good reason:
And then, the clincher: here’s why the JSA is still around in the 1980s, kids, well into their 60s!
Also, is this “Get on Starman’s Case” day here or what? Though in the conclusion of the annual, Hourman is like “yeah, I gotta take some time off” and Starman is all “I’LL TAKE HIS PLACE ON THE TEAM, C’MON GUYS” so maybe he had it coming. Plus, the Atom specifically saying that is pretty funny.
Anyhoo, that’s the explanation I grew up with reading the adventures of the Earth-2 then later Regular DC Earth Justice Society. If there were other reasons given (for the whole team, just a member here or there) please remind me. I’m sure I’ve read one or two others, but this was The Big One as far as that topic was concerned.
Mike:
I think in that 8th image you used it’s supposed to be Lois Lane who is freaked out–not Wonder Woman. And Joan Garrick is trying to reassure Lois. Because in the next image you used, The Spectre says: “Joan Garrick speaks wisely, Miss Lane.” Maybe Rick Hoberg just drew Lois and Wonder Woman similarly…or they had the same hairdo. But it would makes sense that Roy (and Dann) would want to concoct future longevity for Lois and Joan as well as the circa 1941 JSA members.
Just conjecture about GL dismissing Starman, but if you think about it, wasn’t G.A. Starman kinda like a second rate version of G.A. Green Lantern…only wielding a cosmic rod instead of a power ring? Or maybe Alan Scott felt like Ted Knight was a dilettante mystery man.
You should check out the early issues of Infinty, Inc. as well. I think there’s a story in there based on an actual Golden Age JSA story where a bunch of JSAers seemingly drown in some mystic waters–“The Stream of Ruthlessness”–and come back as evil versions of themselves. I think it’s implied in the story that exposure to the stream’s mystic waters might have also added to the JSA longevity.
Speaking of coloring errors, what’s with the rectangle of pink in Joan’s hair in that panel?
Before Wikipedia, we had Roy Thomas, and “Ian Karkull radiation” was beat into my head over and over again in letter columns long before I got my hands on this particular issue. (Annuals were sometimes tricky in my newsstand days, and I remember catching up with this issue years later in a comic book shop that wasn’t my local one.)
I bet the JSA really fought in this Sin-Cong War we keep hearing about of late. Just update them to fighting in that war. That sounds like a good idea. Right? Right?
Matthew-I’m pretty sure she is balding.
“and didn’t Alan “Green Lantern” Scott get de-aged by the mystical energy of his lantern or somesuch (into “Starheart,” I believe)”
The Starheart was the mystic forces gathered by the Guardians that became his lantern in a way to shoehorn a connection to the Corps into his origin, his nonsensical new non-GL identity was Sentinel.
Sean – I swear I can still picture it being Wonder Woman in that panel. Must be that Mandela Effect I’ve heard so much about. Anyway, fixed now.
A.J. Payler – That’s what I get for not looking it up to remind myself while writing the post. Thank you!
That whole Alan Scott as Sentinel thing still irks me–especially when he ends up dressed like a giant power battery (ugh!)—he’s the original Green Lantern, DC should have had more respect for a Golden Age great. Roy Thomas was usually a good steward of these characters (and the Ian Karkull story was great and even poignant in terms of getting Golden Age artists Wayne Boring to draw the Superman and Lois sequence and Martin Nodell to draw the Green Lantern sequence!), but even he messed up the Black Canary with that dumb revisionist origin in JLA. Speaking of Black Canary, her horrible jazzercise costume introduced in Detective Comics no. 554 in 1985 was also a harbinger (pun intended) of the Bronze Age passing and the Copper Age ascending. I was so happy when Brian Bolland drew her burning that eyesore of a costume on the cover of Action Comics no. 609 in 1988.
Happy belated birthday to top tier Bronze Age–and “Golden Age”–artist Paul Smith, who turned 69 yesterday!
Here’s a cool link with some great JSA/All-Star Squadron
solo illos by Paul Smith.
https://13thdimension.com/paul-smith-13-gorgeous-justice-society-illustrations/
Oho, what a great and memorable issue. I won’t spoil who Karkull was trying to kill in the issue and why, but suffice it to say it’s an all time classic twist where you the reader know way more than the characters do.
I’d actually be interested in buying this issue if you have one for sale.
Anyway, here are all the reasons I have seen that were previously given why the JSA and its members are young-ish or at least seriously mis-aged. (please choose one):
1. It’s the 1940’s.
2. They live on a parallel Earth, different rules.
3. Karkull Radiation.
4. Per Degaton altered the timeline.
5. The Universal Crisis rebooting the universe gave them some extra pep.
6. Starheart/Speed Force.
7. They aren’t, Extant made them old and killed a few.
8. Off fighting Ragnarok until such time as Roy Thomas gets permission again.
9. They live in an all-new, all-diferent parallel earth rebooted as whippersnappers thanks to the New 52.
10. They are actually thinly veiled alternate versions in other media.
11. Because Johns wills it, a/k/a Editorial Fiat.
12. Doctor Manhattan.
13. They just were active before the present day, don’t get too nosy about precise dates.
14. Time passes differently on Earth-2, it’s 1985 here but only 1967 there.
15. In Soviet Union, the Thunderbolt is you!
16. Guardians of the Universe want to keep him around.
17. Was chillaxing in the Speed Force for a while. (Different from the Speed Force works like Karkull Radiation)
18. Suspendium.
19. Plas doesn’t age at all.
20. Some of them got turned into Young All Stars when the universe rebooted.
21. Moved from one Earth to another Earth, it does seomthing to your body chemistry.
22. Died, but lives on as an avuncular Force Ghost.
23. Reincarnation is kind of his gimmick anyway.
24. Stuck in some kind of non-Ragnarok Brigadoon.
25. Taken to an eternal pocket dimension of peace and never mention him again well okay he can fight the evil Superboy.
26. It’s a little uncertain if there is actually an Earth-2 version of this character but there kind of should be one so he’s not around but its never mentioned he’s dead from age either. (Staring hard at Aquaman)
27. Race/Species/Body Chemistry doesn’t age like us normies.
Suspended Animation In Cold seems to be reseved for That Special Fella At the Competition, so all that’s left are “a wizard did it” and DC’s version of Siancong where the JSA forms to fight a strangely mustacioed fascist leader who is Definitely Not That Guy How Dare You Suggest It WINK WINK.
I suppose that’s the thing that bugs me. Ian Karkull. That’s like Mike using my name without ever adding “sallies forth” like I’m Awkwardman of The Inferior Five. You need to tell the young’uns that Sally Forth was the great Wally Wood strip where the um titular character kept ending up naked by the end of every strip. I forget where the strip originated, but I believe it was related to the military.
Seriously. They weren’t around after 1951 until 1962 and “Crisis on Earth-Two” but who knows when that story happened. Have Per Degaton trap the JSA from their disappearance before HUAAC and have them reappear a few years before COIE. That gets rid of 20 years. Plus if you go by the sliding timescale and COIE happening in the 90s. Thirty years.
I think about the only GA hero who could have stayed more vital is Hourman because of the pills, though later some writer had him addicted to fighting crime. Maybe Starman’s rod kept him going.
How long where they fighting in Ragnarok? Six years or so? Forget that. Again, unless sliding timeline, they were fighting for fifteen years.
That’s how I’ve always felt. If my Per Degaton story holds, then they were late 20s in 1951 and late 20s in just before COIE. And then, to an extent, they would always be just a decade or so older than the Silver Age guys. Hal Jordan is 25, Alan Scott is 35 or 40.
I guess the thing is why Per Degaton would take them, with the only way of them coming back was through that COE-T cetstal ball on the cover.
Roy Thomas definitely showed that there was an Earth-2 Aquaman in All-Star Squadron pre-COIE. He has yellow gloves instead of green gloves, and the whole Earth-2 Aquaman origin is different. He was not from Atlantis, but spoke of his origin in a flashback in More Fun Comics no. 73 (November 1941):
“The story must start with my father, a famous undersea explorer—if I spoke his name, you would recognize it. My mother died when I was a baby, and he turned to his work of solving the ocean’s secrets. His greatest discovery was an ancient city, in the depths where no other diver had ever penetrated. My father believed it was the lost kingdom of Atlantis. He made himself a water-tight home in one of the palaces and lived there, studying the records and devices of the race’s marvelous wisdom. From the books and records, he learned ways of teaching me to live under the ocean, drawing oxygen from the water and using all the power of the sea to make me wonderfully strong and swift. By training and a hundred scientific secrets, I became what you see—a human being who lives and thrives under the water.”
If Crisis hadn’t messed everything up, Thomas probably would have had Aquaman be a mutant, like Namor, but sans ankle wings. Thomas used Neptune Perkins a lot, so maybe DC didn’t want there to be an Earth-2 Aquaman even pre-Crisis. I just liked the fact that G.A. Aquaman chucked living polar bears at poachers–he was badass!
http://aqua.gjovaag.com/wiki/Golden_Age_Aquaman
I don’t know why so many people don’t want the JSA to date back to the Golden Age–who cares if they are 100 + but only seem to be in their 50s or 60s? “Karkull radiation” is a good enough explanation. Or Speed Force/Power Ring/Cosmic Rod/Miraclo/helmet of Nabu/avenging agent of God/the Thunderbolt/Egyptian amulets or talismans (or reincarnation)/being Amazonian/being Kryptonian — and maybe Mister Terrific II designed micro nanobots which were injected into the bloodstreams of various aging JSAers like Wildcat I, Dr. Mid-nite I, Sandman I, and whoever else to keep them younger and vital–whatever.
Or, some of them can already be passed away as in past continuities.
Of course, the best solution would be just to bring back All-Star Squadron and have ongoing JSA and co. stories set during the ’40s. Let Roy Thomas write it…maybe Ordway or Hoberg or Joe Staton or Paul Smith could draw it or they could rotate on various story arcs.
I do wonder though, when Julius Schwartz and Gardner Fox revived the JSA during the Silver Age did they tie them to WW II, or was it always intended to be a sliding time scale where the JSA would always just be ten to twenty years older than the JLA?
Sean: The point I’m making is this in using Per Degaton. He was JSA villain way back.
But for every explanation, maybe minus Ragnarok, why didn’t this happen to more modern heroes?
Sorry, bad spasm there. That’s sort of what I’m getting at with the helmet/rod/pills/starheart/etc.
Why wouldn’t some hero want Dr. Fate to say hey man I want to have my aging go slower. Shoot me with that rod, Starman, I want me some star energy like Nutrenix.
Maybe their costumes are like totems. They don’t age because they aren’t separated from their rod or ring or pills or thunderbolt.
I just like time travel instead of magic stream,s and Karkull and whatever else writers come up with. Time travel would be the equivalent of Captain America’s ice cube.
Re: Earth-2 Aquaman, if you read the issues leading up to COIE tie-ins, Aquaman shows up on the last page of one book. I recall Roy Thomas at what was still Chicago Comic-Con before WizardWorld and it was a better experience for all…Roy was saying how if he had had a week’s notice, there would have been no Earth-2 Aquaman in ALL-STAR SQUADRON.
And bringing up Neptune Perkings, I thought YOUNG ALL-STARS got a bum deal. Cancelled too soon.
Wayne:
Yeah, well I did recall that G.A. Aquaman appeared once in All-Star Squadron –even if in cameo! And since his origin is different, it would have made sense to use him going forward, even if sparingly, in the title. I think Aquaman got a bad rap in the Silver Age due to the goofiness of some of his stories and, of course,the Aquaman cartoon and then the Super Friends cartoon. But G.A. Aquaman is basically undersea Flash Gordon. Jim Aparo-drawn Aquamam in the Bronze Age is still the best Aquaman in my opinion–Copper Age/Dark Age, whatever, just changed the character too drastically.
But this goes back to your Green Arrow and Speedy time travel thing from Stargirl…all the revisionist stuff bugs me when I know very well that the original G.A. Green Arrow and Speedy were on the covers of 23 issues of More Fun Comics from issue no 77-103–excepting a few covers Johnny Quick was the star of, and some dingbats called Dover and Clover were the stars of. By contrast, The Spectre was only the cover star on 14 More Fun Comics covers, and Dr. Fate was only the cover star on 11 covers–so, I feel there should still be a Golden Age Green Arrow and Speedy, as well as G.A. Aquaman, on Earth-2 during the 1940s.
Also, Jack Kirby gave Silver Age G.A. a different origin story from Golden Age G.A.
http://behindthepanels.net/the-history-of-green-arrow-part-1-from-the-golden-age-to-the-golden-beard-1941-to-1969/
I agree that Young All-Stars got a bum deal, but so did All-Star Squadron. Ideally All-Star Squadron would have lasted at least long enough to see the characters through the end of WW II and incorporate aspects of the JSA stories from All-Star Comics that were published up to 1945. But I think Thomas was averaging something like a month of real 1940s historical time for every 12 issues of All-Star Squadron published. So, it was a big task!
As for Young All-Stars, although I liked Golden Age Fury and Iron Munro as new characters, I didn’t get that into the other characters. And it always bugged me to think Thomas was getting strong armed into making a Golden Age teen superhero book due to the popularity of New Teen Titans, Legion of Super-Heroes, New Mutants and whatever else. Still, there were some compelling story lines like the whole search for vril in Antarctica and Thule Society stuff. And there was some solid art on Young All-Stars:Brian Murray, Malcolm Jones III, Michael Bair, Lou Manna, et al.
Did you like McGregor and Colan’s Great Depression-era private eye Nathaniel Dusk mini-series?
Lastly, about the JSA aging thing, what about in Detective Comics no. 572 when Earth-1 (or post-Crisis Earth) Batman met Sherlock Holmes who was 130 years old or whatever in 1987? Didn’t Holmes chalk his longevity up to clean living, learning meditation tricks from Tibetan monks and eating honey from Himalayan bees or something?
Until Roy Thomas took control of the Earth-2 characters, I don’t think anyone worried too much about why they were still active. They were generally depicted as vital folks around the middle of middle age — fit fiftysomethings or so.
Thomas initially said he wrote them as if they were about 20 years younger than they’d be in “real time,” so a JSAer who’d be in their late sixties in 1983 would be more like a 48 year old. This also helped explain why these folks didn’t have kids until the early/mid 1960s.
Then he did the Karkull story. I have to wonder if this wasn’t meant to be a hedge against Crisis, which we know was in the works for years before it was published?
Following the Last Days of the JSA and the team’s trip to Asgard or Limbo or wherever, Jay Garrick said the team was much younger than they’d been when they went in but it largely faded.
Of course, the best post-Crisis way to keep the JSA around was the Grant Morrison update of “Flash of Two Worlds” in SECRET ORIGINS #50, which revealed that the Fiddler, Shade, and Gambler (I think) put Keystone City into suspended animation for decades until Barry Allen brought the city back in sync with the rest of the world. All DC had to do was say that most of the Golden Age characters and their supporting casts were there when it happened for some reason, like an All-Star Squadron reunion.
But this would have required DC editorial to recognize the value of the GA characters and think it would be nice to have them available.
Wayne: Golden Age Aquaman shows up for the first four pages of All-Star Squadron #59, and attends the meeting of the full team in that issue and participates in a vote on page 10.
His last appearance is in the group photo on page 16 of issue #60 before the timeline timeline changes.
Donald G.: I have the three huge HCs of the COIE tie-ins, and I was going by those issues. He literally shows up climbing out of the ocean.
Could be that Thomas was talking about the poor artist having to draw Aquaman in that group photo likely at the last minute. I haven’t read my run of A-SS in twenty years. So he’s likely the GA hero with appearances in the least amount of panels (not counting his own series).
Sean: I wish Dusk was collected into trade. Everything McGregor wrote was gold. Black Panther in JUNGLE ACTION, that one creator-owned DETECTIVES, INC. Gene Colan on ND with it being black and white, a gem.
YOUNG ALL-STARS was more to represent the lost heroes from the GA, not the Teen Titans, et al. Iron Munro was Superman but actually based on a character named Gladiator, from Philip Wylie’s book in 1930. Maybe it would have done better if the characters weren’t analogues. Just the fact that Iron Munro was based on Gladiator was enough to give him his own book. And of course Thomas could have dipped into the Quality heroes, too. A bummer all around. Have Hourman or Starman guest-star. Too insulted, which was too bad.
Yes, some great art.
I’m currently reading the PLANETARY Omnibus (40% of on Amazon is when I bought this and the COIE tie-in books). A lot of issues are done in one, and Elijah Snow meets Sherlock Holmes at one point and he is in his nineties or so, but still looks good. None of the bee stuff is mentioned (this was a WildStorm book) but there were hints that he was being held in his house by others and therefore didn’t age. Basically Warren Ellis just doing his thing, but hell. He was alive.
Since we’re talking age, Chuck Norris seems to still have it. The whole time thing is weird, because it is always a sliding timeline so DETECTIVE#500 could have occurred five years ago. Which makes Holmes five years younger.
PLANETARY was pretty much a few people all born on Jan 1, 1900 and ends around 2003. So while still a great read, it is already dated because 1900-2000 was 22 years ago.
Johnny Thunder is probably older than The Atom. We know Johnny’s birthday is 7/7/1917 so he was 23 when the JSA formed and Al Pratt was still in college.
Chris G. :
Thanks for the info! I’ve never read the reintroduction of the JSA in Flash no. 137 or the first JLA/JSA team-up. It would make sense that in the early 1960s the JSA would be reasonably fit and in their forties, so WW II wouldn’t even need to be mentioned.
It is interesting that until Paul Levitz and Joe Staton got the ball rolling with Helena Wayne/Huntress, there was no mention of any JSA mambers having offspring.
It does seem that what the Ian Karkull solution, the Grant Morrison solution, Limbo-Ragnarök, etc., and several other possible explanations, we could still have a vital old guard JSA who are in the 100-110 range but have had their aging process reversed to seem to be 50-60. Why not? I seem to recall reading a story arc a few years ago–maybe it was during Convergence or something–where Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson) used his powers to render himself, Allen Scott, Jay Garrick, and Carter Hall more youthful. It works for me. And I like the JSA WW II connection to the Golden Age of comics, so who cares if its time travel, Karkull, magic, or whatever that keeps them de-aged. I mean ever since at least the New 52 most DC continuity has gone completely out the window anyway.
“But this would have required DC editorial to recognize the value of the GA characters and think it would be nice to have them available.”
Yup!
To add to that, I’m sure Johns is stoked to get to do JSA stories again, and we’ll see how that pans out–but really, DC, you can’t let Roy Thomas, one of the top comics writers of the 20th century back in to do an All-Star Squadron revival/continuation set during WWII geared towards older readers who care about comics history and history in general? It would probably sell as well as or better than at least half of DC’s current comics output.
Donald G:
Thanks for the Golden Age Aquaman clarification, as I was pretty sure that he appeared in more than just one panel of All-Star Squadron–even if he was brought in towards the end of the run. If the series had continued it would have been cool if Roy had done an Invaders homage one off story where Superman or Wonder Woman or Uncle Sam, Firebrand (Danette), and Aquaman were featured defending the home front from fifth columnist saboteurs and U-boats with a classic cover in the style of Alex Schomburg’ Timely Comics covers.
Wayne:
Agreed that DC needs to reissue Nathaniel Dusk as a trade paperback or hardback. I always liked Sabre too–think it would be cool to see it adapted as a film or streaming series. I got to meet McGregor at a Long Beach Comic Con a few years back –he’s a good guy and he signed a bunch of comics for me free of charge.
I’m aware that Young All-Stars sought to fill the gaps of G.A. Superman (hence Iron Munro), Batman (hence Flying Fox), Wonder Woman (hence Fury I) being declared non-canon due to COIE. And I agree that it’s cool that Iron Munro was based on Philip Wylie’s Gladiator, which also influenced Siegel and Shuster’s Superman. But my point is that I also think that the bean counters and marketers at DC strong armed Roy to make the book “relevant” to the youth demographic …hence why it was “Young” All-Stars–I mean, almost nobody cared about having Dan the Dynamite and Sandy the Golden Boy (and Bucky rip-off) lead a ’40s teen team featuring Neptune Perkins. Or am I wrong? I wanted more Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Robotman, et al. I was a teenager when All-Star Squadron came out and I loved the 1940s angle and did not want yet another teen team book (much as I enjoyed NTT and LOSH)–and when I was a kid, Roy Thomas got me interested in WW II history in the first place thanks to his great run on The Invaders. Anyway, yeah, has much been done with Iron Munro in the last 35 or so years? It could be cool to see him in his own limited series set in the ’40s. Agreed, too, that it would have been cool to see more Quality–and Fawcett characters in All-Star Squadron. I don’t recall Roy ever using Bullet Man & Bullet Girl, Spy Smasher, Ibis, Mr. Scarlet and the rest in any stories…only the Marvel family a few times. The cool thing would have been to have the All-Star Squadron deal with 1940s Crises on other Earths
annually. Roy could have used and adapted so many public domain characters…the Squadron could go to Earth-Fox Comics and meet Dan Garrett Blue Beetle, The Flame, The Green Mask; Earth-Nedor Comics and meet Black Terror, Miss Mask, Pyroman; Earth Lev Gleason Comics and meet the G.A. Daredevil (Bart Hill) and Silver Streak, and so on…and done a better job than Dynamite Comics’ Project Superpowers has done.
I should probably check out Planetary.
Daniel T. :
Did old Johnny ever tell Yz the Thunderbolt to de-age him in any story anywhere? Also, what ever became of Jonni Thunder? I liked that character.
I was also thinking that Amazonian or Kryptonian science could have found a way to impart longevity to the JSA…or how about The New Gods imparting a regenerative
energy to the JSA through The Source…?
Here’s a link to a fun article about All-Star Squadron and Hawkman!
https://www.cbr.com/all-star-squadron-hawkman-missed-art-correction-broken-streak/
I think at this point there are more explanations for their slow-aging than are necessary. I believe in Grant Morrison’s JLA arc with the JSoA (“Crisis Times Five,” I believe it was called), Wildcat first revealed he had nine lives after dying and coming back to life, saying something like “This ain’t all diet and exercise” referring to his relative youth.
Going through the collection and finally reading the JSA (1999-2006) series — all of which I bought for fifty cents a pop about a decade ago. I had Robinson sign the first few issue (along with a bunch of his other comics) about eight years ago or so at a WonderCon, so, those issues aren’t with the rest of the series…I’ll have to dig through numerous boxes to find them…but anyway, the Goyer/Johns issues are really good so far( I’ve read about ten issues). Also, nice to see great art by Stephen Sadowski and Michael Bair! And cool Alan Davis covers. I think so many DC/Marvel comics from the last decade really have sub-
par art. Ian Karkull makes his return in issues 7-9; and no. 10 is a great Wildcat-stands-alone against Johnny Sorrow and the new Injustice Society tale. Instead of the 9 lives shtick, they should have just revealed that Ted Grant has some meta-gene healing factor thing going on.
On the plus side, I like what they did with Sandy– revamping him as Sand, and Dr. Mid-nite III seems pretty cool. I don’t like that Alan Scott got renamed “Sentinel”–such a disservice to a classic Golden Age character. It’s interesting to see Hector Hall as Dr. Fate, but Kent Nelson is my favorite fate. Also, what was the deal with Hector Hall always having to be somebody else? Why didn’t they just leave him as Silver Scarab? Mister Terrific II is solid and actually a lot more interesting than his predecessor. Star-Spangled Kid II (Stargirl) is refreshing and a nice addition to the team. Black Canary’s costume is better than her horrible late ’80s Jazzercise outfit, but I still don’t see why the original, classic B.C. outfit wasn’t just retained. I guess at this point she’s on the outs with Ollie and hooked up with Atom Smasher? Also weird to have Hal Jordan as The Spectre…always preferred Jim Corrigan.
Anyway, anybody else like or have comments on the JSA (1991-2006)run? Anybody know to what extent Goyer and Johns were involved as consultants or whatnot for the upcoming Black Adam film? The second Black Adam trailer is very good! Can’t wait to see Pierce Brosnan as Kent Nelson/Dr. Fate!