JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
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JSA Articles
Text pieces in this section contain information that I think is especially worthy of saving for fans to read. Much of it comes from online discussions, which once gone, are hard to reference again.
Peter David on Continuity
I think David's words here are typical of creators' approach to continuity today. It explains a lot...
From: padguy@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.dc.universe
Subject: Re: Continuity freaks.
Date: 8 Oct 1998 04:51:45 GMT
I don't think an interest in continuity on the part of the fans necessarily stifles the freedom of expression of the creators involved. The creator simply has to be aware that ignoring it might generate some heat, and he has to decide whether or not it's worth it to take that heat. But as they say, Fred, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.
For instance: People who like continuity nice and tidy are still somewhat cheesed that I've made no effort whatsoever to untangle Supergirl's snarled backstory. My fairly straightforward answer of "I don't care about it; writing a story about it doesn't interest me" sets the teeth of many continuity fans on edge. Nonetheless, I'm not going to write a story simply to satisfy continuity demands of fans. I'm aware this will annoy some, but better to annoy a few by not fixing continuity than to annoy everyone by writing a bad story.
When I encounter continuity I don't like, my tendency is to ignore it. Not change it. Not fix it or contradict it. Just ignore it.
And then there's degrees of continuity. For instance, if I come up with a dynamite notion for a story, and find out that it's hopelessly contradicted by a line of dialogue fifteen years ago, I'll do the story anyway because I would rather make happy the people reading the book now than those who were reading it a decade and a half earlier, the vast majority of which is likely no longer aboard.
PAD
A Discussion about Hawkman:
From: "GAAROW" <Lisiecki@htonline.com >
Subject: Re: Alan Scott's Origin?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.dc.universe
To answer this question, I will quote from the Hawkman Index #1, published by Independent Comics Group, written by Mike Tiefenbacher.
The original Hawkman series concerned a blond millionaire playboy named Carter Hall, who, having acquired an Egyptian knife, suddenly realized that he was the reincarnation of Prince Khufu, an ancient Egyptian crusader for good who had been murdered, pledging before he died that he and his murderer would meet again in another lifetime and that he would avenge himself. Khufu had had a girlfriend named Shiera, and, sure enough, Shiera Sanders came into Carter's life soon after."
Shiera Sanders, of course, was the reincarnation of the Ancient Egyptian Shiera. The Hawkman: Year One annual added to the story in several confusing ways. Khufu was revealed to be prince Khufu Kha-taar and Shiera was instead called Chay-ara. Khufu was a hawk avatar (see way way below), having been contacted by Horus, apparently, and given the Night Metal which he and his followers used to create wings and harnesses which enabled them to defy gravity.
In addition, in the Year One Annual, Khufu saved Shiera and killed the man who would be reborn as Anton Hastor, who, with his dying breath, pronounced a curse which would cause them to be reborn and battle again.
Also, Carter's hair color is highly variable in Hawkworld. It seems that both he and Shiera are addicted to hair dye.
"When a would-be world-conqueror named Anton Hastor appeared, Hall knew the rest of the prophecy was fulfilled and that this was his ancestor's murderer. He donned the head and wings of a hawk in tribute to the Egyptian god Ra, and strapped on a belt made of a discovery of his--a gravity-defying material called 'ninth metal' (later 'nth metal'), a name possibly inspired by the 'eight rays' of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars stories."
As Greg Morrow aka elmo commented:
"It's ninth metal for a very good reason: the classical era recognized seven metals (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury). The ninth metal is thus a classical allusion--a metal beyond that which is known, which fits it precisely. It's a very 30s SF idea, very a propos."
In the post-Crisis universe, the invention of the metal was due to the aid of Carter's friend Perry Carter, aka Paran Katar, a Thanagarian who came to Earth and managed to dissuade the Thanagarians from conquering the planet in the 1930s/40s. It was mentioned that Carter was never able to make more than the two sets of wings; this is because it was Paran not Carter who was the inventor. This is odd in view of the fact that the Silver Scarab, Carter's son, later creates an anti-gravity suit out of Carter's ninth metal (without having torn apart his parents' wings).
In the post-Zero-Hour universe, the anti-gravity was a discovery that Carter made on his own (no sign of Perry), though not an invention. Carter had merely unearthed Prince Khufu's anti-gravity harness. A dream told him the name of the metal (Night Metal) which he misremembered as Ninth metal. This suggests that Paran Katar was no great inventor. This also seems odd; where did Shiera's wings come from then? Did he just happen to discover another set? Or did Paran give him a pair that he created? And what about the Silver Scarab's outfit?
However, Paran was revealed to be a sorceror as well as a well-educated scientist; sure, this makes sense. There are lots of Thanagarian sorcerors, right? Sigh. Well, I suppose he could have learned sorcery on Earth. Boy, he sure was a busy little bee, wasn't he? He learned that he required great power to make anti-gravity work, even though the Ancient Egyptians made do with a little electricity. To access this power, Paran threw an angel into hell; that is, he took an extra-dimensional being of great power (the so-called Hawkgod, who was responsible for the hawk avatars) and put him into yet another dimension.
To continue about Carter Hall: "As Hawkman, he tracked down his murderer and rescued Shiera from him. Thereafter, utilizing ancient weaponry (his motto being, 'With a weapon of the past I shall defeat an evil of the present'), Hawkman battled crime and evil."
Carlin vs. JSA?
<amtravis@earthlink.net>From: Alan Travis
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.dc.universe
Subject: Carlin vs. JSA!
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 03:03:48 -0700
Found this little chunk of info when reading a Len Strazewski interview:
MA: What is your take on the quick cancellation of this surprise hit series?
LS: It was a capricious decision made personally by Mike Carlin because he didn't like Mike's artwork or my writing and believed that senior citizen super-heroes was not what DC should be publishing. He made his opinion clear to me several times after the cancellation. As a result, I think it would be nigh onto impossible that I will work at DC again.
I think it's hearing that Carlin didn't like Mike's (meaning Mike Parobeck) artwork that distresses me the most about this news. I mean, I knew DC held the attitude that they should develop such great young characters as Damage and Anima, ignoring the old JSA characters, but I didn't know that it was also an attack against Parobeck. The guy was one of the best artists of the nineties.
I guess a market comprised of a majority of older readers has sent him scurrying back to the fans that would like to see a JSA series. I wonder what else could have changed to have him approve a JSA series for 1999. —Alan
More Fun Comics vs. Adventure Comics
by Rich Morrissey (originally posted on America Online)
Date: Sun, Jan 24, 1999 11:31 AM
From: RMorris306@aol.com
As was noted, they were separate comics. They started out respectively as New Fun Comics and New Comics (at a time when most comic books featured newspaper strip reprints, so new material was a big deal); the former soon became More Fun Comics and the latter New Adventure Comics, then simply Adventure Comics.
The confusion probably came from the fact that, in early 1946, Adventure Comics dropped almost its entire lineup (Sandman, Starman, Genius Jones, and Mike Gibbs, Guerrilla) and picked up the previous stars of More Fun Comics (Superboy, Green Arrow, Aquaman, and Johnny Quick). I suspect the latter had sold much better than the former, and plans were made to change several of the existing superhero titles (also including Comic Cavalcade and Leading Comics) into all-humor titles, humor being an up-and-coming format for comics after the war. Adventure Comics seemed a good prospect for such a change (its sales were probably gone, it hardly needed guerrilla heroes after the war, and the artists that had made Sandman and Starman so successful, like Jack Burnley and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, had gone on to other things), but its title would hardly fit a humor comic... so they gave it the successful More Fun lineup, and turned More Fun into a humor title. As such, it retained its own comedy feature (the Whitney Ellsworth/Henry Boltinoff "Dover and Clover") and picked up "Genius Jones" from Adventure (originated by famed SF writer Alfred Bester, but now also written by Ellsworth and drawn by Stan Kaye). So Adventure had room to keep one character from its original lineup, surprisingly passing over the more popular Sandman and Starman to retain the Shining Knight instead.
The Shining Knight, after a late run by Frank Frazetta, was dropped in 1952 due to shrinking page count. Johnny Quick followed in 1954, which is why Aquaman and Green Arrow, the survivors, became DC's only Golden Age heroes aside from Superman/Superboy, Batman, and Wonder Woman to survive into the Silver Age. Then editor Mort Weisinger began to juggle the backup features in his various books; he briefly replaced Green Arrow with Congorilla, then dropped both the newcomer and Aquaman in favor of "Tales of the Bizarro World" in 1961, followed by the Legion of Super-Heroes a year later. The Legion proved a great success, displacing and finally absorbing Superboy's long-running lead feature, before in turn being replaced by Supergirl in 1969. Supergirl was moved over to her own title in 1972, leaving Adventure without any sort of regular lead feature for the rest of its run. Numerous characters were tried (including several return appearances by old regulars like Aquaman and Superboy, as well as Plastic Man, The Spectre (who'd come very close to getting into Adventure in the '40's, having been dropped from More Fun only shortly before its stable made the big move), Dial "H" for Hero, and the JSA! It eventually died with #503; its last few issues being all-reprint collections in the digest format.
Ancient Egypt and DC Character Plausibility
by Andre Soleil
September 18, 1999
If your assumption is that the Ancient Egyptians (who called themselves Khemur, and called the Nile Egypt) were African (a.k.a. Black) you are correct, however with the eventual interbreeding with the Hyksos, Hittites and Aryan migrants to the area they became increasingly diverse (racially), eventually, we have the time of the Ptolemy dynasty (Cleopatra was a Ptolemy), were Greek nobility took over and intermarried with the current (mostly mixed) royalty of Egypt and ruled as Pharaohs. Thus, the portrayal of Cleopatra on the most recent television movie was quite accurate (racially). You observe her as a racially mixed, mostly white, individual, and her handmaidens (who traditionally weren't her slaves but her cousins and priestesses) being obviously black and obviously light skinned mulatto. Indeed, in the later eras of Khemit (ancient Egypt) the royalty and city populations were largely multiracial, similar to the Creoles of New Orleans, the Caribbean (Hispanics) and North Africans of today.
Now, as these are fictional characters, we don't know in which dynasty or era Carter and Shiera [Hall] come from. If they were Ptolomy (circa ancient Macedonia to Roman glory), they very well could have looked like that. If they were circa Khufu (the first recorded Pharaoh), they most probably wouldn't have. Which brings us to Nabu and Khufu, it is said that Nabu (white) became the Vizer to Khufu (black). This is possible but improbable. The Khufu era Egyptians considered the pink skins to be barbarians and carriers of leprosy, however, the evident power of Nabu would have affected the Shekhem-ur-Shekhem's acceptance of him. Note: The proper Khemer title for what we commonly call Pharaoh was "Shekhem-ur-Shekhem" meaning "King of King's of the Black Lands" (Khem being "Black", Khemit being "Black Land", and Khemur being "Black Heads" or people).
When speaking of Khe-Ef-Re, the first Blue Beetle, he had to be black as he was portrayed as having among the oldest of sarcophagi (coffins and burial accessories). He then must have been at or around Khufu, was was definitely black. Shazam and Teth-Adam's time in Khemit must have been near that of Joseph and Moses (or properly Tut-Moses), the reason is that the Khemur Empire at the time was very racially diverse and expansive, its farthest outpost were found in Zimbabwe (South Africa) and in India, the rich and nobility were of a variety of races (although mostly brown and black skinned).
In which era do the Hawk's come, who knows, DC gives few clues. However, it could be as recent as the Ptolomy's or as far as Ra-ises (Ramses). In those eras, truthfully, they could have come out looking anywhere from dark-skinned Caucasian with wavy hair to African. Sorry for the long dissertation, but I think it is fair that DC be commended in its efforts to be accurate. When they showed Kha-Ef-Re's ghost he was black. Theth Adam looks appropriate (I would say he should be slightly "blacker" but he is close enough to be possible), and they did portray Nabu as claiming to be a Hittite. I still have a difficulty with the fact that Nabu has always chosen a white person to be his avatar (Dr. Fate). If he was in Egypt for thousands of years wouldn't he have been racially diverse in perspective? How come Shazam also had to be of Caucasian immigrant into the area (Khemur) stock? How come the only powerful magician in the DCU who is not white is Bloodwynd, shouldn't 10,000 years of heritage in Africa (where most of the present magic comes i.e. Nabu, Shazam, etc.) have produced any other Black magicians? What of the almost 10,000 years of Chinese tradition, no magic there either?
The DC writers have attempted to be racially accurate insofar in explaining their character's connection to the Egyptian heritage, but have been deficient in the development of this same heritage in the direct descendants of these same peoples -- the modern Blacks. Yes, modern blacks are the descendants. Anthropologists and Ancient Egyptian records show that West Africa was mostly populated by the pygmies in the most ancient of times and south Africa was mostly hotintot. These are very distinctive from themselves as far a physiology goes. Also records indicate that there was a fairly golden skinned people that lived in North East Africa in the most ancient of times (very light skinned blacks or dark skinned whites, no one knows yet, no one has found any proof of them except the ancient writings (which claim that Set was a king of these people)). Some claim that these people called themselves the Melniboeans, I have seen no scientific discussion on this although I have read religious theorists who say this