Alternate JSA

[CharlieRock]

I was not impressed by Kings Watch and will not be adding it to my pull list

It wasn't like the cartoon Defenders of the Earth?

[narfstar]

I did not like Defenders of the Earth so I did not watch it. I did not think it held the integrity of the characters very well.

[great daddy]

hi,guys,have you come up with any more ideas for alternate JSAs yet?
Sorry to ask.

[narfstar]

Here is another go at it
FLASH Tornado Tom
GREEN LANTERN Volton
HAWKMAN Sparky Watts
BLACK CANARY Miss Mask
WONDER WOMAN Phantomah or Lady FAirplay
Dr MIDNIGHT Luckyman
ATOM  Buzz Balmer or Black Dwarf or Crash Kid
Dr Fate Kismet

[great daddy]

Wow,that is so cool.keep it up.

[SuperScrounge]

Had an interesting thought. The original JSA was half DC & half All-American characters & I believe at one point DC & AA had a falling out and for a few issues All Star Comics had an all All-American line-up with no DC characters.

What if All-American & DC never reunited? What would DC do without the rights to the name Justice Society of America? Would they start putting Superman & Batman in the Seven Soldiers of Victory? Would they change the name of the group to the Law's Legionnaires so they could put in as many heroes as they could? What would happen to the Silver Age revival if DC didn't own The Flash to revive?

[TheCosmicMoth]

SuperScrounge, I'm glad you brought that up. I had the exact same thought myself. Without the All-American characters, DC would be without Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Black Canary, The Atom, and more. Assuming that DC progresses through the 50's in the exact same way and decides to reboot superhero comics for The Silver Age with a team of seven, you'd have to replace 3 of the big 7. DC would still have Superman, Batman, Aquaman, and The Martian Manhunter. To fill the last three spots, maybe they'd be forced to bring back Johnny Quick, Dr. Fate, and Liberty Belle to make up for The Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman respectively. They could've also reached out for Spectre, Hourman, or Sandman reboots.

Or... It might have put Green Arrow in the team's line-up from the beginning. That definitely would've made it seem like a new Seven Soldiers team. That could've lead to Shining Knight, Crimson Avenger, Star-Spangled Kid, or Vigilante reboots to fill out the team? Regardless, they would have to use Batman and Superman to bring readers to the team.

This might have also forced DC to create other characters sooner than they did. For instance, Supergirl might have received an earlier debut or, possibly, Zatanna. Maybe the Silver age Batwoman at Batgirl would've stuck around longer to make up for the lack of female heroes. Hell, maybe you would've seen Lois Lane become Superwoman.

So many possibilities!

The big 7 team that I would pick in this scenario would probably be: Superman, Batman, Supergirl, Johnny Quick, Dr. Fate, Aquaman, and The Martian Manhunter. I'd call them The Victory League... or something like that.

[comicsnorth]

I don't think Supergirl would have made the Big Seven, not because she didn't (wouldn't have?) deserve it, but because the JLA (or more likely, Julius Schwartz) had a distinct bias against direct counterparts as members.  Not only would Supergirl have distracted from Superman's "specialness" on the team, but she'd have been much more difficult to deal with than Wonder Woman in the stories, since the Silver Age WW was much less powerful than the Kryptonians, and more easily dealt with by villains using gas or a well-timed blow to the head.  Personally, I think that either Elongated Man or Elastic Lad would have been the Seventh Member, but that wouldn't help with adding a woman to the team.  Assuming that the "anti-counterpart rule" would also keep Batwoman off the team, that doesn't leave much to pick from out of the female characters who actually existed in 1959/1960 DC.  But if we assume that the "Earth One" Johnny Quick & Dr. Fate debuted at the same times that the Silver Age Flash & Green Lantern did, and we further assume that, with no Hawkman, Zatanna would have made her first appearance in Dr. Fate's comic, she might have been available to serve as the token female JLAer.  Of course, it's probably more likely that Zatanna would have been introduced as Dr. Fate's teen sidekick, and been Wonder Girl's replacement in the eventual Teen Titans.  I can't really see a revival/reboot of Liberty Belle before the Bicentennial, but I suppose that depends on what kind of a sci-fi twist Schwartz & co. could come up with for her: a variation on the sonic power she wound up with in All-Star Squadron, or something more off beat, like the ability to transmute her body into bronze?

[JonTheScanner]

Apparently Gaines went to DC and asked either they buy him out of AA or they let him buy out DC.  So there's a wonderful write-up somewhere about the alternate history in which MC Gaines and AA buy out DC.  Green Lantern and Flash continue on into the Silver Age rather than Superman and Batman.  I can't recall wehre I saw it though.

[comicsnorth]

Bob Rozakis wrote that, and it ran thru several issues of Alter-Ego and Back Issue magazines.  Oddly, it never really addressed Wonder Woman to any extent, as she was the only AA character to survive into the Golden Age.  Personally, I think that with Gaines in charge, she would have gotten more of a push than she did--after all, EC's only Super-hero was a thinly veiled clone of WW, Moon Girl, so he must have really liked the idea.

[KevinP]

The Atom, Hourman and Sandman may have been second stringers from anthology books, but The Flash and Green Lantern were the star features (and arguably Hawkman, since he alternated covers with Flash in FLASH COMICS. Also, characters who were in the same anthology title with each other were used: Doctor Fate and Spectre, Hourman and Sandman. The article that Jon mentioned appeared over several issues of ALTER EGO. I would suggest a Quality team with Plastic Man, Uncle Sam, Black Condor, The Ray, Kid Eternity, Phantom Lady, Hercules, Captain Triumph and Wildfire. One of my favorite publishers is ME, so I'd suggest The Avenger, Jet Powers, Strong Man, The Masquerader and possibly Cave Girl and Funnyman. For a Lev Gleason team, see DAREDEVIL BATTLES HITLER.