*Originally published on 9/3/10
I'm a newcomer to the Justice Society. Like with Wonder Woman, I jumped on after a relatively recent relaunch of the title. Geoff Johns was writing it, and he always does good work, so I figured I had nothing to lose by broadening my comic scope as it were.
One of the problems with the Justice Society was that the characters were so old. They fought back in World War 2, and despite all the universal reset buttons, that fact remains canon. As such, it's rather difficult to buy them engaging in epic fights for the fate of the world. Back in the Silver Age, a lot of those characters had retired. They were still around to give advice, but they were out of the superhero biz. For some reason, they changed their minds and got back into it.
To Johns' credit, his reasoning was that the old guard felt obligated to teach the new generation the tricks of the trade so that they could learn how to be an effective hero. Even with this, the old guard still got some action in when some threat arose.
The DCU can get pretty cluttered. There are tons of characters and teams around. Even solo heroes like Batman and Superman have "families" of supporting heroes that add to it. It's hard to imagine there being any threat that can take on the massive amount of heroes that populate the DCU.
It occurred to me, that maybe the JSA doesn't have to fight in the present. I think it would be rather cool to see a comic where they were in their prime fighting during the war. It would allow readers to see new adventures with these characters and it would reduce the clutter. Normally, DC reduces the clutter by killing off lesser known characters. This will accomplish the same goal without the needless death (which a lot of readers are getting sick of by the way).
I like when comics, or the superhero genre for that matter, broaden their horizons. I was excited when I heard of the possibility that the upcoming Captain America film would be set almost entirely in the WW2 days and I'm excited for Thor to see the superhero genre dabble in epic fantasy. DC has Jonah Hex, which is pretty much self contained as it is set in the old west. You could establish a similar setup with the Justice Society.
The JSA's World War 2 days were something that was often talked about, but not something we've seen in quite a while. It would be interesting to see what their part in it was. Sure, Hitler's a bit outmatched considering that Alan Scott wields a Green Lantern ring (not an official one from the Corps, but it's close enough). They managed to do it before, and given the dictator's fascination with the occult, I'm sure you could come up with some good stories that give the heroes a run for their money.
Then again, the JSA has its share of villains, so I'm sure that they could come up with legitimate threats.
If there's not enough material for an ongoing series, maybe a 12 issue maxi-series would be a better fit. This way, you only have to come up with one big plot as opposed to a bunch of little ones.
I'm just spit-balling here, but it seems like an interesting idea. Heck, seeing as comic companies love releasing multiple on-goings for a single character or team, maybe they could do a new Justice Society: Classified series that shows us what they went up against back in the day. It would give readers something new and different while still delivering the superhero action comic readers love.
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