DC History Club: Roy Thomas at DC August 2020 Goals of Roy Thomas in Writing All Star Squadron
When DC Comics hired Roy Thomas
They knew he wanted to
Write a JSA comics.
It would always be on Earth 2, apart from the main Earth One
He had a choice in setting
The JSA in the then present day
Which meant the JSA members
Would be in their 60s but very experienced
Or in the 40s
When they would be
In their 20s but inexperienced
He choose the World War II Era
Thomas also decided to concentrate on promising characters who had either been ignored or downplayed rather than the Earth Two counterparts of the main Earth’s heroes.
The All-Star Squadron included not only the members of the Justice Society as it had existed in the pages of the 1940s All-Star Comics, but
numerous other heroes, as well:
not only other extant DC characters of the early ’40s,
but also heroes from the later-acquired Quality Comics line
—plus a couple of brand new heroes
(Female Firebrand, Black Amazing Man and Japenese Tsunami)
retroactively created in the ’80s for gender and ethnic balance.
In other words, Thomas “revealed” that the JSA had actually been part of a much larger umbrella group, the All-Star Squadron, as ordered by FDR…
In some sense
All Star Squadron was more like
The animated Justice League Unlimited show, with scores of members
While the traditional JSA
Was more like the 7 person
Animated Justice League show
The JLU approach was more flexible
And an issue could always concentrate
On a small subset of the larger group
The phrase “retroactive continuity” was used (attributed to a fan) in the letter column in issue #18, of All.Star Squadron which soon became “Retcon”. The series was heavily based around retcons in the positive sense—it often told stories that happened between issues of real Golden Age series, gave characters origins who never had them, and cleared up plot holes and dangling plots from decades ago. It generally avoided the “everything you know is a lie” type of retcon, though there were some minor history changes.
It also gave a decent explanation why the really powerful superheroes didn’t invade the Axis powers to end the war overnight
The Axis had mystical objects that would take mind control of the magical superheroes and those subseptable to magic like Superman who tried entering land under Axis control.
The book was real world historically accurate.
The story begins on December 6 1942, the day before
the Attack on qqPearl Harbor
This was very obvious due to the frequent use of real-world dates and events; eight published years of All-Star Squadron and Young All-Stars took place over a seven-month period in the war.
He also made
The All Squadron stories
Fit within the already established
All Star stories
Issues 1 to 4
Were between
All Star 10 and 11
You can tell
That from the covers on All Star
Dr Mid Nite ia a JSA member since issue 8
Dr Fate is wearing a half helmet
Sandman is not wearing his gas mask and a suit
But the costume created by Simon and Kirby
Wonder Woman is not yet a member
Cover of isdue 9 Sandman wearing a gas mask
Cover 10 he has a new costume
Page 1 issue 10
Cover 11 is after Pearl Harbor
And Wonder Woman is now a JSA member
Page 1 issue 11
Roy Thomas always did his homework on All Star Squadron
and it shows.
The Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed Earth-2, which now never existed. This was not good for the book, which ended at issue 67 after a series of inventory stories dealing with character origins and a retelling of a classic Superman story in the new retconned Superman-less history. The book was succeeded by Young All-Stars, which replaced the now retconned Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, went a further 31 issues plus an annual, and is generally considered lower quality than the series itself.
All the above
was better said in a post
To the JSA Book.Club
On the All Star Squadron issuesv1 to 6
By @TheCosmicMoth