[JSA Book Club] Week 15: A New Beginning [9/16-9/30]

[JasonTodd428]

For those of you who have been following along we’ve been pretty much all over the map in this club and this month we’ve made our biggest leap yet into a new and rebooted DC landscape.

The N52 reboot changed a lot of things in the DC universe but it also brought about the return of the parallel earth concept. The old Earth-Two and its heroes, the JSA were retooled yet again and Earth 2 was born. (Yes. I know that the team never called itself the JSA officially but honestly they may as well have been called that.)

Let’s get this meeting started and see what awaits us in this brave new world.

ROLL CALL!

Club Leaders

@JasonTodd428 & @Aurora

Standing Members

AggressiveIntellectual219, bigblock66, Brenticus_Rex, CassTheStreet, CrazyQuilt, Daffern, december360, dj.ganon, Don-El, frankie.lacy79, Frostbite30, ganaoque, harrist, HombreDeMaiz, hotstufflouie, jacksonjakebova.2, Jay_Kay, Jflow, jlevin, justicesocietyfan, lunalane, mbpbinder, _meegs, Meisaj, mgeiler, Midnitehour, MisfitCMJ, ,msgtv, PaintEater, ProActress2O, ralphsix, Ravenrifft, Reaganfan78, Remember5NovEveyHammond, rlynchfamily, rspezzano, rm, TheCosmicMoth, TK52, TurokSonOfStone

waddup, ZacharyLee1995.

This Week’s Issues

* Earth 2 (2012) #0-6.

(Just so you are aware the Earth 2 #0 issue was published between issues #4 and #5 but the events in it happen during the time of the Apokolips War.)

Discussion Questions

1. Like the beginning of All Star Squadron, Earth 2 starts off by removing that earth’s main “Wonders” from the picture. What do you think of the parallels between the two and does this particular technique work for you in this case?

2. The characters here may have the same names, code names and powers as their JSA counterparts but what did you make of how this group of Wonders got their powers and what do you think of the the characters in general?

3. The four new Wonders fave off against an age old JSA villain here. What do you make of this version of Grundy and his connection to the Grey? What about Alan’s connection to its opposite number: The Green? Is the idea that the two are both representatives of these forces an interesting idea or is ot for the birds?

4. Al Pratt, Kendra Saunders and Wes Dodds are all Wonders who are associated with the World Army. What are your thoughts on government sanctioned/controlled heroes? Kendra seems to not like the idea. Do you agree with her?

5. How do you feel about seeing these characters just having come into their powers on this Earth 2 where in the original version we meet them long after they acquired their powers?

6. Are you bothered by the differences between the Earth 2 characters and their pre-reboot JSA counterparts?

And that’s it for this week.

Join JSA BOOK CLUB!

Next month: More JSA and The Huntress.

[TurokSonOfStone1950]

1. Per Replacing the Trinity

I think the idea was for
The three main new characters to replace The trinity

Green Lantern to replace Superman

Flash to replace Wonder Woman, as his powers were given by a greek god

Hawkgirl to replace Batman

So the original had to go

Also the Teinity had offsprings

Supergirl or Power Girl
Robin or Huntress
Fury

So they weren’t as needed

Later
Thomas Wayne and a Zod filled the shoes of Batman.and Superman

2. Like many of the characters of the 1940s, their powers were magic based while the 1960s Silver Age version were Science Fiction based

3. Not a fan of the Grern vs the Grey or Rot. Does nothing for me.

4. Al and Wes are uninteresting characters

Kendra I liked but never thought of her as part of government. She was allied with Dr Fate from the beginning I thought

5. Unexperienced characters can be exciting. Hawkgirl did not feel inexperienced. Jay was never fleshed out and was a cipher to me. Alan was the star of the book but his power level were never consistent. If the plot demanded it, he either succeeded or failed.

6. Hawkgirl was not boring but Jay and Alan.were. i think the series went on fway eay too long but the middle by Tom Taylor with Thiomas Wayne Lois Lane Jimmy Olson Aquawoman and young Zod was really great work. The beginning and end not so good.

[hotstufflouieb]

1. I do like the idea of other Earth’s having the Trinity removed to make room for other characters to step into the spotlight. I was all in for this book when it first came out because it was James Robinson taking it on.

2. I like the new origins for classic characters. I think it’s a bit odd that the characters get their powers and already have costumes. Obviously Al being in the military would have an army looking outfit. This reminds me more of a television show about Earth 2 because although they come together for a brief time they are not a team yet. That fleshes out later in the series.

3. I like the fact that on this earth the green and grey are different entities. The green in Earth 1 is Swamp Thing and you have the rot as well. Grundy as the avatar for the grey (the rot) was pretty cool in my mind. I like that it tied into elements from Swamp Thing and Animal Man.

4. I think the government would definitely sanction super heroes to stop the events that had happened before. Obviously Kendra left for a reason. I’d imagine that they asked her to cross a line that she was unwilling to.

5. I don’t mind them starting out because they will make mistakes. Green Lantern comes off as arrogant when he flies away saying he doesn’t need the others. I guess in some way the transfer of power from other entities gave them a slight insight on how to wield their power.

6. When I first read this I kinda was upset because I wanted more classic characters from JSA. We get a tease that Fate is among them, Wesley’s Sandmen, and even mention of Ted Grant. I do like the fact that Terry Sloane is essentially Ozymandias/Lex Luthor.

[TheCosmicMoth]

I’m going to get this done early. Earth 2 is an interesting series. I read these issues back when they first came out, but there was a lot I had forgotten/a lot I didn’t catch on to until now. There’s a lot that actually works in this series and a lot that doesn’t. Let’s get started:

1. Thinking back to when we started reading All-Star Squadron. Roy Thomas set his story back in WWII and you mentioned an alternate approach of setting a JSA story in a modern setting. This is that alternate approach. However, both kind of axe the Trinity in the beginning. I always thought the reason for doing this connected back to Crisis. One of the justifications for Crisis on Infinite Earths was that they needed to get rid of the multiverse to do away with the redundancies involving their major characters. If alternate versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman don’t exist then they can’t undermine the main continuity versions.

2. To start, Green Lantern’s origin is more or less the same: He’s on a train, BOOM, green light… The only major differences are the train’s in China and not the American west and we get Sam instead of Jimmy. The Atom’s origin is new, but I don’t mind Al getting powers. Otherwise, Atom is kind of the same. He’s still fighting with a chip on his shoulder like he has something to prove due to his natural height. I used to think that the Flash’s new origin came from out of left field and then I re-read his original origin in Flash Comics #1 and found this on the very first page:
   

   
   
   “Reincarnation of winged Mercury…” Maybe not so out of left-field after all… I also think it’s telling that it’s “Mercury” and not “Hermes.” The Golden Age Wonder Woman stories used the Roman names for the gods and she was an All-American character like Flash. …Coincidence…?

3. Two things here. First, The Green was going through a renaissance during the New 52. Alan Moore’s Green was greeting a new audience in Scott Snyder’s Swamp Thing run. The Red was a major factor in New 52’s Animal Man. The Rot was the enemy of both. The Green and the Grey here parallel all of this (The Grey was introduced in Bissette’s Swamp Thing run). Second, James Robinson already established Grundy’s connection to this mythos in Starman #34:
   

   
   
   
   (1,000 Moth Respect Points if you can name the “German Flier” that Alan references in the above image)

4. I think this gets down to the concept of government in and of itself. In and ideal state, government exists to protect and serve the citizens that comprise it. In that state, you would have no issue with government controlled superheroes because they would be there to help and support. Unfortunately, as with any man-made system, governments can be corrupted. In that state, you would not always be able to trust that government controlled heroes would have your best interests at heart. The goal is to create the former, but Kendra is probably correct in believing the latter.

5. Everyone has to start somewhere. Even the versions of these characters we’re more accustomed to had to start somewhere. I will say that the new version of Jay Garrick was a bit hard to get used to. Arguably, the Post-Crisis Jay was more inspirational than Post-Crisis Superman. Making him a kid that is out of his depths does take away from that. Even compared to Golden Age Jay, he is much less sure of himself. But… who knows… Maybe if Robinson had 75 issues with this series then it would have all come together.

6. Honestly, I’m not sure it was all really THAT much different:
   

   
   
   
   
   
   I think it was more that fans struggled with hitting the reset button.

There was a lot lost with hitting that reset button, don’t get me wrong. That being said, I think Robinson did a lot of good world building here. It also paid more homage to the Golden Age than it was given credit for. I also loved the parallels between Earth-2 and what was happening during the New 52. The New 52 Justice League starts by thwarting an invasion from Apokolips and Earth-2 shows you how that invasion can go really, really bad. Earth-2 was a better series than it’s generally given credit for.