2 comments on “Tape #4 – The Justice Society of America”

1. Martin Gray says:

   April 23, 2025 at 1:58 pm

   Congratulations on another great episode, it’s always fun to hear the good Captain.

   I enjoyed the Earth 2 history, and yes, Martian Manhunter was always on Earth One – but let’s not forget another Captain, Adam Blake, Captain Comet, the tightiest, whiteiest of superheroes.

   It always bothered me, too, that Earth One people called themselves Earth One, when that was the second planet in terms of getting superheroes, but don’t forget, Earth Two was discovered by Barry Allen of Earth One, so he had naming rights.

   Yes, Power Girl was presented as older than Supergirl, and no, Superman’s Babysitter doesn’t come into it – the bit about Kara Zor-El being older than Kal-El, but taking longer to get to Earth was a product of the 2000s. I hate it, it’s so reductive to have Kara sent to Earth not because she was worth saving in herself, but to look after the future Superman.

   Now, you were asking why we never saw the raised-to-Olympus Wonder Woman post-Crisis. In-canon-wise, that’s explained in the Legend of Wonder Woman mini-series by Trina Robbins and Kurt Busiek. Mostly it’s a Golden Age-style flashback tale but the final pages see Aphrodite explain to Hippolyte – who began the series mourning her just-killed daughter – that a reality wave means Diana never existed. She’s been holding it back from Paradise Island but soon it would wipe everyone out, and new versions of the Amazons would rise. Hippolyta and her sisters were made into constellations, able to remember the old reality. Now, it’s not stated that Diana has vanished from Olympus but it seems fair to assume the current Olympians were being rewritten too.

   So, I think we can assume that Olympian Diana was gone, so wasn’t available to meet post-Crisis Diana when she was killed and ascended to godhood in the John Byrne run.

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2. Symbol Pending says:

   April 25, 2025 at 2:34 am

   Martin is, as usual, correct about Power Girl’s age, and I have receipts! In Showcase #98 (March 1978), Kara (a lovely name if I can butter up a host :D) is talking about how she travelled to Earth in a Bioship that projected a fake Krypton. During the tale, she says how she aged twenty years in the pod, and sixty years real time, as seen in this lovely full-page spread https://i.imgur.com/SJbxHGZ.png

   And as an actual fan of the Infinity Inc comics, it was eight issues with the Crisis banner, though there’s also #30 after the JSA get Ragnoroked, and a personal favourite #27 where Fury has a breakdown from coming from an earth that no longer exists.

   Oh and that Bryne issue where he tries to fix Superboy being in the Legion through Time Trapper shenanigans, that was my personal first taste of the Crisis and the Post Crisis universe in general!

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