that never happens.

I don't think I read the previously mentioned storyline with Johnny Sorrow. Was that when Magog was still on the team? because I was trying pretty hard to avoid anything that included him.

I did enjoy some of the other JSA stuff from Willingham, though. I really liked the time-travel story, even if it was only sorta JSA-ish and involved Willingham parading his pet super villain. I still thought it was a pretty solid story and did a nice job of high-lighting Michael Holt.

I did not enjoy the Guggenheim story. There were some neat ideas in there, but the pacing was off and everyone was so out of character.

I am actually enjoying Earth 2 quite a bit. I'll always miss the classic JSA, but so far I've found it an engaging tale that's been building up quite nicely. And while these aren't the characters that I know and love, they're not entirely unrecognizable nor especially unlikable or anything. A reboot from the ground up like this would have gotten me much more interested in the "main" NuDCU.

I'm not sure why Earth 2 would make Gardner Fox spin in his grave. I don't know much about the man's personality, but I've read a lot of his work and he's always struck me as a storyteller first and foremost. By which I mean, the story that he's currently telling matters more than what happened in a previous tale. He was very imaginative and tended to not let his imagination be bound too tightly by the constraints of continuity. Furthermore he was one of DC's chief architects of it's Silver Age which was all about taking the familiar characters of yesteryear and totally reimagining them for a (then) modern audience. Gardner Fox was doing FAR more deviant reworkings of classic heroes in the sixties than James Robinson is doing now.

You must be reading a different Earth-2 book than the rest of us.

That's because gatharion is from Earth-10 and on his Earth, Earth-2 is something other then what it is those of us who are not from Earth-10.

Really? REALLY???

The little bits of the Earth 2 characters we've seen are really THAT much more different from their old JSA versions then say Hal Jordan was from Alan Scott, or perhaps Ray Palmer was from Al Pratt!!! Oh yeah, Gardner Fox was all about simply rewriting unchanged versions of the Golden Age heroes.

How about Hawkman? During the Golden Age, he was the reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian prince. During the Silver Age, he was a police officer from an alien world. Pretty disparate concepts. Both written by Gardner Fox. The dude was fine with totally revamping his OWN characters.

What's SO different about Earth 2 Flash and GL? The source of their powers. Yes, that's certainly different...what else?..Um Alan's gay. That's about all I got because we've not seen very much more than that.

I'm not seeing how that's "more different" than Gardner Fox taking a short-statured pugilist and reworking him into a size-changing physicist.

You make fair points.

I'm enjoying the concepts in the new Earth 2 book. While Gardner Fox may have also done re-imaginings of characters on a similar level, you also have to realize the eras these two things happened/ are happening in.

I'm pretty sure if the Internet forums were around in the times when the Silver Age of comics was being developed, and more adults than kids had followed the books at the time, then Gardner Fox would have come under more scrutinization.

Initially, the JSA re-vamp Robinson's attempting in the Earth 2 left a bad taste in my mouth. Then I had to remember that it's trying to do its own thing rather than build on pre-existing history from pre-nu52 DCU stories. The problem stems from the fact that the nu52 was a softboot on the DCU main, and fans were expecting Earth 2 to be similar to how Gardner Fox introduced Earth 2 during the Silver Age - calling back the DCU history that came from an earlier age. Instead, we're getting similar DC heroes with similar JSA names like Alan Scott and Jay Garrick that have also been de-aged and tweaked (in some cases beyond recognition) to their past incarnations other than the hero personas and powers they take on. If you're going to introduce an Earth 2 with heroes of similar names to the main DCU, but they're not at all like their pre-nu52 counterparts, why give them the same alter egos?

Jay Garrick is nothing like the past incarnation, at least as far as I recall. The design of the costume is actually closer to Johnny Quick of the Crime Syndicate than any other speedster in DC history, and his characterization is far different from the Jay Garrick of the past. So what's the point in naming the character Jay Garrick, when it has nothing in common with the old one? The way they gain their speed powers isn't similar. About the only similarity is the age at which they gain their powers, which is around their college years.

Had these Earth 2 heroes been given all-new alter egos, I'd be inclined to be impressed with how they're handling it. Now there's guys at my venue who refer to the DC 75th JSA Green Lantern as "Gay Lantern," and I don't let it get to me, because it's not the same Alan Scott.

Earth 2 is a good book if you keep in mind that these characters have no connection with the JSA members prior to the nu52. It's just sad that JSA fans of the past were expecting this series to be their godsend for stories being told with characters of the past DC history, instead getting another revamp like most of the other nu52 books.

I don't think this would make Gardner Fox roll in his grave. I'd be honored if anything I created lived on so long, even if it got rebooted for a new audience. Unfortunately this is also alienating an audience that appreciated the old guard more.

It's still better than JSA under Willingham, Sturges, or Guggenheim. It just feel like a bad cover song of a hit the older audience loved so much. This isn't so much a re-imagining as much as it feels like a movie remake that's decent but pales compared to the original, like Clash of the Titans. To me, it comes down to the alter egos and what people expect versus what they're getting with those alter egos. It's a lemon car DC sold to fans crying for the return of the JSA (the old guard) and getting this JSA that has zero ties to the JSA they knew other than names and powers.

Even gatharion points out that the changes Gardner Fox made included changes in the alter egos. So why not make this Earth 2's Atom Ryan Choi or Adam Cray? Why not make this Earth 2's Flash Wally West? This would have been a great opportunity to change around the alter egos and given us something different.

You left out "who has a different name and is a totally different character."

So the answer is: yes, REALLY.

...that was part of my point. Other than the Superhero code name, they are COMPLETELY different.

Gardner Fox takes the idea of the Atom and does something COMPLETELY different.
James Robinson takes the idea of the Flash and does something mostly* different.

Why would Gardner Fox roll over in his grave about it?

I'm not trying to debate how big the changes are or if they're "good" changes. I'm just totally befuddled that Gardner Fox in particular would care.


*"mostly" being a matter of opinion here, I mostly see cosmetic changes and it's not like we ever really saw a fully developed personality for a *young* Jay Garrick. It's way too soon to tell, but I don't see a reason why this new JaY Garrick couldn't mature into a character similar to the one we've come to know.

Well, as someone who's at least a contender for the title of "biggest JSA fan of all time," I have to say that I wasn't expecting that. Hoping for it a little, perhaps, but not remotely expecting it. I read the announcement, I read the interviews, I read what the editors, creative execs, and Robinson himself said about the title before it came out, and nothing in there led me to believe that this would be "our" Earth-2 or even close; I knew it would be nothing remotely like the Johns/Ordway "Earth-2" of the Justice Society Infinity.

I was just expecting a good story from James Robinson with characters that I would at least sort of kinda recognize if I squint at them from the right angle. And actually, that's what I'm getting. It's more interesting than the main NuDCU by far, and the fact that they're letting Robinson have his entire freaking universe to build from the ground up is nothing short of awesomesauce.

Okay, first off, you all should remember that Jay Garrick is my favorite character, not just in comics, but in all of fiction.

Having read nearly all of the early Flash Comics from the 40s, I can say that we never really saw much of Jay's personality back then, especially in the very beginning. He was a little brash, a little arrogant, like most college students. He'd leap into action before thinking, and in some ways was more Wally-like than we got to see him as he matured. The personality that most of us know Jay having didn't even begin to show until "The Flash of Two Worlds" and the JLA team-ups.

As it is, I can accept that this Jay may eventually grow into something like that. While he wasn't exactly "rudderless" before the hard water accident, original Jay didn't exactly have any clear direction for his life, either. So I can accept this as the 21st century equivalent.

And speaking of the hard water accident? My favorite part of Earth-2 so far is that we actually have a new, much better origin for Jay! Connecting him with Mercury is perfect (we at least get the winged helmet there!), and as far as "comic logic" goes, makes infinitely more sense than "knocked out by hard water fumes, wakes up with super-speed," (even with the much later retcon of "the fumes activated his metagene"). The "original speedster" (this representation of him) is given his powers by the "real original speedster." Love it.

As far the costume? Yes, the hipster helmet is a bit reminiscent of CSA Johnny Quick, in fact, I think that might be an intentional nod to the "other 'first' alternate speedster," but the rest of the costume is more reminiscent of John Fox's first two uniforms than anything else. It still has the right color scheme and upside down lightning, so there was an effort to maintain a bit of "Garrick-ness" to it. And it looks much better in the book than on the cover of issue 2.

Getting back to personalities, sexual preference aside, Alan's seems to be closer to the one we've come to know over these long decades. At least as far as I can tell. And the "gay issue?" Look, Robinson has always included diverse characters in his books, including gay ones, and he would've had at least one in here anyway. The only reason it's so blatant in issue two is probably his creative backlash against editorial mandate. "You want gay? You asked for it, guys." He always does that kind of thing when the editors try and make him do something or interrupt his plans. DC wanted a big splashy gay character they could throw out there to steal some of Marvel's media attention, and this is what we got. I don't expect it even to come up much from here on out. Whatever. This is not "my" Alan Scott, but so far, he's a pretty good character.

Can't wait to see how he brings Al Pratt into the fold with the rest, and our introduction to Fate. The setup of Terry Sloane as (apparently) a Lex Luthor type is also brilliantly appropriate for this new world.

All in all, Earth 2 is the book I'm looking forward to most each month now.

But that doesn't mean I don't long for my JSA. But I have the Crisis on Multiple Earths trades, 50-some pre-Crisis issues of All-Star Squadron, the 1992 Strasewski/Parobeck series and "Injustice Be Done," that I can (and do) re-read on a regular basis, giving me four different eras of "my JSA" to get nostalgic with until, somehow, someday, they come back.

????

They have the same superhero name.
They have the same secret identity.
They have the same physical appearance.

So, noooooooo, it's not part of your point. It's not a "new" Green Lantern or a "new" Flash (as Fox did back in the day). They're "bold, new" (translated: crappy) re-envisionings of the SAME characters, NOT all-new characters.

Do you just not understand what's being discussed here?

Gardner Fox was revamping the character of the Atom and did something COMPLETELY different. We all agree that the Al Pratt Atom and the Ray Palmer Atom are completely different.
But it's not an accident that they are both named the Atom. Gardner Fox was helping DC revamp a handful of their old heroes and the Atom was one of the ones they picked. He also happened to be the one who got the biggest over haul, but it WAS a revamp. Not of Al Prat, but of the basic idea of having a superhero named The Atom.

My point still remains. Why would Gardner Fox, who was willing to COMPLETELY change the Atom in nearly every way and COMPLETELY change the origin of Hawkman, a character he had helped create in 1940, care about the COMPARATIVELY minor changes being done in the Earth 2 book?

I'm enjoying where this thread has gone. Thanks everyone!

Well, I'm thinking Max & Gatharion need to go get a room so they can be alone.
Then one of them can pretend to be the new Earth-2 Alan Scott and the other can pretend to be new Earth-2 Solomon Grundy.

Because the changes aren't minor. YMMV, but I see them as MAJOR changes.

Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

Great post. I don't necessarily agree with you, but you expressed yourself nicely.

As for Robinson's Earth-2, I promised my LCS I'd be in for six issues. But as for me and my son (who's also a big JSA Fan), color us "disappointed". Worlds' Finest (the "companion" book to E-2) is being handled soooooo much better...