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Post by redsycorax on Feb 27, 2023 22:44:29 GMT
I know, and the problem with the Silver Age Atom goes deeper than that. Although some of DC's heroes are rich and propertied in terms of their continuity and heritage, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, the Justice League and Silver Age Legion of Super Heroes, second tier heroes don't get as much narrative effort expended on character development. For instance, all we knew about Ray Palmer was that he was a physicist who harnessed white dwarf matter condensation technology and used it for heroic purposes, who married Jean Loring, only to have her cheat on him for no reason, develop schizophrenia, kill Sue Dibny and become the new Eclipso. The guy's had some rough breaks, for sure, but we don't know much about him beside that. We know Hawkman and Hawkwoman/Hawkgirl either come from Thanagar or are the reincarnation of ancient Egyptian star-crossed regal lovers. Yet we know nothing about Thanagar, other than its discovery of nth metal and use for flight purposes. Why did it adopt the hawk as its totemic planetary symbol? Why do we know nothing about Thanagarian culture, history and technology, other than the fact that Thanagar orbits Polaris, presumably at a distance, given that its larger and hotter than our own Sun and is also a binary? It seemed to become a commonplace during the seventies for some second-tier heroes to get better character development and backgrounding in Justice League than in their own stories. Red Tornado wanted to get back to Earth-Two before he acclimatised to life on Earth-One, but the Justice League authors never knew what to do with the character, unlike the comparable Vision in Marvel's Avengers, resulting in him getting killed off twice, then brought back. Zatanna was similarly left hanging as a character- after she rescued her father Zatara, nothing happened until she joined the Justice League as team mage and then we learnt that she was a member of the human subspecies homo magus and that her mother, Sindella, also had those abilities before she was abruptly killed off just after being introduced. After Iris Allen's 'death', she got involved with Barry Allen for a while, before her current involvement with John Constantine.
I think that was the thing that initially attracted me to the seventies Justice Society revival and Silver Age Legion- meaningful character development, good continuity and high stakes heroics. Legionnaires died in the course of action and they stayed dead (well, apart from Wildfire, given he was an energy being). Power Girl was her own woman, not just Earth-Two Superman's cousin. Green Lantern had to pay the cost of neglecting his business. Hourman became addicted to his Miraclo pills. The Star Spangled Kid felt temporally displaced for a while after being returned to Earth-Two in the mid seventies with the other Seven Soldiers of Victory. Earth-Two's Batman and Catwoman, and Superman and Lois Lane, married. Given the JSA's longevity, legacy heroes were introduced, like Power Girl, the Huntress and Infinity Inc.
I think the thing about the Squadron Supreme is that they were intended as a Marvel pastiche of the Justice League, just as DC responded with the heroes of Angor as their reciprocal pastiche of the Avengers and with Earth-Eight as the current DC multiverse's pastiche Marvel Universe. They were just different enough from their JLA counterparts not to risk copyright infringement- Tom Thumb wasn't the Atom, Nighthawk wasn't Batman even if he strongly resembled him, the Whizzer and Arcanna had families, Golden Archer had much less of a moral compass than Green Arrow, Doctor Spectrum was a lot more juvenile than Green Lantern, Captain Hawk was single, Nuke was far younger and more immature than Firestorm, Hyperion was not an alien and far more estranged from humanity than Superman ever could be, and Power Princess was far more authoritarian, dogmatic and prescriptive than Wonder Woman.
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Post by lawrenceliberty on Feb 27, 2023 23:59:33 GMT
I liked the Squadron Supreme but it seemed like they were pawns in almost every story about them!
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Post by dans on Feb 28, 2023 0:21:14 GMT
I liked the Whizzer as much as I liked the original Barry-Flash.
All that stuff you noted about the Atom, that happened after I stopped reading most comics, so I am unaware of it. I thought Dr. Light killed Sue Dibny? Anyway, I liked that the Atom was mostly unencumbered with decades of back stories and reader expectations. And for much of the time I read his stories, I really wanted his power, because it would have let me sneak into places that boys are not allowed to go! And the idea of subatomic worlds was really cool, too. Of course, he could never have found the same world twice, and he might get lost coming back from an electron - who knows where a particular electron is at any given instant?
And yes, the thing about Squadron Supreme for me is that some of them behaved more like real people than DC heroes did, and behaved more like I think I might behave if I had the same powers.
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Post by dans on Feb 28, 2023 0:25:45 GMT
I liked the Squadron Supreme but it seemed like they were pawns in almost every story about them! Yeah, I noticed that too. After about the 13th time you would think they would figure out some way to protect themselves. If Tom could invent the b-mod machine, and an impenetrable force field, he should have been able to figure out some kind of mental shield...
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Post by redsycorax on Feb 28, 2023 1:14:46 GMT
Not to mention the fact that Marvel originally devised the AU title "Earth-S" to designate the Squadron Supreme's home Earth but never bothered to copyright it, so DC was free to use it as the designation for Captain Marvel and the Squadron of Justices' home Earth in the seventies!
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Post by jonclark on Feb 28, 2023 9:14:31 GMT
I think the story loses something if you try to directly adapt it to Earth-1. Not only are there some continuity hiccups (Earth-1 Steve isn't from WW II, Zatanna isn't a mother, Hawkman is already married...) you also have more heroes than the Squadron Supreme Earth did (Titans, Doom Patrol, Global Guardians ...).
Would be an interesting story though if you made it a semi-Elseworld (so as not the drastically affect the future of the site's Earth-1) and used the original premise as just a starting point. You don't need Hal to kill Firestorm at all or if you want that beat you can switch up who dies or does the killing. Add in how such moves by the League effect the Titans (How does Nightwing view Bruce's actions? Do the Titans fracture as the League does into factions). Include the Leaguers that didn't have Squadron counterparts (Red Tornado, Steel, Starman, Elongated Man). If you include that Captain America story- make it Earth-2/S/X rather than Angor the villains flee to trying to escape the League (or to add in an Injustice riff they come to the "real" Earth-1)
Could even make a cool round-robin if there were multiple writers here inspired to co-author.
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Post by dans on Feb 28, 2023 13:38:29 GMT
Been a long time since we've had a round robin! I think if I were writing this, I would either place it on an Earth where at the beginning of the story there were no other organized hero teams, or I might have the heroes in the Justice League decide that other heroic teams could only get in the way of their programs and do something to eliminate them fairly early in the story. Nothing fatal, maybe just capture them and use the b-mod to prevent them from using their powers ever again. I think there was an Avengers story about how in one version of the timeline the original Avengers were convinced by the Scarlet Centurion to eliminate all other heroes in return for Utopia... and it ended with a battle between the original Avengers and a different, weaker group of Avengers - and in that battle, Hawkeye and the Black Panther decisively beat the Hulk!! So the idea that the JLA and their Utopia Program might suppress all the other heroes isn't farfetched... And it would deal with some of the issues Jon raises.
In a fictional universe created by Drew Hayes (who is a great writer!) people with super powers are not permitted to use them for crime fighting purposes unless they go through a very rigorous 4 year training program (at the same time they are getting their college diploma in a more mundane field) and then 2 year apprenticeship. Approximately 200 Supers are admitted to the training program every year; only 50 are awarded Hero certificates. Most Supers who want to 'do good' take jobs in other first-responder areas. The JLA could set up rules for those with powers similar to this, and use the b-mod to enforce them...
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Post by DocQuantum on Feb 28, 2023 17:49:32 GMT
All Utopias are Dystopias. Human nature is to blame.
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Post by jonclark on Feb 28, 2023 22:55:56 GMT
One of the things in the Squadron Supreme mini was that although it leans towards a dystopia there is no overarching villain. Their Superman and Wonder Woman aren't killing people left and right. Their Batman isn't driven by his own ego. All of the heroes have noble reasons (except Green Arrow) for what they do.
This separates it from Injustice or the Justice Lords who are corrupted by power. Or Kingdom Come where the heroes largely turned their backs on their duties.
I find the idea of the heroes being still the good guys and doing the "right" thing but still having things go badly more interesting than having the heroes suddenly acting like vicious dictators.
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Post by redsycorax on Mar 1, 2023 0:19:05 GMT
I don't know if I'd agree with that assessment of Injustice. Superman went dark in that AU after multiple tragedies - the deaths of Lois, their unborn child and the nuclear destruction of Metropolis, all of which tipped him over the edge and caused the absolute loss of his moral compass. I do agree with you about the Justice Lords AU, though, Jon. For me, Luthor's murder of the Flash wasn't adequately explained or rationalised, nor was it stated why that was the straw that broke the metaphorical camel's back in Superman's case. And why did their Batman go along with it? He's normally dead against the use of arbitrary use of violent force against an opponent, given that one such instance led to his parents murders. As for Kingdom Come, the same motivating factor applies- Superman lost Lois and Metropolis, retired from active duty and the earlier generations of metahumans were aghast at the way that their more ruthless progeny carried on, which led to the devastation of Kansas. As for Diana, well, she's an Amazon Princess and used to giving orders. I think Bruce gets fairer representation in both Injustice and Kingdom Come. And incidentally, one of the strengths of Kingdom Come was its use of detail in the DC universe, so Bruce could harness large numbers of dissident metahumans who disapproved of what Superman and Wonder Woman were doing.
One of the weaknesses of Squadron Supreme was that you never saw the full implications of a global dystopia, unlike Injustice. And, ironically, when DC turned the tables in its Countdown Lord Havok and the Extremists event, that wasn't the case with Earth-8/Angor, their pastiche "Marvel Universe" AU.
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Post by dans on Mar 1, 2023 12:12:10 GMT
I think the point about Squadron Supreme is that the heroes didn't turn into bad guys, for whatever reason, and they relinquished power when they realized they were wrong. It was still a hopeful tale, more in the tradition of the 60s than a precursor for the darker stuff that came later.
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Post by redsycorax on Mar 1, 2023 21:44:31 GMT
I'm not sure about that either, dans. Because of their intransigence and arrogance, Hyperion and Power Princess precipitated a situation where people died- Nighthawk, Black Archer, Foxfire, Blue Eagle, Lamprey, Pinball and Thermite all perished in the climatic battle. Although eventually Mark and Zarda realised the Utopia Programme and forced behavioural modification of former supervillains was wrong, six people died as a result of their actions. It was a dark tale itself- the United States and the rest of the world were in ruins, individual freedom was under attack from a coercive utopian programme, the sanctity of the human mind was violated and at its climax, several people perished. To me, these are not the actions of heroes. Perhaps the Squadron Supreme was more like its AU mirror image, the Squadron Sinister, than one likes to think.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Mar 2, 2023 1:43:37 GMT
I'm not sure about that either, dans. Because of their intransigence and arrogance, Hyperion and Power Princess precipitated a situation where people died- Nighthawk, Black Archer, Foxfire, Blue Eagle, Lamprey, Pinball and Thermite all perished in the climatic battle. Although eventually Mark and Zarda realised the Utopia Programme and forced behavioural modification of former supervillains was wrong, six people died as a result of their actions. It was a dark tale itself- the United States and the rest of the world were in ruins, individual freedom was under attack from a coercive utopian programme, the sanctity of the human mind was violated and at its climax, several people perished. To me, these are not the actions of heroes. Perhaps the Squadron Supreme was more like its AU mirror image, the Squadron Sinister, than one likes to think. My two cents is that I have no problem with a dictatorship run by superheroes. Any form of government can work is it is run by good people, and who could be better to rule you than a superhero?
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Post by jonclark on Mar 2, 2023 4:55:04 GMT
I'm not sure about that either, dans. Because of their intransigence and arrogance, Hyperion and Power Princess precipitated a situation where people died- Nighthawk, Black Archer, Foxfire, Blue Eagle, Lamprey, Pinball and Thermite all perished in the climatic battle. Although eventually Mark and Zarda realised the Utopia Programme and forced behavioural modification of former supervillains was wrong, six people died as a result of their actions. It was a dark tale itself- the United States and the rest of the world were in ruins, individual freedom was under attack from a coercive utopian programme, the sanctity of the human mind was violated and at its climax, several people perished. To me, these are not the actions of heroes. Perhaps the Squadron Supreme was more like its AU mirror image, the Squadron Sinister, than one likes to think. My two cents is that I have no problem with a dictatorship run by superheroes. Any form of government can work is it is run by good people, and who could be better to rule you than a superhero? That was literally the point the Squadron came to. The Utopia Program's flaw was that it only worked if there were noble people to run it. When and if the last current Squadron member died the program could easily be misused. A noble monarch with supreme power (no pun intended) is better than a democratically elected crooked president with limited power. It's less the powers they wield and more the way they wield them- be it as superheroes or as politicians. Bat-Dictator holding public trials with unbiased evidence before executing a serial killer is more just than Super-President pardoning the same serial killer because he has a large fanbase. But we are always shown the dictator executing people as a sign of their inherent evil as well as dictators always being more evil than elected officials.
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Post by dans on Mar 2, 2023 12:16:42 GMT
Superheroes are all vigilantes who take the law into their own hands whenever they are in a situation in which they must disregard the law. Superhero rulers would do the same thing - they would do what they think is right even if it was against the law (which it wouldn't be because they ARE the law). But what if the thing they think is right is not right for you? And you're not able to plead your case? They would be no better and in a lot of ways a lot worse than human dictators because there are ways to stop a human dictator, but other than the bullet Nighthawk wouldn't fire, no way to stop Hyperion.
And, Hyperion is NOT human, suppose something he thought of as 'the right thing to do' affected all of humanity? For example, he might decide to end global warming right now by banning the use of coal and oil to generate power, right now?
I would definitely not want to live in a dictatorship of vigilantes.
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