Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Originally, the idea was that Earth-2 was a parallel earth and Earth-1 was our "real" earth. Gardner Fox, for instance, in the first "Flash of Two Worlds" was stated as being a resident of Earth-1, and the person that wrote the original Flash comics.

As it was apparent that Earth-2 was not our "real" earth, there was a lot of freedom to make Earth-2 vastly different.

The guy that did the most in terms of giving Earth-2 identity was Roy Thomas. For instance, in his INFINITY, INC., we learn that on Earth-2, apartheid was over in South Africa (something that had yet to happen either on Earth-1 or the "real" world). Also, the president of the United States in INFINITY INC. was a woman.

(Incidentally, this is why the claim of Roy Thomas being mysoginistic bugs me:  because it just isn't true. True, the Scarlet Witch was never given much to do until Englehart came along, but Roy the Boy went out of his way to create strong female characters, especially in the later period: Firebrand, from INFINITY INC. comes to mind, as does Liberty Belle.)

However, as far back as the sixties JLA/JSA Team-Ups, there were little clues that Earth-2 was an "alternate" and "different" earth. Some of the Dennis O'Neil/Dick Dillin-era Team-Ups featured types of technical advancement on Earth-2: for instance, space stations.

You know, its interesting what people expect from "new worlds"...when I was a kid in the 60s reading the Earth 2 stories, I (mistakenly) assumed Fox meant that Earth 2 was not only separate in space but that it characters were actually from the late 40s or early 50s, meaning that Earth 1 and 2 had a time gap as well...later, it became apparent that writers had other ideas, but I wonder what Gardner Fox meant when he started the concept...

I do know that I thought that Earth Prime was a neat idea, a way to represent real life and the real world writers, but eventually it got clogged with its own super hero, a separate time line with nuclear war (at least for a while) and then Superboy Prime...

If Gardner Fox meant something different, he changed his mind around the time of the first JLA/JSA team-up: there, he makes mention of the fact that on Earth-2 time had passed: he even says that the JSAers had "a gray hair or two."

Yeah, I probably just didn't pick up enough titles, but the characters didn't seem that much older in appearance...I remember a 1970 issue when the JSA and the JLA were battling the "creators" and their pink "cargo nets", and the opening scene had Superman of Earth 2 caught by one of the nets...I couldn't see much difference in the look of his uniform or any grey hair in the art...maybe Doc Midnite had grey hair under his head covering, but his face and everyone else's looked pretty young to me.

That teamup was published in 1970; by the Crisis on Earth-X teamup, the writers decided to actually draw the JSAers looking older, and thus Kal-L sports his famous greying sideburns/temples in that tale for the first time...

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant, a gradual artistic creep, by the later years, Earth 2 Supes even had a different S shield...

Actually, I missed a lot of JLA/JSA teamups in the 60s, and like I said, I was just a kid, most stories just seemed to flow OK with my mistaken assumption that the JSA-ers were actually from an Earth that was separate in time and picking up when they went "off the air" in the late 40s...

I'm pretty sure there was a retcon in there somewhere about a secret formula or eternal life, a la Tarzan.  Or is that a new thing.

There is also the famous continually revised DC-superhero aging formula, which escapes me.

Those retcons kind of confuse me too...I'm not sure if the "Spear of Destiny" had anything to do with it, though I do remember that the late 70s had stories about their post War retirement after appearing before Congress...way after my comics time.

I DO remember thinking that Black Canary looked pretty smokin' when she came to Earth 1, I never thought she was pushing 50...

As I recall, the Spear of Destiny was a Roy Thomas idea, which explained why some of the all-powerful heroes like Alan Scott or Earth-2 Superman didn't just go to Fortress Europe and end World War II in one stroke. Hitler had the Spear of Destiny, and wielded it, and so Europe could not be entered or invaded by superheroes.



Hehe, I agree. As good an artist as he was, Sekowsky's pretty women were never as neat looking as his weird, muppet-y monsters and aliens. Black Canary really entered into va-va-voom territory with Dick Dillin around 1968 or so, which was the same time that she came over to Earth-1.

By that same token, I always like how effort was expended to make the JSA and Earth-2 heroes have a consistent timeline. A real problem with many superheroes is that their pasts roll up behind them. If their pasts roll up behind them, that means that events in stories are totally recontextualized.

An example would be for instance, the Englehart CAPTAIN AMERICA, which featured Richard Nixon as the leader of the Secret Empire. The whole thing had the air of "1974" about it. It would NOT be the same story at all if it was set in say, the early 1990s. Ditto for the Fantastic Four; they were a product of the 1960s space race, fought Russian enemies, and so on. If they left in 1993, their whole motivation for their first spaceflight

Basically what I'm saying is that the whole sliding timescale was a bad idea, and it was pretty gutsy of Roy Thomas and others to see the JSA as a "period" team shaped by the times they emerged, and to leave them there so they keep on making sense. More likely, the reason Roy the Boy did it was because of "Greatest Generation" nostalgia, but he did the right thing for the wrong reason.

This is why it is possible to really appreciate explanation for why heroes were active for long periods of time, such as the JSA's various youthenings, the fact Captain America spent his time cryogenically frozen in a block of ice, or Nick Fury's Infinity Formula.

Well, the thing about a run of comics that has an end in the past is that they get locked into a time and avoid the sliding timescale...I liked the JSA for the same reason, whether I thought they were from an Earth that was about 10 or 15 years in the past or whether they had aged...

The only thing about the Spear of Destiny that I thought I may have read somewhere was that it did have a metabolic slowdown effect as well as acting as a weapon to keep the heroes out of Word War II, but I may be wrong on that...

The explanation Thomas offered for why the JSAers didn't age much was that they (along with loved ones like Joan Garrick and Earth-2's Lois Lane) were exposed to some sort of "chronal radiation" that retarded their aging during a 40's battle with a villain, as seen in an "All Star Squadron" annual.

The Spear of Destiny, as wielded by Hitler, fixed things so that anyone entering Axis European territory fell under Nazi influences (and became a Nazi)... as seen in the Capt. Marvel "All Star Squadron" crossover (where Cap, Mary and Jr. fell under Adolph's influence).

As things worked out, Earth-2 was deemed to be aging in real time, while Earth-1 kept the "sliding scale" timeline---thus, Superman meeting JFK in a 1964 story, but an early 80's "Superboy" comic has Superboy meeting JFK. (This Hembeck cartoon from the early 80's made fun of the whole thing:

http://www.hembeck.com/More/Datelinesuperjfk.htm

Per Degaton?

No, a villain named Ian Karkull was who they were fighting...

What about Susie, she didn't age at all.

Susie's similarities to Mxy suggest she may be at least 1/2 fifth-dimensional imp.

The only two civilians there I recalled were Joan Garrick and Lois Lane (who were both tagging along after their associated heroes); guessing it didn't occur to the writers to simply have this chronal radiation get sprayed on them at, say, some JSA party or something, with Susie, Flash's three stooges-style sidekicks, their dog, and whoever the heck else is needed, present.

That said, guess there's no explanation for why Susie didn't age; only things I can think of:
- Susie's appearances happened closer together in Earth-2 time vs. when the stories were actually published (foolish Earth-Prime writers not getting Susie-related "signals" to write her stories more often)

- Susie, like the Earth-2 Robin (who also doesn't look much older in the original stories vs. what Earth-2's real-time-aging thing would dictate), also was really older than she was physically drawn as by her apparently-sole 1950's appearance...

- It's all Mxyztplk's doing. ;-)

Hey guys, looong-time fan of the site... just had to register to join in the forum fun!!!

Unfortunately, E-2's heroes are forever rooted in WWII.  Originally, the editors deemed that time moves slower on Earth 2 than Earth 1, which is why the heroes didn't age much.

As time went on, as mentioned, Roy Thomas retconned that with the Ian Karkull or Per Degaton temporal energy thing.

That is still pretty valid today, I think.  Zero Hour had Extant age the JSA to their true ages (well, that's post-Crisis so strike that)

How would that explain Superman and Lois Lane looking so much older in Earth-2, not to mention Robin as an Adult?

I'm not sure but I sometimes thought that maybe Superman and definitely Lois weren't present when the All Star Squadron (JSA "plus") got hit with Karkull's "time rays"...

There were so many retcons...

Yeah, the Robin thing was one thing... I feel Superman should NOT have aged like he did in Earth 2, since he was an alien, as well as Wonder Woman (who was a sculpture made of clay given life)

In another thread, I state that I feel that we saw different dimensional planes that represented Earths 1, 2, etc over the years.  That would, in my mind, be logical as in a '60's JLA/JSA crossover where the teams fight Solomon Grundy and Blockbuster, Batman is referred to as an Earth One hero.  Later it was retconned that there was an Earth Two Batman.  That's just one example...

At least the pre-crisis multiverse editors honored the history of their characters, whereas today, post-crisis, they pick and choose what they want.  It was so much simpler back then!

Both Superman and Lois were hit by Ian Karkull's chronal radiation (or "time rays" :-) ); in the story, Lois shows up in her 40's "aggressive reporter" mode, trying to get another scoop on the action the All-Stars (including Superman) were dealing with...

Drat... 8)

I hate the Bronze Age, LOL... :lol: