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So, comics are generally split into the golden, silver, bronze and modern age, although I personally like to also refer to a postmodern age of comics. There are a lot of different ways these ages get broken down, so in this chapter I’ll run over some of the main differences and hallmarks of the Golden Age. In the next chapters I’ll go over the other ages. Originally they were all going to be posted together… but then just the Golden Age was five pages long, and that was already chopping off another three pages that I split into another chapter… so here we are. 

Golden Age

The Golden Age has a nice simple beginning - Action Comics #1, 1938 - the birth of Superman. The Golden Age runs into about the mid 1950s with the creation of the Comics Code Authority, and boy was it a wild ride. 

The Golden Age was a time of uninhibited experimentation where superheroes slowly started to take the form in which we know them today, and very little was against the rules. Due to a lack of regulation in comics, you could pretty much print whatever you wanted, which means that a lot of Golden Age comics had some pretty violent and gory content depending on where you looked. 

One of my favorite things about the Golden Age is the tonal swings. One moment everything is kid-friendly morality and quipping heroes punching out gangsters… and the next someone is violently murdered or someone will casually say the most sexist thing imaginable. This tends to be very funny to me simply because the heroes will have no idea that what they are saying could even be controversial - it’s just so normal that no one blinks about it. Reading those comics sometimes can be like watching someone run into a glass door without knowing it - making a fool of themselves without realizing what they’re doing. It’s like those old-time parodies today where the joke is that something that looks kid-friendly has something bad in it… except the Golden Age was dead serious and wasn’t in on the joke.

There are many hallmarks of the Golden Age, from the heroes themselves to the villains they fight.

Let’s start with the heroes. The term ‘superhero’ hadn’t really been invented in the Golden Age, so heroes were referred to as ‘mystery men’ instead. GA heroes tended to be rather boring and very… samey. There was some variation, to be sure, but many heroes tended to come off as the exact same person wearing different costumes with different gimmicks. 

Originally my explanation of the different kinds of GA heroes was going to be a part of this chapter, but then it ran on for three pages so I decided to make it its own chapter. Suffice to say that women, children and comedy characters got to have more personality than your more stereotypical heroic fare. 

One easy way to identify which Age a comic is is whether or not heroes will disagree with each other. In the Golden (and Silver) Ages, heroes practically never argue with each other… ever (with the exception of women/children/comedy characters as mentioned before). 

Villains are also very different in the Golden Age than in all the ages thereafter. Namely, supervillains just… weren’t. While you had your occasional supervillain in the Golden Age (particularly late in the Golden Age), most heroes’ time was spent fighting gangsters, mobsters, subversives, fifth columnists, spies and other such unsavory but ordinary humans. This can cause problems in a viewer’s reading experience because power scaling… wasn’t much of a thing yet. 

For example, you might be wondering how The Flash, who can easily break the speed of light and has more tricks up his sleeve than Uncle Sam has war bonds could possibly be challenged by an ordinary gangster. And the answer is… he wasn’t. Many GA comics have a serious lack of stakes because the antagonists are always so thoroughly outclassed, and it can be difficult to stay invested for that reason. There is a lot of coincidental tripping on objects and knocking yourself out, which is always a satisfying way to incapacitate your hero. There are also a lot of very fun and creative captures, but most people can only watch their hero effortlessly mop the floors with criminals so many times. 

One very interesting question of the Golden Age is how it treated women. And it was actually… not as bad as you might think? Obviously, there was a lot of stuff that aged badly, but the gender equality was actually higher than you might expect, and would take a dive once the Silver Age rolled around. 

The team of evil supervillains that opposed the Justice Society (think Justice League but in the 40s) had not just one token woman but two and the Justice Society itself wound up with two female members as well. This is, as you will see, much better than the Justice League did for quite some time. I will, in a future chapter, write more about these female mystery women, so keep an eye open for discussions about Wonder Woman and the Black Canary. 

There were also quite a few female antagonists. They didn’t tend to get into hand to hand combat very often because then, well, the heroes might have to punch them, but they did other things. You had a lot of women who would poison you to death, stab you, shoot you, infiltrate your operations, play the mastermind and catburgle all over the place. Overall, they were surprisingly common!

There were quite a few problematic sexist elements, largely revolving around stereotypes and lack of agency, but things were better than you might expect.

The power scaling issue mentioned a while back extended to the Justice Society of America itself. The original lineup of the JSA included both the Atom - a regular guy who is good at acrobatics and boxing, and the Spectre - the all-knowing and omnipotent wrath of God who sees into the hearts of men. And they went on the same missions. 

This is a good time to talk about how bad the Justice Society of America was at being a team comic. The JSA was the first time a group of heroes from different comics ever got together to form their own consistent superhero team, and the writers… didn’t really know how to do it yet. 

Every JSA team-up for a good long while would go like so: everyone would meet up at the beginning of the issue and trade some banter. Then the chairman of the JSA (almost always Hawkman) would gather everyone and say something like: “Listen up, men! Nazi spies have hidden precisely as many bombs across America as we have members. Everyone split up and find a bomb!” And then everyone would split up and find a bomb or whatever the MacGuffin was for that issue before meeting at the end to fight the big bad. 

Because of this, reading a JSA comic was very much like reading a Flash comic and a Sandman comic and a Hawkman comic and a Johnny Thunder comic back to back to back to back. Not much teaming up happening in these team-ups. The bad news is that this ruins the point of a team-up. The good news is that this makes it very easy to exclusively search for the parts with Johnny Thunder. 

Recommendations

If you’re looking for some good 40s comics… have I got some picks for you. 

If you like traditional heroic adventures, Batman was actually very good in the Golden Age. He can be found in the original Batman run, as well as Detective Comics starting on issue #27. Since he has no powers, Batman does not suffer from the same issues of power scaling as many other mystery men did back then. It is very interesting to watch his early iterations as a character, and Robin is a lot of fun as well. Remember, kid heroes get more personality. 

If you want something funny - Johnny Thunder, all the way. Johnny Thunder can be found in Flash Comics (not to be confused with All-Flash Comics) and his early appearances were a riot . Despite being a member of the Justice Society, he was not a real action hero - he was a comedy character. Basically, Johnny Thunder has access to an all-powerful genie who takes all his commands literally… and Johnny Thunder is an idiot. Because he is not meant to be looked up to in the same way that the action heroes are, Johnny is allowed to be less intelligent and to have more character flaws, such as overconfidence and an oversized ego. Because of this, Johnny Thunder is one of my favorite characters from the 1940s. He’s an idiot, but he’s a lot of fun, and, again - comedy heroes get more personality. 

My final recommendation is actually a war comic which is very unusual for me. It’s the Boy Commandos, and while absolutely a DC comic it’s quite different than the regular superhero fare. The Boy Commandos first appeared in Detective Comics #64 where they became a regular feature and later got their own comic.  The Boy Commandos are a ‘kid gang’ type team of four children in the army under the supervision of traditional staight-man Captain Rip Carter. While Captain Carter is your traditional action hero, the Boy Commandos take full advantage of being children who can have actual characters. They are vibrant, have fun interacting with each other, and the comic touches on surprisingly mature and complex themes. Jack Kirby is the artist behind it, so read for his early work if nothing else. 

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Lasting from the mid-50s through the 60s, The Silver Age is the product of the Comics Code Authority. If you are a long-time comics fan you’ve probably heard of the CCA, but if not then here’s the basic rundown. 

Once upon a time, a man named Dr Fredric Wertham performed a terribly done and thoroughly debunked study from which he concluded that comics were giving kids the gay and making them juvenile delinquents. In response, comics wound up censoring a truly incredible list of things, including gore, swearing, disrespect for authority and even things like slang. If your comic met all the required criteria you got a stamp from the CCA and people would buy and sell your book.

Now, some of these things actually did need to be regulated, but the restrictions were so extreme that you couldn’t really do much of… anything. Certainly the days of realistic and nuanced discussion were behind comics at this point, in no small part because the CCA banned showing criminals in any kind of sympathetic light. 

Because of this, comics kicked off the goofy nonsense age that so many comic fans remember with such disdain and revulsion. Personally, I love the Silver Age and I’m glad the CCA came along to give it to us. Sure, it cut out some great stuff, but we have lots of serious comics before and after it, and the pure unadulterated camp can be great fun. As a reference here, think about the 1960s Batman TV show, with the bright colors, dancing Batman and constant humor. 

There were some downsides to the Silver Age however - notably women took a real step back in these comics. In the Golden Age women might not have been done terribly well, but they were often front and center and in the thick of the action. Daring reporters like Lois Lane, superheroines like Wonder Woman and Black Canary and a variety of super-villainesses weren’t too hard to find. 

Then there’s the silver age. As part of the 60s’ backlash to women pushing gender roles in the 40s America whiplashed into strict gender roles again, and comics was dragged down with it. Romantic interests suddenly spent far less time chasing out danger on their own (or at all, in many cases), there was a drastic reduction in independent female heroes and villainesses practically disappeared. 

What female heroes were around tended to be side characters - Supergirl, Batwoman, Batgirl and so forth - and it’s worth noting that the original Batwoman and Batgirl (Kathy and Betty Kane) were nothing more than stock romantic interests for Batman and Robin (this is before Batwoman was Batman’s cousin and also gay). 

While some female villains existed - one notable villainess creation was Poison Ivy - their appearances tanked to almost nothing. 

The Justice League only had one representative of the fairer sex - Wonder Woman - for most if not all of the Silver Age. Black Canary joined in 1969, during the transition to the Bronze Age. To make things worse Wonder Woman left the JLA in the late 60s to be a super-spy, so for a period the Justice League had no women at all. As noted last chapter, even the Justice Society of America wound up with more than one woman before they ended their run. It is also worth noting that the JSA’s female characters were Wonder Woman and Black Canary as well, making the JLA even more derivative.

The Silver Age, similar to the Golden Age before it had some other hallmarks. One is that heroes still don’t argue with each other. The Justice League is such a picture of idyllic harmony that even readers in the 60s were put off and wrote in about it! If you read the letter pages you can see readers repeatedly ask why the Leaguers never seem to argue - and they always get the same answer: the Justice League represents idealized heroes who, of course, would never disagree. 

The Silver Age is also when gimmicked supervillains really start hitting their stride. The Silver Age is largely considered to begin with the introduction of the Barry Allen Flash in 1956 (the Comics Code Authority began in 1954 so there is a grey area as to when the Silver Age truly begins). Appropriately enough, Barry Allen would go on to embody the Silver Age. 

His Rogues Gallery is made up of extremely gimmicky supervillains. His powers have a heavy emphasis on pseudo-science and you can find many an amusing ‘scientific’ explanations for the happenings within his comic. There are practically no useful female characters in his comic - Iris barely does anything plot relevant and Barry’s only major female villain, Golden Glider, would not be introduced until the Modern Age. Flash got in on the sidekick craze of the 60s as well, with the introduction of Kid Flash. If you want a comic that really hits every traditional note of the Silver Age, Flash is it. And you can read his crossovers with Green Lantern! 

The Flash/Lantern friendship is the second of its kind in comics, only coming in behind Superman/Batman. While all heroes are marginally and automatically friends, only Superman/Batman and Flash/Green Lantern had established friendships with each other in particular with regular appearances in each other’s comics, and references to their friendships even coming up in the Justice League of America comic!

Recommendations

Flash - For all the reasons mentioned earlier, Flash can be a great look into the Silver Age. He’s got all the hallmarks of a Silver Age comic - for better or for worse - but they’re usually pretty well executed. Silver Age Flash introduces the first multiverse by bringing back the original Flash, Jay Garrick, and Kid Flash can be fun as well. Also, despite not being a terribly useful character, Iris West actually becomes a pretty supportive romantic interest by Silver Age standards - I may write a chapter on her at some point too. If you like some of the hallmarks of the Silver Age but wish the writing was generally better, then good news - Barry Allen functionally stays in the silver age for a really long time. His 70s comics are still in the Silver Age in a lot of ways, so that might be a good balance for you to strike.

Teen Titans - The 60s heralds the debut of everyone’s favorite teenybopper crimebusters and Daddy-o is it a wild ride! Teen Titans is fascinating because you can really see it trying to find its identity early on, and the tone fluctuates wildly on occasion. Unfortunately, the Silver Age aspect of the Teen Titans doesn’t last for terribly long since they start hitting the Modern Age relatively soon. However, if you want to read an easily manageable amount of comics, then this might be a feature rather than a bug. 

While other comics may be more well-rounded than the Teen Titans, I can think of no other series that distills the Silver Age in the way Teen Titans does. As kid heroes they may have a group personality like the grown-ups, but that personality is dynamic to the max. They speak almost exclusively in comically exaggerated slang the writers thought was how kids actually talked. Their missions were ridiculous, and the gimmicks they used in return equally ridiculous. Every issue is a rollercoaster and I cannot recommend it enough for some pure fun. 

Also, by some sheer coincidence Teen Titans actually hit on actual good female representation in the 60s. Wonder Girl’s only personality trait may be boy-crazy teenybopper but to be fair that is one more distinguishing personality trait than everyone else gets, so that’s something. More to the point, Wonder Girl is the big gun of the Teen Titans, and the comic actually treats her like it. While there are many powerful female characters on teams, they’re rarely the big gun even today - sure Wonder Woman is powerful on the JLA, but the big gun is Superman, for instance. Not all teams even have one character who is clearly the big gun - but Teen Titans did. In their first issue the Teen Titans effectively face four monsters and a big bad - WG is part or all of the solution to taking out three of the monsters and the ultimate mastermind - talk about being the MVP! Teen Titans also introduces DC’s first black hero - Mal Duncan, and black female hero - Bumblebee.

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And now it’s time for my personal favorite age of comics - even though I love them all! In the 1970s our good friend the Comics Code Authority started losing power and comics slowly started to immerse themselves in the social issues of the day - mainly feminism and racism. It tackled both of these issues with questionable levels of quality but a great deal of enthusiasm. More to the point, though, these comics combined the fun and hijinks of the earlier ages with actual character development and more serious subject matter. Characters are fleshed out and have interesting relationships and can finally argue with each other. 

It was a time of optimism tempered by reality, and fast-growing relationships. Since characters hadn’t been fleshed out before this, there’s a sharp incline in characters developing dynamics together which is a great deal of fun to read. 

DC’s modern age is often considered to start with the Green Lantern/Green Arrow hard-traveling-heroes team-up of 1970. In this run of GL’s comic, starting with issue #76 Green Lantern and Green Arrow practically take on a different social issue every issue, with nuance and heavy-handed proselytizing going hand-in-hand.

Since these comics look so much more like what we know today, I have less to say about them than the first two ages, but I will say that there are some high quality comics from this era, and if you find yourself annoyed with gratuitous violence and mature content in modern comics yet still want good writing, these may be a great solution. 

The Bronze Age also lasts until DC’s first universe retcon, Crisis On Infinite Earths so at this point… everything is cannon.

Recommendations

I actually have quite a few comics to recommend from this era! First of all, The Justice League of America, in my opinion, had its hayday in this period. This is during the Justice League’s satellite era where their headquarters was the Watchtower in space - objectively their coolest headquarters ever. Unfortunately, the end of the modern era is taken over by Justice League Detroit (and they will have their own chapter, believe me) but for a long time the JLA is going strong here. 

Probably the biggest comic to come out of the bronze age is New Teen Titans. Starting in 1980 they do begin in the latter part of the Bronze Age, but they have a long run of amazing bronze-style comics anyway so that’s fine. The New Teen Titans are the inspiration for the iconic Teen Titans show with Raven, Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy (or Changeling, as he’s known in the comic). New Teen Titans revolutionized DC with its incredible character work and nuanced plots interwoven with fantastic art and brilliant theming. It really did push a lot of boundaries, and is probably the most objectively high-quality Titans comic ever, if not one of the best comics of all time. Note that you can enjoy other Titans comics more, and sometimes I do, but I really believe this one is, from a technical perspective, the best they’ve ever been. It’s also the first DC team to begin its existence with a black member - Cyborg.

Batman comics are great in this era as well. With the Silver Age in the past, Batman can get back to his roots as a detective and delve into more serious consequence-laden storytelling. A lot of his chemistry with his supporting cast develops in this era (obviously) and his comics balance character-centric work with thrilling adventure. 

The Green Lantern/Green Arrow team up (again, beginning in Green Lantern V2 #76) is also definitely worth a read. Featuring iconic beginnings like the first appearance of John Stewart and Roy Harper’s junkie arc this comic addresses a wide variety of social issues without being too depressing or heavy to get through. Also… Green Arrow has never been better than he was in the Bronze Age. Not once. If you like Green Arrow… you have to see him in his heyday - goofy goatee and everything.

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The Dark, or Modern Age of comics is known for being… well, very dark. It lasted from the mid 80s to about the 2000s. Heroes start to be drawn with ridiculously exaggerated proportions, violence skyrockets through the roof as well as including as many mature themes as a rebellious teenager could possibly hope for. The art is often ugly, with harsh shadows, intentionally repulsive designs and overdetailed characters. When people make fun of teenagers for liking ‘edgy’ comics… this is what they’re thinking about. You’ve got all the classics - Mullet Superman, DARK Batman, Arsenal’s Teen Titans… lots of …interesting stuff. 

And yet, there is also some very comedic and high-quality material here. Everyone really does have a personality now, and comics are comfortable engaging with mature themes for the first time. Famous arcs from this time period include the Death of Superman and Bane breaking Batman’s back… but it’s also the time period of comedy-focused Justice League International, along with some other great comics. 

Again, I have less and less to say about these ages as we approach our modern day, which is why I’m combining the Modern and Postmodern Ages. However, I will say that while I don’t generally like the dark aesthetic of the Modern Age, there are some amazing comics at play here. Unfortunately, this is the era where Arsenal takes over the Teen Titans (absolutely terrible, possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to the Titans, don’t put yourself through it), but this is still a good era for kid heroes. 

Recommendations

Flash comics are pretty good here. We’ve got Wally West on the throne and it’s… very interesting. Wally’s early comics were… not very good, as far as I’m concerned, but I am quite impressed by their commitment to letting him be such an unlikable hero for so long . I’m not saying this because I don’t like what they were going for - he’s supposed to be obnoxious. He’s overconfident, entitled, self-serving, sexist, cheats on his girlfriend… annoying little brat on all accounts. Purposfully designed to contrast with the overly-perfect Barry Allen. But they really commit to evolving him into an actual hero and I do mean evolving . There’s no 3 issue or even 10 issue arc where he stops being the worst. 

No, it takes a long time of slow character work to get Wally working at top speed, and it’s very satisfying. By the late 90s he was really starting to hit his stride, incorporating a real Flash Family both with generations of speedsters and pulling off one of the best comic romances with Linda Park. If you want to skip to the good stuff you’ll still enjoy it even if you don’t want to put yourself through the beginning!

The 90s was also what I’d consider Nightwing’s heyday. Strong action, great character work, no more stupid mullet… good times! It’s not the kind of comic you can usually turn your brain off for - there’s a lot of detective work and plots to keep track of, but even if you don’t stay on top of everything you can still go along for the ride. This period has a lot of iconic Nightwing-isms like the fingerstripes and his job with the police, as well as his most iconic plotlines and villains, like Blockbuster. Good times!

Now I’m going to bring up a couple heroes everyone is sleeping on - Hawk and Dove. Out of everyone mentioned here but Hawk and Dove are most truely of the Modern Age. Now the original H&D actually had a comic that I really liked in the 60s, but it’s not for everyone. Very intellectual war v peace kind of stuff with some legitimately good character work - and it’s like, 6 issues, so it’s not like it’ll eat up your time. I love it, but that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about here. 

I’m here to tell you about the 90s Hawk and Dove, the ones that really qualify as a Modern Age comic, the 90s comic run that clocks in as one of my favorite comics of all time. This comic drops the war vs peace to focus on order vs chaos, which lends itself much better to a superhero format. The action is fantastic, the puns are on point, there’s an underlying complex and building horror plot under the whole thing and the character work is amazing . 

You don’t need to read the original Hawk and Dove to get 90s H&D, but it will prep you for the emotional payoffs that come out of that series which is great because H&D hits hard. Hawk is a legitimately amazing character who really sucks you in, and Dove is freakin’ cool. Even the side characters draw you in and feel extremely fleshed out in a short amount of time. Please. Please read this comic and then tell me you read it so I can feel validated about my existence. I beg of you. There’s a short introduction series starting in ‘88 that runs for 5 issues and is more violent than the followup, and the following‘89 series is only 28 issues long, so it’s definitely readable. Do yourself a favor… do it!

Postmodern Age

This brings us to what I like to personally call the Postmodern Age. This is not typically separated from the Dark Age by the general audience, but I think that approximately the 2000s to the present are so different from the Modern Age that they deserve to be in a separate category. 

As a reaction to the Dark Age, Postmodern comics experienced a sharp swing towards lighter comedy and simpler art. While comics could still be indulgently dark, they become more tempered by humor than their predecessors, and rarely rely on a dark aesthetic as their main draw. Postmodern comics are also the most self-aware we’ve seen yet, although comics have had self-aware elements for a very long time. 

Comics currently are starting to swing back to darker stories again, including a pull towards more realistic art, but since we’re largely in the beginning stages of this broader trend I think it’s too early to call this very recent history its own age yet. 

Recommendations

Young Justice is actually really good, and begins in 1998. Young Justice features Tim Drake as Robin, Cassie Sandsmark as Wonder Girl and Conner Kent as Superboy, making it the first (and only) Titans group so far to have its own full Trinity. It’s funny, it has dynamic characters, it’s got fun plots… it’s just a very good time. 

Impulse is amazing and people need to start appreciating him more. He does have his own comic, starting in 95, and it is amazing. The entire comic is basically one very long character arc, which makes it fun to reread, and he’s likable the whole time, so the whole ride is very fun. It’s got fantastic side-characters (where are my Max Mercury stans at?), creative and fun art, and a surprisingly authentic emotional core. While there’s a lot going on if you pay attention, this is also a comic that you can fully enjoy if you turn your brain off and make like Impulse. It’s loads of fun and it’s got quite a few issues if you want a comic to read for a while, although it mostly isn’t sequential so you can cut out whenever you want.

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Those of you who run in Flash circles have probably heard of ‘Flash Facts’ before, and you may be wondering which Flash started them. The answer is… each of the first big three is a valid response. 

The first appearance of Flash Facts comes in Jay Garrick’s original comics, though they are not incorporated into the story. Instead, the comic would be interrupted by asides, like advertisements or science facts, and Flash Facts was one of those asides. So the concept started with him. 

In universe, Flash Facts are something that the Barry Allen Flash actually says , in the cannon of the story. In his original comics, however, Flash Facts were still out-of-story asides, just like Jay Garrick’s. 

The first time Flash Facts actually became a part of the cannon was when Wally West took up the mantle, and started mentioning that Barry would bring up ‘Flash Facts’ sometimes… and that cannon has stuck around. 

So the answer is all of them - all of the Flashes are responsible for Flash Facts. And that brings us to today where you can buy your own book of DC published Flash Facts… coming soon to a bookstore near you.

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In the 80s, shortly before Crisis on Infinite Earths the Justice League was transformed into what may be its lowest form of all time - Justice League Detroit. Justice League Detroit was the result of, I believe, comic writers having an identity crisis in an attempt to revitalize the League and appeal to ‘the kids’. It was a truly spectacular rejection of everything that made the JLA good, in favor of doing a terrible parody of another successful comic. 

First, what was the JLA? Well, the idea behind the Justice League of America was that it was a place to see the greatest superheroes DC had to offer. It was supposed to offer a wide variety of different heroes who would not otherwise interact, and it would showcase both the most popular DC characters and up-and-coming heroes DC wanted to promote. This is an important point when it comes to the kinds of heroes who were on the League. There were two main criteria for would-be joiners - they had to be established heroes, and (for a long time) they couldn’t be duplicates. 

The established heroes rule meant that DC did not invent new heroes to put on the League - all members had to be established in other DC properties. The duplicate rule is a little more complicated as I am unsure as whether it was a rule for the writers or just a retroactive rule in continuity, but it prevented multiple heroes with the same power or gimmick from being on the League. For example, you couldn’t have two arrow-guys, or Kryptonians. This effectively kept out many Leaguers female counterparts like Hawkgirl for a long time, and I may do a chapter on it later. 

Overall, though, the League was a place for the best of the best, the big guns of the DC Universe. The draw was that they could take on the biggest villains, the greatest threats - that you could see the greatest heroes DC had to offer interact with each other every time you picked up a comic. 

This concept kept the League in business for a while… which brings us to the New Teen Titans. 

The Teen Titans in general are no stranger to inventing members from whole cloth. The character of Wonder Girl herself was invented for the original Teen Titans… even if her creation was an accident. When the New Teen Titans rolled around, the creation of the team was far more deliberate than DC had ever seen before. Instead of simply pulling all available existing characters, the selection process was made based on which characters had the powers and personalities the writers wanted to mesh into their perfect team. 

Instead of reusing all the old Teen Titans, they were selective. Powerhouses Wonder Girl and Kid Flash were redrafted, along with, of course, their fearless leader Robin. Beast Boy, a previous side character, was renamed to Changeling and given a makeover. The remaining characters, Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg were all original creations, and they were custom built to serve multiple purposes - one of which being that they were all gender or racial minorities.

The New Teen Titans were situated in the middle of the city instead of in space like the JLA, their adventures were more grounded, and their interpersonal dynamics took front and center. They were fantastic, quickly became a world-wide phenomenon and began crushing other DC offerings, including Justice League, in comic sales. 

While I have no confirmation of this, I am quite confident that DC looked at New Teen Titans and decided to turn the Justice League into the NTT in as many ways as possible. This went as terribly as you’d suspect. 

In dedication to the cause, The Justice League proceeded to dump almost every heavy hitter and big name on the League, resulting in a significantly weaker team. They relocated the headquarters from space to an incredibly boring building in Detroit and they created several new members from scratch. 

Now, every step of this is terrible, so let’s break it down.

First of all - losing the big names. Characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and other long-time members were booted off the team, leaving precious few powerful members. The new team was led by Aquaman. Until he quit. The JLA was known for its important characters, so losing most of those characters lost a huge portion of the draw. 

Second - the location. The stupid building in Detroit is one of the most boring headquarters known to man, but what they try to do with it is worse. Their presence in the nondescript brick building is supposed to be a secret, but the entire freaking neighborhood knows about it but keeps their secret because… you mess with one of us you mess with all of us? Literally everyone is just fine keeping this secret. Now, Teen Titans did a great job incorporating the city and having it feel important to their characters. Justice League Detroit… doesn’t. At all. It is a set-piece and a backdrop, and when it is used, it’s usually very heavy-handed. 

Third - the new characters. Oh , the new characters. We’re spending a lot of time here. So, the New Teen Titans did a great job crafting their characters. They came with complex personalities that would play well off each other, they each had their own plotlines and backstories - each character was a work of love that remains beloved to this day. Justice League Detroit introduced Vixen, Steel, Vibe and Gypsy. Now, Vixen actually did make an appearance in one or two issues before this, while the others were completely fabricated. 

Steel is extremely boring - I don’t have much to say about him. He’s a white legacy character to a better character from All Star Squadron who operated in the 40s, and the comic takes the ‘lets make an old character look bad to make our guy look good rout’ which is… always great. 

Everyone else is some kind of minority (again, think New Teen Titans) except unlike New Teen Titans… they’re all complete stereotypes which is… almost impressive. 

I have the least to say about Vibe so we’ll start there. Vibe is latino. Defining personality traits include having been in a gang, extreme use of slang, being hotheaded and breakdancing. That pretty much sums him up. When they revealed his code-name in the Flash TV show and I realized Cisco was actually vibe from Justice League Detroit… I almost had a heart attack. He is good in The Flash, in case you were wondering. 

Then we have Gypsy. First of all, Gypsy is white. This has not stopped DC from basing her entire character on stereotypes. She lives on the streets and steals for a living, which was a big deal back then. Readers were horrified that DC would bring out a hero who steals regularly, so I would like you to understand that this was not at all normalized for non-Gypsy characters. DC did say in an editorial that she doesn’t steal things but this is never shown in continuity and no other explanation for her survival is given. 

Gypsy’s main personality trait is that she is a chronic liar. Or at least, this is what DC would like us to believe. Characters constantly talk about what a liar she is and how she can’t be trusted because she keeps giving ludicrous explanations for her backstory - but they’re always so over the top and ever-changing that she clearly isn’t trying to convince anyone of anything, she’s just avoiding the question. Still, it is very important to DC that you perceive her as a liar. Even her power is lying, because she casts illusions. In case you were wondering, Gypsy is a teenage girl and she got to join the League because she wouldn’t stop breaking into their headquarters and hanging out, in case you needed more evidence of how incompetent JL Detroit is. 

Finally we come to Vixen. Vixen is the first black person to join the League in an official capacity, as far as I can tell. Technically the League has teamed up with black characters before - notably extending an invitation to Black Lightning and working on several occasions with John Stewart when Hal Jordan was incapacitated, but neither of them properly joined. It took a long time to finally have not-white people on the League… and we get this. Now, Vixen is a fairly popular character now-a-days and I want to clarify that she has indeed improved over the years. Regardless I am quite annoyed with her initial appearance because I feel like I can imagine exactly what happened in the writers room. 

For comparison, New Teen Titans did great with Cyborg. He has a fully fleshed out backstory, personality and powers. Even if you removed his race you’d still have a great character, but he’s better because he is black. It’s an important part of his backstory, and NTT did a great job of writing plots where it was explored sometimes - and when it wasn’t being explored he was still amazing. His character came first, always. And while it is, of course, quite possible to have great characters for whom race does come first and is a cornerstone (you couldn’t, for example, whitewash Black Lightning without losing huge chunks of an amazing character)... this greatness is not what happened with Vixen. 

With Vixen I am confident that the writers room sat down and asked… ‘What’s a good character for a black woman?’ and then proceeded to cram as many stereotypes as possible into one woman. Vixen comes from Africa, and her gimmick is a magical amulet that lets her channel the spirits of the animals. And when I say ‘channel the spirit of the animals’ I mean that she had a tendency to also become extremely animalistic and commit murder sometimes. Referring you back to Gypsy… normal heroes back then did not commit murder. Sometimes they would accidently get people killed - but not on purpose. And when I say normal I do mean white. Vixen kills a man and then proceeds to spend the rest of the comic evading the police and refusing to turn herself in which is also very unusual. Also she’s a supermodel as well, so we can check the ‘hyper sexualize the minority’ box as well. Vixen’s entire deal is being an attractive murderous animalistic magic woman and frankly it wouldn’t bother me so much if every other minority character they introduced wasn’t also a stereotype. I would also like to point out that there is a difference between a character like Black Lightning where race is a vital component of the character, and early Vixen where racial stereotypes are the character. 

If it was just Vixen… well, maybe that’s a fluke. Sure, it looks a little bad, but this could be an accident. But when every single new minority character you’ve created is such an extreme stereotype then you’ve got a problem. Thankfully Vixen has gotten more character nowadays, and Vibe has gotten lots of love from the Flash show. Gypsy and Steel seem to be mostly unknown, but I don’t lose any sleep over that. 

Needless to say, this… bold new direction was not very well received by fans, and the next iteration of the JLA would undo many of these steps.

Chapter Text

Now you may be expecting this chapter to get into which of the Flashes is really the fastest, but we’re actually headed into far stranger territory. My purpose here is not to contest which Flash is the fastest, but to question if Barry Allen is actually a man. Or at least, if he was actually a man from the 50s - 80s. 

You see, I believe that Barry Allen, after being struck by the lightning bolt, may not have been a human at all… though he believed he was. You see, Barry’s Flash comics liked to pretend to be scientifically sound, which means that they spent a great deal of time trying to explain how everything was happening - including Flash’s speed. 

This was before the introduction of the Speed Force, so Barry’s speed was explained as ‘total molecular control’. For example, Superman could run very fast, but that could be because he was very strong, and could actually push himself forward very quickly. Flash was not super-humanly strong, so a different explanation was needed - total molecular control.

I believe the original intended meaning of this concept was that Flash effectively had telekinesis over his own molecules. It looked like he was moving fast because he was pushing off of the ground, but he was actually telekinetically moving his own molecules in a parody of running. 

Notably, Jay Garrick was never described as having this total molecular control - he was originally a metahuman who was simply very fast. 

Now, the original iteration of Barry Allen looked a little different than he does today, and even the comics made note of how strange he was. In Wally West’s early comics, he had his friends try to scientifically figure out what his deal was. They studied him and his speed for a while, and concluded that they had some idea what was going on with him, and no idea what was going on with Barry Allen. 

While Wally West displayed the increased appitite we now associate with speedsters, as well as the need to sleep excessively to fuel his speed, neither of these mortal issues bothered Barry Allen. He had nigh unlimited speed, never quite reaching his full potential (until, perhaps, his death) and seemed to suffer no side effects whatsoever. 

In addition to this, the ‘total molecular control’ began to have some… strange side effects, particularly as his series wore on. Flash could move ‘spare molecules’ around whenever he wanted, allowing him to hurl his molecules around wherever he wanted them. For instance, after being turned into a puppet in #133, Flash was able to move by sending his spare molecules to fill out his suit so that he regained rudimentary motion. 

Flash also spent an unusual amount of time in space for a man who’s power relied on running upon the ground. His aura would protect him from the vacuum and hold in a small amount of air, and he could shoot off his molecules to propel him like little rockets for motion. 

Flash could do more than just auto-telekenesis, however - he could turn his molecules into super conductors, transform himself into electricity, or even, on one memorable occasion, transform into a being of anti-matter. And even that isn’t all - in #176 his wife Iris was in danger of dying of some very bad dreams so Flash… broke the speed of light to run into the “Dream Dimension” where he then merged with Iris’ dreams to fight off the nightmare and save her life. Science at its best. 

My conclusion from this… is that none of it makes any sense. Now, perhaps the super speed and the molecular control were meant to be separate unrelated powers, however, he still has both these powers, so this doesn’t really change his innate inhumanity. 

My theory is that Barry Allen actually had nigh-unlimited power, and that the only thing limiting him was his own imagination. When Flash first got his powers, he didn’t realize anything was different, and he wasn’t even scratched by the lightning bolt. He didn’t believe he would be hurt, and he visualized himself as unharmed, so he was. Then he tried to run down a taxi. All his attention was focused on catching up to the cab… so he did. By running very fast. Then he went to a diner and the waitress spilled her food. His impulsive reaction was to help catch everything… so he did. 

After this, Barry believed he knew what was going on. As an avid fan of Jay Garrick’s Flash comics, he already had an explanation for what was happening. He believed he was very fast, just like his childhood hero, so that’s how his powers presented themselves. But as a scientist, he needed an explanation for how his powers worked, so he came up with his theory of total molecular control. 

After thinking about it, he came up with more things that total molecular control ought to do, and so he was able to do those things as well. 

He may even have been responsible for creating Kid Flash. Wally has Barry’s exact origin story, with the lightning and the chemicals, and it happens right as Barry was reminiscing. Perhaps, subconsciously, Barry gave Wally his powers - but he only thought about making him fast, which is why Wally never had total molecular control. 

We even know that Barry made other speedsters faster by being around them: in Flash v3 #24 it’s mentioned that Jay Garrick always felt faster when Barry was with him, and Wally has experienced speed boosts from Barry before as well. Clearly, Barry’s subconscious was impacting the people around him as well. 

This would also explain all the scientifically impossible things Barry has done over the years (in one memorable occasion he spun the Trickster on his head like a top, sending him drilling through the ground until he struck oil). 

The only reason Barry even looked like a human was because that’s how he visualized himself: that’s what he believed he was. When he died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, he even believed that he was going to die beforehand, making that another self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Food for thought.

Chapter Text

So, one of the first comics I ever read was Crisis on Infinite Earths. I loved it to death, own the hardcover, and I’ve read it front to back more times than I can count. Another of the first comics I ever read was a compilation of Barry Allen’s team-ups with the original Flash and Kid Flash. As you can imagine, this means that I have always been greatly impacted by the death of Barry Allen. 

As a result, when I started reading JLA comics, the entire time, I had Flash’s approaching death in the back of my mind. Every so often I would think - oh, we’re getting into the 70s, here’s the character details that will tell me how people feel about Flash’s death. Oh, we’re in the 80s, only 5 more years now. Everyone is getting the costumes they had in Crisis, everything is coming together - anytime now!

You can imagine my crushing disappointment when I was blindsided by the formation of Justice League Detroit. All of a sudden my beloved characters were scattered to the winds, largely replaced by losers I cared nothing about. Gone were my dreams of the Justice League properly reacting to Flash’s death!

And yet, there was hope. This new Justice League may be bad and lame, but they still had some close connections to the Flash. By the time Crisis rolled around Justice League Detroit had Batman and Martian Manhunter, who both founded the League with Flash. It had Zatanna, with whom Flash had had a personal friendship that they formed after Iris died - they were one of the then-few friendships back then that went beyond the basic camaraderie almost all heroes had with each other. There was even a push to make them romantic interests. In addition to these characters, the Elongated Man and his wife, Sue Dibney, were on the team as well - and Flash and Elongated Man are a pair ! EM was introduced in Flash comics, and they’ve been on bestie status ever since!

There were lots of people on JLD who knew Flash well, so I was still eagerly awaiting their reaction to the first-ever death of a League member, if a former member. 

Do you want to guess how much attention any of them ever gave Flash’s death? 

…

NOTHING!!!

Literally nobody on the League ever so much as mentions Flash’s name until the comic freaking ends, but they mention Supergirl at least twice and she’d only had a few team-ups with them in the past!

There is one person, though, who mentions the Flash. Do you want to guess who it is?

…

…

You guessed WRONG it’s DESPERO!

Freaking Despero comes back from space to mess with the world or whatever and he starts monologuing about how he wants to destroy the Justice League and especially that jerk Flash who foiled his evil scheme that one time. And he makes this monologue to Batman , who, as mentioned, founded the League with Flash! This would have been the perfect opportunity to have Batman think to himself ‘Yes, Flash was a pretty great hero, it’s too bad he’s dead. We could use him here now, but we’ll just have to do our best with the way things are.’  

It would have cost them nothing and they actively decided not to do that. Ridiculous! 

So the Justice League Detroit was as useless in this matter as in everything else, but what about a more personal approach? What about Flash’s old pal Green Lantern?

Barry Allen and Hal Jordan form the second of the stand-out comic book friendships, only coming behind Superman and Batman. They crossed over into each other’s comics, the Justice League comics acknowledged that they were particular friends with each other - it was good times. 

Well, there was a Green Lantern comic running, so surely that has to address Flash’s death right? Well… sort of? At the least we can say someone on the writing staff thought of it, then performed the most confusing and terrible execution I’ve ever seen.

So, Hal Jordan actually missed Crisis on Infinite Earths because Star Sapphire tricked him into giving up his ring and he had to go to space to get it back. So we check back in on him in space, and things have been pretty wild. I haven’t read this entire run, so I’m not entirely sure on all the background details, but from what I gathered from jumping around a bit, the Green Lanterns had some kind of war and Tomar Re, fellow Green Lantern and Hal’s friend, died. 

However, none of this seems to be dampening Hal’s spirits, as he does have his ring back now, and he’s having a grand old time flying back home. Sure, a terrible crisis just shook the multiverse, at least one of his friends is dead and he has no idea how many, if any, of his friends are alive back on Earth, but the important point is that he can fly and do loopty loops again, so that’s really the main point here. 

Anyway, as he flies along he sees the Flash just standing around on an asteroid flagging him down. Now this is a rather confounding situation, given that the Flash is not known for his ability to fly, or his predisposition to spend time in space. So he flies on down, and makes sure to touch Flash to make sure he’s solid and not an illusion. 

Upon verifying Flash’s solidity, Flash informs Hal that he thinks that he might be dead. Hal tells him that clearly Barry isn’t dead, since Hal just touched him and he’s standing right there. Barry goes into this long speech about how great their friendship was, and how Hal should please remember him from time to time. And then he starts fading away, and despite Hal’s best efforts, he disappears. 

Then Tomar Re appears (another dead man), and then Carol Ferris. Hal spends a brief moment panicking because if the first two appearances were from dead people, then does that mean his girlfriend is dead too? And then he realizes he should get his guard up but too late - the whole thing was a trap and an illusion from one of his enemies. 

When he wakes up, he’s unsettled, but not terribly shaken. He just goes ‘Boy, I sure hope my good friend Flash is alright. It would be a shame if he was dead, but I’m not taking a villain’s word for it or anything’ . and takes off for Earth. 

Now, this is reasonable. You probably don’t want to take this kind of thing at face value. So would you like to know what happens when Hal Jordan returns to Earth and asks after the fate of the Flash? 

WELL ME TOO - IF YOU FIND OUT YOU TELL ME!

It just… isn’t brought up again! The whole thing is dropped! They introduce the idea that Flash might be dead and go nowhere with it! There’s never any indication of whether or not Flash is really dead and we certainly don’t get a reaction to it.

Now, part of this may be because GL comics of the time were less Green Lantern and more Green Lantern and his Amazing Green Lantern Friends . Again, I haven’t read the whole thing, but I did skim quite a few comics to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and I did look online, and I gathered a few things. For starters, post crisis was a sort of soft re-launch for GL comics. He set up operations on Earth with a bunch of other Green Lanterns who were displaced after the crisis. 

This was meant to be a joyful re-launch of the status quo, brimming with possibility as GL entered a bright new age where Hal’s biggest problem is Guy Gardner, and I suppose acknowledging the death of Hal’s long-time friend would have dampened the mood a bit. Furthermore, all of these numerous GLs seem to be treated as fellow main characters, which means that Hal didn’t get near as much focus as he used to. 

Despite all this, I think they could have and should have fit something in. 

Eventually, GL would acknowledge Barry’s death in crossover’s with Wally West - which is where, I believe, you just have to go if you want anyone to care about this subject. Even the New Teen Titans couldn’t be bothered, and Kid Flash was a former member of their team, so you’d think it would be relevant. 

In any case, I’m glad we got some material later, but man did DC drop the ball at the actual time of death. What a disappointment.