So, Legends of
Tomorrow is on the way and a big part of this show is going to be time
travel. How much time travel is
involved is still a little unclear but we at least know a good chunk of the
show will take place in the ‘70s and that Jonah Hex, a cowboy hero from
America’s old west (1870-1880s) will play a role in the story. Those are both pretty great ideas and
they’ve got me thinking about the history of the DC Universe. One of the weird things about comic
book universes is that because of how much unregulated weirdness was popping
around comics for so long they end up with super weird visions of history.
Sometimes this
is due to the mandate of setting, like how all of DC’s cowboy adventures had to
happen in the old west even if they involved guys like El Diablo, a bank teller
who was possessed by a spirit of vengeance. Other times it’s the result of time travel nonsense or just
the fact that some characters and places have just always existed. As such I’m looking back at some of the
craziest and most interesting points in DC Comics’ history, let’s dive in.
World War 2
Like I said, some of these adventures have become engrained
in the history books thanks to the setting being more or less carved in
stone. That’s the case with a lot
of DC heroes who first appeared in the Golden Age of comics, during World War
2, before enjoying various subsequent revivals. As such, it become part of DC history that any character who
originated fighting the Nazis actually did that in-continuity, save for Batman
and Superman. As far as
superheroes go this became calcified in the ‘80s under the amazing DC comics All-Star Squadron. All-Star
Squadron was a unifying book that included pretty much every DC superhero
from the ‘40s along with all the heroes they purchased from other companies and
revolved around their adventures during the war.
Specifically, the idea was that after the 1941 Pearl Harbor
attack President Roosevelt initiated Article X: the draft for superheroes. While the actual ranks of the All-Star
Squadron are too massive to count some highlights include the Spectre, the
literal embodiment of God’s judgment, Johnny Thunder, a random goofball who had
a magic lightning genie who obeyed his every command, and Zatara, a stage
magician who could do real magic by speaking backwards. Remember, if you lived I this universe
the history channel would be full of documentaries about these guys fighting
the Nazis alongside all kinds of crazy others like super speedsters, a guy made
of sentient electromagnetic radiation, and 3 different people who fought crime
by blowing themselves up.
The All-Star Squadron actually didn’t fight in the European
or Pacific theaters however, owing to the fact Hitler had the Spear of
Destiny. The Spear is a holy
relic, the spear that pierced the side of Christ during the crucifixion, which
gave Hitler the unaccountable power to control super beings that entered its
field of impact. However, there
were some exceptions amid the actual service men involved. For instance, the ghost of Confederate
general Jeb Stuart returned to returned to lend spectral aid to his descendant
in the haunted tank. There was
also the Creature Commandos, an elite unit of classic movie monsters like
Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Gorgon. The same group that developed them, Project M, also created
G.I. Robot who was a key figure in the war along with the Viking Commando, a
time displaced Viking warrior who became a media darling after coming to the
present and joining the D-Day invasion.
Caveman Times
This thing could be an entire article in and of itself but
for now I’m just going to focus on the highlights of Batman’s time displaced
adventures during the Return of Bruce
Wayne. This is one of those
stories created through time travel but it actually features a lot of
characters from the ‘70s and ‘50s who were set in the eras Batman visited. For instance, Batman’s first stop on
his tour of the past was the Neolithic caveman era. There he encountered a whole bunch of DC’s prehistoric
heroes and villains such as Anthro, the first boy on Earth, and Vandal Savage,
the immortal caveman villain now only recently granted his miraculous
longevity. Batman’s adventure in
the period was fighting Savage and dawning the skin of a giant temporal bat
monster to recreate his persona.
He also met up with the Kong, the untamed, another DC
caveman hero. Unfortunately, the
immortal man, another caveman who was exposed to the same meteor that gave
Vandal Save his powers, along with Tor, a caveman who fought dinosaurs, and
Kull, the conqueror caveman, didn’t put in an appearance. However, this still means that
anthropology and prehistoric studies in the DCU are rife with immortality
granting meteorites, time displaced billionaires, and giant bats, not to
mention the time hyper advanced living ideas visited Earth to give us gifts of
fire and inspiration.
COLONIAL AMERICA
The other major highlight of Batman’s jaunt through time was
his appearance in colonial Gotham as a witch finder. This is one of the weirder Morrison Batman stories as it’s
one of the only times he’s opted to use a prior Bat story for inspiration
rather than direct revival.
Specifically, the story ties into the ‘50s sci-fi Batman story ‘The
Origin of the Batcave,’ where Batman and Robin traveled back in time to
discover the Batcave served as the base of operation for a “hero” of the
colonial days who was engaged fighting the native peoples trying to drive the
settlers from their land.
Obviously, ditching a lot of the overt racism from the original story
was a must, which actually led Morrison to alter the cave’s origin to be the
home of a hidden tribe of natives who Batman fought alongside a couple times in
his time jaunt.
The main story of Batman’s colonial stint was that he had to
fight a giant octopus type monster from higher Chronal planes, which means
Gotham’s founding is tied to inter-dimensional physics and slimy giant
monsters. There’ve actually been a
lot of weird points about Gotham’s founding, like in Batman: End Game where it was implied Joker was some kind of
immortal satanic monster that had always haunted the Gotham area and they just
built the city around him because folks were really stupid in those days.
REVOLUTIONARY WAR
So far we’ve talked about time travel and adventures simply
being set in a previous era but here’s a bit of a strange one though honestly
the most common occurrence: immortal characters. A lot of DC’s heroes and villains, especially the mystic
ones, are implied or explicated to have been around pretty much forever, which
tends to lead writers into trying to explain what they were doing during major
historical events. Case in point:
Uncle Sam. Though Uncle Sam long
existed without real explanation there was one brief idea put forward in the
mid ‘90s, that he was a mystic spirit of freedom summoned to life by the
founding fathers during the revolutionary war as a kind of anti-British super
weapon.
The idea was that the spirit would bind itself to a host
soul and embody the spirit of America together with that host, in the case of
the revolution it became the super strong, super fast hero Minute Man. This means that historically, the
American revolution was won thanks to the black magic of the founding fathers
and their quasi-mystic super powered lacky. That actually fits with some of Batman’s colonial history, given
that his ancestor was engaged in weird demonology along with Thomas
Jefferson.
However, because Uncle Sam never actually dies, simply
transitions through the nation’s needs, he would go on to fight in numerous
other early conflicts as Brother Jonathan. Eventually, during the Civil War he was split into two
parts: Billy Yank and Johnny Reb, before finally reforming as Uncle Sam in the
1870s. This means that pretty much
all American history from our inception to Uncle Sam’s disappearance after
Pearl Harbor is littered with accounts of an ultra-patriotic super being with
vague mystic abilities popping up during every major American conflict. The war of 1812, Spanish American war,
Mexican American war, World War 1, war in the Philippines, all were fought with
the aid of our immortal black magic uber-patriot.
CAMELOT
Much like Uncle Sam existing despite being a universally
recognized figure of folkloric statue, Camelot is a major part of DC Comics
history. Arthur’s court was
actually the setting of one of DC’s earliest quasi-superhero stories, that of
the Silent Knight in the earliest Brave
and the Bold comics. Even
though Silent Knight popped up prior to the superhero revival of the ‘60s he
had a lot of the traits of a superhero such as a secret identity, specific
costume, and hide out. However,
Camelot really exploded in emphasis thanks to Jack Kirby’s character Etrigan,
the Demon. Etrigan was, in
reality, a human knight of Camelot named Jason Blood who was transformed into
the powerful demon by Merlin as a way to defend Camelot in its times of
greatest need.
He was the fountainhead for Arthurian continuity, which
already included all the characters from the original legends such as Morgain
Le Fey. The other significant
addition to the era was Sir Justin, the Shining Knight, an Arthurian knight
with magic armor and a winged horse who ended up transported to the modern day,
though Etrigan’s immortal status allowed him to take the long way to the
present.
We’ll get back to Sir Justin in a bit but eventually DC just
retconned the entire King Arthur continuity and its many elements under a New
52 comic called Demon Knights. The book revolved around Etrigan and
his lady friend Madame Xanadu, a fortune teller who was Merlin’s apprentice,
teaming up with the new female Shining Knight in the aftermath of Camelot’s
fall to the Sheeda.
What are the
Sheeda? They’re a terrifying and
monstrous evolution of humanity in the distant future who periodically return
to pillage previous eras in human history and are the ones who destroyed
Camelot in search for the mythic Cauldron of rebirth, an artifact that dates
back to caveman times and was a gift from those hyper advanced living alien
ideas I mentioned earlier. Like I
said, history class in the DC universe must be insane given how often it turns
into the kind of crazy shenanigans like “future humans fighting demons over
alien artifacts alongside King Arthur.”
VICTORIAN ERA
Another major fictional character to pop up as a factual
part of DC history is Sherlock Holmes.
This is actually a smaller part of DC’s crazy history but one still
worth mentioning for how bizarre an instance it is. The Victorian period is actually punctuated with a lot of
weird pop ups, like Etrigan was still tooling around and there were the
extended adventures of Andrew Bennett, the star of I, Vampire. However,
Sherlock Holmes wins for most bizarre adventure of all thanks to how weirdly
ingrained in Sherlock’s own mythology this is. At the same time it’s an adventure that let’s me talk about
Eclipso, the single weirdest yet greatest character in DC.
Much like the Spectre, Crimson Avenger, or El Diablo,
Eclipso was a spirit of God’s vengeance and I do mean God, as in the
judeo-christian-islamic conception of God. That kind of mythology plays a big role in the DC cosmology
overall, with heaven as a place one can actually visit like Mount Olympus and
an angel even serving as part of the Justice League for quite awhile. In any event, Eclipso was the spirit
God sent to punish the world through the flood. After his task was completed Eclipso was imprisoned in a
black diamond for eons before it was discovered, cut into smaller diamonds, and
sold. These smaller diamonds
allowed Eclipso to manifest himself by possessing the people who held
them.
There’s more to Eclipso, especially his weird origin as a
psychedelic ‘60s character, but for now that’s all you need to know: he’s a bad
dude out for revenge on God.
During his solo series, a lot was done to flesh out his origins,
including a very strange single issue story where he fought Sherlock Holmes in
London shortly after the black diamond that imprisoned him was sliced into
pieces. It’s a trippy little tale
with stuff relating to both Jack the Ripper and Irene Adler, who Eclipso
actually kills during his final confrontation with Holmes.
I don’t think anyone has come back to this iteration of
Holmes, though it’s unclear if he has any connection to the very short lived Sherlock Holmes comic DC put out in the
’70s. Still, can’t deny that
Sherlock Holmes’ adventures are a matter of historical fact in this world,
along with the fact he fought a rogue spirit of divine vengeance one time and
lived to tell about it.
ATLANTIS
Atlantis is a big part of DC Comics’ history. That should be obvious given that
Aquaman remains one of the premiere DC Comics history and has been a “name” for
them for most of their history.
However, it’s always been canon that a place like Atlantis can’t just
start existing when Aquaman decided to visit the surface world. For along time, Atlantis’ history was
only conveyed through a brief lived ‘80s ongoing comic about Arion, lead
sorcerer of Atlantis.
They were established to both predate and exist slightly
alongside Ancient Egypt though the Atlantians wera hodgepodge of various ancient peoples who chose to immigrate
there. Eventually it was explained
that Arion chose to sink Atlantis over some big kerfuffle involving an alien invasion but that
was always a very unsatisfying explanation. The much more interesting and dynamic explanation came in
2003 in the pages of Justice League of
America’s ‘The Obsidian Age.’
The details of Atlantis’ sinking are a little hazy in this
comic, mainly because of its connection to the deservedly forgotten crossover
event Our Worlds At War which wrecked
havoc on Atlantis. The only point
to really make is what we learned about Atlantis’ defenders, the League of
Ancients. The League of Ancients
were a collection of 6 ancient metahuman beings of amazing power that populated
the ancient world. They came
together as part of a gambit by the villainous witch Gamemnae as she worked to
prevent Atlantis from sinking.
Essentially, they were gathered as a force to stop the Justice League of
America from going back in time to set things right.
There was the Anointed One, a super powerful alien being
raised by Jewish settlers in Israel, Manitou Raven, a Native American shaman,
Tezumak, a Mesoamerican armored powerhouse, Whaler, an energy based Chinese
man, and Sela, some kind of mystic African warrior woman. Rama Khan, a powerful sorcerer from a
made up mystic south Asian country and Gamemnae herself led them. When the JLA did show up looking for
answers the ancients actually managed to stop them and even kill all of them. The League got better of course and
history was eventually righted but to this day they remain one of the only
teams I’ve ever seen who was actually able to murder the entire Justice
League.
ANCIENT EGYPT
The League of Ancients weren’t the only super group of the
ancient world, nor was Atlantis the only hotbed of superhero activity. There are a bunch of heroes with ties
to Ancient Egypt and they all kind of crossed over in the brief story arc
‘Justice Society B.C.’ Due to some
time travel shenanigans not worth getting into, four members of the modern
Justice Society ended up shunted back into 9th Dynasty Egypt.
This had actually happened once previously to the JSA’s
resident speedster Jay Garrick, the original Flash. Once there, the modern heroes encountered Black Adam, a
powerful champion of the wizard Shazam with the same abilities as Captain
Marvel, along with Nabu, the court wizard and founder of the mantel of Dr.
Fate. There was also Prince Khufu
and Princess Chay-ara, a pair of Egyptian royals who had fashioned anti-gravity
belts for themselves from a down Thanagarian spaceship and would one day be
reincarnated as Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
Together with the modern heroes, the Justice Society of
Egypt were opposed by that bad penny of history Vandal Savage, the immortal
caveman tyrant. However, this
Vandal had a bit more of a power play on his side thanks to discovering the Orb
of Ra, a supremely powerful mystic artifact that allowed the wielder to
transmute elements and animate matter.
Vandal had used the orb to create an army of living sand
creatures, animate a giant sphinx, and turn a simple criminal into an ancient
Egyptian version of Metamorpho, the element man, meaning he could transmute
himself into any element. The
heroes eventually won the day and probably left behind the most insane story
for future archeologist to discover given this is another one of those “heroes
from the future joins ancient sorcerers to fight evil immortal caveman” type
moments.
SEVEN SOLDIERS OF
VICTORY
And so we reach the big creamy center of the weird history
bar with the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
The company that would become DC as a collection of random characters
from across several different comics at the time first created the Seven
Soldiers of Victory in 1941. There
was Sir Justin the Shining Knight, who I touched on already, along with
Vigilante, a cowboy themed hero, Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy, some America
themed war superheroes, the Crimson Avenger, a two-fisted crime buster who
packed a pair of hand guns, and Green Arrow and Speedy, in one of their
earliest appearances. Now most of
these characters faded away over the next 3 decades, save for Green Arrow was
rebooted in the goatee form most folks recognize nowadays. However, in 1972 for the 100th
issue of Justice League of America
the 7 Soldiers made their return.
It was established that the 7 Soldiers were part of Earth-2
history, alongside the heroes of the Justice Society of America, only the seven
had been scattered throughout time.
This was basically used to kick-off a hunt across time to find the
different soldiers but it also means they’re all peppered throughout human
history, some of them in pretty massive ways. For instance, the tough as nails Crimson Avenger ended up
losing his memory and becoming the King of the Aztecs. Green Arrow teamed up with Robin Hood,
another fictional character who really existed, while Speedy wound up the slave
to Cersi in ancient Greece.
Stripe, the super strong sidekick of Star Spangled Kid, helped build the
pyramids but my favorite has to be Shining Knight, who ended up the vanguard of
the Mongol horde of Genghis Khan.
This means that it’s a historical fact in the DC universe that an
Arthurian knight was the mongol secret weapon, up until Superman, Metamoprho,
and Sandman went back in time and managed to defeat the entire Mongol army with
knock out gas long enough to rescue the Shining Knight.
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