Comic's riskiest acronym

The All-Star Squadron

Don't expect to see a JSA revival in My52.  I think it's time to retire some of these WWII legacy characters either because of unreasonable age (Wildcat), duplication of characters (Flash and Green Lantern), or nonsensical "legacy" characters (damn near everyone else).  Even the concept of a Justice Society is too much a duplicate of the Justice League and feels unnecessary in my more streamlined DCU, where each title has to provide a distinct feel to justify itself.

So why am I even entertaining this concept even with a name change?  Because honestly many of the characters introduced early on in the series' life are worth keeping active and frankly I don't hate the idea of legacy team members as much as I dislike the rampant idiocy of it toward the end.

Pictured: The Legion of Supe- what?

Presumably having collapsed under their own weight, the JSA will disband, with only a core element of characters remaining who really want to make a difference.  While the JLA mandate is to gather together to face threats to big for them individually, the A-SS are your "full-time" heroes, maintaining an accessible headquarters and making themselves available for people to come to with their problems.

Membership will consist mostly of the more proven 2nd generation JSA characters, those who remain after Wildcat, Flash and  Green Lantern retire, and after the tidal flood of legacy characters is sent back home.

The All-Stars are:

Mr. Terrific

The clear break-out star from the legacy theme of JSA who got in early and proved himself as a viable character many times over.  The writer has to be careful, though, 'cause he can easily tip into Marty Sue territory where he's the best at everything and everything he does is perfect.  In skilled hands, though, Mr. Terrific's intelligence, skills, and technical savvy focus on a brains over brawn approach to crime fighting.

Hourman

Rick Tyler has two superpowers with great storytelling potential: one, he can activate the drug Miraclo to give himself super strength for one hour, and two, he has an hourglass with tachyons in it which grant him visions of one hour into the future.  Nothing but great things from those.  I'm so glad they finally ditched the Miraclo addiction sub-plot to his powers, but I do like that this addiction is part of his history.  It sets himself up as someone who can provide motivational speeches to the downtrodden, and the lives he's saved through positive influence could equal those he's saved through super-powered conflict.  As an added bonus, many of the people he's saved this way around the world have formed a community of "Minutemen" who keep their eyes out for potential trouble and alert Rick if warranted.  Between his Minutemen and his tachyon hourglass, Rick is the best early-warning system the team could ask for.

Liberty Belle

Jesse Chambers has flip-flopped a bit on whether she's Johnny Quick's legacy or Liberty Belle's, with costume and powers changing to suit.  Truth is, I love her in her 40s-inspired Liberty Belle costume, but think she's better with her superspeed powers.  So I'm going to shuffle the deck a bit and combine the two concepts.  While her father activated his superspeed using a complex mathematical formula (which Jesse also used), her mother activated her great strength through the ringing of the actual Liberty Bell.  Jesse has taken a page from both their books and stabilized her powers thusly: Wearing a belt buckle made from the same metal as the Liberty Bell (just as her mother did), Jesse is able to "ring" the bell with a tap of her buckle, activating her superspeed in the same way her dad's formula did.  I can't think of a logical reason why this would be *better* for her, but it works for me.

Stargirl

The first legitimate JSA legacy, Stargirl has dovetailed the legacies of both the Star-Spangled Kid and Starman to become a true success story of the JSA.  Although she started out as a self-interested troublemaker, she's been taught by some of the best and has become a hero that other neophytes can look up to.

Sandman

I'm not trying to backpedal here, but I think Sand's silicone powers got way too much play during his time with the JSA, amping up to the point where he could cause earthquakes.  Fortunately for me, I've decided that his body is starting to heal a bit from his transformation.  He still has silicone-based powers, but now they're only capable of allowing him to transform himself into sand and pass through stone and crystalline surfaces.

For the most part, he's going back to the commando-mode of his early JSA days with his gas mask and sleep gas (his powers sort of make the wire-poon gun unnecessary).  Between his sleep gas and his ability to penetrate nearly any building, he really is the mortal embodiment of the Sandman.  Somewhere along the line he's also going to earn peace when he sleeps.  His prophetic dreams are too similar to the otherwise more interesting future visions of Hourman.

Dr. Mid-Nite

One of my personal favorites from the Society, I like the way he uses medicine as a tool to fight crime.  He's like the exact opposite of the Crime Doctor.  There's a bit of overlap with Mr. Terrific, what with his intelligence, skills and pet owl (akin to the T-Spheres), but I think that just makes them closer friends than competitors.  There are some notable philosophical differences between them, of course, which just makes for a more interesting environment when they work together.

Plastic Man

It's been established that his plastic body has kept him alive for all these years and confirms that he was a member of the Squadron back in WWII as the liaison with the FBI.  Although a lot of attention has been paid to his criminal background in recent years, I think it's time to revisit his FBI potential and not only make him the longest arm of the law, but also get him back into the saddle with the All-Star Squadron.  His gangster background plus his work with the FBI makes Plas the perfect crime-buster.

TNT and Dinah-Might

This is where, after mocking the flood of poorly-thought-out legacy characters, I introduce my OWN legacy character(s) to join the Squadron.  For no other reason than a personal fondness for the characters of TNT and Dan the Dyna-mite (dating to one of the first Superfriends comics I read as a kid), I'll have a new duo discover the science between the explosive-packed rings. In this case, a college professor struggling for tenure finds inspiration in the work of one of his graduate students and the two manage to recreate (more or less) the experiment that lead to the original crime fighters.  In addition to enhanced strength, the two gain explosive punches and rocket-propelled flight.

Something I really have to address when working with these Golden Age legacy characters is how the DCU sliding timeline has grown ever-farther from the anchor point of World War II.  While many of the original JSA-ers had an "excuse" for their slowed aging, many of these new descendants don't.  I was able to put together a solution for Black Canary in my post on her title, and Stargirl's step-father, Pat Dugan, has the convenient time-skip of the time he was lost in time with the Seven Soldiers of Victory.  I can also see a way to time-skip the members of Infinity, Inc. if that becomes necessary.

But in this group, the troublemakers are Liberty Belle and Hourman.  Explicitly stated as the children of WWII heroes, it's getting to the point where even if they'd been born in the 60's (with their parents well into their 40s), they'd be around 50 years old now.  Clearly they're not.  

I'm afraid I don't have a solution for either of these, so it'll have to be something I address in the future.