Starkville’s House of El Podcast

This installment of the SF has been a tough one for me to tackle. There were so many characters mentioned in Absolute Justice that I had to take a step back and figure out what to do about all of them. Simply because I do not have the time necessary to spotlight them all, I will focus on the three main JSA characters that were in the episode. I will however place numerous links in the SF to point you in the direction of the characters that I do not write in depth about. Hopefully that will suffice and allow you to find out more about the JSA and Icicle.

Courtney Whitmore is fairly recent to the DC Universe and the JSA and she was created by Smallville writer Geoff Johns in 1999. Courtney bears the personality of Geoff’s sister who was killed in TWA Flight 800, and was also named Courtney. She was given the Cosmic Rod by the original Star-spangled kid, Sylvester Pemberton. Prior to have  been given the Cosmic Rod she was known as the 2nd Star-Spangled Kid. The Cosmic Rod was given to her by the seventh Starman, Jack Knight. This might be confusing to some, as the continuity of the JSA and many Golden Age characters have been retconned many times over the years.  Now that she has the rod she adopts the name of Stargirl. She is accompanied by her step father Pat Dugan who creates a robotic suit to accompany Courtney and serve as her sidekick/protector S.T.R.I.P.E. . They soon join the JSA and Courtney becomes involved with most of their stories since her creation. Stargirl has appeared a a central character in the Justice League Unlimited episode “Chaos at the Earth’s core”. She was also seen in many other episodes as a backup character.

Dr. Fate is another character that has a long messy history in the DC Universe. The Dr. Fate Persona has been held by many different people as the identity comes from the Magical Helmet of Nabu. Since the character we were introduced to in Absolute Justice was  Kent Nelson, I am going to focus on him. Actually Nelson was the first Dr. Fate, so maybe I will be able to steer clear of the mucky continuity that exists with this character. Fate was created by Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman first appeared in More Fun Comics #55 in May of 1940. The story goes that Kent Nelson was the son of an archeologists who died while searching for the Helmet of Nabu in the Tomb of the Wizard Nabu. The helmet carries the personality of the wizard and the wearer of the helmet becomes a vessel for Nabu kown as Dr. Fate. Nabu took pity on the young now orphaned Kent Nelson, and raised him and taught him magic. Dr Fate lives in an invisible tower in Salem Massachusetts with his wife Inza, who also serves as his assistant. He was one of the founding members of the JSA and stayed with the team until 1945 when he retired from the team. Fate returned in the 1960’s to aid the JSA in their team-ups with the Justice League. The team-ups ushered in the idea of parrallel universes and consequently the multiverse. Dr. Fate did not have an anolog of himself on the JLA like most of his JSA teammates did. In 1985 when the multiverse was consolidated into one universe Dr. Fate was seen as joining the JLA for many different adventures. It is at this point that the continuity of  Dr. Fate gets rather confusing. The Helmet of Nabu is changed into daggers and weapons and there is a new character wielding them. I for one, only need one version of Dr. Fate and the others do not interest me too much.

Now to the granddaddy of them all with regards to confusing and murky histories. Hawkman’s beginning was simple enough. He was created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville in 1940 and first appeared in Flash Comics #1. While his look and weapons have been fairly consistent, the backstory on this character most certainly have not been. Hawkman is known as Carter Hall, who is the reincarnated Egyptian Prince Khufu. Carter was an archeologists who discovered his heritage and various weapons.  He has strap on wings made of a special material named Nth metal which allows him the ability of flight. This metal is also used in his mace, which is the most common weapon associated with Hawkman. His soulmate Hawkgirl is also a reincarnated person from Egyptian times. They were cursed long ago to be soulmates but never allowed to live with each others company for very long. Hawkman disappeared at the end of the Golden Age and reappeared again in the Silver Age, this time as a Thanagarian. The Thanagarain’s are an alein race of Hawk-people with highly advanced weaponry. In the Silver Age both Hawkman and Hawkgirl travel to Earth and remain as a force of good to aid the people of Earth with the rising Supervillian threats.   Ask anyone who is in the know with DC History and they will tell you that Hawkman’s history is the biggest mess of jumbled up origin you could possible imagine. I mainly know of Hawkman from the Superfriends cartoon of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Hawkgirl is quite the fan-favorite from the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited animated series that began in 2001.  In a related note the son of Hawkman and Hawkgirl grows up to wear the Helmet of Nabu and is intertwined in the legacy of Dr. Fate.  Confused yet? I know I am.

While Icicle was a JSA villian from the past, the best I can figure is he was only sparsely used. Smallville gave him a proper treatment though as far as his origin goes.

The other characters in the JSA were mostly mentions or just a picture. The JSA has a long history with a tremendous amount of stories and crossovers. Look into what you like and hopefully you will go buy a comic or even look into to your local library for some Trade Paperbacks.

Leave me a comment below and let us know what you thought of these characters on Smallville and if you were aware of them prior to the episode airing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Character History. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.