Marvel has fewer golden age characters and they were able to use some explanations for the long lives of the super heroes from the golden age such as immortality, or frozen/defrosted. Dc has too many of its icons from the golden age so DC has gone with the Popeye/Mickey Mouse approach of having characters who don't age which is also a good strategy. For the marvel super heroes created in the 1960s, Marvel also follows the strategy of not aging the characters. Dc's icons like Supes, Bats, WW, Flash, GL, Hawkman, Aquaman, Green Arrow were all created in the golden age and not letting these age is a good strategy. Having both Jay Garrick and Barry Allen on the same earth as Flash from different times is a complexity/complicaton that dc has decided to avoid. Some superheroes like Phantom has generations built into the origin but dc does not have have that many superheroes like Phantom. I also miss the golden age history but I think New 52 is much simpler and will attract more new customers. In New 52, dc has allowed a few superheroes to have predecessors such as zatara -> zatana, sargon the sorcerer -> sargon the sorceress, sylvester pemberton -> courtney whitmore. New 52 policy has been to get rid of wives and children to make superheroes younger so many of the legacy superheroes got erased overnight such as the children of Black Lightning who still appear in the cartoons. As for comic book history, dc started the silver age and the good sales of JLA prompted Marvel to create superheroes too. The more important golden age properties are all rebooted on main earth rather than earth 2. Main earth has the rebooted Black Canary, rebooted Spectre Jim Corrigan, etc. Jim corrigan is more iconic and I am glad they erased the later black Spectre who was active right before Flashpoint.

@colonyofcells: That's all well and good, but DC's new Earth 2? Yeah those aren't Golden Age characters. They're Golden Age in name only. In actuality, DC has betrayed itself. They've compromised in order to draw in readers. Now There ARE things like I LIKE about the New 52. Wonder Woman has been excellent, Aquaman is great, Superman, Action Comics, Nightwing has been okay to me, Hawkman, Green Lantern Corps, all excellent.

However this doesn't excuse the fact they basically KILLED off the Justice Society. Yes, killed. They don't exist anymore, not their members, nothing.

The Justice Society of America was the FIRST superhero team in history. It's an important team and is by far my favorite in all of comics. It has history and it truly IS a Society. The Fantastic Four may be Marvel's First Family, but the JSA is DC's.

I just love the Golden Age characters. My grandpa had a lot of comics from the Golden Age and I used to read them and well to me Green Lantern was Alan Scott and Jay Garrick was The Flash. I loved the Justice Society and I absolutely LOVED Geoff Johns' run on JSA.

The JSA is my favorite superhero group of all time, and Jay Garrick, Ted Grant and Alan Scott all rank among my favorite characters ever, when I got into comics at a young age I was immediatly attracted to these characters, because they gave me a sense that the DCU had HISTORY, stories of a different time that I didn't even knew about, legacies and heroes with old school values that despite their age they still were kicking ass, they were mentors, they were a family, and then came the Reboot.

Now, i'm not saying that I hate the Reboot or anything, there's been some good things and bad things, but the first complaint that I had about this was them erasing the JSA, and I still say that it was the biggest mistake that they made. It's ok that they wanted to gave the new readers a sense that they were seeing the start of a brand new Universe, and it's ok that they wanted to make Supes the first superhero ever, it makes sense, but that doesn't mean that they should forget about the JSA altogether, one thing that I really like about the New 52 is it's variety, there's a comic book for every one, but I do feel that they're trying too hard to be "hardcore" or "edgy", they're basically emulating the 90s, having a JSA title would not only beneffit the DCnU, but it's line of comic books, being that the Golden Age Superheroes had different values and morals than Modern Superheroes. Also, DC never knew how to make they're old readers satisfied, they retained the Batman and GL mythos almost intact, but they are only a little part of the DCU, meanwhile the Golden Age is something that has been part of it's Universe almost forever and it always enriched the DCU, and they erased it. They could of integrated the JSA in this new universe and still had Supes as it's first Superhero, because he would've been the first Superhero that the people knew about, the JSA could've been a secret group gathered by the Goverment to fight in WW2, that would've been just fine, but how they decided to reboot the JSA? Earth 2.

I like Earth 2, I find it an enjoyable title, but as something completely separate from the JSA, the character's are only the original Golden Age character's by name and powers, that's it, but why should it be like this? They still could've made the characters feel fresh and new while still retaining their essence, so why the change? are these characters any better than the Golden Age ones? No, not at all, they're not bad characters by any means, but better than their original counterparts absolutely not. People say that "You can't criticize them for not being similar to their original counterparts because they never were intended to be that way", and they're right, James Robinson never intended for the characters to be the Golden Age characters, but is that enough of a reason for me not to be angry? No, it's like if they made Batman a demonic Man-Bat like creature who fights in space, and he could be the absolute BEST itteration of Batman EVER, but I bet that old fans would still be mad anyways, because even though he's a good character, he's not Batman, and the fans of this new Batman would say that you can't judge him like that because he was never intended to be like the old Batman, but would that stop you from being angry? No, you would still be mad because you just can't help yourself, and that's the point, these new characters are fine, but they're NOTHING alike the old characters, Jay Garrick isn't a Peter Parker-esque superheroe, Wesley Dodds is a vigilante and an outlaw, always standing for justice and breaking barriers with his detective skills, and now you're telling me that he's a Goverment minion? Bullcrap, complete and utter bullcrap. So yeah, I like Earth 2, it's a good title, but it's not the JSA, and I can't help my self from being angry, even if it's not trying to be the JSA.

@Smart_Dork_Dude said:

@colonyofcells: That's all well and good, but DC's new Earth 2? Yeah those aren't Golden Age characters. They're Golden Age in name only. In actuality, DC has betrayed itself. They've compromised in order to draw in readers. Now There ARE things like I LIKE about the New 52. Wonder Woman has been excellent, Aquaman is great, Superman, Action Comics, Nightwing has been okay to me, Hawkman, Green Lantern Corps, all excellent.

However this doesn't excuse the fact they basically KILLED off the Justice Society. Yes, killed. They don't exist anymore, not their members, nothing.

The Justice Society of America was the FIRST superhero team in history. It's an important team and is by far my favorite in all of comics. It has history and it truly IS a Society. The Fantastic Four may be Marvel's First Family, but the JSA is DC's.

I just love the Golden Age characters. My grandpa had a lot of comics from the Golden Age and I used to read them and well to me Green Lantern was Alan Scott and Jay Garrick was The Flash. I loved the Justice Society and I absolutely LOVED Geoff Johns' run on JSA.

the JS is reforming soon.

@Avenging-X-Bolt: Okay, let me ask you this question. Will Alan Scott have the power of the Starheart Lantern again and not be gay so Jade can come back? Will Jay Garrick NOT be powered by the god Mercury? Will Al Pratt NOT have Atom Smashers powers? Will the ACTUAL HAWKMAN be a member of the team? Will Stargirl be a member? Will they still be a SOCIETY of heroes or just a run of the mill team?

If you can truthfully answer yes to ANY of this then you can say the JSA will be reforming.

@Smart_Dork_Dude said:

@Avenging-X-Bolt: Okay, let me ask you this question. Will Alan Scott have the power of the Starheart Lantern again and not be gay so Jade can come back? Will Jay Garrick NOT be powered by the god Mercury? Will Al Pratt NOT have Atom Smashers powers? Will the ACTUAL HAWKMAN be a member of the team? Will Stargirl be a member? Will they still be a SOCIETY of heroes or just a run of the mill team?

If you can truthfully answer yes to ANY of this then you can say the JSA will be reforming.

i said JS, not JSA

@Avenging-X-Bolt:

I hope they reform the justice society on both earth 2 and main earth. For main earth, you can use characters like Jim Corrigan Spectre, Courtney Whitmore, Michael Holt, etc. Before flashpoint, justice society was on main earth and played large roles in all the dc events.

Can we forget the Silver Age tho?

Dc has dropped a few things from the silver age. No more Ray Palmer as Atom ? No more elongated man ? No more Shayera Thal as Hawkwoman ? I don't consider the golden age gone since Supes, Bats and WW are still around but their golden age history erased. Spectre Jim Corrigan is starting out again just like in the golden age when Jim Corrigan was young and dead. We have a Black Canary like in the golden age.

@colonyofcells: Superman isn't from the Golden Age. Kal-El is the Silver/Modern Age Superman. Kal-L is the Golden Age Superman

There is only 1 superman just as there is only 1 Popeye. The other versions of Superman in the other dimensions are just illusions. Just forget old continuities which will never come back and concentrate on dc's icons whose histories are erased every now and then to keep things simple.

Times change. People change. But you know who didn't modernize? The Romans and dinosaurs?

You know what happened them? They died. Adapt or die.

The golden age justice society lineups are sort of just old line ups of the Justice League. The golden age lineup of the justice society had some unpopular properties that probably won't be back anymore. The satellite era bronze age JLA also had some unpopular properties that probably won't be back anymore. For a team with Green Lantern and Flash, just read Justice league and forget about old versions like the golden age Justice Society.

What was the Golden Age again? (Sorry I forgot :p)

Just a correction, Plastic Man wasn't created by DC comics. He was published by Quality Comics, and later bought by DC. I agree it is sad to an older fan like me when whole histories are written out of continuity, but I can also understand the reasoning behind it. As long as we older fans remember them fondly, and newer fans learn about them, the Golden Age, Silver age, etc. will live on.

Knowledge about the golden age continuity and silver age continuity is fast disappearing as older people disappear over time. Most current comic book professionals don't know much about the golden age and silver age anymore bec. not many people are interested in ancient history.