What’s the oldest record you’ve come across of an individual who resembles what we might call a superhero today?

"Hey Sid, how about you put your foot directly into the biggest minefield in your profession so that no matter what you say one of your colleagues WILL have you assassinated?" Oh boy! How could I resist?!

This post is going to be more qualifier than answer but here we go.

The definition of "superhero" is famously squirrely. We only CALL them superheroes in common language because of Superman's appearance kicking off the current heroic age. In the 40s they were called mystery men, there were heroes like them among the lawmen of the American west, the Revolutionary war, the vikings, the knights of Camelot and ALL of those examples are just those who fit my personal working definition of a superhero which is someone holding 3 distinct aspects.

You'll note that that 2nd reason is, for instance, why mythological figures like Perseus and Hercules don't count. While they had skills and abilities beyond mortal ken, they did so under their own pedigrees so to speak. Reasons 1 and 3 disqualify many historically attested classes of masked soldiery or specially named military units who had the abilities expected of them for high level military men AND acted upon the orders of military superiors.

Every single word of these explanations and definitions can be torn apart by the edge cases. This has to be accepted, there is no universal definition of "superhero" that includes everyone you think counts and excludes everyone you think doesn't. Nature of the game.

ALL of that being said, here's my pick.

(Reconstruction of a marble carved mural from within the villa of the 'Golden Gladiator') Marcus Tiberius (unknown if that was his birth name but unlikely considering how Romans regularly changed their names or the emphasis on their names in relation to societal rank) was a common shepherd living near the city of Segusio (modern day Susa, Italy) whose first appearance in the historical record is being convicted of a crime. Accused of attempting to assassinate Praetor Clodius Crassus, Marcus was indentured to slave galley. Eventually saving the life of the ship's captain when a lion being transported to Rome for the gladiatorial games escaped on board, Marcus himself was recommended for the games.

Now in close proximity to Cinna, the centurion who had actually attempted to assassinate the Praetor, Marcus overcame purposefully rigged challenges against much stronger opponents, defeating a raging bull with a faulty spear and a chariot race against one of Cinna's allies earning his freedom and the lifelong moniker that's most easily translated as: The Golden Gladiator.

The Golden Gladiator would spend the next decades of his life doing everything in his power to foil Cinna's plots for power, even falling in love with and marrying Cinna's niece Lucia in the same year Cinna was recognized as having framed Marcus all those years ago. He served as a close advisor to Emperor Vespasian for many years, being made bodyguard of his son Titus where he eventually perished guarding him from an assassination attempt in 73 AD

This is by no means a perfect answer. Considering the things Vespasian and Titus are actually RESPONSIBLE for even as two of the "good emperors", and Marcus was by no means so hero outside his own moral time and place calling for the liberation of slaves and the end of imperialism, obviously. There's a reason we start the moral and spiritual continuity of our modern heroic legacy at the Crimson Avenger and don't try to tie them back much further than that so we can stay out of the moral thickets that inevitably come from examining the actions of any human being who lived before the previous century at best. But he DID use an assumed persona to fight against criminality and corruption within his society so as far as that goes, that's the hand I've got to play. Now I get to post this and wait for some really STIMULATING emails and voice messages from people I went to college with!

What’s the oldest record you’ve come across of an individual who resembles what we might call a superhero today?

"Hey Sid, how about you put your foot directly into the biggest minefield in your profession so that no matter what you say one of your colleagues WILL have you assassinated?" Oh boy! How could I resist?!

This post is going to be more qualifier than answer but here we go.

The definition of "superhero" is famously squirrely. We only CALL them superheroes in common language because of Superman's appearance kicking off the current heroic age. In the 40s they were called mystery men, there were heroes like them among the lawmen of the American west, the Revolutionary war, the vikings, the knights of Camelot and ALL of those examples are just those who fit my personal working definition of a superhero which is someone holding 3 distinct aspects.

You'll note that that 2nd reason is, for instance, why mythological figures like Perseus and Hercules don't count. While they had skills and abilities beyond mortal ken, they did so under their own pedigrees so to speak. Reasons 1 and 3 disqualify many historically attested classes of masked soldiery or specially named military units who had the abilities expected of them for high level military men AND acted upon the orders of military superiors.

Every single word of these explanations and definitions can be torn apart by the edge cases. This has to be accepted, there is no universal definition of "superhero" that includes everyone you think counts and excludes everyone you think doesn't. Nature of the game.

ALL of that being said, here's my pick.

(Reconstruction of a marble carved mural from within the villa of the 'Golden Gladiator') Marcus Tiberius (unknown if that was his birth name but unlikely considering how Romans regularly changed their names or the emphasis on their names in relation to societal rank) was a common shepherd living near the city of Segusio (modern day Susa, Italy) whose first appearance in the historical record is being convicted of a crime. Accused of attempting to assassinate Praetor Clodius Crassus, Marcus was indentured to slave galley. Eventually saving the life of the ship's captain when a lion being transported to Rome for the gladiatorial games escaped on board, Marcus himself was recommended for the games.

Now in close proximity to Cinna, the centurion who had actually attempted to assassinate the Praetor, Marcus overcame purposefully rigged challenges against much stronger opponents, defeating a raging bull with a faulty spear and a chariot race against one of Cinna's allies earning his freedom and the lifelong moniker that's most easily translated as: The Golden Gladiator.

The Golden Gladiator would spend the next decades of his life doing everything in his power to foil Cinna's plots for power, even falling in love with and marrying Cinna's niece Lucia in the same year Cinna was recognized as having framed Marcus all those years ago. He served as a close advisor to Emperor Vespasian for many years, being made bodyguard of his son Titus where he eventually perished guarding him from an assassination attempt in 73 AD

This is by no means a perfect answer. Considering the things Vespasian and Titus are actually RESPONSIBLE for even as two of the "good emperors", and Marcus was by no means so hero outside his own moral time and place calling for the liberation of slaves and the end of imperialism, obviously. There's a reason we start the moral and spiritual continuity of our modern heroic legacy at the Crimson Avenger and don't try to tie them back much further than that so we can stay out of the moral thickets that inevitably come from examining the actions of any human being who lived before the previous century at best. But he DID use an assumed persona to fight against criminality and corruption within his society so as far as that goes, that's the hand I've got to play. Now I get to post this and wait for some really STIMULATING emails and voice messages from people I went to college with!

What’s the oldest record you’ve come across of an individual who resembles what we might call a superhero today?

"Hey Sid, how about you put your foot directly into the biggest minefield in your profession so that no matter what you say one of your colleagues WILL have you assassinated?" Oh boy! How could I resist?!

This post is going to be more qualifier than answer but here we go.

The definition of "superhero" is famously squirrely. We only CALL them superheroes in common language because of Superman's appearance kicking off the current heroic age. In the 40s they were called mystery men, there were heroes like them among the lawmen of the American west, the Revolutionary war, the vikings, the knights of Camelot and ALL of those examples are just those who fit my personal working definition of a superhero which is someone holding 3 distinct aspects.

You'll note that that 2nd reason is, for instance, why mythological figures like Perseus and Hercules don't count. While they had skills and abilities beyond mortal ken, they did so under their own pedigrees so to speak. Reasons 1 and 3 disqualify many historically attested classes of masked soldiery or specially named military units who had the abilities expected of them for high level military men AND acted upon the orders of military superiors.

Every single word of these explanations and definitions can be torn apart by the edge cases. This has to be accepted, there is no universal definition of "superhero" that includes everyone you think counts and excludes everyone you think doesn't. Nature of the game.

ALL of that being said, here's my pick.

(Reconstruction of a marble carved mural from within the villa of the 'Golden Gladiator') Marcus Tiberius (unknown if that was his birth name but unlikely considering how Romans regularly changed their names or the emphasis on their names in relation to societal rank) was a common shepherd living near the city of Segusio (modern day Susa, Italy) whose first appearance in the historical record is being convicted of a crime. Accused of attempting to assassinate Praetor Clodius Crassus, Marcus was indentured to slave galley. Eventually saving the life of the ship's captain when a lion being transported to Rome for the gladiatorial games escaped on board, Marcus himself was recommended for the games.

Now in close proximity to Cinna, the centurion who had actually attempted to assassinate the Praetor, Marcus overcame purposefully rigged challenges against much stronger opponents, defeating a raging bull with a faulty spear and a chariot race against one of Cinna's allies earning his freedom and the lifelong moniker that's most easily translated as: The Golden Gladiator.

The Golden Gladiator would spend the next decades of his life doing everything in his power to foil Cinna's plots for power, even falling in love with and marrying Cinna's niece Lucia in the same year Cinna was recognized as having framed Marcus all those years ago. He served as a close advisor to Emperor Vespasian for many years, being made bodyguard of his son Titus where he eventually perished guarding him from an assassination attempt in 73 AD

This is by no means a perfect answer. Considering the things Vespasian and Titus are actually RESPONSIBLE for even as two of the "good emperors", and Marcus was by no means so hero outside his own moral time and place calling for the liberation of slaves and the end of imperialism, obviously. There's a reason we start the moral and spiritual continuity of our modern heroic legacy at the Crimson Avenger and don't try to tie them back much further than that so we can stay out of the moral thickets that inevitably come from examining the actions of any human being who lived before the previous century at best. But he DID use an assumed persona to fight against criminality and corruption within his society so as far as that goes, that's the hand I've got to play. Now I get to post this and wait for some really STIMULATING emails and voice messages from people I went to college with!

What’s the oldest record you’ve come across of an individual who resembles what we might call a superhero today?

"Hey Sid, how about you put your foot directly into the biggest minefield in your profession so that no matter what you say one of your colleagues WILL have you assassinated?" Oh boy! How could I resist?!

This post is going to be more qualifier than answer but here we go.

The definition of "superhero" is famously squirrely. We only CALL them superheroes in common language because of Superman's appearance kicking off the current heroic age. In the 40s they were called mystery men, there were heroes like them among the lawmen of the American west, the Revolutionary war, the vikings, the knights of Camelot and ALL of those examples are just those who fit my personal working definition of a superhero which is someone holding 3 distinct aspects.

You'll note that that 2nd reason is, for instance, why mythological figures like Perseus and Hercules don't count. While they had skills and abilities beyond mortal ken, they did so under their own pedigrees so to speak. Reasons 1 and 3 disqualify many historically attested classes of masked soldiery or specially named military units who had the abilities expected of them for high level military men AND acted upon the orders of military superiors.

Every single word of these explanations and definitions can be torn apart by the edge cases. This has to be accepted, there is no universal definition of "superhero" that includes everyone you think counts and excludes everyone you think doesn't. Nature of the game.

ALL of that being said, here's my pick.

(Reconstruction of a marble carved mural from within the villa of the 'Golden Gladiator') Marcus Tiberius (unknown if that was his birth name but unlikely considering how Romans regularly changed their names or the emphasis on their names in relation to societal rank) was a common shepherd living near the city of Segusio (modern day Susa, Italy) whose first appearance in the historical record is being convicted of a crime. Accused of attempting to assassinate Praetor Clodius Crassus, Marcus was indentured to slave galley. Eventually saving the life of the ship's captain when a lion being transported to Rome for the gladiatorial games escaped on board, Marcus himself was recommended for the games.

Now in close proximity to Cinna, the centurion who had actually attempted to assassinate the Praetor, Marcus overcame purposefully rigged challenges against much stronger opponents, defeating a raging bull with a faulty spear and a chariot race against one of Cinna's allies earning his freedom and the lifelong moniker that's most easily translated as: The Golden Gladiator.

The Golden Gladiator would spend the next decades of his life doing everything in his power to foil Cinna's plots for power, even falling in love with and marrying Cinna's niece Lucia in the same year Cinna was recognized as having framed Marcus all those years ago. He served as a close advisor to Emperor Vespasian for many years, being made bodyguard of his son Titus where he eventually perished guarding him from an assassination attempt in 73 AD

This is by no means a perfect answer. Considering the things Vespasian and Titus are actually RESPONSIBLE for even as two of the "good emperors", and Marcus was by no means so hero outside his own moral time and place calling for the liberation of slaves and the end of imperialism, obviously. There's a reason we start the moral and spiritual continuity of our modern heroic legacy at the Crimson Avenger and don't try to tie them back much further than that so we can stay out of the moral thickets that inevitably come from examining the actions of any human being who lived before the previous century at best. But he DID use an assumed persona to fight against criminality and corruption within his society so as far as that goes, that's the hand I've got to play. Now I get to post this and wait for some really STIMULATING emails and voice messages from people I went to college with!

What’s the oldest record you’ve come across of an individual who resembles what we might call a superhero today?

"Hey Sid, how about you put your foot directly into the biggest minefield in your profession so that no matter what you say one of your colleagues WILL have you assassinated?" Oh boy! How could I resist?!

This post is going to be more qualifier than answer but here we go.

The definition of "superhero" is famously squirrely. We only CALL them superheroes in common language because of Superman's appearance kicking off the current heroic age. In the 40s they were called mystery men, there were heroes like them among the lawmen of the American west, the Revolutionary war, the vikings, the knights of Camelot and ALL of those examples are just those who fit my personal working definition of a superhero which is someone holding 3 distinct aspects.

You'll note that that 2nd reason is, for instance, why mythological figures like Perseus and Hercules don't count. While they had skills and abilities beyond mortal ken, they did so under their own pedigrees so to speak. Reasons 1 and 3 disqualify many historically attested classes of masked soldiery or specially named military units who had the abilities expected of them for high level military men AND acted upon the orders of military superiors.

Every single word of these explanations and definitions can be torn apart by the edge cases. This has to be accepted, there is no universal definition of "superhero" that includes everyone you think counts and excludes everyone you think doesn't. Nature of the game.

ALL of that being said, here's my pick.

(Reconstruction of a marble carved mural from within the villa of the 'Golden Gladiator') Marcus Tiberius (unknown if that was his birth name but unlikely considering how Romans regularly changed their names or the emphasis on their names in relation to societal rank) was a common shepherd living near the city of Segusio (modern day Susa, Italy) whose first appearance in the historical record is being convicted of a crime. Accused of attempting to assassinate Praetor Clodius Crassus, Marcus was indentured to slave galley. Eventually saving the life of the ship's captain when a lion being transported to Rome for the gladiatorial games escaped on board, Marcus himself was recommended for the games.

Now in close proximity to Cinna, the centurion who had actually attempted to assassinate the Praetor, Marcus overcame purposefully rigged challenges against much stronger opponents, defeating a raging bull with a faulty spear and a chariot race against one of Cinna's allies earning his freedom and the lifelong moniker that's most easily translated as: The Golden Gladiator.

The Golden Gladiator would spend the next decades of his life doing everything in his power to foil Cinna's plots for power, even falling in love with and marrying Cinna's niece Lucia in the same year Cinna was recognized as having framed Marcus all those years ago. He served as a close advisor to Emperor Vespasian for many years, being made bodyguard of his son Titus where he eventually perished guarding him from an assassination attempt in 73 AD

This is by no means a perfect answer. Considering the things Vespasian and Titus are actually RESPONSIBLE for even as two of the "good emperors", and Marcus was by no means so hero outside his own moral time and place calling for the liberation of slaves and the end of imperialism, obviously. There's a reason we start the moral and spiritual continuity of our modern heroic legacy at the Crimson Avenger and don't try to tie them back much further than that so we can stay out of the moral thickets that inevitably come from examining the actions of any human being who lived before the previous century at best. But he DID use an assumed persona to fight against criminality and corruption within his society so as far as that goes, that's the hand I've got to play. Now I get to post this and wait for some really STIMULATING emails and voice messages from people I went to college with!

The recent question about the Justice League Detroit era sparked a memory and sent me back to my scrapbooks. What many of your readers might not know is that the local kids who signed up with the League weren't the first superheroes from Detroit. Some years before, there'd been a fellow named the Crusader who was trying to be to his city as Batman to Gotham.

He was controversial at the time, with some saying his methods were too violent, while others claimed "the nights were brighter then." Sadly. he tragically died in a fall while in costume.

Any thoughts on short-career superheroes of note?

(OOC: Aquaman #56 (1971); no one brings up Aquaman's earlier visit to Detroit during the JL's stay there. Watsonian: Everyone was being diplomatic about what would be a sore spot. Doylist: The writers of JL didn't remember that earlier story. Heck, I only remembered it because I still had my copy.)

Gotta be honest, folks, I had to LOOK INTO this one. I had never heard of the Crusader before. At least not that one. The name Crusader has been used by at least 4 different people at different points in time. Anyway. I WAS able to dig up a news image of him.

(Taken from the Detroit Free Press)

From what I can tell he was NOT well liked in the general superhero community. A bid for Justice League membership was formally rejected on the grounds of his violent and single minded methods. He was putting people in the hospital with SERIOUS injuries for really minor crimes especially when he seemed to get his heart set on a car theft ring that had been targeting the city's poorer neighborhoods. Generally you don't send people to the ICU for carjacking.

Honestly I have to agree, the news reports I read speak of a man who was more focused on meting out violence than he was in protecting the innocent, a sentiment shared by Aquaman who became embroiled in the man's actions near the end of his life. Eventually having something to do with launching a mysterious satellite into orbit in a geosynchronous orbit over Chicago that had near disastrous effects on the local living standards and ecosystem.

As for the broader question of "short career superheroes" well, all superheroes save lives by nature of doing what they do. Whether they have decades of experience beneath their belts or not. It doesn't really matter how many bona fides your hero has when he's diving out of the night save your from a mugging or a house fire.

Some heroes hang up their masks because their vigilantism was inspired by a specific animating principle. Perhaps a local crime syndicate or evidence of government corruption that, once uncovered and laid to rest also lays to rest their reasons for crime fighting.

Some heroes unfortunately die young in the profession and are remembered with the bitter question of who they might have become if not called before their time to commit the ultimate sacrifice. The example that comes to mind here is the 4th Starman who is still deeply mourned in his native Arizona after laying down his life to help defeat the malicious Eclipso.

Every hero does what they do for their own reasons, reasons many of us would never be able to imagine. Whether their careers are short because they accomplished their goal and have hung up their capes to ride off into the sunset. Or because they were called to the next great adventure before their time it makes no real difference, they were here, they saved lives and we should always be a little thankful for it.

Of course multiversal info is among the hardest to get, and it's really understandable that the Justice League and other heroes don't spread more than necessary. The average person doesn't need the kind of existential crisis this could generate, but knowing to watch out for Crime Syndicates and that maybe that guy talking about stuff that never happened isn't just crazy can also be useful to realize.

With that in mind I've got a question about something I discovered online. It seems like a JLA after action sort of report where they reference meeting a group calling themselves the Justice Guild of America. Not much is included in the report, it seems incomplete. There's one picture included where it seems like these guys could be the Justice Society if everyone just chose different names.

Any knowledge if this was real, or someone writing a story and not making that clear?

So I feel like I should probably make people more aware of what to expect from the reports the League puts out. Since communication of things like that so people have a greater understanding is like, my job. So before we get to the actual question let me clear the air.

The Justice League is not a government organization and as such is not actually under obligation to release ANY report of their activity at all, they do so with the understanding that some information is too imperative for the world at large to know and to keep themselves transparent enough to maintain the public trust. But that comes at the obvious limitation that the Justice League is an organization that will always be more concerned with its code of ethics than anything beyond it. Redacted information in the League's press releases and the information they share with government and law enforcement exists in cases where the release of that information is harmful, adversely risky or prejudicial without actually adding context to the case at hand. Information like the names of their friends and family involved in a case are withheld with respect to the heroes' own secret identities, the names of victims or even perpetrators are withheld when the situation has concluded in such a way that the League thinks nothing would be gained by the pursuit of punitive justice. Sometimes information is withheld not for the sake of the general population but from well founded mistrust of law enforcement and the forces of government.

I also don't have any special access to this information from my position. I am a civilian academic who is in orbit BROADLY around a defunct superhero team from nearly a century ago, the only unredacted reports *I* get to read are the ones I dig out of wastebaskets from 1943. So, with that in mind, I will tell you what I can.

(An artist rendition of the "Justice Guild of America" constructed from League description) The Justice Guild were natives of a pocket dimension that the League found itself trapped in after a battle with a large robot in downtown Metropolis. The Flash, running at high speed attempting to contain the machine's explosive decomposition transported himself, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern Jon Stewart into said dimension resembling an idyllic 1950s town.

They were met by the Justice Guild (Left to right: Black Siren, Tom Turbine, The Streak, Green Guardsman and Cat Man) and teamed up with that world's heroes to defeat a group of native supervillains and eventually a larger threat before they were transported home.

The most obvious note is, as you said, how sharply these heroes resemble the members of the JSA from our world. Black Canary, The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern and Wildcat to be specific. As far as that goes there's not much to comment upon, they could very well BE the members of the JSA from our timeline altered due to whatever butterfly effect created this world. They could be entirely unrelated people who resemble the JSA through the machinations of Hypertime (about 80 levels in quantum physics above my pay grade)

The part of the report that's redacted is basically the entire last third which describes whatever final events allowed the Leaguers to return to our dimension and any other follow up information on the Guild or its members and I truly CANNOT answer what any of that information is or what its redaction might mean. Whatever it was it was kept from the public record because the League found some moral imperative weighty enough to outweigh the truth and I'm neither in a position nor a state of mind to pass judgement on that position without knowing for sure what it was or why it was made.

Whatever happened in that pocket dimension was important enough that the League left a very public hole in its own records in order to keep it a secret. I think that's demonstrative enough.

Of course multiversal info is among the hardest to get, and it's really understandable that the Justice League and other heroes don't spread more than necessary. The average person doesn't need the kind of existential crisis this could generate, but knowing to watch out for Crime Syndicates and that maybe that guy talking about stuff that never happened isn't just crazy can also be useful to realize.

With that in mind I've got a question about something I discovered online. It seems like a JLA after action sort of report where they reference meeting a group calling themselves the Justice Guild of America. Not much is included in the report, it seems incomplete. There's one picture included where it seems like these guys could be the Justice Society if everyone just chose different names.

Any knowledge if this was real, or someone writing a story and not making that clear?

So I feel like I should probably make people more aware of what to expect from the reports the League puts out. Since communication of things like that so people have a greater understanding is like, my job. So before we get to the actual question let me clear the air.

The Justice League is not a government organization and as such is not actually under obligation to release ANY report of their activity at all, they do so with the understanding that some information is too imperative for the world at large to know and to keep themselves transparent enough to maintain the public trust. But that comes at the obvious limitation that the Justice League is an organization that will always be more concerned with its code of ethics than anything beyond it. Redacted information in the League's press releases and the information they share with government and law enforcement exists in cases where the release of that information is harmful, adversely risky or prejudicial without actually adding context to the case at hand. Information like the names of their friends and family involved in a case are withheld with respect to the heroes' own secret identities, the names of victims or even perpetrators are withheld when the situation has concluded in such a way that the League thinks nothing would be gained by the pursuit of punitive justice. Sometimes information is withheld not for the sake of the general population but from well founded mistrust of law enforcement and the forces of government.

I also don't have any special access to this information from my position. I am a civilian academic who is in orbit BROADLY around a defunct superhero team from nearly a century ago, the only unredacted reports *I* get to read are the ones I dig out of wastebaskets from 1943. So, with that in mind, I will tell you what I can.

(An artist rendition of the "Justice Guild of America" constructed from League description) The Justice Guild were natives of a pocket dimension that the League found itself trapped in after a battle with a large robot in downtown Metropolis. The Flash, running at high speed attempting to contain the machine's explosive decomposition transported himself, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern Jon Stewart into said dimension resembling an idyllic 1950s town.

They were met by the Justice Guild (Left to right: Black Siren, Tom Turbine, The Streak, Green Guardsman and Cat Man) and teamed up with that world's heroes to defeat a group of native supervillains and eventually a larger threat before they were transported home.

The most obvious note is, as you said, how sharply these heroes resemble the members of the JSA from our world. Black Canary, The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern and Wildcat to be specific. As far as that goes there's not much to comment upon, they could very well BE the members of the JSA from our timeline altered due to whatever butterfly effect created this world. They could be entirely unrelated people who resemble the JSA through the machinations of Hypertime (about 80 levels in quantum physics above my pay grade)

The part of the report that's redacted is basically the entire last third which describes whatever final events allowed the Leaguers to return to our dimension and any other follow up information on the Guild or its members and I truly CANNOT answer what any of that information is or what its redaction might mean. Whatever it was it was kept from the public record because the League found some moral imperative weighty enough to outweigh the truth and I'm neither in a position nor a state of mind to pass judgement on that position without knowing for sure what it was or why it was made.

Whatever happened in that pocket dimension was important enough that the League left a very public hole in its own records in order to keep it a secret. I think that's demonstrative enough.

The recent question about the Justice League Detroit era sparked a memory and sent me back to my scrapbooks. What many of your readers might not know is that the local kids who signed up with the League weren't the first superheroes from Detroit. Some years before, there'd been a fellow named the Crusader who was trying to be to his city as Batman to Gotham.

He was controversial at the time, with some saying his methods were too violent, while others claimed "the nights were brighter then." Sadly. he tragically died in a fall while in costume.

Any thoughts on short-career superheroes of note?

(OOC: Aquaman #56 (1971); no one brings up Aquaman's earlier visit to Detroit during the JL's stay there. Watsonian: Everyone was being diplomatic about what would be a sore spot. Doylist: The writers of JL didn't remember that earlier story. Heck, I only remembered it because I still had my copy.)

Gotta be honest, folks, I had to LOOK INTO this one. I had never heard of the Crusader before. At least not that one. The name Crusader has been used by at least 4 different people at different points in time. Anyway. I WAS able to dig up a news image of him.

(Taken from the Detroit Free Press)

From what I can tell he was NOT well liked in the general superhero community. A bid for Justice League membership was formally rejected on the grounds of his violent and single minded methods. He was putting people in the hospital with SERIOUS injuries for really minor crimes especially when he seemed to get his heart set on a car theft ring that had been targeting the city's poorer neighborhoods. Generally you don't send people to the ICU for carjacking.

Honestly I have to agree, the news reports I read speak of a man who was more focused on meting out violence than he was in protecting the innocent, a sentiment shared by Aquaman who became embroiled in the man's actions near the end of his life. Eventually having something to do with launching a mysterious satellite into orbit in a geosynchronous orbit over Chicago that had near disastrous effects on the local living standards and ecosystem.

As for the broader question of "short career superheroes" well, all superheroes save lives by nature of doing what they do. Whether they have decades of experience beneath their belts or not. It doesn't really matter how many bona fides your hero has when he's diving out of the night save your from a mugging or a house fire.

Some heroes hang up their masks because their vigilantism was inspired by a specific animating principle. Perhaps a local crime syndicate or evidence of government corruption that, once uncovered and laid to rest also lays to rest their reasons for crime fighting.

Some heroes unfortunately die young in the profession and are remembered with the bitter question of who they might have become if not called before their time to commit the ultimate sacrifice. The example that comes to mind here is the 4th Starman who is still deeply mourned in his native Arizona after laying down his life to help defeat the malicious Eclipso.

Every hero does what they do for their own reasons, reasons many of us would never be able to imagine. Whether their careers are short because they accomplished their goal and have hung up their capes to ride off into the sunset. Or because they were called to the next great adventure before their time it makes no real difference, they were here, they saved lives and we should always be a little thankful for it.

Can we talk about Doctor Thirteen? While I think calling him a superhero is a stretch (I guess I can buy "the Ghost Breaker" as a supranym, but calling his penchant for retro overcoats a costume feels like a stretch), people have made the argument, and certainly he's adjacent to them, given his daughters, etc. AIUI, he's done a LOT of good work when it comes to exposing charlatans and con artists in particular, and as a detective in general, but he's also been accused of going overboard on the skepticism to the point of delusion or even bigotry.

We can, we should, and I already have but I will never turn my nose up at a chance to take another look at a topic.

(The author headshot of Thirteen from his book "My Soul and a Ten Buys a Pack")

I already gave an in depth rundown in my other post but short version is Terrence Thirteen came from a family that had long been afflicted with a "curse" causing all of its members to die by hanging at some point in their lives in frighteningly similar circumstances. After the death of his father Terrence was outcast from his community due to superstition surrounding the curse and, after unveiling the very mundane violence behind the so called "curse" swore to never again be taken in by superstition.

He became a writer, columnist and eventually a television presenter of some renown under the alias "Ghost Breaker" where he made his living debunking various cults, psychics and any other 'supernatural' happening taking advantage of vulnerable people. He still makes his living that way to this day, despite having semi retired for many years to raise his daughter Traci.

NOW, what I want to talk about is moderating some of the push back the man has received. There's a tendency in modern, open minded folks to call him a nut, to laugh at him, to dismiss him out of hand for his ironclad skepticism of the supernatural even in the face of overwhelming evidence. I'm guilty of it to.

What left me squealing to a stop in my tracks was seeing people talking about all those "poor magic users" he was bullying. Calling him a modern day Puritan. Given the court of public opinion to his opponents sight unseen of any of his work. That's not only unfair its deeply dangerous from a social point of view. Every single person that Dr. Thirteen has eviscerated in his professional life was exactly the kind of conman he found them to be and in order to fully frame that I should make one thing REAL clear. Homo Magi, the name for people who posses some inborn magical talent are RARE. They exist in DEEPLY isolated communities at the fringes of already isolated ethnic groups. In the far north of Scandinavia, the Tibetan plateau, the depths of the Amazon. There are MAYBE 20,000 full blooded Homo Magi in the GLOBAL population and 99.99% of them don't live anywhere near modern civilization. Anyone using that kind of bloodline to peddle a capitalistic living should be treated as DEEPLY suspect.

Wizards, that is, a catch all term for those with actual training and experience in the mystic arts. Are RARER. There's a reason the really powerful and respected ones are almost universally superheroes. To cultivate the kind of magical skill and talent needed to commit the kind of deeds we associate with people like Dr. Fate or Zatanna takes DECADES of training, direct support from a nonhuman power or usually BOTH. I would estimate there are maybe a couple DOZEN real, honest to god trained mages on the planet at any one time.

Yes it is possible to learn magic. It is NOT possible to learn magic in a 12 week online course. If you're learning real magic, you don't need me or anyone else to confirm it for you. Nor are you probably reading a blog post right now.

This adds onto the fact that real magic users should be able to prove themselves on command, especially when they are charging people money.

Zatanna doesn't need slight of hand to do something unarguably impossible. She does slight of hand because stage magic is her profession. In the news footage you can see her pretty clearly dropping buildings on people.

Dr. Fate doesn't need a table cloth and a fog machine to make a table rise 2 inches, he can pick up a bare stone and fling it across the room in broad daylight. The easiest way to disprove someone's magical credentials is to ask them to do something stupid without preparation. If they can do it, they're a wizard. If they can't, they're a fraud.

Dr. Thirteen's position is, in 99.999% of cases that you, I or anyone we know will ever be involved in, totally logical and more than likely correct. The things that go bump in the night have not been openly active in the human world for a LONG time. Vampires, witches and fae don't go about haunting the back alleys anymore because those who DO dabble in the mystic arts have made it very clear where the red lines are.

That thing you can't explain probably has a totally logical explanation. Even if it IS magic, there's not a whole lot you can or should do about it. There is not a SINGLE way to prove by casual observation whether something you saw was supernatural or just superhuman. The difference between an honest to god vampire and a metahuman is academic and only matters if it's trying to kill you right at that moment.

If a vampire or vampire like metahuman IS trying to kill you at that moment, your job is to stay alive and keep your head down long enough for the heroes to come along and do the job they do. If you are not the kind of person this advice applies to you already know it and don't need to listen to some idiot online about it anyway.

In my personal life I take the same stance on magic that I do on alien conquerors and the dynamics of the Green Lantern Corps.

"It does not have a single thing to do with me, and I am very much HAPPIER that way. The people who know how to handle it are handling it and thank god for that."

Do you have a favorite encounter with a hero? Is there one that you’d love to meet, living or not?

I've found that, with my current profession the idea of "heroic encounters" has taken on a new meaning. Since I actually have a professional "in" to their world even if only a small one. I now have semi regular conversations with the original Red Tornado. I WORK with a retired member of the Rocket Red Brigade. It's taken a lot of the nerves and mystique out of meeting them where it might once have been. Though if I had to name the best encounter, that's obvious. I mean I got to spend my lunch breaks for the better part of a week interviewing Uncle Sam himself for this very blog! (It's under #usqna if you haven't seen it) and he still hangs around the museum every so often meaning I'm starting to develop a casually personable relationship with a man I've admired my entire life. I don't know if I'm ever going to directly get caught up in a superhero battle again in my life. I hope not, I've already been in two which is two more than anyone ever should but from where I am now that's not at all the kind of 'encounters' I think about anymore. As for who I would love to meet, that one took some thinking.

(Green Lantern's official JSA portrait) In the study of the heroic Golden Age there is NO ONE who looms as large or who holds the same kind of personal gravity as Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern. While other heroes were active in Gotham during the Golden Age none of them held even near his acclaim. The easiest comparison to make is that the Green Lantern was then what Superman is now. An overpowering, bright and unmistakable inspiration to every hero he stood beside or who was inspired after him.

Many of his contemporaries in records from the time don't even feel the need to call him by name. Many other heroes simply called him "The Big Guy" because that's the way they thought about him. When Green Lantern joined the fray it meant the fight was about to get wrapped up and the bad guy was gonna end up in a crater for the attempt. He was the broad shoulders that entire heroic assault relied upon, the skeleton that every other hero could count on holding them up so they could do what they do.

People talk about the Batman weaponizing fear in Gotham now but that's barely comparable to the grip that Green Lantern held over Gotham back in the day. Criminals shrunk back from the streets, Nazi agents and sabotage steered clear of one of the countries biggest business and industrial hubs just because he was there. No Nazi agent, superhuman or not dared think they could take him in a straight fight because every man who tried got slammed over the horizon like a home run ball.

After the war he stepped back from the limelight with the rest of his comrades but even in the modern day I find him endlessly fascinating and inspiring. A father of two children who have become proud bearers of his standard, mentor to an entire lineage of modern heroes who carry his name, inspiration to who knows how many more and STILL and active heroic presence in the upper echelon of the power scale who can just as easily turn giant robots to scrap as he could 80 years ago.

A man who wasn't able to discover and admit his own sexuality and identity until he was near enough a century old and yet is still married to the same woman he's been married to for nearly 30 years which only opens up the kind of questions that I would feel too deeply shy to ever ask but I think would really revolutionize the way people think about sexuality both in men of his generation and also the innumerable way that that sort of thing can manifest. A man who publically announced his homosexuality after a 70 year superhero career despite having two biological children and being happily married to a cisgendered woman, it'd make some people's heads spin! At least now I have a cop out, if I ever do meet him. YOU GUYS can come up with the questions so I don't end up stammering at my shoes.

Can we talk about Doctor Thirteen? While I think calling him a superhero is a stretch (I guess I can buy "the Ghost Breaker" as a supranym, but calling his penchant for retro overcoats a costume feels like a stretch), people have made the argument, and certainly he's adjacent to them, given his daughters, etc. AIUI, he's done a LOT of good work when it comes to exposing charlatans and con artists in particular, and as a detective in general, but he's also been accused of going overboard on the skepticism to the point of delusion or even bigotry.

We can, we should, and I already have but I will never turn my nose up at a chance to take another look at a topic.

(The author headshot of Thirteen from his book "My Soul and a Ten Buys a Pack")

I already gave an in depth rundown in my other post but short version is Terrence Thirteen came from a family that had long been afflicted with a "curse" causing all of its members to die by hanging at some point in their lives in frighteningly similar circumstances. After the death of his father Terrence was outcast from his community due to superstition surrounding the curse and, after unveiling the very mundane violence behind the so called "curse" swore to never again be taken in by superstition.

He became a writer, columnist and eventually a television presenter of some renown under the alias "Ghost Breaker" where he made his living debunking various cults, psychics and any other 'supernatural' happening taking advantage of vulnerable people. He still makes his living that way to this day, despite having semi retired for many years to raise his daughter Traci.

NOW, what I want to talk about is moderating some of the push back the man has received. There's a tendency in modern, open minded folks to call him a nut, to laugh at him, to dismiss him out of hand for his ironclad skepticism of the supernatural even in the face of overwhelming evidence. I'm guilty of it to.

What left me squealing to a stop in my tracks was seeing people talking about all those "poor magic users" he was bullying. Calling him a modern day Puritan. Given the court of public opinion to his opponents sight unseen of any of his work. That's not only unfair its deeply dangerous from a social point of view. Every single person that Dr. Thirteen has eviscerated in his professional life was exactly the kind of conman he found them to be and in order to fully frame that I should make one thing REAL clear. Homo Magi, the name for people who posses some inborn magical talent are RARE. They exist in DEEPLY isolated communities at the fringes of already isolated ethnic groups. In the far north of Scandinavia, the Tibetan plateau, the depths of the Amazon. There are MAYBE 20,000 full blooded Homo Magi in the GLOBAL population and 99.99% of them don't live anywhere near modern civilization. Anyone using that kind of bloodline to peddle a capitalistic living should be treated as DEEPLY suspect.

Wizards, that is, a catch all term for those with actual training and experience in the mystic arts. Are RARER. There's a reason the really powerful and respected ones are almost universally superheroes. To cultivate the kind of magical skill and talent needed to commit the kind of deeds we associate with people like Dr. Fate or Zatanna takes DECADES of training, direct support from a nonhuman power or usually BOTH. I would estimate there are maybe a couple DOZEN real, honest to god trained mages on the planet at any one time.

Yes it is possible to learn magic. It is NOT possible to learn magic in a 12 week online course. If you're learning real magic, you don't need me or anyone else to confirm it for you. Nor are you probably reading a blog post right now.

This adds onto the fact that real magic users should be able to prove themselves on command, especially when they are charging people money.

Zatanna doesn't need slight of hand to do something unarguably impossible. She does slight of hand because stage magic is her profession. In the news footage you can see her pretty clearly dropping buildings on people.

Dr. Fate doesn't need a table cloth and a fog machine to make a table rise 2 inches, he can pick up a bare stone and fling it across the room in broad daylight. The easiest way to disprove someone's magical credentials is to ask them to do something stupid without preparation. If they can do it, they're a wizard. If they can't, they're a fraud.

Dr. Thirteen's position is, in 99.999% of cases that you, I or anyone we know will ever be involved in, totally logical and more than likely correct. The things that go bump in the night have not been openly active in the human world for a LONG time. Vampires, witches and fae don't go about haunting the back alleys anymore because those who DO dabble in the mystic arts have made it very clear where the red lines are.

That thing you can't explain probably has a totally logical explanation. Even if it IS magic, there's not a whole lot you can or should do about it. There is not a SINGLE way to prove by casual observation whether something you saw was supernatural or just superhuman. The difference between an honest to god vampire and a metahuman is academic and only matters if it's trying to kill you right at that moment.

If a vampire or vampire like metahuman IS trying to kill you at that moment, your job is to stay alive and keep your head down long enough for the heroes to come along and do the job they do. If you are not the kind of person this advice applies to you already know it and don't need to listen to some idiot online about it anyway.

In my personal life I take the same stance on magic that I do on alien conquerors and the dynamics of the Green Lantern Corps.

"It does not have a single thing to do with me, and I am very much HAPPIER that way. The people who know how to handle it are handling it and thank god for that."