When I got into The Biz, circa 1975, "continuity" was already becoming a much contested word. There were those who felt that everything must be made to fit, whether at Marvel or DC. There was even a myth, to be found in some quarters even today, that the Marvel Universe* had a "perfect" continuity, unlike DC's, which was jumbled and confusing. (That latter notion is, of course, what eventually led to CRISIS.)

Back then, there were those who insisted that every jot and tittle was "real," and should be considered when crafting ANY story. At the same time there were those who insisted "continuity" meant that Superman was from Krypton and should always be from Krypton, but some story done twenty years earlier was not so important.

I lean mostly toward the second camp. It can be fun to play "archeologist," but one should not BEGIN the building of a story there. One should not BEGIN thinking "How can I explain Captain Fonebone's multiple origins?" Rather, one should just putter along, crafting stories, and perhaps, one day, realize that THIS story could be a way to explain Captain Fonebone's multiple origin stories --- if we MUST!

How different would the world (DC especially) be, I sometimes wonder, if I had accepted Dick Giordano's offer to write THE HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE and "blow up everything at the end"? Eventually that rather straightforward concept devolved into CRISIS and, if anything, things were left even MORE messed up than they were before!!

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* I am forced to use it for convenience of communication, but I cannot tell you how much I loathe that term. The first time I heard it, I felt someone drive a take thru my heart. Marvel stories and characters, as established by Lee and Kirby very early in the FF's run, took place HERE, in the same world we live in, not in some "parallel universe." I don't recall when the term first appeared, but it was, for me, the death knell of the REAL Marvel.

If having the JSA tied to WW2 demands explanations of why they are not all old or dead "now," STOP DOING STORIES SET IN THE PRESENT. Make the JSA character who appear only in the Past, via flashback or time travel. As I have often pointed out, I did nearly six years on FANTASTIC FOUR and not so much as ONCE did I mention Reed and Ben having served in WW2. And somehow the entire Marvel Universe did not fall into a black hole because of this "lack."

THIS is where "continuity" becomes a bad thing -- when writers, editors and fans cannot let go. When, a la Roy, EVERYTHING must have a place in "continuity." And it's sad, because simply not MENTIONING something is not the same as contradicting it, tho some seem convinced that it is.

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But why DO that? The JSA belong to a particular ERA, not a particular number of years in the Past. When Earth 2 first appeared (sort of), in "The Flash of Two Worlds," Jay Garrick had retired as the Flash in 1949, the same year his book was canceled. At the time of publication of the new story, that was about ten years ago.

It is important that the date of Jay's retirement remain 1949, NOT that it remain eternally 10 years ago.

(And, of course, by invoking Vietnam, you commit the OTHER sin, casting this all upon a sliding scale. "Well, if it was ten years in 'The Flash of Two Worlds,' now it must be (twenty, thirty, forty . . .)."

There is no good REASON to have the JSA operating in present day, in any case. That's redundant. We have the JLA now. Leave the Justice Society to deal with the menaces of its own time, in its own time. Will there be snobs and ageists who won't buy the book/stories because they are set in the Past? Yer darn tooting' there will! And will this mayhap cause the series to be canceled, the characters to disappear? Quite possibly.

And, you know what? LET THEM! Everything has it's time in the sun. If the JSA's was WW2 and maybe the early Sixties, then fine. No reason to force the issue by setting their origins in Vietnam, or Desert Storm, or whatever war was the "correct" amount of years ago.