Then, when Diana died and became a goddess for a while, her mom replaced her in the JLA for a few story arcs.

Me, I’d LOVE to see a time line of Wonder Woman history…

[...] Another decade, another revival of the Justice Society of America. Nothing’s quite equalled the 1970s run of All-Star Comics, although Roy Thomas’ All-Star Squadron in the 1980s was very good at times. On the other hand, the recent JSA series won plaudits from critics for its strong characterization, which baffled me since I thought the plotting meandered around without really going anywhere, and the characterization was nonexistent. This new series starts out on a better foot: Writer Geoff Johns is not the superstar that DC seems to think he is (he’s no James Robinson, for instance), but he’s pretty good, and he introduces a number of interesting threads, including several rather messed-up characters such as the new Starman, the revamped Damage, and the overexuberant (I presume) young Red Tornado. Dale Eaglesham’s layouts are good, and he has a good sense of form and motion, but as Johanna Carlson points out, his handling of anatomy is pretty iffy. I also think Art Thibert is not a good match as Eaglesham’s inker. Anyway, it has promise. We’ll see. [...]

Second cousins?

I’m not quite sure, but I think the original Air Wave was retconned to be Hal Jordan’s cousin (without explaining how he was active on Earth-2).

And when the heck did Jesse and Rick get married?

The head of a company who barely had time to be a hero. One of the more interesting super speedsters in some time is now just hourman’s arm candy?

sad.

Also the Flashes seem to be indisitnguishable - though I guess they aren’t replacing each other due to age so much as death. But Wally got more Barry-like as time went by, and now Impulse sounds like younger Wally. It might not be the same thing, but its all starting to feel pointless.

[...] The JSA Girls - Johanna from Comics Worth Reading is annoyed by the female anatomy she sees in the Justice League of America preview (from Comics Worth Reading) [...]

David: thanks for the examples. That Oliver!

Would Wonder Woman count? I don’t know the details, but I could’ve sworn Hippolyta was in the JLA for a while when Diana died (or something?). It’s daughter/mother instead of vice versa, though.

This may not count at all, but Arrowette is another mother/daughter lineage. It was mostly played for laughs in PAD’s Young Justice and Waid’s Impulse. I think Waid and Humberto Ramos created her. Arrowette I was an obscure Silver Age Green Arrow character, more or less his Batwoman (”Stop fighting crime! You’re a lady!“). She quit due to carpal tunnel in the modern age and then proceeded to train her daughter Cissie to be the next Arrowette. She’s retired now, though.

Just as an aside, there’s a good bit of fan speculation that Arrowette is yet another one of Ollie’s kids. That makes Connor Hawke, Shado’s child, Arrowette, and then Arsenal and Mia as adopted children. I think he’s got the Bat-family beat.

Johanna, what are you using for image compression? If these started out as jpgs, and you are using photoshop’s save for web, try increasing the number of colors in the color pallate, and decreasing the JPEG “quality” a lot. It looks like you have a small color pallate specified, the way you would if you were compressing GIFs or PNGs.

Hourman: Oh, duh. I knew there was going to be an obvious example as soon as I posted.

You know, I used to really like the JSA because of this generational stuff that they had the freedom to do. Now it just confuses me.

Hourman. :) Both times that Rick has replaced Rex as Hourman, it’s because Rex has gotten “too old for this s**t” (as opposed to the more standard “taking the place of the dead father” trope).

Oh, and Sanderson Hawkins has apparently gotten rid of (a) the lame “Sand” name and (b) the lame “Sand” costume to become the new Sandman . . . which is what he should have been in the first place.

So there are at least two.

Your last point is an excellent one, though, although in both cases, there are slight whiffs of “gotta keep the women young, so just replace them with their daughters when they aren’t sexy any more”. Male lineages like Green Arrow/Arsenal or Atom/Damage or Batman/Nightwing/Robin keep the characters more distinct. Are there any same-named father/son pairings I’m not thinking of right now?

A) At least Libby Lawrence is still alive in DC continuity. :)

B) Obnoxious? I’d pick Rick Tyler over Damage too.

An interesting thought: now that Jesse is publicly identifying as her mother’s heir, we have a heroic lineage centered on a woman. Black Canary seems to be the only other example I can think of at the moment (i.e., daughter inheriting her mother’s mantle instead of her father’s).

(And thanks for reminding me that they took two female characters I like and smooshed them into only one.)

Don: Complete with many fan jokes about vibrations, yes.