The Problem With Prophecy

One of the cool things about comics is that, for the most part, they never end. Oh sure, individual series will fall by the wayside due to poor sales despite them being damn good (Blue Beetle, I'm looking at you) but by and large the stories of characters will continue in one form or another. Even death is no barrier to a popular character - how many have died and returned over the last few years?

Of course, in the DC Universe at least, that's no longer possible in a post-Blackest Night world. Once you're dead, you're dead.

Unless you're the Tasmanian Devil.

But the longevity of some characters can also have a drawback, particularly in the world of comics where creative teams tend not to spend too long on the same books. When leaving a book, some writers may leave plot threads hanging but it's down to the incoming writers (or sometimes editors) whether or not they choose to pick up on those hints. Due to this uncertainty, it's perhaps unwise to make pronouncements about what will happen to a character in the future, as I mentioned before when Rip Hunter, that old Time Master, proclaimed Magog had a good future ahead of him.


Back in 2008, Geoff Johns was still writing Justice Society of America and in the midst of the pseudo-Kingdom Come sequel One World, Under Gog storyline, he and Jerry Ordway paid a visit to the new, post-52 multiverse version of Earth-2, where Power Girl met her sort-of old friends again. In this new Earth-2, though, the JSA had merged with the later Infinity, Inc to form the Justice Society Infinity. What was at first a warm homecoming for Power Girl turned nasty when the current Earth-2's Power Girl turned up on the scene as well. The long and short of it was a very definite statement that the new Earth-2 (and by extension the other Earths in this new multiverse) were not the old ones.

After everything panned out, though, we're treated to this scene:

That's the Starman of the future assuring Stargirl that

". . . the Justice Society Infinity will one day help [Power Girl] out in ways she could never imagine."

Geoff Johns left the JSA six months later, just as Power Girl's own ongoing series debuted and, to date, the JSI haven't been seen or heard of since. Maybe something's planned for the coming year, after the whole crossover with Justice League: Generation Lost is done with? Maybe, but I kinda doubt it.

No-one's really touching the multiverse at the moment as the Great God Grant Morrison is apparently the only one worthy of exploring it with the much touted Multiversity and I think it's highly unlikely he'll be bothering with little-old Earth-2 when there are unknown worlds he can re-imagine. Because of that, I'm going to go out on a limb.

Here I am, in a blog post bemoaning the futility of predicting the future, predicting that the JSI won't be heard of in the context of helping Power Girl "in ways she could never imagine" ever again. This whole throwaway scene will be just that: discarded.

I understand the fluid nature of the creation of comics, of one writer's ideas being subsumed or ignored by another - I'm not bitching about that. I guess I'm just a little disappointed by being shown hints of stories that I'd like to read which will probably never be written.