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Post by dans on Mar 22, 2024 20:54:18 GMT
Middle of World War 2. Roosevelt wants to launch a super hero team. How would he go about getting in contact with the heroes? Some of them don't cooperate with the police or other authorities, and many have as little public contact as possible. Putting an ad in the personals column seems like it would probably cause all kinds of commotion, as would making a public announcement over radio/tv or in a newspaper.
In a couple of stories I've already written about that time period, I've assumed that Roosevelt (or J Edgar, or the Secret Service) know the secret IDs of the period, and they mystery men and women are neither surprised or dismayed when they discover this...
So I'd like your opinions on this... would the President during war time know the secret identities of the 'mystery heroes' who are suddenly popping up in the US? And how would he go about contacting the ones who are in irregular contact at best with government figures?
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Post by DocQuantum on Mar 22, 2024 21:45:01 GMT
That’s a tough one. Even if by some miracle the Feds already knew the secret identities of all those vigilantes (which raises questions like who did all the investigations, and why didn’t the local police use it to arrest those who don’t work with them), I would think they would not want them all to know that, since Feds guard their secrets very closely. While they could use the info they had, they would go through some other avenue to contact them. The JSA origin shows one example of this, when Gordon contacts Batman and gets the ball rolling. The heroes might not all know each other, but each of them could have met at least one other hero and was able to pass a message along somehow.
This would not be quick, though, if that’s what you’re looking for. Inserting coded messages into radio scripts or newspaper ads takes time, but you could be sure every hero worth his salt was monitoring the papers at the time, for info on crime if nothing else.
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Post by redsycorax on Mar 22, 2024 22:14:42 GMT
I think there might be continuity problems in this context, given there was a Macarthyite campaign against the Justice Society in the 1950s, precisely because they didn't disclose their secret identities. This would imply that they were unknown to the general population, law enforcement agencies and perhaps political authorities beforehand. In the forties, much would depend on whether the heroes initial vigilante phase had largely ended by that period and if they worked alongside law enforcement agencies regularly at the time. The authorities might also have a priority list of heroes who were more trusted and co-operative compared to others. Incidentally, it's interesting that all superheroes during the Golden Age seemed to be Democrats and supported FDR. No isolationist Republicans at all, then?
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Post by dans on Mar 22, 2024 22:24:28 GMT
For heroes with regular contacts with one authority or another, I plan to have a special courier arrive from Washington DC and hand-deliver an envelope to the authority who will give it to the hero or heroine. One hero interacts regularly with the Commander of the Naval Intelligence office on a local Naval Base, another works for the FBI, another works with the FBI on a regular basis, those ones are easy. I better go back through the stories about the other characters and see if I can find them an 'official' contact. I would love to have the special couriers just walk up to the civilians and hand them envelopes as well, but that would give away their secrets to even more people...
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Post by dans on Mar 22, 2024 22:34:09 GMT
Incidentally, it's interesting that all superheroes during the Golden Age seemed to be Democrats and supported FDR. No isolationist Republicans at all, then? Perhaps the publishers realized that isolationist heroes wouldn't be popular, or it could be there were were governmental 'incentives' to not publish anti-war heroes? Interesting observation... |
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Post by DocQuantum on Mar 22, 2024 22:42:06 GMT
Regardless of party affiliation FDR enjoyed wide support from a majority of citizens. Isolationism was not popular after Pearl Harbor. Also these are comic book characters not actual people and politics was never delved into on that level, thank goodness. No comic book company at the time would have wanted to alienate half the country, since comics were for all.
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Post by dans on Mar 22, 2024 23:00:41 GMT
I think also before the war, enemy agents attacking the US from within made readily-available bad guys, so the writers didn't have to work too hard to come up with a story
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Post by redsycorax on Mar 22, 2024 23:22:54 GMT
Certainly, Doc, but what about before Pearl Harbour? There were isolationist currents within the Republican Party of the late thirties and early forties until Pearl Harbour made the position untenable. And much would depend on the motivation of the isolationist heroes involved in that context. Would it be because of arduous personal experiences in the trenches during World War One? Would it be because they're Quakers or Mennonites and morally opposed to war anyway? Would it be because they lost family members in France or Belgium during WW1? Might it be because they're of Irish descent and have no time for the British? A tiny percentage might be pro-German, anti-Semitic or otherwise, but I suspect that wouldn't go down well in the larger cities or New England. Some individuals might have had honorable (if misguided) reasons for not wanting the United States to get involved in fighting Nazi Germany (primarily), while others had more sinister, less legitimate motivations.
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Post by DocQuantum on Mar 22, 2024 23:43:32 GMT
It’s the middle of WW2 that is the timeframe.
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Post by dans on Mar 23, 2024 0:17:14 GMT
Yeah, this particular story is set during the war, and I am trying to draw a number of heroes together - none of whom have ever worked with other heroes before. I want them to be invited by the President and just wondering how he would go about contacting them. Like I said, a few are easy - one even works for the FBI. Going to go back and review the supporting characters in each story...
Ah ha! Another one has a close association with the commanders of the local army and navy bases, and they both know his mystery hero identity... the father of yet another of these heroes is a well-known (now retired) district attorney and knows his daughter is the hero.
So I really just have 3 to go. As far as I know, none of them have any regular contact with any government agency who might pass along the message that the President would like to talk to them...
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Post by johnreiter902 on Mar 23, 2024 0:50:26 GMT
You could do something like what Bucky did in Marvel Comics to form the Liberty Legion
Just have the president go on the radio and request that these mystery men come at once to Washington DC, to confer with the president on an important matter
To make it more low key, and since you only want to get in touch with three more heroes, you could have the US Press Secretary notify the major papers in their hometowns of an exlusive scoop, that the Presidents wants to speak with that hero urgently. You can bet the papers will run it on the front page
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Post by dans on Mar 23, 2024 1:14:23 GMT
That might work - have the local papers announce that the President wants to get in touch with the hero, each hero should get in touch with the commander of a local military base. And those commanders have notes with details from the President. Thank you!
Of course, that still puts the contents of the notes at risk, but I think having an enemy agent learn the details of the invitation is going to be part of the story.
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Post by redsycorax on Mar 23, 2024 1:17:52 GMT
Okay, it sounds like radio would be the most direct means of mass communication, although how comprehensive were radio networks back then? One possible alternative means of communication might be getting a mage employed by the secret service to contact a similarly empowered hero and spread the word that way, rather like Doctor Fate or the Spectre might do with the Justice Society in Earth-Two's context, especially if there's already a prior social network of superheroes that know each other in this universe/era.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Mar 23, 2024 1:42:04 GMT
Okay, it sounds like radio would be the most direct means of mass communication, although how comprehensive were radio networks back then? even if everybody doesn't own a radio, gossip will spread the story quickly. As my grandmother tells it, everybody knew somebody who had a radio |
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Post by dans on Mar 23, 2024 11:17:57 GMT
a government mage is an interesting thought, too - one of these characters is unlikely to read a news paper regularly... he lives in an isolated mystical sanctum on top of a high mountain...
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