lan is the one that makes the least sense. Married, two kids. But let's get real. The narcissism that insists everything must be a celebration bonanza of faggotry isn't going away. No one knows Wildcat etc. But Green Lantern was big at the time. So there.
I know they did it because the N52 Earth-2 Alan was gay.
Honestly it's telling that they can't boost a character on their own and have to rewrite/hijack something else, then cope when they get criticism.
I'd say Hawkman/Wildcat are the other recognizable JSA members. Hawkman's a recognizable C-lister and Wildcat's gotten screentime in the toons.
Thinking about it, all of the original JSA have canonically had love interests/wives and most of them have had kids or etc. that went on to become relevant characters in some way. It'd have been a great time to dig through old but cool designs from the golden age. You have a few options, like Captain Triumph could have been a genuinely intriguing character since he's got a ghost of his brother with him all the time. He's also got the usual "brick" powerset that the US Gov. would find useful.
Or wanna go get someone that doesn't have powers? How about the original Firebrand? He was allegedly killed in pearl harbor or some shit, but the goverment could have secretly found him and then bam, you get your intrigue and someone who never really got any spotlight. He did wear a translucent shirt so he'd be a believable closet gay.
Etc. Alan just doesn't work all that well because the nigga had his own "catwoman" in Harlequin on top of falling in love with the original Rose and Thorn (a dual personality'd villain woman) and then she hid the kids from him.
Mind you, Harlequin's confirmed to exist in this continuity. Her son came back in the Stargirl event and iirc, he was supposed to be in the original Infinity Inc. as a very early gay superhero. Maybe they could have really just nabbed the Harlequin name as an IP (lmao they have Harley Quinn anyways) and then have a bunch of stories about Alan and co. trying to accept a gay stepson that they really want to understand and love. Have Harlequin's son get headbutting with Obsidian as the H-Son thinks the others see him differently due to being gay while Obsidian defends the older folks. Then have it turn out that Obsidian's powerset drawbacks are catching up to him again and have H-Son save him with the desire to just call him family.
And Alan? In the 2000s, the original JSA members were brought down to 4 (6 if you count Ma Hunkel coming back on top of Johnny Thunderbolt being a merger of Johnny and the Thunderbolt. 7 if you count Kendra Saunders memories).
THey divided the original 4. Jay was the dad, Ted was the rough trainer/coach/mentor, Carter was the. . . very conservatively minded uncle, and Alan was always called "the elder statesman".
I could see, in a decent writer's hands, a series filled with endearing witticisms and observations from the older folks as they admit they accept all of this, even if it seems like they may not. Have Jay and the others talk about some old golden age character that turned out to be gay. Link it up. Etc. It's not that hard to introduce things.
Hell, imagine the hilarity of the original golden aged Blue Beetle turning out to be gay.
Speaking of straight characters turned to faggotry....
You're kidding right? I remember her having a boyfriend/love interest.
