We've heard that superheroes fight for "truth and justice". However, there are times when these masked men and maidens have to conceal their identities, and have to fib while doing so.
An oddity about the 1940s was the prevalence of a specific type of club that didn't always bring out the best in those of which it was a part. This Club apparently had several branches in various cities across America. The driving principal of these associations was that their participants tell the tallest tales to each other, with the goal of one of them winning a prized award! In fact, the name they went by was the Liar's Club! They even were such the rage in the 1940's, that by the early to mid 1950's, there were Junior Liar's Clubs, of which Lois and Clark Kent's niece Susie Tompkins was a member!
The first mention of a Liar's Club was the one that Ted Knight was inducted into in April 1942. During that first meeting, Ted admitted that he was Starman, then the other members began making outlandish claims that Starman would kill them in various manners. After the club's chairman Vardon is said to have died, these other members seem to also fall prey to the lies they told. Framed for these attempted on the lives of the Club's members, Starman eventually discovered that it was Vardon who orchestrated his "death" and that of the others to conceal the fact that he stole money from them.
Jay Garrick was the next Justice Society member to join the Keystone City branch of the Liar's Club. He enjoyed this activity so much that he frequented the club more than just their annual gatherings. He attended his first meeting in August 1943, then winter of 1944, followed by at least two visits to the Club in 1945, 1946 and 1947.
Among the true tales that Jay told that earned him the Liar's trophy, given their outrageous nature, were such adventures as Flash travelling to 2443, a winged horse, racing his old foe Eel Madden through time, a fourth-dimensional portal, a hidden enclave of sand-beings, and so on. In all but one occasion, Jay won the coveted award, much to the chagrin of his lying teammates. Perhaps Jay felt a release from the pressure of concealing his dual identity, and such Club gatherings provided him some opportunities to... well... brag a little.
In March 1944, the Metropolis branch of the Liar's Club brought Superman into their competition with a tall tale of how he met Hercules in ancient Greece, and trains the former weakling to be a powerhouse like he was. This is an early version of what became known as "Imaginary Stories" told about Superman.
While not as prominent on Earth-One, there were occasional mentions of such groups, like the Deep Six Liar's Club which Dane Dorrance and his fellow Sea Devils tried to join in the 1960s. Their tales seemingly stretched credulity too much, it seemed.
Years later, Batman and Robin of Earth-One battled the Mad Hatter in Gotham City's Liars Club. Then, Roy Raymond would encounter a variation of this called the Super-Whopper Club. But these were rare exceptions on that Earth, compared to those on Earth-Two.
It seems that the Keystone City and Metropolis Liar's Club of Earth-Two were legitmate if morally ambiguous alternatives to the Rogues Gallery of Central City and the Anti-Superman Gang of Metropolis on Earth-One. The latter two organizations worked to defeat their mutual foes the Flash and Superman, whereas the former two associations sought to expose the lies of the Flash and Superman's alter egos.
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