Corrupt Chronol Clones Cause Cosmic Crisis

The sinister scientists and aspiring authoritarians, T.O. Morrow and Per Degaton, each stealing time-tech allowing them to pierce back the veil of time. Borrowing from the intellectual advances of other more honorable men, Morrow and Degaton. 

Futurenergy helped formulate five chronal clones based on five love interests of the Justice League, in order to ensnare half of its membership. These were Steve Trevor, Jean Loring, Shayera "Hawkgirl" Hol, Midge, and Mera... whose identical appearance to the originals helped lure Wonder Woman, the Atom, Hawkman, Snapper Carr and Aquaman into kissing them. This caused each Leaguer to fall into a comatose state, leaving the remaining members to face automatons replicating old adversaries of the League. Among these, there was a sixth chronol duplicate who appeared in Doctor Light. Once each served his or her purpose, they were promptly erased from existence, while the original five romantic partners of the League were unaware of what transpired to the loves of their lives.

Temporal causality from Per Degaton's time machine, which he stole from Professor Zee, allowed him to pull sixth supervillains from the late 1940s back to December of 1941. These included Per Degaton himself, Wotan, Professor Zobar Zodiak, Sky Pirate, King Bee and the Monster (a seventh cloned creature, Solomon Grundy, was actually the doppelgänger of the Earth-One Solomon Grundy spawned by the Parasite decades later). Due to chronol energy, these crooks were able to exist simultaneous to their younger selves, who were existing in the same time period unaware of these events transpiring. All of these criminals except the Monster were able to ensnare their prey, leaving all save three members of the Justice Society in a comatose state*.

In other cases involving Morrow and Degaton, there were other time twins spawned by their malicious macinations. Morrow created three chronal clones of Green Lantern and one of himself during his initial appearance. These pawns proved powerless versus the League's Flash and Green Lantern. Degaton's third adventure, which involved nuclear blackmail in 1942, led to four 1980s members of the Justice Society entering that era, while their past selves existed simultaneously and unaware that their future selves were there!

Eventually, thanks to the intervention of the Red Tornado who helped revive the Justice League, and Robotman along with the All-Star Squadron who helped rescue the Justice Society, both Morrow and Degaton were decisively defeated. As with Morrow's clones, Degaton's clones** were each erased from existence as they resumed their lives in the future from which they were originally plucked.

* The ensuing battle between the All-Star Squadron and Justice Society versus Degaton's minions mirrored the battle on another occasion between the Justice League and Queen Bee's Anti-Justice League. 

Mighty Mites Meet Maids Marion

Edward Thayer was a good man on Earth-One, and a wicked man on Earth-Two. The former was an old friend of Ray “Atom” Palmer, the latter a one-time foe of Carter “Hawkman” Hall. The Earth-One Ed ended up marrying a woman named Alice nee Morse, who was a near lookalike of Ray’s fiancée Jean Loring. Shortly after they wed, Ed and Alice Thayer visited Ray and Jean in Ivy Town, where they discovered that Alice’s ex-fiancée was entomologist Bertram Larvan. 

Their engagement had been dissolved by Alice as Larvan was to obsessed with his work developing robotic pest control insects. Since Bertram couldn’t secure financing for his creations without a model, he decided to use them to rob financial institutions. This brought him in conflict with the Atom, who confronted and defeated Larvan in his Bug-Eyed Bandit alias.

A short time later over in Calvin City on Earth-Two, a couple of Al Pratt’s friends set him up on a blind date with Marion Thayer. Could she have been the granddaughter of Elwin Thayer, the man who was murdered by a disembodied synthetic hand, the creation of Elwin’s brother Edward? Edward himself stole from his brother a valuable emerald for his girlfriend Sandra.

Instead of showing gratitude, Sandra showed greed as she slayed Edward, then herself was brought to justice by Hawkman and the artificial hand.

Marion and other women in Calvin City began to experience strange effects with their aging due to cosmic radiation emitted from devices operating on both Earths One and Two. The twin Atom, Palmer and Pratt, were able to rectify this problem and reverse the effects. Following this, Al and Marion Thayer finally and their date, although they ultimately wouldn't last as a couple, as Al’s heart still belonged to his estranged ex-girlfriend Mary James whom he later married.

Leaping Lemurian Linking Legendary Ladies

Like Atlantis, the civilization of Lemuria also sank beneath the waves of the ocean. Although while Atlantis was now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, Lemuria was beneath the Pacific Ocean on the opposite side of the Earth. While the Atlantean city-state of Poseidonis and Tritonis of Earth-One and Aurania and Venturia of Earth-Two had notable modern day histories with connections to the Aquaman and Wonder Woman of each Earth, very little is known of the twin Lemurians.

The first recorded contact between surface dwellers and remnants of Lemuria were in November 1977 and December 1976 on Earths One and Two, respectively. While one Lemuria was still a vibrant society under the sea, the other was a long lost culture. The first Lemurians were benevolent, the other Lemurians were malevolent. And each had connections to the women in the lives of a Justice Leaguer and Justice Socialite.

On Earth-One, Ray "Atom" Palmer's fiancée Jean Loring had experience repeated psychosis from extra-terrestrial experiences, the latest occurring after she was kidnapped by the villain T.O. Morrow which brought her to his alien world. Tapping into mental abilities, Jean teleported to various points across the universe, with the Atom in pursuit, until she finally arrived at Lemuria. There the leading blue-skinned scientists from that city were able to stabilize her condition, and eventually Jean regained her sanity.

On Earth-Two, Carter "Hawkman" Hall's wife Shiera "Hawkgirl" Hall was kidnapped by the recently revived Lemurian known as Zanadu. This power-mad being claimed to have wiped out Lemuria, and sought to tap into his mental bond with Shiera to allow him to conquer the world. The Justice Society intervened, saving Sheira and ensnaring Zanadu in amber from whence he had been imprisoned for centuries.

While Zanadu claimed to have extinguished Lemuria, yellow-skinned warriors appearing similar to him were led by the King of the Caverns when he enconuntered Red Torpedo and the Mermazons in 1941! The arch-enemies of these Lemurians were the Mermazons, a warrior race of women like the Amazons of Paradise Island. Led by Queen Klitra, these Femazons allied with Red Torpedo in capturing the Cavern King and his human ally Black Shark.

Back on Earth-One, the Amazons of the Amazon River were a tribe of Amazonians who broke off from Queen Hippolyta centuries ago, forging their own life in South America half a world away. Led by Queen Atalanta, these Brazilian Amazons initially were adversarial towards Wonder Woman but soon forged an alliance with her. There is no record of these Amazons encountering their world's Lemurians, as had their Earth-Two Mermazon counterparts and their Lemurians, although given their peaceful nature there would seemingly be no conflict between these two races.

Wonder Women: The Worlds' Greatest (more or less) Heroines

While definitely superheroes outnumbered superheroines throughout the Multiverse, several notable women carved out names from themselves on Earths One and two, showing that they matched the mettle of their male peers. Preeminent among these was the Wonder Women and the Black Canarys, who stood on their own before joining their Worlds Greatest Heroes... the Justice League and Justice Society. And lest we forget, the Last Daughters of Krypton, Kara Zor-El and Zor-L aka Supergirl and Power Girl, proved equal to their more famous cousins... the Supermen.

And then there were the others, the lesser lights, who reflected the heroic standards set by the above fabulous females while carving out their own costumed careers. Many of these joined the New Teen Titans of Earth-One or the female version of the Justice Society of Earth-Two, while others stood apart trying to forge their own path within the metahuman community. This is by no means a comprehensive list of all those legendary ladies, as some would exist in other times, on other worlds, and under other circumstances. For the purpose of this piece, however, we are focusing on nine of these glorious gals whom we had previously considered although this time we do so more extensively.

- The Donna Troy of both worlds, on Earth-One she would become Wonder Girl the adopted Amazonian and on Earth-Two she became a Holliday Girl who once wore her college's guardian, Wonder Woman's costume.

- Jean Loring and Mary James who each had significant relationships with their world's respective Atoms, even though there were ups and downs, with Loring becoming the evil "Queen Jean" on occasion and James becoming a female Atom.

- Both Myra Masons, whether as the temporarily superpowered girlfriend of Space Ranger or the one-time female version of boyfriend Doctor Mid-Nite, were faithful companions to the men in their lives.

- Hawkwoman and Hawkgirl aka Shiera Hall, the loving wives of the Hawkmen who shared their high-flying adventures, with the former joining the Justice League with her husband and the latter the All-Star Squadron with her boyfriend.

- Raven and Clarice Winston, wearing hooded and caped costumes while being protected by shadowy
guardians during their encounters with evil over the years.

- Koriand'r aka Kori "Starfire" Anders and Doris "Starwoman" Lee, each wielding energy powered by the stars alongside their fellow heroines, and more importantly dazzling their boyfriends Robin and Starman, respectively.

- Tara Marcov was the illegitimate daughter of the King of Marcovia, who was given powers over the earth which led to her adopting the alter ego of Terra. Her counterpart was the second girlfriend of Wesley Dodds aka Sandman, adopting a female version of his costume. Both women had short careers.

- Amy Winston who was the Princess Amethyst and Peachy Pet Thunder who was also a girl with grand aspirations. Eventually, both would gained power and moved to new dimensional worlds for true love.

- Mysa Nal and Inza Cramer Nelson* were redheads with access to ancient energies from alien worlds allowing themselves to become among the most powerful of their peers.

Another heroine who was an unofficial member of the Teen Titans was Kole Weathers. A mutant whose scientist parents imbued in her the ability to weave silicon crystals in various shapes, she aided the Titans and fell in love with one of their members in Joseph “Jericho” Wilson. She perished attempting to protect fellow heroes during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Her counterpart was Gerta VonGunther, the daugher of former criminal scientist Paula Von Gunthner, who had been the arch-foe of Earth-Two's Wonder Woman. Once Gerta had been liberated from Nazi captivity and returned to her mother, Paula renounced her evil ways, and both mother and daughter moved to Paradise Island. There, Gerta began experimenting with germs turned into insects and creating mermaids out of sharks, although such experiments were dangerous. Gerta finally renounced her troublesome research for the safety of humanity.

The New Teen Titans would typify a balanced approach where both genders were concerned, as over time their membership would have notable females in the midst proving invaluable to their masculine comrades. So too would the Legion of Super-Heroes in Earth-One's future and the All-Star Squadron of Earth-Two's past, although the aforementioned Justice League and Justice Society sadly only had a handful of heroines throughout their history, although each would recruit non-member heroines from time to time to aid them in their efforts throughout the years.

* Inza also inherited a green skinned persona from her ancestor Ezra Hawkins aka Sir Traytor. This version of her spawned a woman named Jealous that battled her husband Kent “Doctor Fate” Nelson during a battle with a Lord of Chaos. This lethal osu was the counterpart of Supergirl’s evil clone Satan Girl.

Leading Ladies of Living Legends: Girlfriends of Good Guys

1. You have your Hawkmen and Hawkgirls, Supermen and Lois Lanes, Batmen and Catwomen. Virtual mirror images of one another, marital matches of magnificent marvels. Then there are these heroes comrades of the Justice League and Society of America... how had their love life mirrors their cosmic twins a universe away?  

• Remarkably similar, actually, as both Barry "Flash" Allen and Jay "Flash" Garrick immediately found their true loves even before their superhero careers began. However, only Jay trusted his girl enough to divulge his dual identity... something Barry would hesitate doing even up to a year after they were married. 

• Then there was Ray "Atom" Palmer and his years-long fiancee Jean Loring, the two have a tumultuous relationship such as when Ray's lab assistant Enrichetta Negrini's presence instilled jealously in her heart, and when Jean becomes a supervillain gaining vast mental powers before they finally wed... though sadly they later divorce. Then there is Ray's twin Al "Atom" Pratt who parted from his childhood love Mary James for a few years, dated Marion Thayer... before eventually returning to then marrying Mary afterwards.

• Finally, there was the eternal angst between the competitive Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan and his boss Carol Ferris, similar to the professionally driven Alan "Green Lantern" Scott and his secretary Molly Mayne... keeping these two couples apart longer than necessary. Even when Carol and Molly became supervillainesses, there was still romantic tension with the objects of their desire. Sure, other women entered into the mix for the guys' affection, such as Olivia Reynolds and Irene Miller. In the end, however, both former femme fatales got their men.

• Then there were the romances that never were... on Earth-One Black Canary ended up with Green Arrow while on Earth-Two Canary’s mom settled for detective Larry Lance instead leaving that Earth’s Arrow a bachelor. Or Aquaman meeting his maiden Mera on Earth-One while on Earth-Two his doppleganger continued to swim the seven seas solo. Considering that these two lady-less legends debuted in More Fun Comics, one wonders was it more fun for them as single guys?