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I think I've an answer. By the Zero Hour Timeline we know that the Big Year is 1984. That's when the heroes started to appear. So the first part is answered. Our second clue comes from Frank Miller's BATMAN: YEAR ONE, which (as the title suggests) chronicles one year, exactly--from January to December. 2+2=4, and we see that Miller's B:Y1 must chronicle the events of 1984. And looking at my trusty trade paperback, we see that the Batman's public debut comes on the night of April 9th. April 9, 1984. Pretty damn precise, huh? (For those who are interested, the "I shall become a bat" sequence is March 11.)
Moving on: A reference to Superman (as a 'man of steel' from Metropolis) is made that same night. Alfred refers to a flying man from Metropolis on September 25. So we know that Superman has debuted publicly and is well-known in the U.S. by early 1984. Conventional wisdom tells us that his public debut is the Constitution incident at Metropolis airport, and the subsequent press coverage. For details, I go once again to the bookshelf and find my MAN OF STEEL TPB. The date on the Smallville Post read by Jonathan Kent, bearing the headline, "MYSTERIOUS SUPERMAN SAVES SPACE PLANE", is not really legible, but the month seems to have a short name, and the day appears to be the 20th. Based on the fact that Clark's recollections of the incident seem to indicate mild weather (Clark is wearing a light jacket; no one in the crowd is dressed in anything heavier than a trenchcoat), and that we know that this must take place priot to April 9, it seems to be a reasonable assumption that the incident took place on March 20, 1984. The Kents appear to devise the costume over the next day or so; Superman's costumed debut in Metropolis, then, looks to be less than a week later. The events of book two seem to cover another week or so, ending with Clark taking a job at the Planet in early April or so.
The obvious next question is, just to settle things, when does the Superman/Batman meeting in TMOS Book Three take place? Well, Batman says that he read reports of Superman's debut in the Planet "eight months ago"... therefore, this is clearly November 1984. I look back to B:Y1 to cross check... The climactic kidnapping of Jim Gordon's infant son and Bruce Wayne/Batman's rescue of the child takes place on November 3. When next we hear from Gordon, it's December 3 and Batman's first meeting with the Joker is imminent. Gordon's a Captain now; he seems to have begun his solid relationship with the Batman, as his dialogue (and the fact that he's waiting on the roof of police HQ) indicates. So the Superman/Batman team-up vs. Magpie seems to fit neatly in the end of Batman's first year, just after his role in bringing down the Roman and corrupt Comissioner Loeb.
Now we back up a bit for Hal Jordan's debut as Green Lantern. My EMERALD DAWN TPB turns up little of use... except that Hal notes he's heard of people with powers like his from the second World War...but nothing since. Hal would have been operating out of the Ferris facility in Coast City at this time, without question.
So when does ED take place? It can't take place significantly before MOS, as the papers would have been less impressed by a flying hero if there were already one out west. But by the same token, it can hardly be long after, as Hal would have heard of Superman already. The obvious conclusion: the two stories are almost directly contemporary with each other... with Hal recieving the ring perhaps around March 18, spending a coupe of days on Earth before going out into space just in time to miss Superman's debut. Hal's earliest activities with the ring were minor enough to escape the kind of notice Clark's debut garnered--his one public act as Green Lantern was to save a Ferris jet from crashing (after he had scared the bird's pilot by flying up and waving Hi). There were relatively few bystanders and presumably no press around for this, and Hal departed swiftly from the gathering crowd. Thus, any press would have been minor hearsay-type stuff, and not the full-page headline-and-photo affair Superman had recieved (by contrast, Batman was so stealthy that his status grew into an urban legend of sorts, followed by major police attention, before ever making it to the press. This would explain why Clark took so long before he tried to 'take in' the Batman.
So that's three down.
Barry Allen would almost certainly be next... I'm guessing late spring, perhaps (April showers?), based on the typical midwestern thunderstorm (although it could easily have been later into the summer). Let's say early May, just for the heck of it.
Aquaman is a character I have next to no current knowledge of. But I recall that the TIME AND TIDE miniseries had a guest shot by the Flash, which led to Orin's first public appearance. Let's give him the summer of '84, until anyone has a better suggestion.
J'Onn J'Onnz had been on Earth for decades, but had not yet gone public. So I go to my SECRET ORIGINS TPB (see a trend here?), which of course contains the Giffen/PAD JLA origin.
The most telling bit of info in this story is Green Lantern's statement that he had only just met the Guardians and met other Green Lanterns... unfortunately, that statement is more in keeping with his silver age origin and early stories--in which he operated on Earth for a time before being allowed knowledge of the Corps--than ED's story, in which Hal meets Tomar-Re, goes to Oa, and meets the Guardians almost immediately after recieving the ring. So this could mean that the story takes place many months later, in the latter half of 1984...or it could take place during the summer at some point. Since EDII--which is helpfully titled "Ninety Days"--fits in the end of ED, and covers Hal's advanced training with Sinestro, we could take his statements in this story to mean he is returning from the end of ED/EDII. Since Hal's 90-day jail sentence for drunk driving would have begun about two weeks after he got the ring--about the first of April or so--this sequence of the JLA origin could be tied down to early July (near the 4th--appropriate for the Justice League of AMERICA). So it was at this time that J'Onn went public...as well as Black Canary. This time frame is good, becuase it gives Flash some time to build a rep. So my guess is early July, 1984, for the founding of the JLA.
It's worth noting that Green Arrow's debut would have been around the early summer, same as Aquaman. Again, if anyone has more detailed info, feel free to contribute.
Oh, and Mark Waid's excellent FLASH YEAR ONE: BORN TO RUN! gives us an incredibly detailed account of Wally West's origin. He became Kid Flash in June 1985; he went to visit Iris in Central City 'as soon as school was out'--which would be the first week of June, for most schools. Looking at the Windows Calendar for June 1985, I see that the first Friday in the month was the 8th. Let's assume Wally Arrived in Central City on Monday the 10th. By the end of that day, he'd been hit by lightning and chemicals.
Scary, aren't
I? :)