Starman Retrospective, Day 5: The Shade

Welcome to Day 5 of The Comics Cube!'s retrospective series on James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Peter Snejberg's STARMAN. You can read about this series here.

THE SHADE

When we started this retrospective, I said that while Jack Knight is the main character of the STARMAN series, he wouldn't call himself the hero of the book. That would be Ted Knight. In the same vein, if we're talking about the protagonist of the book — in the sense of carrying out the actions that drive the story — we could very well be talking about The Shade.

The Shade made his debut in FLASH COMICS #33 in September 1942, and was a thorn in the side of the Flashes throughout the decades, using his control of shadow matter, via his cane, to give them trouble. He wasn't defined very well — if he was defined at all — and Robinson took the opportunity in 1994 to flesh him out as a character.

Starman Retrospective, Day 4: History, not Continuity

Welcome to Day 4 of The Comics Cube!'s retrospective series on James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Peter Snejberg's STARMAN. You can read about this series here.

HISTORY
not Continuity 

We superhero fans love continuity. We love our OFFICIAL HANDBOOKS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, our official DC ENCYCLOPEDIAS... heck, some of my first comics were some issues of WHO'S WHO: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE DC UNIVERSE that came out after the Crisis on Infinite Earths. We like it when things fall into their nice little boxes, and we like figuring out timelines. Continuity, however, can be a hindrance. Sometimes the hammer starts swinging the carpenter, and before you know it, we get stories that seem to really do nothing more than fix continuity errors and inconsistencies, and that's unfair to both the characters who could be used in more meaningful stories and the very concept of continuity.

One of STARMAN's most oft-cited strengths is its usage of continuity, but I would argue that since "continuity" now has that connotation of making things fit into appropriate boxes and whatnot, STARMAN doesn't really do that. What it uses isn't continuity, but history.

Starman Retrospective, Day 3: Opal City

Welcome to Day 3 of The Comics Cube!'s retrospective series on James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Peter Snejberg's STARMAN. You can read about this series here.

OPAL CITY

The first page in the entire STARMAN saga is a shot of Opal City. The captions describe its atmosphere and its history.

As the series progresses, we learn more about Opal City and are treated to panoramic shots and desciptions of the various boroughs. James Robinson in fact states in the back matter of STARMAN #0:

In the course of this book, I intend to create this city — give it streets you recognize by the landmarks; give it a design sense all its own. Fortunately, I'm collaborating with Tony Harris, an artist who not only shares that vision, but has the visual talent and skill to bring off the architectural diversity we have in mind. We want the Opal City skyline to be so distinctive that you'll recognize it without a caption or any verbal indication of where you are. Starman's home.

Starman Retrospective, Day 2: Legacy

Welcome to Day 2 of The Comics Cube!'s retrospective series on James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Peter Snejberg's STARMAN. You can read about this series here.

LEGACY

Jack Knight was the seventh Starman. Or maybe he was the sixth. Or the eighth.

It's complicated.

Either way, he wasn't the first, nor was he the last to prefix his name with "Star."

Top row: Jack Knight, Will Payton, Mikaal Tomas
Bottom row: Prince Gavyn, Starman of 1951, Ted Knight
Behind everyone: Thom Kallor
Art by Tony Harris and Alex Ross

Starman Retrospective, Day 1: The Knights, Jack and Ted and David

Welcome to Day 1 of The Comics Cube!'s retrospective series on James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Peter Snejberg's STARMAN. You can read about this series here.

THE KNIGHTS

Jack and Ted and David

The main character of STARMAN is Jack Knight, a junk dealer from Opal City who, because of his lineage, inherits a cosmic rod that lets him harness energy from the stars for flight, energy projection, and other offensive and defensive capabilities. Jack is one of the most well-defined characters in mainstream comic books, and it's because we get really specific looks into his head. Unlike, for example, Peter Parker, who is relatable by virtue of having traits that are universal, Jack's tastes are so specific. He's a bit of an elitist and likes the fact that his girlfriend Sadie knows who the Valentine Brothers are. He enjoys EC Comics and Robert Mitchum movies. He knows some martial arts, but only because he went through a period when he just got really into it and decided to learn until he was bored.

Jack also doesn't want to be a hero. He thinks costumes are silly, and would rather be discussing a found Alfred Hitchcock screenplay than fight the bad guys. He's also probably relatable to comic book fans in that he legitimately enjoys collecting stuff that he deems are valuable — the hunt is a source of thrills for him as well as income.

In today's comic book field where it seems that a lot of writers go so far as to make their protagonists as relatable and general as possible in terms of their minute details such as tastes and passing fancies, Jack is proof that you can add very minute details to a character and still achieve relatibility.

The main character of the STARMAN series is Jack Knight, but he wouldn't call himself the hero of the story. "Hero," he says, is a label given to you by other people when you deserve it, not one you readily apply to yourself.

No, if we were to ask Jack Knight who the hero of STARMAN was, he would be quick to point to his father Ted, the original Starman.

Ted Knight was created by Jack Burnley and a host of writers and editors (including Mort Weisnger and Jack Schiff). He first appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #61, dated April 1941. And as far as Golden Age heroes go, you could say he was pretty generic. He was a billionaire playboy who created a device — the cosmic rod, which lets him harness power from the stars to project light beams and enable him to fly — that would help him in his quest to fight crime. So he dons a red and green costume with a fin on the head and does just that. Ted had an arch-enemy, the Mist, a man made out of nothing but vapor, so in that sense, he was a little different. He joined the Justice Society of America but never had his own series. And but for a short-lived feature in the 60s teaming him up with the Black Canary, he barely had the spotlight on him. He was taken off DC's main stage after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and was brought back a few years later, right before Zero Hour, in which he and the rest of the JSA, kept young by supernatural forces all this time, were rapidly restored to their true ages. Too old to still be active, he passes the cosmic rod to his oldest son David, with Jack in the background, making it clear that he doesn't want the job.

That would lead right into the STARMAN series, where Ted Knight would get more character development than he ever did in 50 years of existence.

A Starman Retrospective

In the mid to late 90s, one mainstream DC superhero comic book expressly had a cult following strong enough to warrant a month dedicated to it at the time of publication and six omnibuses from DC. That series was STARMAN, written by James Robinson and drawn by Tony Harris and, later on, Peter Snejberg. It focused on Jack Knight, the son of Ted Knight, the Golden Age Starman. Jack was a junk dealer who didn't really want to be a superhero, but was kind of thrust into it. He's one of the most relatable, most human superheroes ever, and the series was really top-notch stuff.
 
And for over ten years, I ignored it. See, when I was a kid, one of my favorite superheroes was Will Payton, who was back then carrying the name of Starman. Will had an awesome costume (the black one, not the yellow and purple one), and equally awesome powers (he shot cosmic blasts out of his hands!). So when this STARMAN series starring Jack made waves, I deliberately avoided it, because Will was my Starman.

Then one day, at a Barnes and Noble in Easton PA, I browsed through a copy of STARMAN: STARS MY DESTINATION, because Will Payton was in it. And you know what I realized? This Jack Knight guy was pretty cool. What's more, this series was pretty cool.

Before I left the United States for good in June 2007, I decided to make one last big comics-related purchase, and I bought the entire James Robinson–written STARMAN run off of eBay, specials and all (I'm only missing the first issue of BATMAN/HELLBOY/STARMAN, but since that's mostly Batman, I don't care).

I felt the need to write about it, but there was a lot to write about, so I did it in five parts. Click the links to get taken to those particular sections:

• Part 1: Fathers and Sons. A look at the relationships between Jack, David, and Ted Knight, and how they anchor the series.
• Part 2: Legacy. A look at the legacy of Starman, the arch-enemy The Mist, and the Justice Society of America.
• Part 3: Opal City. How the setting of the book affected its characters, how the characters from Opal were different from the ones outside it, and
• Part 4: History, not Continuity. The difference between the two, and how STARMAN uses one to great effect while treating the other as a tool and not a hindrance, and how continuity should help, but not hamper your story.
• Part 5: The Shade, and the Future. A look at the one character that DC is still using after the end of the series, his spinoffs, and where it may lead.

I hope you join me for a week-long look at one of the best comics of the 90s, and certainly one of the most memorable comics of all time!

Comic Book Glossary: Splash Page and Spread

Welcome to a new installment of Comic Book Glossary! One of the aims of the Comics Cube! has always been to help out the newer readers who may be interested in, but aren't all that knowledgeable in comics, and one thing everyone needs to know if they're interested are the terms. Click here for the index!

Today we take a look at two terms that tie into each other. A splash page is a term most of you are familiar with, and it really just means a page that consists of one big image. It's most often used in the beginning of a comic. Common practice will put it at the very first page, to get the reader's attention right away, as in this Steve Ditko–drawn page from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #12: