NEAR MYTHS: STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E. (1999-2000)

Though I liked “Stargirl” a little better than most of the new heroes introduced at DC during the first part of the 21^st century, I was fairly surprised to see the CW group decide to devote a series to the character. Though as I write this only one episode of the TV-show has aired, I’m currently theorizing that either Greg Berlanti or some other CW-bigwig had some notion of re-living the producers’ first big superhero hit, the equally teen-oriented SMALLVILLE. Be that as it may, I decided to look over the fifteen issues (fourteen regularly-numbered comics and a “zero”) in which Stargirl made her series debut.

Not surprisingly, despite the title, the feature has nothing whatever to do with American patriotism. STARS is first and foremost a legacy concept, devoted to a millennial version of a Golden Age DC series, “the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy.” To be sure, the original concept, conceived by Jerry Siegel,, did not display strong patriotic content except with respect to the costumes of its two heroes. In essence the Golden Age concept was yet another version of “Batman and Robin,” but one in which the teenager, rich boy Sylvester “the Kid” Pemberton, was the boss of a full-grown man, his employee Pat Dugan, a.k.a. Stripesy. The feature was not particularly successful, any more than was the super-team of which the two flag-draped heroes were members, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, the others being the Crimson Avenger, the Shining Knight, the Vigilante, Green Arrow and Speedy. (The latter three were retconned as “Earth-Two” versions of characters who had become best known to readers as their Silver Age “Earth-One” counterparts.)

No comics-writer seemed in a great hurry to revive this part of DC history. A 1972 JUSTICE LEAGUE story revived the Seven Soldiers, explaining that the team’s members had been dispersed through time. The consequence of the time-travel gimmick was that all of these 1940s heroes returned to the 1970s without having aged, including teen-hero Sylvester Pemberton. He was the only one who got fast-tracked into a regular series, appearing for a time in DC’s revival of the Justice Society, while his partner Pat Dugan got out of the superhero game entirely. Dugan (and from now on I’ll use that name for him, even when speaking of his tedious-to-type identity S.T.R.I.P.E.) made occasional appearances. Pemberson at least enjoyed a varied history in his revival—using a “cosmic converter belt” (to upgrade from his former dependence on simple athletics), changing his name to Skyman, and ultimately getting killed.

I don’t imagine any fans were clamoring for a new version of the Star-Spangled Kid in 1999, but Geoff Johns had already made his bones with assorted “DC continuity” stories, and he presumably promoted the idea of a new character taking up the costume. Despite sporting the name of Courtney Whitmore—which, by accident or design, sounds nearly as upscale as Sylvester Pemberton—the new female “Kid” was just your basic middle-class high-schooler, albeit somewhat more athletic than most. However, she has the fortune—be it good or bad—that her mother divorces her father and eventually marries Pat Dugan.

Courtney fumes with teenaged hauteur about her mother’s new marriage and her own transplantation to a new dwelling-place in Blue Valley (traditionally the home of another teen hero, Kid Flash). However, the move coincides with Dugan’s decision to get back into the superhero game, building a gigantic robot exoskeleton for himself, given the aforesaid acronym. Despite resenting her new stepfather, Courtney soon learns about his heroic heritage. Though she mocks his old cognomen of “Stripesy,” she’s quick to take on the equally ludicrous title of “Star Spangled Kid” once she, like Pemberton before her, gets hold of a super-technological power boost. (To be sure, during the series a character suggests that she ought to call herself “Stargirl,” and at present that’s the name the character currently uses.)

For the most part, the short run of STARS is just another routine superhero opus, slightly enlivened by Lee Moder’s humorous artwork and various references to DC continuity. Neither of these justify my calling the series a “near myth,” though, and indeed Johns’s cumbersome use of continuity works against the serial’s only mythic aspect: the psychological bonding of a young girl’s to a new father, in order to replace the one who deserted her. In the space of fifteen issues, Johns had ample opportunity to show the relationship of Courtney and Dugan grow, as she comes to respect the man she originally resented as an intruder upon her family. But Johns is more comfortable with silly jokes than with any dramatic arc. A particular point where the continuity bug nullifies the drama is a scene when another of the Seven Soldiers, the Shining Knight, involves himself in the supervillain problems of the two stars. To satisfy readers with the continuity jones, Johns has the Knight go into a long recap of his history with the Soldiers and the All-Star Squadron. Yet at no point does the writer deem it necessary to tell his readers how all these hyper-dramatic stories of World War Two heroism sound to a child of the 21^st century. This sort of shift in perspective might have contributed to Courtney’s ability to bond with her stepfather. But because their bonding feels forced, the current star-spangled team is just about as mediocre in terms of its psychological myths as the original Golden Age feature.

After the cancellation of the series, Courtney, taking the more mellifluous name of Stargirl, has mostly participated in larger super-groups. I haven’t read most of these, but given this middling beginning, I’d be surprised if she ever became much more than a pretty face and a cool costume.