Lee Moder (1969–2023)

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This volume collects the entirety of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., a modernized take on the Star-Spangled Kid that began slightly before and ran alongside the Robinson/Goyer/John JSA revival of 1999. Our main character is Courtney Whitmore, a teenager who has recently relocated to Blue Valley, Nebraska because her mother has remarried, to Pat Dugan, who back during World War II was Stripesy, sidekick to the Star-Spangled Kid. She ends up becoming the new Star-Spangled Kid, eventually dubbing herself "Stars" and then "Stargirl," while Pat operates as her sidekick in a robotic suit called S.T.R.I.P.E. (As the cover of my edition indicates, it eventually became the basis for the CW tv series Stargirl starring Brec Bassinger.)

As a concept, it's great. Definitely a good storytelling engine: you have high school stuff, secret identity stuff, interpersonal stuff, legacy stuff. Courtney is ultimately the inheritor of the Star-Spangled Kid mantle and the Starman mantle. But I ended up feeling like Geoff Johns might not have been the writer to successfully pull off his own idea. The idea here is that Courtney becomes a superhero to annoy her stepfather, and then sort of grows into it... but I felt like this is an idea that we were told more than we actually saw on the page. The interpersonal dynamics were often crowded out by the superhero plots and the crossover storylines; some of Courtney's development as a hero was seemingly happening over in JSA, not here. I never really got a feel for her and Pat's relationship in a meaningful way.... but of course this is Geoff Johns. Great idea, but hand the execution over to, say, a John Rogers or a G. Willow Wilson, and I think this would have soared.

Still, it's entertaining stuff. Johns picks up on the kind of "legacy" work Roy Thomas was doing in Infinity, Inc., and the result is strong. I liked the story about Courtney interacting with Starman, for example, paralleled with a flashback adventure about how the original Star-Spangled Kid became Skyman, and also tying in how Star-Spangled Kid got the cosmic converter belt way back in the very first story I reviewed for this project, Only Legends Live Forever. I don't know if this kind of storytelling is meaningful to people who haven't been reading JSA comics nonstop for over two years now, but I dug it.

The Teen Titan appearances were fun. The story delving into the post-Crisis version of the JLA/JSA/Seven Soldiers of Victory crossover that brought the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy into the present day was fun... almost certainly better than the original story, actually! (Although, since when was the Crimson Avenger's sidekick, Wing, a kid? In the Roy Thomas version, he was the chauffeur!) I liked the occasional conversations between Pat and the original Starman, Ted. The villain being an evil cheerleader was good. The only "legacy" element I disliked was learning that Danette Reilly, Firebrand in All-Star Squadron, was fridged off-panel sometime in the decades since WWII in order to give the Shining Knight some angst. She is too good a character to deserve that, but apparently has made no post-A-SS appearances except in the All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant.

Overall, this is fun, and I look forward to seeing Courtney shine in JSA. But I can't help feel that somewhere in the multiverse there's a version of this comic that rivals G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel!

The Justice Society and Earth-Two: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »… (mehr)

Well - some interesting bits. But really annoying because it keeps jumping around - it's only the stories in her own book, I guess, and a lot of her development as a hero happens in crossovers. The first couple stories are directly connected, how she ended up being Stars (she keeps changing her name - not really surprising, though). Then there's a random villain introduced - and a major gap in the story, by the next one here she's an established member of the JSA, and the guy with the bugs doesn't show up again. I don't know if he's still in the wings or was dealt with in the gap. Then a series of random crossovers - with the Marvel Family, with the Teen Titans, and not exactly a crossover but a cameo from just about every hero there is. The Marvel Family story ends as the two of them (Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E) go off on an adventure, finishing the story begun here - but that's in another book, we don't get a clue what happened from this book. The last story - before the cameo - the villain who's been established throughout her storyline comes out and is knocked right back, too easily to feel right. There are, as I said, several interesting bits (mostly to do with early heros), but it's so scattered and gappy that I can't muster much interest. I also dislike the artist's style - it's very angular and weird distortions for effect all over the place - almost stylized. It's hard to see them as real people. Not wonderful. Oh yeah, and it ends with laying up serious trouble for later - he can grow inside a dead person, what's he going to do in a constant flow of energy? The new kid's amusing - is he going to end up being the new Stripesy? Lots of questions, and if I see the next book I might pick it up. but this one was frustrating enough I'm not going to bother to hunt it up.… (mehr)

Perhaps not as good as the first volume, but still fun. You can see the beginnings of Geoff Johns comics career here, which is enlightening. It's clear he had a healthy appreciation of DC Comics' past, as this volume brings in even more of the Star Spangled Kid's and Stripesy's histories with the Seven Soldiers of Victory and the Justice Society of America. The title only ran for 14 issues (plus a #0), but in that short time Johns was able to create a character who both paid homage to a Silver Age legacy and forged a new legacy of her own.… (mehr)