The world of Comics used to be like a jaded ex-girlfriend. I can’t blame her though. I broke up with her quite suddenly. We started out when I was just hitting puberty, and she had already gotten a lot of attention beforehand. I gave her all of my love, for a time, and of course, all my money. Then, when I was in my sophomore year of High School, I noticed how reading comics might actually hurt my chances of getting with a real life girl. The world of comics and I went our separate ways.
This was a common occurrence in the mid-nineties. A lot of people, who are now in their mid twenties grew out of comics. You would think that guys would be hooked on the stuff back then, since cover after cover had a chick with bean bag chair sized breasts attached to her Olympic athlete physique. For all the freaks out there, there were women that looked like they belonged in a strip club in almost every mainstream book, only they would have horns or blue skin, or clown faces. But the T and A didn’t keep the guys interested.
But the World of Comics had other tricks up her sleeve. Comic book writers noticed that Wolverine was an extremely popular character. All of a sudden, left and right, there were guys popping up with all different types of claws, slicing shit up. Still, I didn’t give the world of comics a second glance, as I passed her on the street I knew her building was on (get it, the comic book store? I hope this metaphor is working for you). Violent claw guys grew stale for the average comic reader as well, and sales began to plummet for every company. Hell, Marvel even ended up filing for bankruptcy at one point!
So while I was paying attention to real women, the World of comics did what most people do when they have been broken up with, she decided to improve herself, to look back on her life and become a more mature being.
One great example of this is a comic that came out in the mid-nineties called Starman. Starman isn’t a household name, unless your mom says to you “Wasn’t that a movie starring Jeff Bridges? The one where the he was an alien?” and no, the Starman comic has nothing to do with that quality film.
Starman is a character that started out the same time as Batman or Superman, in what is considered the Golden Age of comics, but as you can see, there aren’t kids running around playgrounds, with sticks in their hands, going “watch out, I am going to hit you with my cosmic rod!” Well, hopefully there aren’t people out there, in general, saying that.
The Golden Age Starman became what people in the comics industry call a B-list character. B-List characters are like the kid at recess that gets picked after all the popular kids have been chosen. He isn’t the kind of guy who would be in your Top eight friends.
Starman in the nineties was a whole ‘nother can of soup. Writer James Robinson spun a tale about Jack Knight, who is a junk dealer, that also happens to be the son of Ted Knight, who is the original Starman. Now, I throw in the whole junk dealer aspect into the description, because it actually plays a big part in the book. Most of the time, comic book characters are either reporters, or cops, or millionaires while in their secret identity. James Robinson was able to give Jack an original career, and what a quirky job being a junk dealer really is! For a millisecond, reading this book, I actually reconsidered the goals I had for my life, and thought about becoming a junk dealer. I pictured myself trading some of my grandfather’s toy trains for an old pair of disco boots, and then selling it in whatever sort of Junk Dealer store I would eventually open up. That’s how good this book is, and so far I am just talking about the heroes’ day job.
The beauty of Starman, is that you can go into the book cold. You don’t have to know any of the history of the character. You get to start out fresh, just like Jack Knight does. In the beginning of the book, Jack’s older brother David has just started to fill in for their father as the brand new Starman. We don’t get to spend much time seeing how David does, since a bullet pierces his chest and he dies on the third page of the first issue.
David’s killer happens to be the son of the original Starman’s archenemy, The Mist. Once again, you don’t need to know any of this beforehand, Robinson does an amazing job telling you everything you need to know about Starman to make this story work. The Mist and his two children wreak havoc on Starman’s home, Opal city. All hell breaks loose.
Of course, you can guess what eventually has to happen, Jack ‘man’s up’ and becomes Starman. But unlike his brother, Jack doesn’t wear his father’s clothes. He becomes his own type of Starman, wearing his own type of outfit. The outfit is made up of a black trench coat, jeans and Welding goggles. I guess he was sort of going for the German industrial metal look, but you can’t blame him. It was the 90s.
Just as Jack’s Starman is different from the Golden Age Starman, the stories in this book are different from your atypical superhero stories: For every year that the comic was out, there is a heartfelt issue, where Jack has a conversation about his childhood with the ghost of his brother. Jack gets drugged and kidnapped by the Mist’s crazy daughter, and she rapes him, which results in her being pregnant with his child. Jack ends up saving a group of freak show performers from their demonic ringmaster, and afterwards he has sex with an octopus lady. You think I made that one up? See there is even stuff in this book for the aforementioned freaks.
Starman is like some of the other rare gems that came out of the 90s comic dark age, like The Sandman or Preacher, they all have realistic main characters and go in directions no comics have ever gone before. See, if I had known that the World of Comics had been trying so hard to better herself in the early nineties, I would have gotten back with her sooner. Well, don’t worry she ended up taking me back a few years ago. We have been great with each other since. That would explain my two maxed out credit cards and lack of saved cash.
Speaking of blowing money on comics, if you actually want to take my word and read the Starman story from the beginning, you can head on over to your local comic book store. Now, on sale is the Starman Omnibus, a beautiful hardcover collecting issues #0-16. It’s $49.99, but worth a lot more than a trip to Applebees, a box set of season two of the Hills, or four beers plus tip in Manhattan.