Back Issue #133 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

™

February 2022

No.133

Starring the 1990s Starman with JAMES ROBINSON & TONY HARRIS Featuring Star-Spangled Kid ★ Starjammers Lee & Kaluta’s Starstruck ★ 1980s Starman

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ISSUE

STARMEN

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Volume 1, Number 133 February 2022 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Tony Harris COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER David Baldy

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A GALAXY OF STARMEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Who are the Starmen in your neighborhood? Find out in this special feature FLASHBACK: Star-Spangled Kid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 From a kid hero with an adult sidekick to Skyman, the saga of Sylvester Pemberton BEYOND CAPES: Starjammers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The space-spanning X-Men spinoff, filled with dazzle and daddy issues PRO2PRO: Elaine Lee and Michael Wm. Kaluta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 They’re still Starstruck after all these years FLASHBACK: 1980s Starman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The short-lived career of the post-Crisis Starman, Will Payton FLASHBACK: The History is the Hero: 1990s Starman Retrospective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 An in-depth overview of the fascinating saga of multiple Starmen and DC lore PRINCE STREET NEWS: Night of 1000 Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 A new cartoon by Karl Heitmueller, Jr. PRO2PRO: Talking Starman with James Robinson and Tony Harris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 A lavishly illustrated conversation with the writer and artist of the ’90s hit comic BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 BACK ISSUE™ issue 133, February 2022 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Back Issue, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $90 Economy US, $137 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Tony Harris. Starman © DC Comics. Other characters © their respective companies. All Rights Reserved. All editorial matter © 2022 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury except Prince Street News, © Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

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2013 Starman specialty illustration by Tony Harris. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

SPECIAL THANKS VERY SPECIAL Brian Augustyn THANKS Ed Catto Tony Harris Chris Claremont James Robinson Gerry Conway DC Comics Peter David Bill DeSimone Grand Comics Database Becky Harris Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions John Joshua Michael Wm. Kaluta Terry Kavanagh Paul Kupperberg James Heath Lantz Elaine Lee Luigi Novi Zack Smith Roger Stern Len Strazewski Bryan D. Stroud Roy Thomas Mikaal Tomas Toni Torres John Trumbull

Bryan D. Stroud

Very much a product of the times, the Star-Spangled Kid, along with sidekick Stripesy, made his debut in Star Spangled Comics #1 (Oct. 1941). Just prior to the issue’s release, there was a three-page preview of the new feature in the pages of Action Comics #40 (Sept. 1941). The brainchild of writer (and Superman co-creator) Jerry Siegel with art by Hal Sherman, the Kid actually bore more of a resemblance to Bruce Wayne than Clark Kent. Sylvester Pemberton was a brilliant, wealthy, seemingly entitled young man in the lap of luxury who led a double life as the Star-Spangled Kid, fighting against fifth columnists and spies of the Third Reich with nothing more than his acrobatic and handto-hand combat abilities along with a souped-up car dubbed the Star Rocket Racer, driven by his family’s chauffeur and master mechanic, Pat Dugan, a.k.a. Stripesy. He even pulled a couple of tools from his belt in that first story. The obvious twist on the hero-andsidekick theme was that in this partnership, the youngster was the hero and the adult served as sidekick. The duo fought crime together in Star Spangled Comics up until issue #86 (Nov. 1948). They were also part of the roster of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, or “Law’s Legionnaires,” a super-team whose adventures began in Leading Comics #1 (Dec. 1941). Interestingly, the other members of the team including the Crimson Avenger, Green Arrow and Speedy, the Shining Knight, and the Vigilante, were, like the Kid and Stripesy, costumed crimefighters with no superpowers. That title ran until its Spring 1945 edition before giving way to funny-animal stories. [Editor’s note: A previously written Golden Age SSOV script was finally illustrated in the 1970s and was serialized in Adventure Comics. See BACK ISSUE #64 for the story.] As if they weren’t busy enough, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy also appeared in World’s Finest Comics beginning in issue #6 (Summer 1942) through issue 18 (Summer 1945). Ultimately, the patriotic pair went into cold storage at the end of 1948.

BRONZE AGE REVIVAL

The Kid’s next appearance was again in the company of the Seven Soldiers of Victory when the team was revived for the annual Justice League of America crossover event beginning in issue #100 (Aug. 1972). The story’s writer, Len Wein, shared the genesis of the revival in an introduction titled “Too Much of a Good Thing?” in Crisis on Multiple Earths vol. 3 (2004). Newly assigned to write JLA, Len recalled len wein talking it over with editor Julius Schwartz: “Oh, and one more thing,” © DC Comics. Julie added, ‘Your first issue? It’s to be issue #100. It’s the first part of the tenth annual JLA/JSA crossover. You might want to think about doing some-

With Stripesy, the Man Wonder Star-Spangled Kid and Stripsey reversed the adult hero/kid sidekick dynamic. Back cover to Star Spangled Comics #1 (Oct. 1941). Art by Hal Sherman. TM & © DC Comics.

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Coming Out and Coming Back (left) Hal Sherman’s cover to 1941’s Star Spangled Comics #1 introduced the Kid and Stripesy. (right) Nick Cardy’s cover to 1972’s Justice League of America #100 introduced them anew—alongside their Seven Soliders of Victory allies. TM & © DC Comics.

thing special.’ So, I thought. Dear God, did I think. A story big enough to celebrate this comics milestone needed to be something more. And that’s when I remembered the Seven Soldiers of Victory. I don’t recall at this late date exactly where I had first read about the Law’s Legionnaires, as the Seven Soldiers were sometimes called, though I imagine it was probably Roy Thomas’ seminal fanzine Alter Ego. I did remember that the Seven Soldiers had only appeared together twice, both times in the pages of DC’s now long-defunct Leading Comics. “There they were, a third super-team, already owned by DC, just waiting for someone to give them their due. I called Julie and pitched him the idea. ‘You do realize you’re crazy, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘That’s an awful lot of characters to cram into a two-part story.’ ‘Then why don’t we make it a three-parter?’ I suggested. Julie didn’t have to think about it long. ‘Sure, why don’t we?’ “So, there I was, now faced with having to come up with a story that incorporated the entire membership of the JLA, as many members as possible of the Justice Society (I omitted a few for simplicity’s sake), and all eight members of the Seven Soldiers (read the story; you’ll understand). I even included all the JLA’s auxiliary members, like Metamorpho, Zatanna, and my old pal, the Elongated Man. Every Justice Leaguer made an appearance, even if it was only a cameo. “33*HEROES*33 – The Greatest Gathering of SuperStars Ever Recorded! the cover of JLA #100 exclaimed proudly. Who was I to say otherwise? I must have been out of my mind.”

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The appearance of the Star-Spangled Kid in the JLA tale wasn’t that auspicious, but did serve both to introduce readers to this new/old character after nearly a quarter-century absence and to explain that a battle between the Seven Soldiers of Victory and the Nebula-Man led to their being lost at various points in the mists of time. It wouldn’t be nearly as long until the readers saw the Star-Spangled Kid again.

SUPER SQUAD

The Kid fully bounded into the Bronze Age, appropriately enough, in the pages of the newly revived All-Star Comics #58 (Jan.–Feb. 1976), retaining the numbering sequence from the final issue in the Golden Age series. As can be seen on its cover, he’s wielding Starman’s cosmic rod. What gives? And what exactly is the cosmic rod? To answer the latter question, a short visit to Starman’s full reintroduction in the Silver Age is in order, contained in the pages of The Brave and the Bold #61 (Aug.–Sept. 1965), though it should be noted that he made his first Silver Age appearance in the annual JLA/JSA crossover in Justice League of America #29 and 30 in 1964. The B&B story contains a text feature by Julius Schwartz recapping Starman’s origin: “From his boyhood, Ted Knight had an absorbing interest in astronomy. Born to wealth, he was able to devote much time to his hobby, and eventually made a remarkable discovery. He found a way to utilize infra-rays from distant stars with his amazing gravity rod, which was first described as ‘an invention that overcomes the forces of gravity and launches bolts of energy” by radiating starlight.’”

Schwartz further explained how the gravity rod evolved into the cosmic rod: “During his years of retirement, Ted Knight continued to improve his gravity rod until he developed the highly superior cosmic rod, which draws its incredible power from the cosmic forces of the universe.” In fact, within this team-up tale with Black Canary, Starman presented her with a miniature version of the cosmic rod as a contingency weapon for battling the Mist, telling the Blonde Bombshell, “It draws its power from quasars, the greatest known source of energy in the universe!” At the story’s end, Black Canary returned the quasarpowered rod to Ted Knight. Returning to the Star-Spangled Kid: It seemed that Ted Knight was currently relegated to the sidelines with a broken leg and had decided that the cosmic rod shouldn’t sit idle with him, so he loaned it to the Star-Spangled Kid, who made good use of its powers to deal with the criminals of Earth-Two. While he seemed to be having the time of his life learning to use the powers (particularly flight) of the cosmic rod and mopping up criminals, it was soon established that the Star-Spangled Kid was very much a hero out of time. He briefly basked in his victory, but then realized that the only home he ever knew was over 20 years in the past. His former partner, Stripesy, had retired, leaving the Kid feeling very much alone, despite being taken in by the Justice Society of America and being part of a new sub-group dubbed the Super Squad, along with Robin and Power Girl. Writer and editor Gerry Conway had some specific ideas in reviving the Star-Spangled Kid, as he reveals to BACK ISSUE: “I wanted to bring back the AllStar book and the Justice Society, but I also wanted it to focus primarily on the younger members of the group, along with a handful of the older members in a guiding role. That was why I created Power Girl, as a strong, young female lead for the book. Robin, obviously… and the Star-Spangled Kid was the only original Earth-Two hero, as a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, who was a kid, literally. So, it was really kind of a no-brainer, even though I didn’t know that much about the character, but he was someone I could specify having as a new, young member of the All-Star [Super] Squad.” gerry conway As far as deciding to give Starman’s cosmic rod to the Kid, Gerry shares, “I don’t really recall my rationale, but it was probably along the lines of trying to give him a superpower that would connect with the power that Starman previously had to the Star-Spangled Kid. That would increase his viability as a superhero member of the group. It was probably just some random thought that I had. Roy Thomas, who had far more affection for the original JSA and original characters from the Golden Age than I did, really hated a lot of my choices. He was not happy that I just mixed and matched and picked things at random to accomplish my goals. It wasn’t a judicious, well-worked-out rationale. It was more, ‘This is how I Cosmic (Rod) Boy want to end up, how do I get there?’” (top) The Kid wields Starman’s cosmic rod on the Mike Grell-drawn Were there any plans to feature the original Starman in All-Star Comics? “I wasn’t planning on bringing Starcover of All-Star Comics #58 (Jan.–Feb. 1976), introducing the man back,” Conway says, “because I did a 1st Issue Special with an entirely new Starman. I created a different Super Squad and rebooting the JSA’s series. (bottom) A closeup of character and tied him to the Earth-One universe, and the young hero and his hand-me-down weapon, from issue #63. it had nothing to do with the original Justice Society Starman. It wasn’t part of my plan to do anything with TM & © DC Comics. Starmen Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

Like its cinematic counterpart, the X-Men universe in Marvel Comics is full of stars. Some them even travel the cosmos. This is especially true of a group of space travelers created by Dave Cockrum called the Starjammers. As part of our salute to starmen, BACK ISSUE will take a look at this ragtag group of space buccaneers. Don’t let Ch’Od eat the pages before you read this.

THE STARJAMMING BEGINS

James Heath

Legendary artist Dave Cockrum had pretty much made a name for himself in the early to mid-1970s with DC’s Legion of the Super-Heroes and helping Len Wein relaunch the X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #1. When Chris Claremont became writer on the Uncanny X-Men regular series, Cockrum stayed with Marvel’s merry mutants until issue #107 (Oct. 1977). That issue was Lantz the full-fledged debut of a Cockrum creation that would become a beloved part of the X-Men Universe. He and Claremont took Cyclops and the gang “Where No X-Man Has Gone Before” when they met the Starjammers, who had made a brief cameo at the end of Uncanny X-Men #104. The Starjammers almost never came to be. Cockrum had wanted them to have their own series with a tryout in either Marvel Premiere or Marvel Spotlight. When those anthologies were unavailable, Cockrum showed Claremont his concepts and drawings. Claremont then asked for the Starjammers to appear in X-Men. Claremont even mentioned a Marvel Premiere story for the Starjammers in his interview with Margaret O’Connell in The Comics Journal #50. Yet, that Starjammers adventure never went beyond the proposal stages. Various sources including the aforementioned TCJ interview with Chris Claremont have stated that Claremont himself, knowing X-Men #107 was Cockrum’s last issue, had been unsuccessful in convincing him to not to put the Starjammers in that issue. This was because Claremont had felt Cockrum’s team of intergalactic rebels was a wonderful concept that he shouldn’t have just given away. However, Cockrum was impatient to see the Starjammers come to life on the comics pages. Cockrum did later hold over a creation from his return to X-Men for his creator-owned Futurians graphic novel. The character of Silkie was originally intended to debut in Uncanny X-Men #150. Yet, Marvel didn’t make a deal to the artist’s satisfaction. Uncanny X-Men #107’s “Where No X-Man Has Gone Before,” a title dave cockrum that is an homage to Star Trek, is part © Eliot R. Brown. of “The Phoenix Saga.” We see the X-Men go beyond Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Salem Center, and New York in that comic. The band of mutants are transported into the Shi’Ar Empire in search of Erik the Red, who abducted Lilandra Neramani. Lilandra opposes

We Be Jammin’ X-Men #107 (Oct. 1977), the Starjammers’ first appearance. Cover by Dave Cockrum. TM & © Marvel.

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Big Daddy (top) Front and back of a 1992 Starjammers trading card. Art by Jim Lee. (bottom) A Corsair illo by Cockrum, circa 1990s. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Corsair © Marvel.

her power-mad brother, Shi’Ar Emperor D’Ken. Erik the Red wants to sacrifice her to the Soul Drinker. The Starjammers, led by Corsair, come to the X-Men’s aid when they are outnumbered. Thus begins the introduction of a group of allies who would become an important part of X-Men lore. It should noted that while Dave Cockrum created the Starjammers, Chris Claremont’s work on them is heavily influenced by his love of science fiction. The title of X-Men #107’s story isn’t the only tribute to the genre. Corsair often mentions the works of Asimov, Burroughs, and Heinlein when he discusses his boyhood dreams of voyaging to other worlds. He named the Starjammers’ robot/A.I. “Waldo” after the Robert A. Heinlein story of the same name. The Starjammers themselves are a band of rebel freebooters like those battling Darth Vader in Star Wars, and the interactions and banter between Ch’Od and Raza Longknife could be considered akin to those of Spock and Bones in Star Trek. Claremont and Margaret O’Connell discussed his love of science fiction and its influence on his writing in the interview published in The Comics Journal. The same could be said of Dave Cockrum’s art, for one just needs to look at the pages of Uncanny X-Men #107 and other issues by Claremont and Cockrum featuring the Starjammers to see how space adventures in all types of media had a hand in bringing fans to the Moon, the stars, and to infinity and beyond.

STARS OF THE JAM

The Starjammers’ formation is perhaps best chronicled in a backup story “Starjammers Aloft” by Chris Claremont and John Bolton. That tale is featured in Classic X-Men #15 (Nov. 1987), which also reprints Uncanny X-Men #108 with four extra pages drawn by Chuck Patton. After his wife’s’ death, Christopher Summers is a broken man in the Shi’Ar Empire mines. He defends the white-furred felinoid female, named Hepzibah by Mephitisoid, from being beaten. The amphibious Saurid Ch’Od and the cybernetic Raza Longknife, in their search for Hepzibah, fear he’ll alert the guards of their presence. They debate whether or not to kill Christopher. His next action convinces them to let him live. Yet, Ch’Od also sees remnants of the man Christopher Summers once was lurking within the human’s psyche. He helps Ch’Od and Raza free Hepzibah. She forms a blood-bond with Christopher that grows into a romance. Summers joins their rebellion against Emperor D’Ken, using the moniker that was his flight call sign, Corsair, and thus, the Starjammers, named for the sentient starship they had stolen, were born along with their rebellion against the tyranny of Emperor D’Ken and those that followed him when necessary. The Starjammers, like many groups in the X-Men and Marvel Universes, have a rich roster. Perhaps the best character to begin our look at these intergalactic freebooters is their captain, Corsair. Corsair is actually Christopher 14 • BACK ISSUE • Starmen Issue

elaine lee WomeninComics.Wiki.

Starwomen They’re Still Starstruck Elaine Lee and Michael Wm. Kaluta

michael wm. kaluta

interview by

Zack Smith

Kyle Cassidy.

It was only a chance encounter at a restaurant in Manhattan, but it led to a galactic adventure that’s spanned the stage, audio, a half-dozen publishers, and more than 40 years of friendship and collaboration. Starstruck is one of those comics that’s almost impossible to describe. It’s profane, whimsical, intricate, cartoony, innocent, sexy, and most of all, completely itself. It’s Star Wars by way of Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Altman, exploring and subverting genres through unreliable narrators, decade-spanning storylines, and many, many puns. It’s been revised, reformatted, reissued, and revived multiple times, sometimes with new material added that gives new context to the old material. It’s never been promoted or hailed as much as such works from the same era as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, but for some fans and creators, it’s considered almost as influential.

And it continues to return and evolve, in comics, as audio adventures, and perhaps even more in the future. To get a sense of the history of Starstruck, on behalf of BACK ISSUE I spoke with its original co-creators, Elaine Lee (Vamps) and Michael Wm. Kaluta (The Shadow) about its origins as an Off-Broadway play, its journey to (and from) Marvel’s Epic imprint, and how the work has evolved over time. Most importantly, we talked about their friendship—one that, like their work, is still going strong all these years later. The following has been edited and condensed from several very chaotic Zoom calls. We would like to thank Kaluta for installing Zoom and figuring out how to use it and getting a new microphone to participate in this article. That’s a professional right there. – Zack Smith

Meet Galatia-9 and Brucilla, on the original Michael Wm. Kaluta cover art for the 1984 Starstruck graphic novel, published as Marvel Graphic Novel #13. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Starstruck TM & © Elaine Lee and Michael Wm. Kaluta.

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Starstruck– The Stage Play Courtesy of Elaine Lee, photos from the first and second New York City productions of Starstruck, a stage play by Elaine Lee, Norfleet Lee, and Dale Place. Photos by Sean Smith. Starstruck–The Play © Elaine Lee, Norfleet Lee, and Dale Place.

ZACK SMITH: Elaine, good to have you here. What have you been up to lately? ELAINE LEE: Oh, God, what have I been doing? Actually, for the past several years I’ve been the marketing director for an arts organization and kind of getting out of debt and making money. [laughs] And I’m hoping before too long I’ll not have to work at this job anymore and can write again. But until then, with Starstruck, people keep finding it! There are certain characters that you know because you’re hearing them in your head. You know how they’re phrasing things, their vocal patterns, the rhythm of their speech and all of that. Brucilla was one, because she speaks in alliteration, like she’ll have a line that has all words that start with “B,” or some other letter. Sometimes that can take me a little bit to get into the swing of, but once you’re into the swing of it, then you can do it easily. [Michael Kaluta joins us] SMITH: So, let’s go back to the beginning. When did when you first conceive that universe? Did you start building it before the play started? MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA: I remember you and Susan [Norfleet Lee], sitting there at the table in the restaurant [The Library, a bar/café in Manhattan], writing s*** down. 20 • BACK ISSUE • Starmen Issue

LEE: Well, we were talking about props and things like that, then. With the play, a lot of it was written, or at least it was plotted out on those index cards, I remember that. KALUTA: I was extremely impressed because it was science fiction, but it wasn’t MAD magazine-science fiction. You know, it wasn’t pandering. LEE: My feeling is if you’re doing something like humorous science fiction, or if you’re doing humor, it’s better that you don’t want to do like Spaceballs. I mean, I love Mel Brooks for what he is, but I’m not interested in that wacky kind of thing. I feel like what makes it humorous is the fact that the characters take it so seriously. The events are crazy, but for the characters, it has to be real. And certainly, for the actors that played the characters in the play, it had to be real to them. There had to be real life-and-death stakes. And it could be an amorphous blob of a ship made out of the living flesh of Galactic Girl Guides, but it had to be real to the people that were in the ship, and the people that were interacting with the ship. So, I think that was part of it, but the play came out of a confluence of things that just came together. My husband at the time, Dale Place, brought an issue of Heavy Metal home, and I fell in love with the European comics. I was into Moebius and the rest. And, my sister

LEE: With the Starstruck play, we were thinking more Barbarella than Star Wars, because the sets were made from junk and Christmas lights and refrigerator doors and Hot Wheels tracks and all kinds of crazy stuff we found in dumpsters, and the costumes were made from pieces of old Halloween costumes and just whatever we had. KALUTA: But what they all had in common was the play. It didn’t call attention to itself like, “I’ll go over to the Hot Wheels track and get in touch with the Galactic Overlord,” it wasn’t that sort of thing. It was all there if you looked at it, but it wasn’t there presenting itself as those pieces of equipment. LEE: My favorite were these big levers Brucilla would pull when she was driving the ship, and they were just card table legs with something Michael stuck on the ends of them! But they still went back and forth.

So, we started out that way. I think there probably wouldn’t have been a comic book if we hadn’t worked together on the play first, for a lot of reasons. One is because one of the first things Michael told me was, “I’m sick of comics. I never want to do them anymore.” SMITH: Why were you sick of them? KALUTA: Because every script that came up was, quote, “ripped from the headlines” by the writers, whether they were told to do it or not. I dealt with that in the Frankenstein backup feature [“Spawn of Frankenstein” in The Phantom Stranger] and a few other things. They were all pulling their information from what was happening in the day, so invariably there was a real bad guy that followed a woman and was about to do horrible things to her, and then Frankenstein’s monster came in and killed him. That kind of stuff. I was like, “I want to be a comic-book artist, and then here’s what you have to do, you have to keep regurgitating these stories where

Here’s Bru for You Oh, wow! Kaluta’s delicate linework in this 1980 Brucilla plate from the aforementioned Starstruck Portfolio is extraordinary. Starstruck TM & © Elaine Lee and Michael Wm. Kaluta.

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Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art. – John Keats

Ed Catto

Imagine creating a comic hero with a proud historical name, the everyman quality of Marvel Comics, and a unique fresh setting. It seems like a foolproof recipe for success. Instead, like a competent athlete overshadowed by a younger brother’s extraordinary success, the 1988 Starman’s fame was eclipsed. He would be relegated to the bargain boxes at the local comic shop and occasional guest appearances. But there was something wonderful and bright and optimistic about this 1988 Starman series. Like a glance up into a sky full of stars on a summer night, this comic was full of hope, wonder, and potential.

ANOTHER STAR IS BORN

Lucky Star Meet Will Payton, DC’s latest Starman! Detail from the cover of Starman #1 (Oct. 1988). Art by Tom Lyle. TM & © DC Comics.

While the name Starman has a long history, this incarnation of Starman was meant to be something new and different. In the first issue (Oct. 1988), editor Bob Greenberger provided two text pieces. “Star Light, Star Bright, Fourth Star I See Tonight” explained the history of the various Starmen that preceded this character. The second text piece, “The Rebirth of Starman,” ran on the inside back cover (!) and detailed how DC group editor Mike Gold was challenged at a managers’ retreat to create a hero from an existing name. “The retailers didn’t want to bet on the same thing,” Gold recalls to BACK ISSUE. “They wanted to give something new a try.” As Greenberger recounted, creating a new Hourman was of interest, but that name was already in use in Infinity, Inc. And so they moved on to Starman. The company-wide Invasion crossover series was also being planned, and there were natural synergies that could be leveraged with Starman. Greenberger also detailed how he recruited writer Roger Stern and artist Tom Lyle. The first issue got things rolling along quickly. Readers are introduced to a hiker who is found in the wilderness. It’s all very mysterious and creepy. Soon, the hiker, Will Payton, is on the run from the authorities, discovers his powers, and tries to sort it all out. His saving grace, in his evolution to becoming a superhero, is his sister Jayne. She’s what we would today call a fangirl. Jayne has a deep knowledge of how superheroes operate and has the skills to design his costume. Ed Konecny of Comics, Etc. has fond memories of Starman. “Unlike most characters at the time, there was no direct lineage to the last generation of hero,” Konecny tells BACK ISSUE. “Ted Knight [the original Starman] had long since been obscured by the Crisis [on Infinite Earths] events. Golden Age characters had lost their appeal, and on the rise were characters of ‘true grit.’ Amongst the strangeness of the late ’80s, a story about a lone hiker being found within a circle charred into the ground, and without a mark on him, smacked of aliens, and the title ‘Starman’ was still fresh from Jeff Bridges’ attempt to bring a character of the same name.” Starmen Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

THE ‘STAR’ MAN’S SECRET ORIGIN OF STARMAN

Getting Star-ted Peeking into Starman #1: (top) Meet the Payton family! (middle) Will grabs his new super-threads. (bottom) Tom Lyle’s early costume designs, from the letters page. TM & © DC Comics.

brian augustyn Gage Skidmore.

Roger Stern’s involvement was fitting. Not only was he a top-notch writer, but the German word “stern” means “star.” So, in essence, he was a star man creating and writing Starman. “Roger Stern is absolutely brilliant,” recalls Mike Gold. “When people talk about his work—particularly about his Marvel stuff—everybody remembers it so fondly, and some of the stories were so critical to the continuity and were so well done and so well received.” “Here’s the Secret Origin of Starman: It all began in late September of 1987,” explains Roger Stern. “I had just finished plotting a Superman Annual and my first two Power of the Atom stories when I got a call from Mike Gold—then an editor at DC—who was wondering if I might be interested in writing a new series for him. Now, I’d known Gold since back in the day, when he was connected with the Chicago Comicon, and I thought that it would be fun to work with him, so I said, ‘Sure, what do you have in mind?’ He said that DC wanted to launch a new Starman comic, and that I would have carte blanche to create a wholly new superhero. Mike told me to start with the name and go from there. The only other direction I was given was to make him different from DC’s previous Starmen. “The name ‘Starman’ suggested a whole set of possibilities as to his powers. I decided that this Starman would be an ordinary man who suddenly has strange new powers and abilities thrust upon him. Through a sort of cosmic accident, he becomes a walking fusion reactor. He’s superstrong, but not infinitely so. He can fly at supersonic speeds. He can radiate blinding light and blistering heat.” Stern may have also been very much in the Superman mindset when he created Starman. “And, lifting a long-forgotten power from the Golden Age Superman, I gave him the ability to change his facial appearance,” reveals Stern. “In that way, Starman could have a different face from that of his civilian identity, so he wouldn’t need a mask.” Stern did have a challenge during the new hero’s development. “Okay, the powers are the easy part,” he says. “The more important thing is who Starman is, and what are the depths of his character. As I recall, I came up with the name Will Payton through the old tried and true method of flipping through a telephone directory and sticking my finger down on a page at random. That’s how I found the ‘Payton’ surname. The ‘William’ came from one of those ‘Name Your Baby’ books. And I decided to make him a young guy in his mid-20s, a creative type who avoids the nine-to-five rat race, to give him enough freedom of movement to lead a double life.

STARMAN AS EVERYMAN

Brian Augustyn, the series’ second editor, says, “One of the things I really enjoyed [about Starman] was the Silver Age vibe. It was not quite as intentional as Spider-Man. Marv [Wolfman] and Len [Wein] had done a similar job with [Marvel’s] Nova. I got that vibe. The heroics on top of the personal life.” Stern reveals that that was indeed the plan. “Anyway, the underlying idea of the series was to follow Will though his suddenly more complicated life, as he learns what it means to be a superhero,” Starman’s writer notes. “You know, the age-old question, ‘What can one man do?’ Well, Will Payton quickly learns that for him the answer is: ‘You can do plenty!’” “Starman had a nice throwback quality”’ adds Augustyn. “Without being anything but modern. Not drippily nostalgic, but it had the right vibe.” 30 • BACK ISSUE • Starmen Issue

“With conscience-deprived heroes indistinguishable from their adversaries, the Dark Age was typified by implausible, steroid-inspired physiques, outsized weapons (guns, knives, claws), generous blood letting and vigilante justice.” – Mark Voger, The Dark Age: Grim, Great & Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics

Bill DeSimone

…With one notable, contrasting exception: Starman, created by James Robinson and Tony Harris. Robinson and Harris created a story unique to the moment of the ’90s. Thematically and visually, their Starman offers an alternative to the clichés of the Dark Ages, from the style and physiques of the main players to the supporting cast of low-profile characters as allies and enemies. They acknowledge, but don’t get derailed by, company crossovers and continuity. Years before Grant Morrison did it in his Batman R.I.P. run, Robinson connected previously inconsistent bits of stories using the Starman name through his then-current (1990s) sensibility. For Harris’ part, if Batman: The Animated Series was Dark Deco, what he did here was Stars Deco. Starman, the series, ran for over 80 issues, with the penultimate arc, “Grand Guignol,” tying all but one of the previous plotlines together. Background stories branched off into Annuals, Specials, and short stories, with a few company crossovers added in. Robinson wrote them all, so there is coherence, a thread connecting all the appearances. There are no throwaway lines; lines that don’t seem to fit actually pay off in later issues. Robinson uses Golden Age and Silver Age stories and characters as inspiration for “new history”: retelling events and relationships to tie into his current story, as well as creating characters that feel Golden Age-ish, but are completely new. Robinson used not only the characters’ history, but his own history as a fan to inform the overall story, making history the hero of the 1990s Starman.

THE STORY

I Don’t Want to Be a Star Following its “Zero Hour” spinoff Starman #0, came the electrifying Starman #1 (Nov. 1994). Cover by Tony Harris. TM & © DC Comics.

The narrative of the series followed the adventures of Jack Knight, reluctant inheritor of the Starman legacy, who grows into the role and makes it his own. Jack is the son of Ted Knight, the original Golden Age Starman. After various physical and mental crises, Ted had decided to pass the Starman role to his other son, David. When David is murdered, Jack takes on the role; first to avenge David, but also to convince, maybe coerce, his dad to use his scientific genius for bigger purposes. From Starman #3 (Jan. 1995): JACK: I want you to be Edison, pop. The next Edison. You’ve played around with your science… squandered it, inventing cosmic-powered weapons for fighting silly, sad villains. You should have been inventing cosmic-powered cars and heating and… ecologically safe devices for mankind. Superheroes. Supervillains. It’s all self-propagating kid stuff. A chance for grown men to put their underwear on outside their tights. You’ve wasted a lot of your life with all that, Dad. I don’t want you to waste any more of it. You begin developing your cosmic science in better wiser ways… and I’ll carry on being Starman. Not by going out on patrol, though. That’s what cops are for. But if I’m needed… if I see a wrong being committed, I’ll don the sheriff’s star again. TED: …You have a deal. Admittedly, Robinson spends a lot more pages on Jack’s end of the deal than Ted’s, but this passage does reflect the attitude Jack tries to affect, that superheroing may be silly but someone needs to do it. Not always successfully, but it’s his consistent attempt that makes him unique as a ’90s hero. And he does grow into the role as he experiences the events of the series. Not necessarily in story order: • He avenges his brother by killing David’s murderer, then gets drugged and raped by the murderers’ sister. • He reconciles with his brother after his death, not just as a psychological metaphor, but through an extra-natural interaction explained by the end of the series. Starmen Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

Golden Age All-Stars Writer James Robinson began working with DC’s earliest superheroes in the 1993–1994 four-issue prestige format miniseries The Golden Age, breathtakingly illustrated, as shown here, by Paul Smith. Page 2 of issue #1 (Sept. 1993) in original art form, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), and the published page lushly colored by Richard Ory. TM & © DC Comics.

• He allies with reformed villains like the Shade, Solomon Grundy, and Jake “Bobo” Benetti, then has to fight de-reformed villains like the Shade, Solomon Grundy, and Jake “Bobo” Benetti; then re-allies with them… or not. It’s complicated. • He meets the original Golden Age Justice Society members, including rejuvenated ones like Alan Scott, the Green Lantern/Sentinel; normally aging ones like his dad and Wesley Dodds, the Sandman; and the deceased ones, and not via time travel. • He is mentored by members of the original Society, and in turn mentors their legacy heroes. • He meets, works, and occasionally fights with the 1990s Justice League, some New Gods, Captain Marvel, Batman, Hellboy, and Ultra the Multi-Alien, but in his most desperate fight his allies are a non-powered family of cops and a handful of low-powered, low-profile heroes: the Elongated Man, Black Condor, Adam Strange, the new Phantom Lady, and an extra, non-blood-related Starman or two. • He meets immortals, reincarnations, spirits, psychics, and magicians. Did I mention he wanted his dad to pursue science? • He travels back in time to meet Superman’s father on Krypton, overshoots his point of origin to go forward in time to find an ally from his present time jeopardizing existence, gets back to his present time, then travels back in time again to ensure that his father meets his mother—and if that wasn’t enough to wrap his head around, he can’t figure out how to get back to his present. • His rape resulted in a child. Let’s just say he ultimately wins the superpowered custody battle and takes full responsibility for raising his son, which leads to… • He finds love, loses love, and then must decide how being Starman affects regaining that love. • He passes his name and tech legacy on to the next generation and walks away, never to be seen again. Not in terms of publishing, but in continuity: Since Starman #80 (Aug. 2001), the Jack Knight character has not been used in-story by DC. Jack’s story is told in arcs within in the series. The timeline from Starman: Secret Files and Origins #1 (Apr. 1998) puts about half of the events in chronological story order, not reading or publication order, because many of the events are revealed outside of Jack’s current timeline. The related adventures outside the series aren’t necessary to follow the plots, but they fill in gaps between the issues. Setups and backstories are presented in individual episodes between the arcs, such as the “Times Past” chapters and the annual “Talking with David” issues, which then “back fill” the chronological timeline. Robinson wrote in the text page of Starman #0 (Oct. 1994): “…we’re going to have an irregular series of single tales loosely grouped together under the banner of TIMES PAST… when they appear, they’ll focus on different moments/events/singular occurrences in Opal City’s history and the surrounding Turk County… They’ll feature guest artists and be little sojourns away from Jack’s adventures in the present. Any excuse to get back to my history books.” As a reader, you can enjoy these issues as a break in the action. But if you pay attention to them, you see where Robinson foreshadows events in the current and future storylines. David Goyer, in his introduction to the 1999 trade paperback Starman: Times Past, wrote: “The tales are narrated by the Shade, Opal City’s immortal scoundrel—a former villain who may or may not have turned over a new leaf. Our entry point into the stories is the Shade’s own journal-pages that we, and Jack himself, are now privy to…” 40 • BACK ISSUE • Starmen Issue

interview by

J o h n Tr u m b u l l

Jack Knight wasn’t your usual superhero, and Starman wasn’t your usual comic book. In the sea of books that debuted in the early ’90s comics boom, Starman was unique. It established a heritage for the name where none existed before, tying the five unrelated Starmen DC had previously published together into one heroic dynasty. It gave us the new fictional playground of Opal City. Moreover, Starman let us see the DC Universe in a whole new way, as we discovered the pop-culture passions of the characters that inhabited it. We learned that the villain Copperhead collected Bakelite radios, that ’80s Starman Will Payton was part of the KISS Army, and that Batman’s favorite Woody Allen movie was Crimes and Misdemeanors. Our guide on this journey was Jack Knight, son of the Golden Age Starman from the Justice Society, a collectibles dealer who wanted nothing to do with superheroing, going into the family business against his better judgment. Jack Knight was a character who spoke to me and many other readers during his 80-issue run from 1994–2001, and it was a pleasure to finally speak with James Robinson and Tony Harris, the writer and artist who started it all. This interview is compiled from separate phone conversations with Robinson and Harris in June 2021 and copy-edited by myself and James Robinson. – John Trumbull

A STAR(MAN) IS BORN

JOHN TRUMBULL: James, how did your involvement with Starman start? Did you have a particular attachment to that character, or an interest in the Golden Age characters in general? JAMES ROBINSON: Actually, it was neither. It was me really desperately wanting a monthly comic. At the time, the Will Payton Starman was limping towards cancellation, and so I came up with an idea for Will Payton, not realizing that they were planning to kill him off. And then at the same time, I looked at Starman as a character, and I realized there’ve been all these incarnations of Starman, and yet there was nothing that linked any of them. There was no sense of the lineage in the way there was with the Flash or the Atom, or any of the others. The most there was,

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was the Will Payton meets David Knight story, which is in a couple issues of the Will Payton Starman. [Starman vol. 1 #26–27, Sept.–Oct. 1990.] And this was also at a time when comics at DC were sort of changing a little bit, because they were beginning to have a bit more of a mature feeling, while still retaining some of the innocence they had earlier to that… I’m thinking things like Batman: Year One, Matt Wagner’s Demon, Gaiman’s Sandman, and Chaykin’s Blackhawk. Now, comics seem so mature, I wonder who their audience is, but back then, there were still books that sort of were all ages in that you could read them when you were relatively young and then get something out of them as you were older. Then, a bit later you had the advent of Vertigo and while there were some fantastic books coming out of Vertigo, it was very much an adult line, and as a result, I felt that that DC Comics kind of decided they didn’t need as much of that sense of maturity in their superhero titles... and that mix of maturity and innocence I had enjoyed as a fan seemed to ebb, and the books started to be feel little bit less sophisticated. At least that’s how I felt. I’m sure others would beg to differ. And at the time in DC’s lore, Ted Knight was off in Valhalla [with the JSA] fighting the Norse gods, so there was no way that another cosmic rod could be built. That cleared the field for Will Payton in the comics. So by the time they killed Will Payton I was like, “Oh, my God, I could do Starman now!” And Archie Goodwin,

Seeing Stars (top) Starman writer and co-creator James Robinson. (bottom) Original Starman artist and co-creator Tony Harris (left) with Jason Adams (and the cosmic staff) at HeroesCon 2006 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Robinson photo © DC Comics. Harris photo courtesy of Becky Harris.

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who I had done The Golden Age with, knew I wanted a book, [and] was on the lookout for something for me as well. I’d come up with an idea for Captain Comet earlier on that had been squelched, so I was trying to find the right property. And when I found out that they killed Will Payton off and cancelled Starman, Archie secured me Starman to do as a new character, and that was when the idea of Jack Knight and David Knight and everything fell in place for me. TRUMBULL: What were your initial ideas to revamp Will Payton? ROBINSON: I wanted it to be edgier and more down to earth and have more of a noir feel. I know that obviously the sun is a star, and so the term “stellar energy” is meaningless. It’s really solar energy. So obviously there’s the real physics, but I still felt that artistically, the fact that Will Payton would never do much at night when the stars are out just felt odd to me. I wanted to inject more of a sense of noir, and because he was always out in the Southwest, that “Western Noir” feel… the movie Red Rock West with Nicholas Cage being a good example. I wanted to give Will Payton’s adventures a more uneasy feel, so everything didn’t look so clean. That was the initial general feeling. It was more a tone I wanted to set than any great story ideas. TRUMBULL: Was there any point when you said, as you were developing the series, “Hey, I’ve got this David Knight character right here”? Did you ever consider using David as the protagonist, or was he always just going to be the sacrificial lamb? ROBINSON: I was going to try and form more of a lineage even with the Will Payton stuff. But when Ted Knight returned to the DC Universe, having a blood link between him and the latest Starman, I thought was better and stronger. And then obviously I wanted to start with this dramatic death, which eliminated David Knight. It feels like a bit of a trope now, but as a younger writer, I just thought that it was a great way to start it. But it did make Jack clean and fresh and a new character. TRUMBULL: And how did Tony Harris come into the picture? ROBINSON: We were looking at different artists, trying to find the right person. And I thought very strongly that it had to be somebody that understood and enjoyed drawing shadows and darkness. So actually at the time, that eliminated about three quarters of the artists [available] because so much of the artists back then did stuff that was bright and open. So finding available artists that enjoyed drawing shadows became quite the manhunt. I had been aware of Tony through being friends with the Gaijin Studio guys [Author’s note: An Atlanta-based art studio with Tony Harris, Cully Hamner, Adam Hughes, Brain Stelfreeze, and others]. So I had met these guys at conventions. I’d met Tony. He hadn’t done very much at the time, but I remember seeing and being impressed with— he did three issues of Nightbreed, the Clive Barker book, that stuck in my head. I brought him up to Archie, and Archie liked him too, and so he came on board. TRUMBULL: Tony, where were you in your career at that point? TONY HARRIS: I had been doing work for the independent market for Now and Innovation and First Comics and Nightmare on Elm Street stuff and Twilight Zone and Doc Savage and just a lot of anything that I could get, basically. That was a time when there was just a ton of small publishers and they all paid page rates. That time had not died yet in the industry. At that time, the way things were done pretty much were, you spent your time in the trenches working for the indie market until you had

Staff Infection (right) Original Starman Ted Knight (and colorist Richard Ory) make electrifying use of the cosmic rod in The Golden Age #3 (Feb. 1994), by James Robinson and Paul Smith. (left) In the pages of Starman, Tony Harris modified the staff’s appearance, as detailed in this Starman Secret Files and Origins #1 diagram. TM & © DC Comics.

stuff when I design costumes. The Great Machine in Ex Machina is the same way. And I don’t buy people becoming seamstresses and they can instantly sew these amazing costumes. So I said, “Well, if I was Jack, and my dad gave me this powerful cosmic rod and I had to defend the city in my own way and become Jack, what would I do?” Well, my first inclination was, “I’ve got this cosmic rod that is bright as hell and blasts all this energy out of it that’s harnessed from planets and from the cosmos. That’s going to be really bright, and I don’t want my corneas burned out. I’ll just give him some goggles.” So I don’t know if it was James’ idea, but I do know that I remember having that line of thought. ROBINSON: And it should be said that we introduced the long spear-like cosmic rod, which was a holdover from The Golden Age. So [we] brought that over to the main comic. So he had the spear-like cosmic rod, which we had for the first arc, and then Tony redesigned it into the shape it is now. HARRIS: I even went to the engineering school here locally and spoke to electrical engineers and a bunch of different departments there. And if you look in the Secret Files and Origins, you remember the page of the entire diagram of the cosmic rod? If you look at all the numbers pointing to different sections of it and then read what each thing is, every single thing there came directly out of the mouths of engineers. I explained to them what this cosmic rod was supposed to do. I went to these experts, the nerds, [asking], “If this could actually be built, what would this s*** be called? How could you even possibly do this?” And they gave me all these terms and I can actually sit with any fan, if they ever care to at a show, we can go through the diagram and take each term for each part of the cosmic rod, and I can tell you what those guys told me. TRUMBULL: Yeah. I’m looking at the diagram now. You’ve got the discharge scoop, the energy level indicator, the focusing lens... HARRIS: Those are all actual engineering terms that came from these guys. And when I explained to them that you’re supposed to be able to plug, stab it into the earth or any celestial body, and it harnesses the gravitational field and the power of gravity, and then puts it into this rod and transforms it into raw energy and harnesses it in the rod. And then it has focusing beams and all this kind of stuff. So it’s all like, Nerd Real. Starmen Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

ROBINSON: Which we see still in the Stargirl TV show. HARRIS: Yeah. And I’m very honored that they decided to stay with it. Them sticking with that is super cool. They’re actually shooting Season Two right now. James is in Atlanta. And I was just talking to my wife today in the car, and I said, “You know what? I should call James and see if we can go up for a visit on the set because I would love to get my picture taken with the cosmic rod.” [laughs] COVID kind of nixed everything when they were doing Season One. Because I even invited James to my wedding in October, and he was told that if he left to go anywhere that he’d have to be quarantined again before he could return to set. So it was just impossible for him to come to the wedding. TRUMBULL: That’s a shame. HARRIS: But that’s over now. So I’m hoping that I can talk to James and arrange something so we can go up and see stuff. Cause there’s all these rumors now flying around that Jack is going to be showing up in Season Two. And then my version of the Shade ended Season One, which I was also very flattered about. So yeah, I don’t know. These pictures are floating around, and I can’t confirm anything obviously, but it sure as hell looks like Jack to me. [laughs] ROBINSON: Sorry, Tony. I guess I can reveal now, as this interview won’t appear until 2022, that Season Two features Eclipso, and the Shade has a prominent role, but Jack Knight doesn’t appear.

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THE SHADE: AMORAL ALLY

TRUMBULL: James, I understand the Shade grew out of an idea you had for the Ringmaster as an amoral character in a Doc Samson proposal you did for Marvel. ROBINSON: Yes! That’s absolutely right. I had pitched a Doc Samson series a long time ago and again, it had more of a creepy, darker feel in terms of the kind of book I had in mind for that was sort of like when Bruce Jones did an incredible run of the Hulk [The Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #34–76, Jan. 2002–Oct. 2004]. I had this vague template of this character in my mind, who at Marvel would have been the Ringmaster, and who obviously became the Shade in Starman. Originally, I had planned for him to be much more of an amoral character. He’s still pretty amoral, but the series in a way is about him growing a conscience and regaining his humanity. So the character grew and evolved, but originally, he was going to be a much more amoral character. In fact originally, I kicked around the idea that he’d reveal himself to be a real villain for Jack to face. However, ultimately, I turned him into a hero, which I think suited him. TRUMBULL: And he certainly had a long history as a villain, although he was much more generic before you got your hands on him. He didn’t even have an origin, did he?

just made it, “Tony’s gone when Jack’s gone.” And it was, I think, a very decent segue into Peter [Snejbjerg] coming in. ROBINSON: And you know, doing a monthly book for an artist… All writers do more than one book a month, but a monthly book for an artist is a huge responsibility. And I think after a while, that wears you down and it means you don’t have enough time to pursue any of the other creative avenues that you might want to pursue. So I think that it’s fair to say that Tony was at that point. Towards the end there, you’ll see that he wasn’t managing the amount of issues he used to. There’s a few places where Mark Buckingham and/or Steve Yowell would fill in for him, as opposed to doing “Times Past.” And this isn’t me saying anything negative about Tony. It was just a lot to take on for a long time. TRUMBULL: James, you’ve written that you nearly left the book at that point as well. ROBINSON: When Archie passed, it was a blow for both me and Tony. And I think there was an emotional aspect to [Tony] saying, “Maybe this is time for me to go.” I almost sent Jack into space, with the idea that another writer could pick up if they wanted to, or he goes off into space, the book would end, and the reader could write their own further adventures of Jack. But if you want to get all poetic about it, Jack was ringing my ear, “You can’t give up on me yet,” and I stayed around. And also, at the time I had made friends with David Goyer, who wrote the “Stars My Destination” arc with me, and really kept me creatively engaged at a time when I was down. You know, I was going through a divorce too, at the time, which was very depressing. So it was an odd time for me. And David Goyer really kept me engaged, which I’ll always be grateful for. And also there was the uncertainty of finding the right artist to take over. Luckily, I had known Peter [Snejbjerg] for many, many years because I had done a Grendel series with Teddy Kristiansen’s studio, and I had met him many, many years ago. But I knew Peter Snejbjerg then. So when his name came up— I might have even suggested him, thinking about it— he was the perfect replacement for Tony, in that he also understood shadow, and he immediately got all of the sort of feel of the stuff that I needed from him. So that helped to reenergize me as well, apart from David Goyer’s involvement. To be fair to Peter, he almost did as many [issues] as Tony, and it really did become his book by the end. It definitely feels like a book with two artists in their styles. I find that very interesting, without choosing one. The stories that Tony and then Peter did definitely suit the styles of Tony and Peter in a big way. TRUMBULL: I understand there was also some bad feeling between you two when Jack lost his tattoos as a result of the cliffhanger in Starman #52 (Apr. 1999). ROBINSON: [Jack] got blasted and his body was incinerated, when he saved the life of Adam Strange’s wife Alanna. That was the cliffhanger. TRUMBULL: And when Jack was resurrected in the next issue, most of his body was cloned, so he lost all of his tattoos. HARRIS: I felt like that was really a personal “F*** you, Tony. You don’t like my ideas for this or that?” I really did feel like he did that on purpose. ROBINSON: I hadn’t intended to remove the tattoos. That wasn’t even on my mind. It was only after I was writing it, I realized, “Oh, my God, he’d have no tattoo.” So it was an accident, but I think Tony, having left the

book, saw it as a personal slight. He was upset. Then I got a bit upset, he thought I was capable of being so petty. We had a disagreement for a little while, but we obviously made up, as we always seem to. I actually understand his point of view that he must’ve thought it was deliberate, but it absolutely wasn’t. HARRIS: James and I are very different. But he insists that he never ever meant for that to be a personal thing. And he’s my friend. We have both forgiven each other for a lot. And if my friend tells me that he didn’t mean it and he didn’t do it on purpose, then I have to take him at his word.

Starmen Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69

which ones were his favorite and which ones were my favorite. And then he was going to pencil half of the six, I was going to pencil the other half, and he was going to paint over my pencils, and I was going to paint over his pencils. TRUMBULL: Gotcha. HARRIS: And we’d never heard of anything done like that before. Usually, it was Alex working with somebody [else] and Neal Adams or somebody would do this really cool pencil layout and then Alex would Xerox it and blow it up to whatever size he needed. But in this case, I’d never heard of anything where two guys went back and forth like that. So it’s an absolute, 100%, true collaboration. You can’t tell where one guy stops and the other one starts. And that just really set us on fire. And DC agreed to it.

So we set about, and then I think Alex started and so he penciled everything that he was going to pencil and roughed in just outlines of where my stuff was going to go. And then [he] constructed a gigantic box and FedExed it to me on DC’s bill. TRUMBULL: Wow. HARRIS: And then I got it and went in, and penciled all my stuff, did the same thing until the entire thing [was done]. And there were a lot of supporting characters in the background. So he penciled half of the Starmen, and I penciled half of the Starmen and then we both just said, “Ooh, I’d love to do the O’Dares in pencil and you paint me,” and back and forth. And we decided to cut all that stuff up. And of course, I penciled Jack, ‘cause, you know, it’s my book. So once it was all penciled,

There’s a Starman for Everyone Tony Harris and Alex Ross collaborated on the covers for Starman #57 (Sept. 1999)–62 (Feb. 2000), which combined into this utterly fantastic poster depicting James Robinson’s galaxy of DC Starmen. TM & © DC Comics.

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around. So I don’t know who said yes, or who said no, or why. HARRIS: I spoke to the editor who was shepherding it, he was super pumped and passionate. He was a big fan of the book. He was really pushing hard IFfor YOU PREVIEW, it. ENJOYED And then THIS he was let go. And so then it just CLICK THE LINK TO and ORDER kind of went away we THIS got this rejection letter. ISSUE IN when PRINTwe ORpitched DIGITAL And it, FORMAT! we said to Marie, “We are ready to f***in’ start tomorrow and dedicate our schedules completely to the book until it’s done and out.” No side projects, no delays, just total pouring 1000% of our love into the book and giving the fans the story they’ve wanted for over 20 years. And we felt like it was going to be that closing chapter to the character where we could step away ’cause I always felt a hole that we never did that. I even said in a couple of interviews that I’ve only got one regret in my career, just one, and that was leaving Starman when I did. I should’ve never left. I should have done all 80 issues. TRUMBULL: It’s unfinished business. HARRIS: It is. And I felt like that story would have finished it. ’Cause think of [Jack] being where he is BACK ISSUEI #133 STARMEN ISSUE, headlined by JAMESwith ROBINSON TONY that’s what needs now, San Francisco his and family, HARRIS’s Jack Knight Starman! Plus: The Star-Spangled Kid, to be. He doesn’t need to come out of retirement. Starjammers, the 1980s Starman, and Starstruck! Featuring wouldGERRY just CONWAY, be silly.ROBERT But being able to tell that story, DAVE It COCKRUM, GREENBERGER, ELAINEman, LEE, TOM LYLE,end MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA, ROGER and it like that for me and James… Boy, STERN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Jack Knight Starman cover that would have been something. by TONY HARRIS. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=133&products_id=1652

Good Morning, Starshine

TRUMBULL: That’s a shame. Well, hopefully this article will lead to fans letting DC know we want to see it. Honestly, if I can be of some small part of helping make this happen, my life will not be in vain. HARRIS: [laughs] Well, I appreciate that. That property has put me on the map. It made me and James. And I think he’ll attest to that, too. So I’m forever indebted to Jack. He’s my best buddy.

(left) Starman #80 (Aug. 2001, cover by Tony Harris and Andrew Robinson) brought the celebrated series to an end. (right) As explored in the 1990s Starman retrospective preceding this interview, the torch, and cosmic staff, was passed to Stargirl. By Robinson and Snejbjerg. (inset) Geoff Johns and television Stargirl, Brec Basinger. TM & © DC Comics.

Starmen Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75