Starman: 20 years gone
Sep. 16th, 2008 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzuA recent pull of boxes from my comic closet led to my re-reading Starman. No, not the 1990's Jack Knight Starman, but the 1988 Will Payton Starman, one of the great underused and underappreciated characters in the DC pantheon (indeed, the dismissive treatment Mr. Payton got from writer James Robinson was one of my few strikes against his generally, er, stellar run on the Jack Knight version). Almost entirely unavailable, Roger Stern's and Tom Lyle's 25 issue run is a lost gem.
Created in 1988 as part of DC's attempt to reboot old character names in the post crisis universe (the same one that birthed the Neil Gaiman Sandman), this version of Starman is totally unconnected to the previous name bearers in powers and origins. Will Payton, a mid 20's former copy writer turned band manager was camping in the mountains when he was struck by an energy beam from a damaged satellite. That energy beam was intended by it's creators to empower a sextet of new, politically conservative nationalist heroes. Instead it completely rewrote Payton's body, turning him, essentially into a living fusion reactor in a highly dense, slightly malleable bod that, while it looked much the same as before, was no longer human. This translated into moderate (for the DC universe) super strength in the 50 tons range, super-sonic flight, light and heat generation, tons of damage resistance, the ability to change his face and voice and no longer needing to eat, sleep, or breathe. Not a bad line up for a Solo Hero on the attack/defense/movement/miscellany power set.
Not surprisingly, the sextet of would be heroes and their creator got powers another way and were after Payton for "stealing" their powers, convinced they could use him as a power source to jack up their own abilities. Payton, named Starman by the press because of his light/heat powers (and the big star his sister sewed onto his costume) was in many ways a typical super hero: he had team ups with Batman, Superman and Power Girl, fought several standard DC villains like Dr Polaris, Blockbuster and Parasite and had a few rogues of his own in the aforementioned sextet dubbed the Power Elite and the intangible hitman Deadline. He had work troubles, relationship troubles and family pressure just like any other solo hero, nicely in the Spider-Man mold. This is no surprise, because his writer, Roger Stern, had just come off of a long stint on Spider-Man and in Starman he was in the top of his form, using the genre conventions to tell a different sort of story.
How so? Starman was visually different, in an asymmetrical yellow and purple costume. He operated in an non-standrd venue of the American Southwest, focusing on Phoenix AZ (not a created city, as was usual for DC heroes). Politcs were openly discussed, with Payton describing himself as a "small d Democrat" and the Power Elite putting themselves on the far political right - an usually palce for DC heroes in the 80's. Many of the Elite were "good guys" - they saw themselves as heroes, turning in their creator when it was clear that he had lied, betrayed and tortured. It was clear where the author's sympathies lied, but it was also clear that he was trying to keep things more balanced.
More interesting to me was the book's second arc, issues 13 to 25, where we learned that Payton has his strong sense of responsibility because his father abanoned his family when Payton was 5, and the core storyline was the Payton coming to grips with his father's deathbed reappearance in their lives. At the same time the work and heroing pressures led Payton's metabolism to undergo some sensory withdrawl - losing his sense of smell for example - and reading a lot of Oliver Sacks to learn how to remember to be human. The Starman identity is abandoned for several issues as Payton wanders the desert, his inevitable encounters with crime (and Hollywood) mixed in around his self analysis. The real pressures of a Spider-Man level sense of responsibility are seriosuly discussed, possible because Stern had created the character himself and wasn't weighted down with 25 years of preconceptions the way he was with Spider-Man.
It's a shame then that Lyle left the book after issue 25 and Stern 2 issues later. The new creative team had no idea what to do with the character, changing his origin story, his power base, and his supporting cast before finally killing him in the big annual DC crossover somewhere around issue 50. To my mind it's better to imagine the book ending on issue 25, having explored the themes that interested Stern on politics, responsbility and humanity.
Is is great art? No. But it is rock solid genre fiction by one of the genre's better authors and a competent, stylistic artist, and that foundation let them do something that was both familiar and unique. It's the sort of book Kurt Busiek would be writing years later. And due to the ephemeral nature of comics, it's gone - remembered mostly as another one of the lost Starmen Robinson wrote into his more celebrated series. cest la guerre.
Created in 1988 as part of DC's attempt to reboot old character names in the post crisis universe (the same one that birthed the Neil Gaiman Sandman), this version of Starman is totally unconnected to the previous name bearers in powers and origins. Will Payton, a mid 20's former copy writer turned band manager was camping in the mountains when he was struck by an energy beam from a damaged satellite. That energy beam was intended by it's creators to empower a sextet of new, politically conservative nationalist heroes. Instead it completely rewrote Payton's body, turning him, essentially into a living fusion reactor in a highly dense, slightly malleable bod that, while it looked much the same as before, was no longer human. This translated into moderate (for the DC universe) super strength in the 50 tons range, super-sonic flight, light and heat generation, tons of damage resistance, the ability to change his face and voice and no longer needing to eat, sleep, or breathe. Not a bad line up for a Solo Hero on the attack/defense/movement/miscellany power set.
Not surprisingly, the sextet of would be heroes and their creator got powers another way and were after Payton for "stealing" their powers, convinced they could use him as a power source to jack up their own abilities. Payton, named Starman by the press because of his light/heat powers (and the big star his sister sewed onto his costume) was in many ways a typical super hero: he had team ups with Batman, Superman and Power Girl, fought several standard DC villains like Dr Polaris, Blockbuster and Parasite and had a few rogues of his own in the aforementioned sextet dubbed the Power Elite and the intangible hitman Deadline. He had work troubles, relationship troubles and family pressure just like any other solo hero, nicely in the Spider-Man mold. This is no surprise, because his writer, Roger Stern, had just come off of a long stint on Spider-Man and in Starman he was in the top of his form, using the genre conventions to tell a different sort of story.
How so? Starman was visually different, in an asymmetrical yellow and purple costume. He operated in an non-standrd venue of the American Southwest, focusing on Phoenix AZ (not a created city, as was usual for DC heroes). Politcs were openly discussed, with Payton describing himself as a "small d Democrat" and the Power Elite putting themselves on the far political right - an usually palce for DC heroes in the 80's. Many of the Elite were "good guys" - they saw themselves as heroes, turning in their creator when it was clear that he had lied, betrayed and tortured. It was clear where the author's sympathies lied, but it was also clear that he was trying to keep things more balanced.
More interesting to me was the book's second arc, issues 13 to 25, where we learned that Payton has his strong sense of responsibility because his father abanoned his family when Payton was 5, and the core storyline was the Payton coming to grips with his father's deathbed reappearance in their lives. At the same time the work and heroing pressures led Payton's metabolism to undergo some sensory withdrawl - losing his sense of smell for example - and reading a lot of Oliver Sacks to learn how to remember to be human. The Starman identity is abandoned for several issues as Payton wanders the desert, his inevitable encounters with crime (and Hollywood) mixed in around his self analysis. The real pressures of a Spider-Man level sense of responsibility are seriosuly discussed, possible because Stern had created the character himself and wasn't weighted down with 25 years of preconceptions the way he was with Spider-Man.
It's a shame then that Lyle left the book after issue 25 and Stern 2 issues later. The new creative team had no idea what to do with the character, changing his origin story, his power base, and his supporting cast before finally killing him in the big annual DC crossover somewhere around issue 50. To my mind it's better to imagine the book ending on issue 25, having explored the themes that interested Stern on politics, responsbility and humanity.
Is is great art? No. But it is rock solid genre fiction by one of the genre's better authors and a competent, stylistic artist, and that foundation let them do something that was both familiar and unique. It's the sort of book Kurt Busiek would be writing years later. And due to the ephemeral nature of comics, it's gone - remembered mostly as another one of the lost Starmen Robinson wrote into his more celebrated series. cest la guerre.
