Starman by James Robinson is an overlooked masterpiece of comics in general, an early 90s comics in particular. On the face of it, the book tells a simple story about Jack Knight, the second son of the original, Golden Age cape. It’s a story about a reluctant hero struggling with timeless questions — about family, legacy, place, and (above all) time — even as he tries to figure out what it means to try and save the world and how he could ever hope to do it.
Questioning, trying, and hoping are things comics were desperately in need of in 1994. Robinson’s work comes two years after Spawn #1, with book and character being the poster child for 90s big-budget-yet-nihilistic anti-heroes. Starman is also part of the other big trend of the era: resurrecting an anachronistic IP and rebooting it from obscurity into headliner status.
Starman is absolutely informed by these trends. But what makes the book work so well, is how it is nothing like them. Let’s explore. [Read more…] about DC’s Starman: Robinson/Harris’ Masterpiece Revisited