Starman 11

Short Review: Darkness comes to the Golden Age. Highly Recommended

A long time ago, there were heroes, slightly removed from the pulps before them, and they were the first. They set they way for the heroes that came after them, and their name is apparently legend (as a measure of how long ago this is, most of them are even dead by current times.). Their adventures were on the whole blithely silly, with clear good and bad. It was the Golden Age, and then it left. Vertigo is currently revamping a section of it with the non-descript Sandman Mystery Theatre, and, hovering just outside the reaches of Karen Berger, James Robinson is doing some work on Starman. This issue seems to be a flashback, as well as an effort to bring the old Justice Society of America nearer to continuity (this being DC, we start by establishing that the main characters exist).

The Heroes are Hourman, Green Lantern (the first), the Flash (ditto), Doctor Mid-nite and Starman himself. The Villain is Ragdoll, a pathetic joke from around that time, given a dark twist by simple dint of great writing. The time is on the threshold from a simpler time to a darker one, with more crime and less capers. There's a lot of comparisons between the old and new ages. There's a lot of heroism, written so well as to make me believe in super-heroes again. Robinson has that blessed gift, most obvious in Frank Miller's seminal work, of describing a character with few words and great insight. There's a page which, by itself, speaks volumes for the characters involved. And at the end, there's a twist which chilled me in 30 degree heat. The vocal patterns change to similar to those you would find in Clive Barkers books, and, as there, threats gain solidity and menace. The last scene is entirely to good to ruin, but it marks the boundary shown: To heroes who do what they have to, from heroes who do what they don't.

The art, by Matt Smith, is strange, looking like Kent Williams' at times. According to the letter column, Tony Harris, who is responsible for the gorgeous cover, is (or at least was) the interior artist as well, in which case there's no good reason not to buy this comics at all.