Overthinking Comics

I’ve started reading Starman, the James Robinson/Tony Harris 80-plus issue opus. So far, I have only read issues 0 and 1, here are my initial impressions.

David Knight

…is shot. Through the chest. We don’t see this in comics very often, the cold brutal reality that a gunshot would stop a lot of these heroes cold. They do afterall, put targets on their chest, often literally. It seems to be saying that this series is going to have a big dose of reality in it, and deal with soem of the actual dangers and logistics of superheroing.

Jack Knight

…seems more interested in old stuff than he does in the world around him. It is escapism, and it mirrors many reader’s fascination with old comics and other collectibles. I am curious to see if this becomes a critique or a celebration of “old stuff”. Based on the backup written pieces by James Robinson, it seems that it is going to be a celebration, but given the dose of reality that is given to us with David Knight’s death, it may be a critique as well.

Jack very much doesn’t want to have much of anything to do with the super hero legacy that his father started. He seems to be the nerd son that reads his books, rather than the jock son that joins the football team. It is clear (from my basic knowledge of the series) that he will be thrust into the roll of Starman, but he is not inclide towards that, adn doesn’t even seem very well suited for it either.

Of course, David, who seemed like we was well suited, came to a quick end with a gunshot, so maybe that is a good thing.

Ted Knight

…doesn’t seem like the best father. At least to Jack. He seems to clearly have a favorite in David, because he took up his legacy. He seems to be far more concerned about his Starman legacy than he does his son. I’ll be watching that.

Visually, I see a lot of the influences of Mike Mignola and Frank Miller on this art, especially the way that it uses darks and lights in a lot of panels. At times the visual storytelling in these issues is fairly good, at other times it is a bit garbled, and not drawn as clearly as I might like. Tony Harris’s illustration leans just slightly to the cartoony side, which I like so far, but I am curious to see how this evolves over the run.

This is different enough to stand out from the typical super hero book, so now, at the start, I am enjoying this ride.