Supporting Heroes
| Character | First appearance (in comics) | First appearance (in Starman) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Shade | Flash Comics #43 | Starman vol. 2, #1 | Originally a villain going up against various Golden Age heroes (notably the Flash), the Shade is revealed throughout the series to be an amoral character with a deep love of his adopted home of Opal City. Through this love, he comes to be on friendly terms with both Ted and Jack Knight and aids the modern Starman in many of his struggles. He also befriends Matt O'Dare and aids in his redemption, which in turn partially redeems the Shade himself. |
| Mikaal "Mik" Tomas | First Issue Special #12 | Starman vol. 2, #3 | A blue skinned alien, Mikaal first came to Earth when his people plotted to destroy the planet. Instead, he turned against them to save humanity and then remained on Earth to briefly assume the mantle of Starman. He began to go under the anglicized name of "Michael Thomas" around this period, although he did not attempt to hide his blue skin. He was kidnapped to appear as part of a millionaire's collection. Eventually, he was sold to a circus which was visited by Jack Knight. Knight helped Mikaal free himself, despite being unable to communicate with him. Eventually, Mikaal remembered how to speak English and gradually rediscovered his forgotten history. |
| Solomon "Solly" Grundy | All American Comics #61 | Starman vol. 2, #10 | A half-formed plant elemental, Solomon Grundy is reborn every time he dies as a completely different character. When reborn in a more gentle and childlike temperament than usual, he relocated to Opal City's sewers, where he hid until Jack Knight went searching for him. Taking him back to Ted Knight to look after, Jack rechristened the gentle version Solly and he became almost a part of the Knight family. In particular, he built up a good relationship with previous Starman Mikaal Tomas. This relationship proved fatal for Solly, as he died saving Tomas' life. True to form, Grundy was reborn, but this version more resembled his previous incarnations, and the bond with the Knight family was broken as he went back to his criminal ways. |
| Jon Valor, the Black Pirate | Action Comics #23 | Starman vol. 2, #2 | In the 16th century, Jon Valor was a privateer working on a commission from the King, and always working to a strong moral code of justice. However, following the death of his estranged son, he was accused of his murder and hung in the port that would eventually become Opal City. Before he died, he laid a terrible curse on the city that no spirit that died there would know rest until he had been proved innocent. He remained in the city as a ghost, protecting the innocent, before he came to the new Starman to ask for his help. Jack Knight promised his aid, but as things turned out it was Hamilton Drew and the Dibny's who eventually proved Valor's innocence and set him (and every soul that had ever died in Opal) free. |
| Jake "Bobo" Benetti | Created for the series; although James Robinson did manage to convince the letter editor of Starman that he was a Golden Age villain. | Starman vol. 2, #29 | Benetti gained super strength as a young man, which he used in the 1950s and 1960s to help him rob banks. He earned the nickname "Bobo" (which he personally never cared for, but let Jack Knight alone use) and was eventually caught and imprisoned for his crimes. Upon his release, Bennetti found himself in an Opal City he both remembered and did not recognise, feeling old and out of place — something not helped by the fact that he had retained his 1960s fashion sense and dialect. Despite a promise to a woman that he would go straight, he considered robbing the Opal City bank and getting put back in prison, somewhere he at least understood. However, as he went in to rob the bank, he found that it was already being robbed by a gang of criminals. As Starman arrived, Benetti decided instead to help him capture the criminals. In gratitude, the bank offered him a job as their head of security. Later, when Jack Knight retired and the bank decided that Benetti was attracting criminals, he was given a career as one of Opal's new licenced superheroes. |
| Black Condor | Black Condor #1 | Starman vol. 2, #47 | Black Condor was a solitary hero, whose investigations eventually brought him to Opal City and into contact with Jack Knight. At first attempting to keep to himself, he found himself warming to Opal's charms, and when the opportunity to leave presented itself to him, he decided instead to stay. Shortly before Jack Knight retired, he helped protect the city from Nash's second crime spree and registered with the Opal City Police as one of their officially recognised superheroes. He took over part of the responsibility for Opal when Jack retired. |
| Phantom Lady | Action Comics Weekly #636 | Starman vol. 2, #56 | Dee Tyler, the second Phantom Lady, was sent to Opal City on behalf of her mentor Sandra Knight. She initially worked in an attempt to clear the Shade of his murder charges, and stuck around for quite some time to aid Jack Knight and company in protecting Opal City. |
| Ralph Dibny and Sue Dibny | Ralph in The Flash #112 Sue in The Flash #119 |
Starman vol. 2, #? | The Dibny's were a married couple who were brought to Opal following a request from Ted Knight. Although Ralph has stretching super powers, it was primarily as a detective that his expertise was needed, and he leapt at the chance to help — especially once he found that he would be working alongside his personal hero, Hamilton Drew. Following Nash's second crime wave in Opal, Ralph and Sue promised Jack that they would stay on a little while in the city to help protect it, but told him that they were the restless, wandering types and would be unlikely to stay forever. |
| Hamilton Drew | Created for the series. | Starman vol. 2, #24 | Drew was an early 20th century consulting detective of the Sherlock Holmes school based in Ivy Town. Whilst investigating a spate of disappearances, Drew was captured by the "poster demon" and held in Hell for more than a century. Finally released by the heroic actions of Matt O'Dare, the Shade, and Jack Knight, Drew returned to modern day Opal to continue his life. At first, Drew was unsure he would be able to continue working as a consulting detective, but eventually he settled into a new life. He formed a good working relationship with Ralph Dibny, and was instrumental in saving the city during Nash's second crime spree. |
| Will Payton | Starman #1 | Starman vol. 2, #3 | Payton came from Arizona, and took up the mantle of Starman after being hit by a beam of cosmic radiation. He apparently died whilst fighting Eclipso in space. However, during her relationship with Jack Knight, Sadie Falk revealed that she believed Payton was still alive and somewhere in space. She asked Jack to go and search for him, and out of love for her, he did. Jack eventually found Payton captive on the planet Kranaltine, where it was discovered he had a mysterious connection to the deceased Starman of that world, Prince Gavyn. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Starman Characters
Famous quotes containing the words supporting and/or heroes:
“It is handsomer to remain in the establishment better than the establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than to make a sally against evil by some single improvement, without supporting it by a total regeneration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days.... Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)