Spoilers Stargirl - Season One Discussion Thread

[Reverend]

As someone with only a passing familiarity with the golden age comics; can someone explain to me exactly what the deal is with the cosmic staff? Is it magic? Alien? Other dimensional? I mean I know it's supposedly built by Ted Knight, the original original Starman (making Courtney a 3rd gen legacy, no?) and that his thing was gravity rods and I think a gravity belt...which in the comics is what Courtney is wearing, but here just seems to be part of the costume.

That's all well and good, but still...how did a guy in the 40's *build* that? Is it Nth metal? Ancient Oan/Manhunter tech? New Gods? I know back in the 40's there didn't really need to be much of an explanation, but most of the stuff from that era seems to have been reconned or explained in terms that are a little less nebulous. For example, the "magical talisman" that made Dan Garrett the original Blue Beetle turns out to be an alien weapon.

Side Note: Blue Beetle seems like the perfect candidate to show up on this Earth at some point. Dan, Ted, Jamie; any or all three!

What does "OP" mean?

Just curious.

"Over Powered". It's a gaming term.

Not sure if I agree with the assertion or not since Courtney has the cosmic staff, she just doesn't know how to use it all that well yet. For all we know it's impossible to try and move that thing telekinetically making it immune to Brainwave.

Plus, she kind of needs to get her arse kicked right out of the gate so in future she'll actually take the villains seriously and not go in all half-cocked.

 

[Christopher]

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Cosmic_Staff

From what I can tell, the Cosmic Staff in its current form was introduced in the comics in 1994. The original Ted Knight Starman and his first few successors had a smaller Gravity Rod, later Cosmic Rod.

 

[Reverend]

You think I didn't check the DC wiki before asking that question? I'm ill informed, not lazy. Regardless, that link doesn't say *anything* about what it's deal is or how a dude in the 40's came up with it, just what it does and who made it.
Also, there's no mention of it having it's own personality, so I'm assuming that's an invention of the show.

Side note: if this is just a human invention that's *waaaaay* ahead of it's time, why hasn't this tech changed literally all of human society? Free energy? The ability to precisely manipulate gravity? And all of it perfected *decades* ago? How are the people of that Earth not colonising other solar systems by now?

 

[YLu]

That's all well and good, but still...how did a guy in the 40's *build* that? Is it Nth metal? Ancient Oan/Manhunter tech? New Gods? I know back in the 40's there didn't really need to be much of an explanation, but most of the stuff from that era seems to have been reconned or explained in terms that are a little less nebulous. For example, the "magical talisman" that made Dan Garrett the original Blue Beetle turns out to be an alien weapon.

No, as far as I know there's never been any retcon to make that level of tech existing in the 40s more plausible.* Then again, DC Comics is a world where Nazis could invent giant robots and death lasers and other stuff. I don't think there needs to be an explanation.

*Now that I think about it, the mini-series "The Golden Age" played around with an explanation, but one that was the other way around, positing that Ted Knight building the Cosmic Rod was responsible for all the other weird tech and superpowers that existed in 40s DC comics. The idea was that, in his research, he'd brought Earth into contact with Something Weird from outer space, whose influence spread across the planet like a ripple effect. It was kinda metaphysical.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Regardless, that link doesn't say *anything* about what it's deal is or how a dude in the 40's came up with it, just what it does and who made it.

Ted Knight is wicked smart. It was mostly just an anti-gravity weapon to begin with. Later it became like a Green Lantern ring. Then it went back to anti-grav, light shows and the occasional force field.

Also, there's no mention of it having it's own personality, so I'm assuming that's an invention of the show.

Yep, that's new. It's always been a machine in comics. Not even an AI.

Side note: if this is just a human invention that's *waaaaay* ahead of it's time, why hasn't this tech changed literally all of human society? Free energy? The ability to precisely manipulate gravity? And all of it perfected *decades* ago? How are the people of that Earth not colonising other solar systems by now?

Because that rarely happens with fantastic tech in comics. The Marvel universe should look nothing like ours because of Stark, Richards, T'Challa and others. Same for DC and it's resident geniuses. But they don't.
In-universe Ted Knight had a mental breakdown caused by his involvement with the Manhattan Project and was institutionalized for several years.

 

[Christopher]

No, as far as I know there's never been any retcon to make that level of tech existing in the 40s more plausible. Then again, DC Comics is a world where Nazis could invent giant robots and death lasers and other stuff. I don't think there needs to be an explanation.

I'm aware of at least one instance of such a retcon. Roy Thomas's All-Star Squadron in the '80s (which along with Infinity Inc. is the primary basis of Stargirl's world and characters, aside from Stargirl herself) told new stories about the Justice Society in the '40s, in between and overlapping with their original stories, and sometimes retelling those stories in updated form. In the storyline that ran alongside Crisis on Infinite Earths, the main story was taking place simultaneously with a vintage JSA story in which the Nazis abducted the JSA, put them on eight rockets, and sent them to the other planets of the Solar system where they had various pulpy adventures. Thomas updated it so that the rockets actually sent them to planets in other dimensions that superficially resembled our planets (to explain how they could have air and inhabitants and such), and established that the Nazi scientist had obtained his rockets from the Monitor, explaining how they were so much more advanced than actual Nazi rockets.

 

[11Alive]

You're making a lot of assumptions just for the sake of being argumentative. If you applied the same amount of thought to trying to justify it rather than just attacking it, I think you'd find it's not that hard. My motto has always been "Don't complain, explain."

It takes two to argue. You seem to be as wedded to your own assumptions and rationalizations.

 

[Reverend]

No, as far as I know there's never been any retcon to make that level of tech existing in the 40s more plausible.* Then again, DC Comics is a world where Nazis could invent giant robots and death lasers and other stuff. I don't think there needs to be an explanation.

Appreciated. However that kind of thing is only fantastical in terms of scale. Giant robots and the like while very silly, are juuuust this side physically possible.
Gravity rods and cosmics staffs seem like much more fundamentally exotic technology. Like if someone built a nuclear reactor in the 1600's, but just used to to beat up cutpurses and other mad inventors.

Ted Knight is wicked smart. It was mostly just an anti-gravity weapon to begin with. Later it became like a Green Lantern ring. Then it went back to anti-grav, light shows and the occasional force field.

Because that rarely happens with fantastic tech in comics. The Marvel universe should look nothing like ours because of Stark, Richards, T'Challa and others. Same for DC and it's resident geniuses. But they don't.
In-universe Ted Knight had a mental breakdown caused by his involvement with the Manhattan Project and was institutionalized for several years.

So he was one of those "I just want to turn people into dinosaurs!" type of comic book genius? That would account for Ted Knight doing bugger all of use with it, but what about Sylvester Pemberton? Did he just sit on it because he liking playing hero?

I guess I just find it surprising that nobody over the course of the last 80 years bothered to go into a little more depth on this character's origins. I mean the vaaaaast majority of what we take for granted about Superman or Batman's lore came about *decades* after the character was conceived; much of it relatively recently.
I appreciate that this particular legacy/mantle is no where near as popular than Superman, or even the likes of Green Lantern & Blue Beetle, but still...you'd think some story teller would have had a crack at it.

Just saying it's magic would be simple enough, or that it's based on some alien tech. At least that way the mechanical underpinnings are effectively unknowable and thus cannot be reproduced.
Something other than "random 40's scientist re-wrote physics, and used that knowledge to build a stick...and then hit people with it!"

I suppose one way to go with it is make the staff much more than it appears; like a Cosmic Excalibur type of artefact and the story about Ted Knight building it is just misinformation.

 

[Greg Cox]

Because that rarely happens with fantastic tech in comics. The Marvel universe should look nothing like ours because of Stark, Richards, T'Challa and others. Same for DC and it's resident geniuses. But they don't.
In-universe Ted Knight had a mental breakdown caused by his involvement with the Manhattan Project and was institutionalized for several years.

Bingo. It's the same reason comic-book supervillains use shrinking rays and anti-gravity belts and such to rob banks or destroy Superman instead of, you now, patenting the technology behind their giant killer robots and invisibility formulas to make a bundle.

The conceit is that superhero stories take place in our world, with buses and taxi cabs and toaster ovens, not some weird futuristic society transformed by mad science.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I guess I just find it surprising that nobody over the course of the last 80 years bothered to go into a little more depth on this character's origins. I mean the vaaaaast majority of what we take for granted about Superman or Batman's lore came about *decades* after the character was conceived; much of it relatively recently.

Ted plays a big part in the 90's Starman series featuring his son Jack

Just saying it's magic would be simple enough, or that it's based on some alien tech. At least that way the mechanical underpinnings are effectively unknowable and thus cannot be reproduced.
Something other than "random 40's scientist re-wrote physics, and used that knowledge to build a stick...and then hit people with it!"

That's comics. Guy rewrites physics or gets fantastic powers and his first impulse is to fight crime.

 

[YLu]

Just saying it's magic would be simple enough, or that it's based on some alien tech. At least that way the mechanical underpinnings are effectively unknowable and thus cannot be reproduced.

It wouldn't fit the character's history, in which there are a number of stories where it clearly is able to be reproduced. He's made replacements, new versions, etc. There's even one story where he constructs a giant-sized scale model one to power a spaceship or something.

It'd be like establishing that Tony Stark's armor can't be reproduced.

Something other than "random 40's scientist re-wrote physics, and used that knowledge to build a stick...and then hit people with it!"

Hilariously, according to Wikipedia: "Initially intending it for use as a possible power source, Ted was convinced by his cousin, Sandra Knight, the Phantom Lady, to use his invention to become a costumed crime fighter."

 

[Reverend]

Bingo. It's the same reason comic-book supervillains use shrinking rays and anti-gravity belts and such to rob banks or destroy Superman instead of, you now, patenting the technology behind their giant killer robots and invisibility formulas to make a bundle.

The conceit is that superhero stories take place in our world, with buses and taxi cabs and toaster ovens, not some weird futuristic society transformed by mad science.

The interesting part is that's not something that was there to begin with, but the result of decades of narrative power-creep. Early days, it was mostly just guys in masks getting into fistfight with gangsters and cartoonish street thugs. A lot (but by no means all) of the mad scientist stuff came out of the silver age IIRC.
I think to a certain extent it's justifiable to gloss it over on the basis that the stuff that the villains came up with is all inherently weaponized and not the kind of thing you want getting out into the wild. It's just odd when the innovation is coming from the heroes.

I think it's partly why I have a special fondness for the likes of 'Watchmen', 'Red Son' and even 'Batman Beyond' that actually addresses the way having all this crazy stuff would alter the world from something we'd recognise.

That said I recall for a while there some Superman comics (I want to say late 90's or early 00's?) made a whole thing about Metropolis being merged with a future version of itself, complete with flying cars and crazy science stuff...which seemed like they were going for what I mention above, but made it seem utterly bizarre when there'd be a crossover with one of the the Gotham based books and that place still looked like something out of the 30's.

Claims of shared continuity aside, I feel like neither DC or Marvel ever pulled off a truly coherent world. I've often said something similar about how the world of the X-Men just doesn't gell with the rest of the Marvel books. The MCU does a much better job in that regard as right from the off, Stark & SHIELD tech looked like it really was the result of decades of crazy comic book tech bleeding into the world, with helicarriers, free floating haptic holograms and a giant arc reactor prototype that's apparently been sat there since the 70's.

It wouldn't fit the character's history, in which there are a number of stories where it clearly is able to be reproduced. He's made replacements, new versions, etc. There's even one story where he constructs a giant-sized scale model one to power a spaceship or something.

It'd be like establishing that Tony Stark's armor can't be reproduced.

The easy way to handle that would simply be to have some core device that drives everything else and the staff and various other versions are just increasingly sophisticated mechanisms to manipulate it.

So if that were the case, a more accurate analogy would be; like establishing that the arc reactor cannot be reproduced and is just getting swapped out into different armours. That I think, is a lot more workable.

 

[Nerys Myk]

There's a version of the origin where Ted doesn't even invent the thing. He gets it from some scientist. In this take he's the typical bored wealthy playboy (who dabbles in astronomy) and decides to get his kicks using the scientist's invention.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Early days, it was mostly just guys in masks getting into fistfight with gangsters and cartoonish street thugs. A lot (but by no means all) of the mad scientist stuff came out of the silver age IIRC.

Mad scientists were a staple of the Golden Age. Guys like Luthor (He wasn't Lex yet) Hugo Strange and Dr. Sivana were all over the books. One of Starman's foes was a mad scientist called The Mist.

 

[Christopher]

It takes two to argue. You seem to be as wedded to your own assumptions and rationalizations.

I'm just putting forth possible solutions to the questions you raised, because finding solutions to problems is more constructive and satisfying than just complaining about them. I don't insist they must be true, I'm simply open to the possibilities. I offer them to you not for the sake of petty fighting, but in the hopes you can consider them and find satisfaction in them as well.

 

[Greg Cox]

"Over Powered". It's a gaming term. .

Ah. Thanks.

Not really a gamer.

 

[Reverend]

Mad scientists were a staple of the Golden Age. Guys like Luthor (He wasn't Lex yet) Hugo Strange and Dr. Sivana were all over the books. One of Starman's foes was a mad scientist called The Mist.

As I said; "by no means all."
I guess what I'm getting at is in the early days you had the likes of 'Dick Tracy', 'The Spirit', and 'The Shadow' on the one hand, then things like 'Buck Rogers', 'Flash Gordon' and 'Superman' on the other. Also throw into the mix 'The Phantom', 'Captain Marvel' (no, the other one!), 'Conan', 'Mandrake' etc for the for fantastical concepts.

There were crime books, sci-fi books, horror books, romance books, mystery books, adventure books (easy to forget now how massive a deal the likes of 'The Lone Ranger' and 'Tarzan' were from the 30's all the way up until the 60's!),
Basically all kinds of genres and character, but mostly they were each their own thing. It wasn't until later that they'd all start to converge into what we now think of as "superhero comics."

A lot of it IIRC wasn't because of the comics themselves but the radio shows and matinee serials of the 40's & 50's. Even back then the new mediums were driving the genre forwards! Some of those characters even originated in radio before becoming "comic book characters", others like Superman would only crystallise into what we now think of as Superman thanks to the radio and later, TV show.

It was around that point where the genres started to melt together and you'd get the likes of Batman that has started out in the Dick Tracy/The Shadow mold dealing with more out-there concepts.

I should probably add that back then; "mad scientists" weren't that outlandish a concept as they might seem today. Remember this was in the aftermath of the Manhattan Project, the Nuremberg Trials and what we'd later know was Operation Paperclip, with the Red Scare just on the horizon. The world had just taken a drastic turn so it would have been a relatively topical concept, albeit filtered through the lens of the pulp literature of the day.

 

[Tribble Threat]

I don't believe the comics ever showed the Cosmic Rod being sentient before, and I don't know the story of how Ted Knight built it, but I haven't read everything that Stargirl and the various Starmen were in. Also, Syl Pemberton was never Starman. He went from being the Star-Spangled Kid to being Skyman. Stargirl's status as a multiple-legacy superhero is complicated. I think Ted Knight's grandson Jack, who was one of the more popular Starmen, gave Courtney the Cosmic Rod shortly after she took up being a superhero, but I don't know why he chose her specifically. The TV series has really simplified things, and so far it's a nice, cohesive narrative, which I wouldn't have thought to do, and I enjoy that the writers came up with it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

As I said; "by no means all."
I guess what I'm getting at is in the early days you had the likes of 'Dick Tracy', 'The Spirit', and 'The Shadow' on the one hand, then things like 'Buck Rogers', 'Flash Gordon' and 'Superman' on the other. Also throw into the mix 'The Phantom', 'Captain Marvel' (no, the other one!), 'Conan', 'Mandrake' etc for the for fantastical concepts.

I was just pointing out that the "Mad Scientist" trope is very much rooted in the Golden Age. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy and The Shadow are very much in the DNA of superheroes. They were the characters guys like Lee, Simon, Kirby, Shuster and Siegel were reading as kids and drew inspiration from. Their dreams were to create the next Dick Tracy or Phantom comic strip, but instead got sidetracked into comic books.
Interestingly enough, despite his magical nature , two of Captain Marvel's biggest foe were scientists: Dr. Sivana and Mister Mind.

There were crime books, sci-fi books, horror books, romance books, mystery books, adventure books (easy to forget now how massive a deal the likes of 'The Lone Ranger' and 'Tarzan' were from the 30's all the way up until the 60's!),
Basically all kinds of genres and character, but mostly they were each their own thing. It wasn't until later that they'd all start to converge into what we now think of as "superhero comics." A lot of it IIRC wasn't because of the comics themselves but the radio shows and matinee serials of the 40's & 50's. Even back then the new mediums were driving the genre forwards! Some of those characters even originated in radio before becoming "comic book characters", others like Superman would only crystallise into what we now think of as Superman thanks to the radio and later, TV show.

Yes, comic books were varied in the 40's, 50's and even the 60's,but the tropes of the superhero were firmly established early on. Superman and Batman set many of them. Including the secret identity (borrowed from the Shadow and Green Hornet or the Scarlet Pimpernel if you want to go further back) the kid sidekick and in many cases the wealthy playboy (borrowed from Zorro, the Shadow and once again that damned elusive Pimpernel). Tragic origins involving the death of a loved one (The Lone Ranger). Crazy gimmick villains (Dick Tracy). Toss in a skin tight costume like the Phantom and Flash Gordon and the superhero was born.

 

[Christopher]

Interestingly enough, despite his magical nature , two of Captain Marvel's biggest foe were scientists: Dr. Sivana and Mister Mind.

Yeah, I was disappointed that the Shazam! movie gave Sivana magical powers instead of playing up the contrast between magical hero and technological villain. Although I gather it's based on the current comics version of Sivana.