Starman: Times Past

Synopsis: These stories were originally printed in Starman #6, 11, 18, 28, Starman Annual #1, and Starman: Secret Files #1

This is a collection of six stories surrounding the Starman mythos, and the various people who have called themselves Starman in the past.

The first story Talking with Ted…/Talking with Jack concerns the two members of the Knight family sharing their feelings about one another with acquaintances. Story number two, 1882: Back Stage, Back Then concerns itself with one of the Shade’s early adventures in his attempts to persuade a charlatan with an heiress in his power to release her. The third story 13 Years Ago: Five Friends retells the tale of the night of terror caused by the Rag Doll, and the attempts of five members of the JSA to contain the chaos and bring the Rag Doll to justice. The fourth story, First Joust recounts the initial meeting between the Mist and Starman. The fifth story, 1971: Super Freaks and Backstabbers concerns a meeting between Mikaal Tomas and the last surviving member of his race on Earth in a duel to the death in a New York disco. The final story, Legends of the Dead Earth tells the story of Prince Gavyn, another who wore the Starman mantle, and also recounts a meeting between Ted Knight and a villanness named the Prairie Witch, who appears to use eldritch powers to ride a broomstick.

Good Stuff: The best thing about a collection like this is that you get to read self-contained stories about characters that you really like, or you grow to like them from reading their self-contained stories. Each story works well within itself, and also does an excellent job of filling in regular Starman readers with a bit of necessary background about the characters and their histories.

This is not to say that you had to have been a regular Starman reader to enjoy these stories; each one stands on it’s own through the storytelling conventions used. Particularly good is the final story, as the Shade narrates what are essentially bedtime stories to children in the 30th century.

Another thing that I found useful and interesting (I don’t know if these appeared in the original comics or not) are the excerpts from the Shade’s journal, which also do a great deal to keep the pace moving and fill in more information

Not so Good Stuff: Not every story is truly great: in my opinion, the stories with Mikaal Tomas in the disco and the one with the Shade in Victorian England fell a little flat. This is not to say that they are poor stories, just that they don’t achieve the same level of excellence as the others.

I give this book 9/10.