Stargirl is a 2020 direct-to streaming quirky semi-musical movie about a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. A small amount like a Napoleon Dynamite or Girl Asleep or a Wes Anderson movie. Based on a YA novel.
Stargirl is a 2020 television series about a teenage girl who discovers that she has inherited a magic stick and becomes a superhero along with sidekick Luke Wilson. Based on DC Comics characters.
This thread is for discussion of one or both.
Did you have anything to do with either?
I’m watching the TV show (Hey, it’s new TV). Curious about next week as Stargirl starts recruiting JSA members.
Not sure how that works as I believe not all the former members were “training” origin – some maybe “radioactive aardvark” origin.
Also, the Flash is dead in this universe?
Brian
This universe’s version of the Flash is dead. All of the JSA members are dead.
Some replacements are going to be easier to recruit than others. Several members of the JSA got their powers from an object - it should be possible to recruit replacement by finding “worthy” successors, as with Stargirl and the Cosmic Staff. Others had innate powers. Others had training. (Keep in mind the JSA members are based mostly on Golden Age DC characters, not their modern counterparts).
Dr. Fate: spirit of Order contained in a magic helmet that empowers its wearer. Source material is often inconsistent as to how much of Dr. Fate’s abilities come from the magical skill of the mortal host, and how much comes from Nabu, the spirit in the helmet.
Dr. Mid-Nite: blind surgeon who can see in darkness, and often uses darkness creating gadgets. The source material is inconsistent as to whether his blind-sight is a meta-human power or comes from high-tech goggles. I’m going to assume the series is going with high-tech goggles. Probably not too many surgeons in the local high school, but just about anyone could learn to use the goggles and “black-out grenades”.
The Flash: freak laboratory accident gave super-speed. The original was created by lightning and unspecified chemicals. This is going to be pretty difficult to replicate. There seems to be an implication in the show that the show’s version of the Flash got his powers from his helmet, maybe?
Green Lantern: magic ring and a magic lantern. Find a worthy ring-bearer, ala the Cosmic Staff.
Hourman: used a super-chemical, Miraclo, that gives super-strength (sometimes other abilities, depending on the source material) to the user for an hour. Figuring out how to recreate the Miraclo is an in-show challenge, and figuring out a good reason why only one person can use it is a meta-show challenge.
Johnny Thunder: had a genie in a mundane object (in this case, a pink pen). Just find someone to command the genie.
Wildcat: championship boxer (and in modern terms, MMA fighter). I don’t know how you recruit a replacement for him from a high school. Like the Flash, there seems to be an implication that the show’s version might have gotten enhanced abilities from his cat-mask, maybe?
That’s off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, and some elements. If she’s actually going to recruit replacements for all of these guys, that’s going to be a huge team - juggling that many characters is going to be really unwieldy.
I was planning on starting a thread on this today - but since someone has beat me to it, I’ll just comment.
Comments:
Man, Icicle looks like Christopher Walken…
Really surprised that Wizard and Wizard Junior are both dead - I was sure that Icicle was doing the old “Frame the Superhero for the death of the loved one” bit, but it didn’t play out like that at all.
Why yes, I wrote, directed, produced, acted in and fully bankrolled both of them.
The incredibly patient and apparently immortal owl.
The show has a lot of potential, so far they seem to be mixing teen superhero learning and some humor in a reasonable proportion.
What’s the word, is this show officially not part of the Arrowverse?
It’s in the larger Arrowverse (Stargirl was briefly shown in the crossover - in the same set of scenes with Burt Ward, etc.), but Stargirl is not from the same universe as Barry Allen.
Right, in the brief snippets at the end of Crisis, showing the new Multiverse, Stargirl and her crew were identified as being in the (new post-Crisis) Earth-2.
Stargirl is airing on the CW, and I think it’s from the same production company as the Arrowverse shows, but it’s a co-production with the DC Universe streaming service (it actually streams on DC Universe first). So, there may be some messy rights issues with a real cross-over. Still, they managed it with Supergirl when her show was on CBS, so it’s probably only a matter of time.
I’m really enjoying Stargirl so far. Of the CW DC shows, I’d have to put it as a bit below Legends of Tomorrow, but well above everything else.
One thing that really bugs me, though- and it’s possible I just missed some explanation- is why/how they’re playing coy about whether Starman was her father or not. His costume didn’t hide his face at all, so it should be pretty easy to compare photos of her dad with that banner hanging in the JSA’s headquarters. Or is it that the only picture of her father is that tiny, blurry cameo?
This is a universe where a pair of glasses is a foolproof disguise.
I thought with the latest crisis all the universes collapsed into one, that’s why I’m asking.
Apparently almost all universes collapsed into one… https://www.cbr.com/arrowverse-post-crisis-multiverse-result-of-compromise/
Stargirl appeared in one of the Justice League animated series. I wasn’t really impressed with her.
There was one amusing scene, during a stakeout, when the flame-head teenager who can manipulate molecules attempted to flirt with her.
When your starting point is infinite Earths and you collapse almost all of them into one, what’s left over is still infinite Earths.
The new Earth-2, on which Stargirl and the JSA exist, actually resembles the pre-Crisis Earth-2 from the comics. That Earth-2 was, in turn, based on the DC Golden Age with the original versions of DC superheros like the Flash (Jay Garrick) and Green Lantern (Alan Scott).
As for the Stargirl TV show, I’ve been greatly enjoying it, especially the callbacks to the Golden Age and the original JSA. The opening sequence in the Pilot, with battle between the JSA a nd the Injustice Society reminded me of the Golden Age. Even Luke Wilson’s breathless introduction of the various characters:
“Wildcat!”
“Dr. Midnight!”
“Starman!”
“Brainwave!”
was reminiscent of comic book panels. I was hooked from that moment.
I could do with less of the high school crap, but it looks like Courtney is going to assemble a new JSA out of the loser’s table. I also thought that a new Injustice Society was going to assemble out of the kids of the original Injustice Society, but then they went ahead and killed off Wizard Jr. They killed off a high school kid! The writers aren’t fooling around.
The characters in The Flash seem to be under that impression, but at the end of the final Crisis cross-over episode, they showed snippets from the new Multiverse, including the new Earth-2 of Stargirl, and different Earths for the various other DC Universe streaming service shows, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, and Titans.
Also, the Flash from the DC cinematic universe payed Barry a visit, so that’s also apparently a part of the Arrowverse’s Multiverse. Which makes it even weirder that Barry and the other characters on the The Flash keep talking as if they think all of the other Earths have ceased to exist, and they’re the only Earth left…
Darren Garrison:
It’s canon in the comics that Charles McNider’s Hooty was replaced a number of times - I think it was in an issue of Inifinity, Inc, that someone refers to the current one as “Hooty XIV”.
I think that from his introduction until Flashpoint, Pieter Cross had only one owl, though.
You’re probably thinking of Justice League Unlimited. They were juggling a huge cast of supporting characters; most of them only briefly appeared on-screen in the background. The brief appearances of various characters were cool Easter eggs for fans already familiar with the characters from the comics, but if you weren’t, they really didn’t have much time to establish most of them as interesting characters.
Geoff Johns, one of the show’s creators and executive producers, created her for the Justice Society of America comic book, and she featured prominently in his runs on that book. When he was writing her, I though she was a great character. For whatever reason, middle-age male comic book writers sometimes seem to have an easier time writing teenage girls as interesting, 3-Dimensional characters (Stargirl, Kitty Pryde, Armor, etc.).
Thanks gdave!
From the previews I think the next girl recruited is a boxer and will be the new Wildcat (since the episode title is “Wildcat” probably a safe guess)
I think it is loner girl who was being slut shamed.
You know the other girl who sits at the same lunch table (looks it up: Beth) will be involved somehow.
Brian