The Untold Truth Of Stargirl

When it comes to the DC superheroes, the world of movies has always belonged to the big names. Superman and Batman have had multiple long-running franchises, but when lower-tier characters like John Constantine have been given a shot at the big screen, it hasn't always gone well. The small screen, however, has offered up plenty of opportunity in recent years for great but lesser-known heroes to step into the spotlight. The Flash, Black Lightning, Green Arrow, and even bigger names like Supergirl and Batwoman have all found success in their own shows, with sprawling supporting casts and the ensemble of Legends of Tomorrow giving plenty of others a chance, too.

The next DC character set for stardom, so to speak, is Stargirl, and while she might seem like an unlikely pick, fans of DC Universe deep cuts are pretty excited to see her get a second chance at the spotlight two decades after her single short-lived comic was canceled. If you're curious about how Courtney Whitmore went from obscurity to her own show — and how she's carrying on a tradition of heroism that stretches back a solid 80 years — then read on for the real truth behind DC's Stargirl.

The one big problem with characters who showed up during the '40s and had their origins tied to World War II is that, as time passes, it gets increasingly difficult to explain why they haven't aged in the past 70 years or so. This leads to some pretty interesting ways of creators getting around it. Captain America, for example, has the "man out of time" concept of being frozen in a block of ice for however long it's been since the war, and DC's Justice Society of America were depicted as having been exposed to mystical energies that slowed down their aging.

Anyway, for the Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, and the rest of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, the explanation was that they'd all been caught up in a time warp back in 1948, a neat little device that also explained why no one was making any comics about them in the intervening years. When he emerged, Sylvester took the name Skyman and began using the "Cosmic Converter Belt" that gave him super powers. As Skyman, he teamed up with the children of some Golden Age characters to form a group called Infinity, Inc., a new generation of heroes to face down a new generation of threats. It went really well, too! For about 50 issues!

And then came Infinity Inc. #51. As part of an extremely complicated plot, a villain called the Harlequin crashed a wedding alongside Solomon Grundy, an undead monster who crawled out of a bog. In the ensuing fight, Grundy grabbed a hero called Mr. Bones and then shoved Bones' hand against Skyman's face. The problem? Well, among Bones' super powers were transparent skin and organs that made him look like a skeleton — hence the name — and a "cyanide touch" that killed instantly, leaving a distinct burn on his victims. In other words, Pemberton got his face burned off by a swamp zombie using a skeleton as a weapon, and while that's probably the most metal way to die, it's also a sad end for an obscure hero.

Of course, it was only the end for Skyman. The Star-Spangled Kid still had a long way to go.

In 1999, DC launched another one of those books that dusted off an old concept: the Star-Spangled Kid. This time, though, it was in a very different form, thanks to Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., from rising talents Geoff Johns and Lee Moder.

Remember Pat Dugan, the bumbling but ridiculously strong grown-up sidekick who'd fought crime alongside the original Star-Spangled Kid as Stripesy? Well, it turned out that in the years since he'd returned from being lost in time with the other Soldiers of Victory, he'd retired from superheroics (mostly) and settled down with a woman named Barbara Whitmore. Unfortunately, he didn't get along with his new stepdaughter, Courtney. When Courtney discovered the relics of his superhero past, she stole the aforementioned Cosmic Converter Belt and went into action as the all-new Star-Spangled Kid, initially motivated purely by teenage rebellion.

In order to keep tabs on her, Pat — who it turned out was a gifted mechanic, not the bumbling idiot that he'd been back in those stories from the '40s — deployed his secret project: a massive suit of robotic power armor called the Special Tactics Robotic Integrated Power Enhancer, or S.T.R.I.P.E. With that, the classic duo was reunited in a brand new form, and the stage was set for a character who would become one of DC's most underrated heroes.

It would've been easy for Courtney Whitmore to fade into obscurity after the end of her series, but like the tenacious character that she is, she managed to stick around. Like most throwbacks to the Golden Age, she wound up joining the Justice Society for a while, being one of a few younger members who were tasked with hanging out with crimefighting senior citizens. The nice thing about that, one assumes, is that they were all in bed by nine, but she probably had to put up with a lot of questions from Wildcat and the original Flash about how to "Facebook me a picture from an email."

It was while she was with the Justice Society that Courtney got caught up in the Sins of Youth crossover that ran in Young Justice. The basic idea was that heroes swapped ages with their sidekicks. The Justice Society, as the oldest heroes, became a pack of troublemaking toddlers, while Courtney herself was aged up into an adult "Starwoman" tasked with keeping track of them all. During that time, she used Jack Knight's Cosmic Staff (along with his signature leather jacket and goggles), which turned out to be way more significant than, say, a grumpy teenage Bruce Wayne dressing up as Robin.

In the final issue of Starman, Jack Knight tied up all the loose plot threads that had been running through his book for the past seven years, and arguably the most important — at least as far as the larger DC Universe was concerned — was passing on his own legacy to the next generation of heroes. Jack and Courtney had never really gotten along, owing largely to Jack's longstanding resentment for his father's attempt to pass down the Starman legacy to Sylvester Pemberton and the way their own teenage rebellions took them in opposite directions. The glimpse he got of Courtney in Sins of Youth however, where he saw what she'd be like as an adult, made him realize that she was the person who should be carrying his legacy forward.

With that, Courtney left the identity of the Star-Spangled Kid behind, taking up Jack's cosmic staff as Stargirl.

For a relatively obscure, cult-favorite-at-best character who only starred in one comic — where she was technically only one of two title characters — which was canceled 20 years ago after only 14 issues, Courtney Whitmore has made a surprising number of appearances in the world outside of comics. There's a reason for that, though, and it goes beyond just the fact that Stargirl's an interesting character with a simple, iconic look that translates well to live-action. It probably has more to do with how Geoff Johns went from writing that short-lived comic to being promoted all the way to Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics from 2010 to 2018, where he took an active role in shaping the film and television side of things. When you're a character co-created by and based on a relative of one of the people making decisions about who gets to be on TV, you have a much easier time getting on the screen than, say, Doctor Fate.

Both Courtney and Pat Dugan (as S.T.R.I.P.E.) showed up on Justice League Unlimited alongside the other modern incarnations of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and as a solo act, Stargirl has made appearances up on multiple animated series. She was briefly seen on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and more recently, she's been featured on Justice League Action and Young Justice: Outsiders, although she's not a superhero in that last one. Instead, she's the host of a celebrity-focused TV show called Stargirl. And in that series, Courtney Whitmore is weirdly voiced by Whitney Moore, which is sort of like if Spider-Man were played by Park Peters.

In live-action, Stargirl played a big role in Smallville's two-part "Absolute Justice" event, which dove into the history of the Justice Society and the idea of Clark Kent carrying on a heroic legacy that dated back to 1940. In this world, Courtney, played by Britt Irvin, took the identity of Stargirl after Sylvlester Pemberton was killed, with the idea that he'd been part of a team of heroes who were branded as criminals as part of a government conspiracy.

In 2020, Courtney is set to finally get another shot as a starring role, although not in comics. Instead, she'll be featured in Stargirl, a live-action show on the DC Universe streaming service, with episodes also airing on the CW after they premiere.

Produced by Geoff Johns, who's also writing the pilot, the show seems to be sticking a little closer to the original comic than, say, the one where Stargirl goes back in time to become Merlin. This time, Courtney Whitmore, played by former Nickelodeon star Brec Bassinger, is a high school student who discovers that her stepfather (Luke Wilson) used to be a sidekick, and she decides to raid his stash of equipment to take up the family business for herself. In addition to Courtney and Pat Dugan, the show is also set to include a handful of members of the Justice Society, including Wildcat, Hourman, and Doctor Mid-Nite, with Community star Joel McHale as Sylvester Pemberton.

The one big difference is that the show looks like it's skipping over the "Star-Spangled Kid" identity, with Pemberton having been Starman back in the day instead. As for whether it'll pick up on other members of Stargirl's supporting cast from that original comic — like her high school rival, Cindy Burman, who became a supervillain named Shiv and gave Courtney the closest thing she ever had to an arch-enemy — that remains to be seen. Those of us who loved that comic at the turn of the century, however, have a lot to be hopeful for.