Stargirl versus comics: a character born from grief

A character born from personal grief, in an industry that doesn't produce any. Decryption source by source, without disclosing the outcomes.

As in each article in this series, only verified information (creators, distribution, dates, publishers) is stated; the comparative analysis is ours, without reproducing dialogue or protected images.

1940: the very first team

Before talking about the character, we must talk about the team he resurrects, because its seniority is poorly known.

La Justice Society of America appears in All Star Comics #3 (1940). This is the first superhero team in history, predating the Justice League by twenty years and the Avengers by twenty-three years.

Its principle is the one that this corpus has described with regard tothe League: a containing title, where characters each having their own series meet. The format was even more literal than today — members met, divided up tasks, and each chapter followed one of them separately.

This team has a special status in the catalog: it is that of origins. Its members belong to the golden age, and the following decades have made them veterans — figures whose narrative function is to have been there before.

1999: a character born from bereavement

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #0 appeared in 1999, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Lee Moder. Courtney Whitmore is a teenager who finds the equipment of a former vigilante and decides to use it, against the advice of her stepfather.

The character is named after its author's sister, who died a few years earlier in an air accident. Johns said publicly that the creation was a tribute to him — the character, the energy, the way of being.

This corpus examined hundreds of creations. They arise from commercial needs, variations, orders, sometimes from a good idea.No other is born from personal grief in an industry where the characters belong to the publisher and are designed in meetings.

This fact illuminates the tone of the character, and in turn that of the series. Courtney Whitmore has no founding trauma, no anger, no debt. She is enthusiastic — and this enthusiasm is not a naïve script: it is a portrait.

2020: the author adapts his own creation

The series is developed by Geoff Johns himself, a situation that this corpus has encountered only three times - with the author ofPersepolis, with Greg Rucka onThe Old Guard, and here.

The comparison with Rucka is enlightening. This corpus observed that his two works brought to the screen had experienced opposite fates: distorted when he was not there, faithful when he wrote himself. The case of Johns confirms the rule, but also reveals its limit.

Because an author who adapts his own creation is not only more faithful: he is free otherwise. He can modify without it being a betrayal, since it is his property. The series changes a lot - it moves the story to a small town, causes the Society to die before the start, distributes the equipment to teenagers - and these deviations never feel like infidelity.

It is an asymmetry that this corpus has noted without formulating it until now: the same modification is received differently depending on who is doing it. An external adapter who killed the Society before the credits rolled would have been blamed for a massacre; the author, no.

The characters, from paper to screen

• Courtney Whitmore— Enthusiasm as a trait, not as naivety.
• The father-in-law— The founding duo of the 1999 title.
• The Justice Society— The 1940 team, who died before the story.
• The new carriers— Adolescents receiving the equipment.
• The adversaries— United in a parallel society, mirror of the first.

The small town, a setting that changes everything

The most important shift is not narrative but geographical.

Superheroes live in metropolises. It's a convention so constant that we stop seeing it: Gotham, Metropolis, New York. The city provides anonymity, criminal density and the scale of the issues.

The series is set in a small town in Nebraska. Everyone knows something, anonymity is impossible, and the adversaries are not masked strangers but the dentist, the principal, the neighbor.

This corpus noted a similar logic regardingBlack Lightning, with its neighborhood. Here the effect is even clearer, because the contrast with convention is total: a threat of global scope, dealt with on the scale of a commune where the villain comes to dine.

This movement produces a benefit that metropolises do not provide — the proximity. Defeating a criminal you meet at the grocery store does not have the same weight as defeating an anonymous figure. And it produces a second, more practical one: a series located in a small town costs less to produce, which allows resources to be devoted elsewhere.

Collection side: which numbers to aim for after the series

The designated route is one of the most contrasting in the corpus.

All Star Comics #3(1940) contains the first appearance of the Justice Society. It's a major golden age piece—the first superhero team in history—that's priced at the high end of the market. The 1940 prints were massively destroyed during wartime paper drives, making surviving copies rare.

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #0(1999) is at the other end. It's a comic from the end of the 1990s, a period of market contraction: the print runs were there down, much more than at the start of the decade, and no one kept them since the speculative bubble had just burst.

This profile deserves attention, because this corpus rarely reports it. We keep saying that comics from the 1990s are worthless — this is true for 1991-1994, a period of massive overproduction. But the END of the decade is the opposite: collapsed market, reduced print runs, no speculative conservation. Keys from 1997-2000 are often rarer than those from 1992, and much less expensive than their rarity would justify.

The rating of this issue followed the series, with the usual movement – ​​rise then decline. As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

Legacy, dominant subject of the DC catalog

One last observation, because it goes beyond this series and sheds light on a fundamental difference between the two major publishers.

The DC catalog is structured by the transmission. Identities are passed from hand to hand: several Flashes, several Green Lanterns, several Robins, several Batgirls. The Justice Society of 1940 begat the League of 1960, which begat the Titans, which begat still other teams. Each generation inherits from the previous one and must prove itself worthy of it.

The competing catalog works differently: its characters remain, essentially, the same individuals since the 1960s. The subject is not succession but persistence.

This difference is not anecdotal, and it explains part of the tastes. A reader attracted by questions of legacy, debt and generation will find material in DC that the other house does not offer. A reader attached to following the same person over decades will find the opposite.

The 2020 series is located exactly at the center of this system: a teenager who takes over the equipment of a dead person, in a team founded in 1940, with comrades who also have inherited names. It is perhaps the television production that best captures what makes this catalog unique — and it does so with characters that almost no one knows.

Where to start reading

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #0(1999) can be read alone and immediately sets the tone of the character. For the Justice Society, the stories of All Star Comics from the 1940s are available in collections and are especially valuable as a document: we see the very first team functioning, with its meeting formalism.

Timeline to know

• 1940— All Star Comics #3: The First Superhero Team.
• 1960— The Justice League takes up the principle, twenty years later.
• 1999— Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #0: Courtney Whitmore.
• 2020— Geoff Johns adapts his creation himself.

Its place in the saga and for the collector

This series will remain like that of only character in the corpus born from personal bereavement, in an industry where creations are designed in meetings and belong to the publisher - which explains an enthusiasm which is not a naivety of scenario but a portrait. It also brings an observation that this corpus had not formulated: the same modification is received differently depending on who makes it, and an author adapting his own work is not only more faithful, he is free in other ways. For the collector, it designates a poorly understood segment: the keys to END of the 1990s, rare because the market had collapsed.

The verdict: the heritage preserved, the scale reduced

• Loyalty: heritage as a subject from 1999, the duo with the father-in-law, the Justice Society of 1940, the cosmic staff and its former bearer, and a rare luminous tone in this ensemble.
• Freedoms: a small town in place of a metropolis, a Society that died before the story, equipment entrusted to adolescents, adversaries united in a parallel society and narrow origins.
• Collectible numbers: All Star Comics #3 (1940), Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #0 (1999).

A character created so that a missing sister continues to exist somewhere, and a team forgotten since 1940 that is brought back to life. Two forms of inheritance — and that's exactly what the series is about.

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