30 years ago, James Robinson and Tony Harris first introduced the Jack Knight version of DC Comics‘s Starman. The son of the Golden Age Starman, Ted Knight, the character starred in one of the most lauded runs in comic book history, over 80 issues, ending in 2001. And for the most part, Jack Knight hasn’t appeared in further comics, given the rare happy ending that sticks.
But as Robinson revealed to Comic Book Club last night (November 12) during a discussion about his upcoming Dark Horse Comics book Welcome to the Maynard, he and Harris are coming back to Starman for a new story set between the pages of the previous run. Well, “hypothetically” at least.
When the discussion turned to Starman, and specifically whether there were any moments from the long run that have stuck with him, Robinson expressed that it was hard to call out any one bit from 30 years ago in particular. Though he teased, “I’m glad you like Starman. And I would keep checking the news.”
Robinson continued, though, throwing out some hypothetical situations that, I’ll be honest, don’t seem that hypothetical.
“Well, hypothetically, if there were any more Jack stories, there was a time when Jack goes to Japan,” Robinson said. “And so hypothetically, if ever there was another Jack story done by DC with me and maybe with Tony, it would be set in that flashback period so that he still is retired happily with his kids and his wife in San Francisco painting and just being Jack.”
Robinson is referring to the ending of the series, but what about other characters in the canon? Specifically, The Shade, a mainstay of the Starman series — and one who got a spinoff of his own? “This is all allegedly,” Robinson added. “This is all hypothetically. If I was going to do that, The Shade would appear in that story too.”
Full disclosure, this isn’t the first time Robinson has expressed interest in doing a story of this ilk. Eight plus years ago he mentioned that it could involve Jack getting a tattoo (shades of Lost?), and possibly be an original graphic novel (OGN). And in fact, back in July, rumors arose that Robinson and Harris were reuniting for a DC Black Label series that would be announced at San Diego Comic-Con. While that announcement never happened, it seems like perhaps it just got a little delayed… And because of that, missed the thirtieth anniversary of the title back in September.
“Well, hypothetically, it might have supposed to have been,” Robinson said when asked if the Starman revival would potentially still hit this year to time out for the anniversary, “but things just take longer than you think. They’d hypothetically take hypothetically longer.”
Hypothetically, of course.
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