Yeah, no work so far this week, so I thought I'd do a quick BIS for you guys.
Starman#11 (Sep '95) "13 Years Ago: Five Friends" by James Robinson and Matt Smith.
The premise: The Shade narrates a flashback tail about one wickedly hot summer one year when he wasn't in Opal City, and the villain known as the Ragdoll ruled over the city in a reign of terror.
Yep, getting older, but no less evil or crazy, the golden age villain Ragdoll goes all Charles Manson on Opal City, and only the combined efforts of Starman, Hourman, The Flash, Dr. Midnight, and Green Lantern can help end it.
You see Ragdoll's gathered his own "family" of criminals and they're taking over the city, so the heroes all have to split up in order to cover the whole town.
Dr. Midnight goes to rescue the kidnapped victims, while Hourman defends Opal City bridge in a remarkable series of pages that illustrates just why he's called Hourman:
Finally after hours of non-stop fighting, Starman, GL, and Flash have ragdoll tied up.
Except he reveals he knows or suspects their true identities, and once he;'s out, he promises to target their loved ones as well.
Temporarily distracted, Ragdoll breaks loose and makes a run for it. The three panic, and blast the shit out of the place.
This is what's left of Ragdoll:
Starman still felt regret over the accidental death of ragdoll, where as the others saw it as unfortunate, but something that had to happen.
Definitely a cool story that provides some nice depth and insight to a dark day for Starman and his JSA pals.
2 comments:
I miss Starman. Oddly enough it was this series that made me value the original Starman at all. I always thought of him more as the extra of the JSA.
I wonder if Ragdoll from the Secret Six ever had a grudge match with them over these events?
Speaking of comics - how goes your lettering gig?
@Dan: It definitely was a good comic, great run, and thankfully DC let Robinson go out on own terms.
I'm not sure if the new ragdoll mentioned what happened to his dad, or if he sought revenge against Starman's son or not.
It's going good. Just waiting on our inker to send me more ages to finish. So far 12 pages are done and in the can.
How's your mum doing?
Post a Comment