Stargirl By Geoff Johns Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's later than I normally start writing reviews, but I wanted to get this one out of the way so I can get back to watching season 2 of Stargirl as I'm only four episodes into the season. This review is on Stargirl By Geoff Johns, a trade paperback that collects the 1999 comic book series, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. by Geoff Johns with art by Lee Moder, Scott Kolins, Dan Davis, and too many others to list here. There probably won't be any spoilers for this book as I'm just gonna talk about it generically, but this book served as the basis for season 1 of Stargirl, and you already know my thoughts on it. So let's get into it.

Stargirl By Geoff Johns collects issues 0-14 of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., which ran from 1999 until 2000, and JSA All-Stars #4, which is the issue where Courtney changes her superhero identity from the Star-Spangled Kid to Stargirl. Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. was Johns's first comic book series that he ever worked on, and it was pitched to DC by him, rather than DC Editorial coming up with the title. The character of Courtney, as I mentioned in my review of the TV show, was created in honour of Johns's late sister, Courtney, right down to the two sharing the middle name of Elizabeth. 

This book is basically season 1 of the TV show, with some obvious changes between the two. For example, Courtney is a late '90s/early 2000s teenager who is much more angsty and way more cynical than she is on the TV show. She also doesn't warm up to Pat as quickly as she does on the show either. Meaning they're at odds with each other alot longer here than they are in the show. And while Courtney is part of the JSA by issue #5, we don't see any of that happen here, as none of the issues of JSA, which started coming out around issues 4 and 5, are collected in this book. Probably because the four volume trade paperback collection, JSA By Geoff Johns, which started coming out in 2018, collects all of those issues. 

Cindy Burman, a.k.a. Shiv, and her father, the Dragon King, are in this book, though they don't have anything to do with the Injustice Society of America like they do on the TV show. They use the same device, though they don't need Brainwave or his son to make it work, to take control of all the children in the world in order to wipe out the adults. Unlike with Jordan, Henry Sr, and the ISA in the show, there doesn't seem to be any real reason to do this as both the Dragon King and Cindy are fairly one dimensional in this series and neither of them have any real motivation to want to do this. 

Unlike on the show, Courtney has a supporting cast at the school in this book that aren't children of the ISA, or Rick, Yolanda and Beth. There's only three kids though. Her best friend, Mary, Cindy's ex-boyfriend, Josh, and a guy named Travis, who seems to have a thing for Mary. Yeah, they don't actually do a whole lot with Courtney at school outside of her constantly fighting bad guys as the Star-Spangled Kid at the school. So these supporting characters, aside from Mary, have nothing to do in this comic. Which is probably why they didn't make it into the TV series and why Beth, Yolanda, Rick, Artemis Crock, Cameron Mahkent, and Isaac Bowin fill those roles on the show. 

Being that the issues this book collects came out from 1999 to 2000, there are alot of guest appearances from other DC heroes and the younger teams. The JSA, Young Justice, the Titans, the JLA, and the Seven Soldiers of Victory all show up, as do Starman, both the Ted Knight version and the then current Jack Knight version of the character, and Shazam (then known as Captain Marvel), Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Jr.. My favourite guest appearance was Young Justice though. Just seeing Courtney team up with Robin, Superboy, Impulse, Arrowette, Wonder Girl, and Secret was a pretty nice treat. But it made sense since Young Justice was the only teenage superhero team in the DC Universe at the time as there was no Teen Titans. The only Titans team at the time was from Devin Grayson's comic book series, Titans which starred the characters shown and introduced in New Teen Titans/New Titans in the '80s and early to mid '90s. And is basically the team on the TV show, Titans.

One more thing of note is that in both this book and the original JSA Presents: Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. trade paperback volumes, have issue #0 between issues 8 and 9, even though it was published before issue #1 came out in 1999. I guess it's just because chronologically issue #0 takes place between issues 8 and 9. It's still weird though since it goes into some backstory with Ted and Jack Knight, and how the cosmic belt was created for Sylvester Pemberton which is framed by Courtney and Pat teaming up with Jack Knight a.k.a. Starman, against Icicle. 

Overall this was a pretty good book. Obviously Johns became a much better writer over time and his characters became more complex as well. But this is a fun read if you're a fan of the TV show as it's very much the seed for that TV show. And this book is basically the only way you can get the series. At least from what I've seen at comic book stores, conventions and comic book sales. Nobody has it in single issues, and the two original JSA Presents trade paperback volumes have been out of print probably since 2012 or 2013, maybe earlier, depending on how well they sold at the time. 

That's it for me for today my friends. I will be back soon with my review of Stargirl season 2 as soon as possible. It probably won't be until Sunday because I haven't finished watching it yet and I'm not getting to episodes 5-9 tonight. But I promise that as soon as I've finished watching the season, I'll review it. Also, next weekend I'm going over to my sister's place to watch the premiere of That '90s Show. We're planning on just watching the first episode if that's all that drops on Thursday, January 19th and then when the season is over we'll finish it over a binge session or two. But if the whole season drops on the 19th, then we'll binge as many episodes as we can next weekend and then have another session the next time we can get together. So stay tuned for that review as well. In the meantime have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.