Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today, before I take a look at the Sins of the Child arc in Starman, I think the one-off issue in Starman #11, A Tale of Times Past: 13 Years Ago - Five Friends, deserves some special attention!

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Enjoy!

Retroactively adding "darkness" to older characters is a tough tightrope to walk, as it is very easy to come off as hokey/trashy, but I think James Robinson did a good job on it with this story, where Ted Knight (Starman) is forced to go to his former Justice Society of America teammates to help him with a particularly vicious supervillain.

The whole issue is narrated by The Shade...





Matthew Smith's Mike Mignola-esque artwork works beautifully in this issue.

What especially works in the adapting of these fairly light heroes to such a dark tale is the amount of RESPECT Robinson affords these characters. It is quite telling (and always odd to me when Robinson then writes newer characters with considerably less respect) and awesome.

See this little sequence where we see Robinson capture the humanity of these heroes, who are trying to adjust to a new, darker world, but also we see how Robinson shows that these are pure heroes who shine in CONTRAST to the darkness...







However, this villain might be a bit too much for even their goodness....



I won't spoil the ending, but suffice to say that it is handled well.

And it sets up the next arc beautifully, which I'll get to soon!