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{{work}}
[[File:STARMAN1.jpg|frame|Jack Knight as Starman, in his [[Civvie Spandex]].]]
[[James Robinson]]'s most famous series for [[DC Comics]], ''Starman'' was one of the steps away from the [[Nineties Anti
Starman is also notable for Robinson's dusting off of plenty of older characters. [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Card
Jack Knight first appeared in ''[[Zero Hour]]'' #1 (September, 1994) and soon graduated to his own title. The ongoing lasted for 81 regular issues (October, 1994-August, 2001), though numbering begun with #0.
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* David Knight. First appeared in ''Starman'' vol. 1 #26 (September, 1990). Son of Ted and older brother of Jack. Claimed the mantle of his father and served as a rival to Payton.
{{tropelist}}
* [[All There in the Manual]]: Important bits of backstory which pay off in the "Grand Guignol" arc are found only in the first Shade miniseries and in various text stories, not to mention the re-used [[Backstory]] from Robinson's ''[[The Golden Age]]'' miniseries.
* [[Anti
** Jack starts out at this, but by series end is sort of an anti-anti-hero.
* [[Arch Enemy]]: The Mist. But in one conversation with his dad, Jack names a rival junk dealer as his [[Arch Nemesis]].
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* [[Avenging the Villain]]: Nash takes up the identity of The Mist and becomes Jack's archenemy after he kills her brother Kyle.
* [[Belated Backstory]]: The Shade, as mentioned above.
* [[Brother
* [[City of Adventure]]
* [[Civvie Spandex]]: Jack's superhero suit consists of a leather jacket, a pair of goggles and whatever else he happens to be wearing at the time.
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* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The Shade, ultimately.
* [[Dating Catwoman]]: Averted. Jack's archenemy, the Mist, raped him and gave birth to his son without his knowledge.
* [[Dead Guy, Junior]]
* [[Dead Person Conversation]]: Every real-time year included one issue where Jack talked to {{spoiler|his brother}}, who died in the first issue. Later conversations would also include other deceased DC characters, including {{spoiler|their father Ted}}.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: The Shade.
** Jack gets in plenty of riffs of his own as well.
* [[Death
* [[Death Is Cheap]]: {{spoiler|Jack}}'s back before the end of one issue via a cloned body.
** [[Blackest Night|This will probably not end well.]]
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** '''Ted Knight''': the original Starman, used ''both'' of the aforementioned weapons.
* [[Fight in The Nude]]: The Mist kidnaps, drugs, and rapes Jack, takes his clothes and his gear, and forces him to fight through a maze full of [[Mook|mooks]]. [[Badass|He succeeds]].
* [[Five
** [[The Hero]]: Jack
** [[The Lancer]]: The Shade, sometimes Mikaal.
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** [[The Smart Guy]]: Ted
** [[The Chick]]: Sadie or Hope O'Dare.
** The O'Dare Family also constitutes a [[Five
*** [[The Hero]]: Clarence
*** [[The Lancer]]: Mason
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* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Ted Knight, after learning he has cancer.}}
** Not to mention {{spoiler|Good Grundy}} dying (or becoming {{spoiler|the thuggish villain Grundy we're more familiar with}}) after saving people from a collapsing building.
* [[Historical
* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: At first.
* [[Knight in Sour Armor|(Jack) Knight In Sour Armor]]: To put it mildly, Jack has a very caustic personality.
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* [[Not So Different]]: Nash lays this trope at Jack's feet. Jack spends several issues trying to convince himself she's wrong.
* [[Police Are Useless]]: Averted with the O'Dares, a family of cops that assist Jack. They start by capturing the Mist while Jack fights the Mist's son, and they keep that level of competence for the entire series.
* [[Put
* [[Rape Discretion Shot]]: When Jack is drugged into unconsciousness and raped by Nash, the second Mist, the scene occurs from his point-of-view as a very strange erotic dream. Additionally, while the implication is there in the initial scene, it isn't until many issues later that the series confirms the fact that a rape occurred with a [[Wham! Line]].
* [[Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Male]]: Averted, somewhat. It's not played as remotely okay but at the same time there's not much angst about it either as Jack finds out about it {{spoiler|through a letter, sent to him by his would-be arch-enemy, confessing to the rape and telling him that she had his son and is going to train him to be a supervillain.}}
* [[Red Skies Crossover]]: The cosmic rod fails in one issue due to the ''Genesis'' event... and it is never spoken of again.
* [[Reed Richards Is Useless]]: Subverted in-series. As part of Jack's original bargain to take up his father's job as the town superhero, Ted had to agree to find applications for the cosmic energy he had discovered and harnessed apart from making weapons. By series end, Ted had apparently patented a number of technologies that would revolutionize the world... but the idea never quite took in the [[The DCU|shared universe]].
* [[Reincarnation]]: Used in one or two cases, depending on how you count it. {{spoiler|Matt O'Dare was the DC Western hero Scalphunter and would later go on to be reincarnated as Thom Kallor aka Starboy of the [[Legion of Super-Heroes]].}}
* [[Retcon]]: If you want to keep track of them all, you'll need a scorecard. Many of them were [[
** Probably the most notable was a hint from fortune-teller Charity that Jack would someday meet an old friend of his father's. The hint was originally meant to refer to Hawkman but Robinson's plans to revitalize the character in Starman were sidelined. Charity [[Lampshade Hanging|even tells Jack later]] that their paths have changed and he might never meet "the winged hero" after all.
* [[Science Hero]]: Ted Knight, who can still use his knowledge to pull off an [[Indy Ploy]] when cornered by the new Mist.
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** This even happens in Jack's internal monologues, where he ponders how he always equated maturity with enjoying the musical numbers in [[Marx Brothers]] movies that weren't Chico and Harpo goofing around with the instruments.
* [[Shallow Love Interest]]
* [[Shout
* [[Shrinking Violet]]: Nash, for much of the first arc -- until {{spoiler|Jack kills her brother}} and she becomes The Mist.
* [[Something Completely Different]]: The issue featuring Space Cabbie. (That's right, ''Space Cabbie''.)
* [[Star Power]]: In a crossover with ''[[Batman]]'' and ''[[Hellboy]]'', a group of [[Ghostapo|neo-Nazis]] build a machine to collect power from the stars in order to awaken an Eldritch Abomination.
* [[Super
* [[Time Travel]]: Several instances.
** Jack and Mikaal travel back in time and visit the planet Krypton, before it blew up. Later in the same arc, they travel to the future and team up with the [[Legion of Super-Heroes]].
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* [[To Hell and Back]]: Jack, The Shade and Matt O'Dare do wind up going to Hell at one point.
** Well, ''a'' Hell. DC has several.
* [[
* [[What Could Have Been]]: The producers of [[Smallville]] had plans to adapt the series for television at one point.
* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: The Mist again.
* [[Writing for
** Subverted with a lot of one-shots and smaller arcs thrown in. The trades pre-Omnibus were notoriously difficult to keep straight.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:The Nineties]]
[[Category:Better Than It Sounds/Comic Books]]
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[[Category:DC Comics Series]]
[[Category:The DCU]]
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