Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Starman question

The official solicit:

So after all this time, I'm rereading the six-Omnibus collection... I recently bought a Jack Knight ink and watercolor piece from Barry Kitson, and thought it would be a good way to while away the time while I wait for it to get here. I'm realizing how little of the run I actually read! I've had the six volumes on my shelf behind the Mattel Jack Knight figure, but I really only ever read the first Omni, issue 50 for the Legion tie-in, and #81 when I was buying BLACKEST NIGHT for my buddy Mike... I'm halfway through the final volume and am kicking myself for not giving these an in-depth reading.

I remember not enjoying the issues anywhere near as much when Harris left the book. I'm still scarred by Robinson;s JLA run, not to want to go back to it too much. It certainly stood out at the time though.

I still don't see why Robinson was so great on Starman but has mostly laid an egg on everything else he's written with very few exceptions.

THE GOLDEN AGE, LEAVE IT TO CHANCE and STARMAN...All so good.

I did like The Golden Age. Although the art was also excellent there.

I did say "with a very few exceptions". Another less-known one was that mini he did starring the GA Vigilante.

But this is also the guy who wrote "Cry for Justice".....

I was replying only to Pov, not questioning your opinion.

I don't think either of our responses warranted such an upsetting, traumatising reminder of Cry for Justice.

Although some of his JLA related work can be said to be transcendent. It was some of the poorest work I've read across various media, not just comics.

Optometrist appointment the other day. While waiting, I plowed thru the Ted Knight STARMAN stories from ADVENTURE COMICS #72-75...

Case Of The Magic Bloodstone!
The Case Of Murders In Outer Space!
The Case Of The Monstrous Animal-Men
The Strange Case Of The Luckless Liars!

All of these were by Gardner Fox & Jack Burnley. They look and read very nice and "professional", but it's too easy to see why this series didn't catch on at the time. Apart from the entire series concept and the hero's costume & powers seeming too "generic" and "deritivate" (the Ted Knight series was the result of a TEAM of 5 editors & Burnley pooling ideas-- "creation by committee" if there ever was an example), you have the bit about Ted always faking illness which gets tiresome. Then there's his not wearing a facemask, yet both his girlfriend Doris and his FBI contact somehow never recognize him.

Burnley's art is VERY nice, sharp, clean, "realistic", I'd almost say for comics, decades ahead of its time. It actually looks like it would have been a better fit in newspaper strips (in fact, Burnley did most of the BATMAN Sunday stories in the early 40s). At the same time, it's a bit "stiff", and not very "lively". I'm reminded that at the time the Golden Age Archive book came out (2000), it was one of many inspirations for a project I was working on. But since then, I've tried to take the advice of another artist and friend who kept urging me to "back away from too much photo-reference". As a result, while I still think it's pretty, it doesn't "grab" me the way it did 21 years ago.

Most of the line reproduction isn't bad (though I sometimes find myself wishing somone had done photographic reproduction right off the original printed comics), but the 4th story I read today looked like they really didn't have good source material to work with (some pages looked really fuzzy). I guess with stuff from that era, one should be grateful you can read it AT ALL these days, in any kind of "reasonably" decent shape.