Starman #7

"A (K)night at the Circus"
written by James Robinson
pencils by Tony Harris
inks by Wade Von Grawbadger

I suppose it could be called urban prejudice, Jack Knight's uncanny foreboding in the dramatically rural farmland surrounding Opal City's abrupt city boundary, but in Robinson's sometimes purple but always gripping prose it becomes something almost magical.  His choice of pop culture reference is "American Gothic" by Grant Wood, erroneously interpreted as a husband and wife (rather than father and spinster daughter) keeping their dark midwestern secrets.  A more suitable painting might have been "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth, desolate and grey and seemingly malevolent.  There's a wildness and unpredictability to the landscape, as full of treasures and oddities as it is rife with uncertainty and danger.

It's in this strange, otherworldly territory that Jack Knight stumbles on a traveling circus, a somewhat anachronistic curiosity, a relic from the early century.  But it's the Freak Show that draws his attention, invited to marvel at its peculiar collection of physical aberrations like a warped echo of his own world of superheroes and villains.  Here he meets another Starman, Mikaal Tomas the "cosmic geek", enslaved by a devious carnival operator, who suggestively hints that all his freaks are real.  Deceived by the circus master and attacked by his legion of oddities, Jack Knight is left for dead in the grassy field outside the circus tents.  It is possible that only a few weeks ago, prior to his brother's death and the return of the Mist, Jack would have gone home wondering at the weirdness of his day, licked his wounds, and never returned.  But it is not likely.  It is precisely Jack's sense of justice, offended by the blue alien's enthrallment, that makes him the hero he is.  The staff and the superhero trappings are just decoration.

By integrating Mikaal Tomas, Robinson begins to make good on his tease from Starman #3, his predecessors and fellows scattered around the universe.  It's a promise that lends depth to Robinson's universe, one that reaches into Starman's past for continuity.  Jack Knight would approve.

[May 1995]