An Opal Day With Bobo
This issue features an inside cover Foreword Welcome to the Revolution by Editor Archie Goodwin. It's a very nice piece, on what the creators set out to accomplish with Starman. This issue also features a table of contents and a series-to-date recap from The Shade's journal.
This is the day that metahuman super-villain Jake "Bobo" Benetti returns home to Opal after his release from prison. By his own admission he's fought Dr. Mid-Nite, The Human Bomb, the original Starman Ted Knight, Dr. Fate; defeated both Iron Munro and Negative Man from the original Doom Patrol, as well as gone fist to fist with Alan Scott. It was for the murder of his wife and her paramour that he surrendered and did his latest long stretch of time. Newly released, he's returned to decide his place, outside or back in. He meets Clarence and Hope O'dare. He invites Mason on a walk around the city.
Elsewhere, Jack shares a letter from Nash with Ted. In it, she relates why she has not come back to Opal as she said she would. She's given birth to their son, Kyle Theo. It is her desire to raise this blue-eyed boy to hate Jack as a member of The Mist dynasty. The letter leaves Jack in tears and Ted breathless. Visitng Charity, Jack learns not only what the future holds for him, but for him and his son together. Maybe he has hope.
Later he joins his father and Mikaal on a rooftop across from the O'dare clan as they all watch Bobo and Mason wander the streets of Opal. Ted muses on the Starman family. The three of them together. He says there was a Starman of 1951; who was Starman for only a year. And then there was Payton. And the Starman (Prince Gavyn) that never made it to Earth, the one that Alan Scott, The Green Lanterns and Darkstars and Superman knew of.
Then Bobo makes his move. with just the flip of his finger he downs Mason and heads into the Opal Security saving to rob it - - only to be upstaged by The Royal Flush Gang. When Jack rushes in, the pair take on and beat the gang. Bobo fights like Wildcat.
Afterward, Bobo is arrested for assaulting Mason. He's released and hired by the bank to handle security. And the sun sets on a day in Opal City.
I'm sure more than once the question has come up in an interview with every creator about making comics accessible. How do you jump aboard with Superman when each one of the comics he appears in numbers oveer 100. Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man is wrapping it's "first" volume at 133 or 134 (I can't remember which) and restarting with a new #1. That seems to be either a perfect jumping on or jumping off point. Here we are, something like two-and-a-half years into Starman at issue 29, and we have a recap of Jack Knight's career so far, and a Day In The Life issue. I remember the Day In The Life issue of New Teen Titans 8; and issue 20 was kind of a Day In The Life with Wally writing a letter to his folks about how things were going, and then deciding at the end to deliver it in person. It's getting easier with Essential, Showcase and Chronicles collections - or the trade paperback collections- but when you're talking the monthly issue, unless there's a break for a new creative team, or a relaunch, you're screwed. Unless you can find the back issues. This issue makes picking up the story from here on easy. And, of course, James Robinson is getting away with murder in a small corner of the DC Universe. It's not like he's writing Superman or Justice League. Yet. C'mon, his villain here is a fan of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. This is a ("non")-Vertigo book!
The cover is awesome. Tony Harris really shines on Starman both inside and out. Von Grawbadger, Wright and Oakley almost go unnoticed because they're work is so smooth that it becomes so much a part of what Robinson and Harris are doing - one big work of art.
The final three panels of the issue seem to set a pattern for things to come later from Geoff Johns on a lot of his work in JSA and elsewhere.
Earth-Prime and Earth-One can crumble to ash, I'm making my home down the street from Bobo in Opal on Earth-Two.