Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus a hard cover collection:

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

“Starman Omnibus Volume 4” by James Robinson and a lot of artists.

Once again I’m reading a Starman Omnibus. This is my first time reading all of these issues as I never read Starman when it was a monthly comic even though I heard good things about it. I think I was always turned off by the dumb name. Starman sounds like the name of a bad DC Comics super hero to me. And before James Robinson got his hands on him he pretty much was.

The writer of the introduction, someone named Don Murphy, say that in these issues Robinson “Reached his stride”. I don’t think that is an apt description because it implies that the issues before this one were not in stride. I don’t think that’s what Murphy means but the implication is there anyway.

I’d describe these issues as reaching a point where Robinson has built up Starman’s world to such a point where he can go anywhere with any type of story. The issues reprinted in this volume are evidence of that. We get issues 39-46 of “Starman”, “The Power of Shazam” 35-36 (A crossover who’s issues are not written by Robinson and are the weakest of the collection), a one shot solo issue of “The Mist” (A Starman villain), Batman/Hellboy/Starman 1-2, and a Starman 80 page giant. That’s quite a variety of Starman universe books.

The 80 page giant is a good example of Robinson being able to tell a variety of Starman stories. Usually when I see an 80 page giant comic book “Parade of Mediocrity” is the phrase that comes to mind. It’s tough to fill 80 pages of a comic with all good material. At least a story or two is forgettable filler. But not here. Because Robinson has built up such a rich world for Starman to inhabit, including a history of the Starmen before him, he has many characters and time periods to use. And he uses them effectively. Good stuff.

Though Tony Harris is still the best Starman artist and does some nice issues in this volume other artists handle many of the stories found here. They handle them well though. I think by this point in the series the artists all knew Starman’s reputation as a well done comic and they all brought their A game to the book. It’s well drawn through and through and nicely colored too.

So there you have it. Another good “Starman” volume. What more can I say.