TV Review - Stargirl

Geoff Johns started working for DC Comics in the late 90's and the first comic book he created was Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. (1999), which was based on ideas from the 1940's but introduced the character of Stargirl. The character began appearing in several animated series and animated features. Her first appearance in live-action form was in 2010 on the TV series Smallville. The episode was called "Absolute Justice," and Johns wrote it with Glen Winter directing it. Stargirl appeared in the series Legends of Tomorrow in 2016, but she appeared in an episode that wasn't written by Johns, so the version depicted bore little resemblance. In 2020, Legends of Tomorrow hinted at this series, but only as a quick glimpse. Yet, the true preview was a decade ago in that episode of Smallville. That 2010 slice of television involved a man who had the power to control and create ice getting revenge on the Justice Society of America or JSA, killing them off one by one. A young girl who is the descendant of one of the murdered Justice Society members takes on the identity of Stargirl and fights back against the icy villain. Johns takes that same basic premise and instead of compressing it into two episodes, he draws it out ten times as long in order to further develop the characters and do some fairly good world-building.

Brec Bassinger stars as Courtney Whitmore, a high school sophomore, a beautiful blonde girl who moves with her mother, stepfather and stepbrother across the country to a town called Blue Valley, Nebraska. Despite not liking her step-family and missing her deceased, biological father, she tries to get along. As the new girl, she is shunned and finds it difficult to assimilate at first, but she's generally hopeful, optimistic and good-natured at school. She's not mean, but she stands up for herself and others. She also tries to be jovial, but even she gets frustrated at things and as a result gets a little moody. Things change when she finds the cosmic staff, which is a magical stick that seems to have a mind of his own.

Luke Wilson (All the Bright Places and Zombieland: Double Tap) also stars as Pat Dugan, the sidekick to Starman. Pat was also the best friend to Starman who was the super-hero that controlled the cosmic staff. The cosmic staff could be yielded as a weapon and allow him to fly. Just like that episode of Smallville, Starman is killed. Here, however, Starman asks Pat to pass on the cosmic staff and keep up the fight. In Smallville, this death is meant to be a heavy dramatic moment as the rest of the episode is quite heavy. Here, Joel McHale (Community) plays Starman. McHale has the buff body for a super-hero but he's known more as being a comedic actor, so his death here is played with laughs.

It establishes this series' tone as leaning more toward Legends of Tomorrow, which is now just completely silly, wacky and at times absurd in tone. This series isn't there. It's not totally silly but with Wilson being a well-known comedic actor too, it's more leaning in that direction. Yet, the show can be serious, even deadly serious when it wants to be. No where is that more apparent than in Episode 3 when we see the main villain here commit child murder.

Neil Jackson (Sleepy Hollow and Make It or Break It) co-stars as Jordan Mahkent, the aforementioned man who can control and create ice. Jordan's nickname is "Icicle." He was the leader of the Injustice Society of America or ISA. The ISA is the group that killed, one by one, the members of the JSA. He then started implementing a plan to take over the United States and right now he's executing part of that plan in Nebraska. When he learns that Starman's powers have been passed to someone else named Stargirl, he sets out to kill her too. In the process of trying to kill her, he ends up killing another child, not by accident but purposefully.

The series will probably conclude with an epic battle between Stargirl and Icicle. In the meantime, Johns is doing world-building and developing characters. He's doing so one by one, as we see Courtney recruits teenagers who are her classmates to be a part of the new JSA. Specifically, Courtney recruits three teenagers. They include Yolanda Montez, played by Yvette Monreal. Yolanda becomes Wildcat who seems like a female, Latina version of the titular character from Black Panther (2018). There's also Beth Chapel, played by Anjelika Washington. She becomes Doctor Mid-Nite, but she's more a nerdy character from The Big Bang Theory. Finally, there's Rick Tyler, played by Cameron Gellman. He becomes Hourman who gets super-powers like super-strength but only for a limited time, specifically one hour. He seems like a character pulled from Watchmen (2009).

With the teenage super-heroes, there's also teenage super-villains. There's also other ISA members who have secret identities in the town of Blue Valley. As the show progresses, the fun will be revealing who they are. Johns and his team have done a good job of revealing them so far. Some of the special effects have been fairly well done, especially the visual effect of the huge robot that Pat builds to help him fight villains with Stargirl. It's basically a huge robot suit that Pat gets inside. He's like a middle-class version of Tony Stark and Iron-Man. Wilson is able to carry the levity in that regard, so I'm curious to see where the series goes.

Rated TV-PG.

Running Time: 1 hr.

Tuesdays at 8PM on CW.