What did Starman say?
In this Wizard Universe interview, Geoff Johns says:
WIZARD: You’ve said that Starman’s lines, though they seem random, will all make sense in the end. Any lines in particular from this issue to pay attention to?
JOHNS: He mentioned the name “Kenz Nuhor,” and if anybody does a quick search on the Web, they can find out a lot more about who that is. Starman’s entire history can be figured out in this issue. Every single line he says to Power Girl means something. Eventually we’ll lay it all out for you, but if you work a bit you can figure it all out. If you’re a DCU geek you’ll get it, and if not, he’s just a cool, crazy character who got lost somewhere.
OK, let's see what Starman says in JSA #2....
1. "Thou shalt not kill! It's part of the code!"
2. "I don't like murder. This whole horrible thing has gotten me uncomfortable. My powers aren't supposed to work this way. I make things heavy, you see? But this... Murder is... Kenz Nuhor, does that name mean anything to you? Is that the name of murder? 10 votes to 9!"
Briefly: Kenz Nuhor was a guy who was in love with Nura "Dream Girl" Nal, who was in love with Thom "Star Boy" Kallor. The jealous type, he tried to kill Star Boy, but Star Boy killed him in self defense. The Legion, which at the time had a "no killing" clause in its Constitution, held a vote to see if he should be allowed to stay, but in a 10-9 vote, kicked him out. You can read the whole story from Adventure Comics 342 (March 1966) here at Scans Daily. Obviously, this is pre-Zero Hour.
However, I don't recall a time when any Star Boy had the ability to make things super-lightweight as well as super-heavy.
3. "You're going on a journey, Power Girl, bouncing around like I did, like a beach ball."
4. "Do you hear her? She's crying. I wish she would stop crying. She said it's a doctor... a bad one, too. Not like my friends at Sunshine Sanitarium... But... Oh, no... there's a storm coming. A Lightning Storm."
"Lightning Storm" is a reference to the upcoming JLA/JSA teamup called "Lightning Saga", which starts in April. The 5-part saga will be in JLA 8-10 and JSA 5-6. (Alternately, it could be a reference to the upcoming Legion of Super-Villains episode of the same name of the animated Legion series, but probably not.)
Supposedly Dawnstar (who we saw previewed in issue 1) will appear right after the JLA/JSA crossover, in issue 7.
Don't yet know who "her/she" is - Dawnstar?
As for bad doctors, here's a list of DC super-villain doctors from the Unofficial Who's Who: Alchemy, Bedlam, Cyber, Daark, Death, Destiny, Double X, Excess, Fang, Light, Moon, Phosphorus, Poison, Polaris, Psycho, Regulus, Spectro, Seven, Trapps, Tyme, Tzin-Tzin, Vortex, and Zodiac. None of them sound like they're good candidates.
5. "It's coming, isn't it? The Great Disaster. I have to find her and him and her. She's talking to me and he doesn't know and I have to find them all before the storm."
Don't yet know who "her" #1, "him", and "her" #2 are.
The Great Disaster which was started by the great nuclear war of 1986, brought about Kamandi's timeline. Maybe coincidentally, the ending to the recent "The Battle for Bludhaven" showed a "Command D" bunker....
6. Mr. Terrific: "I've been working on a theory involving superstring, dark matter, and hyperspace for the last year and a half. Some scientists believe gravity is a weak signal from a parallel universe. I think Starman just proved them right. How did you know how to do that?"
Starman: "Third grade science. I got a B+. And it helped me... I think I know... I was trying to come back here but I landed somewhere else first... and I was trapped! Trapped someplace that got blown to Kingdom Come."
And his last statement, plus the page itself, strongly suggests that this Starman is not only the grown-up version of the pre-Crisis Star Boy (from his Kenz Nuhor comments), but also the same Starman that was seen in Kingdom Come.
(Oh, and the villain behind the scenes in JSA #2 is most likely Per Degaton, a time-travelling Nazi with whom the JSA has lots of experience. And I bet the new Steel is the guy who got turned to metal, not the guy with one leg. But enough off-topicness.)
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8 comments:
2 points:
1. I've seen speculation that "Lightning Storm" could involve Doctor Destiny. (Whether they'd ignore the Sandman story or not if he is coming back is unknown.) No idea whether this is accurate, of course.
2. Thom's references to being "trapped" might have something to do with Rokk's resetting the universe in his role as the Time Trapper at the end of the pre-boot. (Still can't remember if Thom was there or not. Y'know, I don't think he was...) But yeah, I think Johns is implying that he got sent to the KC universe, then (presumably after the big [SPOILER] explosion) shot back into the current DCU. Or Superboy punched a wall. Or something.
The fact that Arkham and Sand(man) play a role in that JLA/JSA crossover, and the line spoken by Sandman on the preview panel of that issue, make it pretty obvious that Dr. Destiny is going to be involved, methinks.
As far as the "comic book science," there actually is some truth to that. There's some facet of string theory/M-theory which suggests that gravitons are closed-ended, and are not bound to a particular universe, or "brane." One method proposed to test for the existence of strings is to study gravitons and see if we can find ones that spontaneously appear in or leave our "brane."
There are major problems with this, not the least of which is the fact that the graviton is entirely hypothetical at this point, and that string theory is even more hypothetical. But, there is a kernel of truth to it nonetheless.
I've missed a few years of recent comics... what makes everyone think it's Dr. Destiny?
Regarding extra-universal gravitons: holy crap! My poor tiny brain could barely grasp the one quantum physics class I had to take in grad school, but this stuff is beyond me. Comic book science is so much easier to comprehend and accept.
A number of things lead me to think Destiny. As you mentioned, there's Starman's talk of an evil Doctor; furthermore, there's the involvement of Sandman, who has prophetic dreams and a connection to Dream of the Endless, as Dr. Destiny also does. And finally, there's the matter of the panel at the end of JSofA #1, where Sandman discusses his prophetic vision of Batman torn apart inside of Arkham (where Destiny can usually be found), and where Starman gives the clue that ties it all together: "It's the doctor! The one with no face!" Dr. Destiny traditionally has a skull-face, so he would fit that description rather aptly.
However, I don't recall a time when any Star Boy had the ability to make things super-lightweight as well as super-heavy.
Legion Worlds #4: Xanthu
Really? I read that issue (but haven't since it came out) and don't recall that bit.
Good thing I'm writing the trivia quizzes, huh?
Michael -- Well, he made a chunk of debris float (it had the purple light around it), I assumed he was making it lighter than air.
They explained away any power-ups as part of his training fromt eh Khunds there.
He was also flying without a flight ring in LW4. Plus, he was levitating a 100ton weight in The Legion 19.
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