“Yesterday’s” Comic> Secret Origins #9

“Come on, guys. Painting my statue purple isn’t funny!”

Secret Origins #9

FEATURING: Star-Spangled Kid Skyman and the first Flash

DC Comics (December, 1986)

In the first story Skyman, head of Infinity Inc, remembers how he started his superhero career as the Star-Spangled Kid. Just before World War 2, a scrapper of a rich boy (with overprotective parents) and a mechanic both deal with a group of Nazi sympathizers in a movie theater. One of them leaves a plot to perform what we would call terrorism nowadays in the Fuehrer’s name. After a cop mentioned in passing that he wished the American flag would come to life and beat the Nazi spies up, Sylvester Pemberton (the rich boy) and Pat Dugan (the mechanic) decide to do just that, unaware that the other is planning the same thing. Pemberton sews up a costume based on the stars and becomes the Star-Spangled Kid, while Dugan grabs a white shirt with red stripes and calls himself Stripesy. While not getting along at first they decide to team-up against the Nazi plot and learn they make a good team.

What they got right: The framing of the story, Skyman explains his early story to some of his Infinity Inc charges, surrounding events that tie in to what was going on in Infinity Inc the comic book. I haven’t read the original story like I did the Flash one so I can’t comment on the update but it’s a good story with good art. I like Sylvester’s costume under both names.

What they got wrong: Dugan’s on the other hand is just a shirt. It may fit his personality as a guy who can’t even read but otherwise it’s rather weak as superhero costumes go. (Which doesn’t stop a cop from asking if he’s going to a costume part, even though he’s just wearing a normal shirt and…well, the tights look better on Superman, so he might have meant that.) The cover, however, promised we’d learn why the Star-Spangled Kid goes by Skyman now, but the whole Infinity Inc years go by so fast it’s practically a footnote.

The Flash story is Jay Garrick telling his story to Johnathan “Tarantula” Law and we’re “hearing” the recording for post-war use. Jay Garrick was a college student who was only on the football team to impress Joan Williams, a pretty blond woman. His first love was science, but one night he dropped a vial of a special hard water, and combined with fumes from other chemicals he knocked over when the hard water fumes got to him, he’s comatose for two weeks, awakening with superspeed. While secretly helping take out a racketeer operation after graduation, it’s a reunion with Joan, where had to rescue her father from a group hoping to sell his secret bomb sight design, that he officially became the Flash. After that rescue he must stop the “Faultless Four” from committing another crime. Being an adaptation of a 1940s comic, the criminals end up dead and Garrick later remarks to Tarantula about event that in one way or another would come to pass.

What they got right: Now this one I HAVE seen the original version of. This builds on that story by adding in both the extra chemicals (shades of Barry Allen and Wally West’s origins) and the length of time before his superhero career began. This padding actually works and makes it feel more alive and less forced into the allowed space. And they didn’t bring in something stupid like trying to get rid of something goofy in a way that’s stupid and possibly insulting.

What they got wrong: What plan did the bad guys now have that required a dry run by attacking a beach?

Recommendation: This take on Garrick’s origin is probably easier for more modern audiences since it didn’t so much ignore the goofy parts as add to it so that it works. Additionally, Skyman’s “Star-Spangled Kid” origin was a good story. Pick a copy if you see it.