Shining Knight
484 - Ystina is born, the daughter of English serfs.
494 - 10-year-old Ystina dresses as a boy to squire for knights in Arthur Pendragon's rebellion against the Saxxons, using the name Ystin.
500 - 16-year-old Ystina moves their parents into the lands around the newly-built Camelot.
502 - 18-year-old Ystina defends Vanguard, the horse of a a fallen knight on the battlefield. Still posing as a boy, he is knighted by Arthur Pendragon as Sir Ystin.
504 - 20-year-old Sir Ystin, while on a quest to defeat the ogre Blunderbore, frees Merlin from imprisonment by Morgaine Le Fay. Merlin enchants his horse Vanguard, making him a winged pegasus, and gives him clues to find and claim the magic sword Caliburn. Merlin promises that Ystin's secret will be safe with him.
511 - 27-year-old Sir Ystin discovers Morgaine Le Fay's treacherous plans to overthrow Arthur Pendragon with his own son, Mordred. She curses him, trapping him and Vanguard inside the timeless Castle Revolving, a relic of the Sheedan Empire. .
37 years ago - 27-year-old Sir Ystin is found within the Castle Revolving by Wotan, who awakens him and attempts to manipulate him to attack the All-Star Squadron, but he is able to detect his deception and joins them in defeating him. The modern world no longer requires him to hide his gender, but he chooses to remain as Sir Ystin, making his male identity his truth. He first meets Danette Reilly.
36 years ago - 28-year-old Sir Ystin & Danette Reilly acknowledge the growing connection between them.
35 years ago - 29-year-old Sir Ystin meets Percival Sheldrake, the descendant of the knight he once squired for. Percival takes him into his home, and becomes his squire.
32 years ago - 32-year-old Sir Ystin & Danette Reilly confess their love for each other when she retires from the All-Star Squadron.
26 years ago - 38-year-old Sir Ystin's squire Percival Sheldrake retires when his wife dies.
25 years ago - 39-year-old Sir Ystin discovers that Blackbriar Thorn, the Druid of Cymru, has survived, and is awakening within a weirwood in Wales. Unable to stop him, Ystin hunts down the only other surviving Druid, Jason Blood, and brings him to Wales where he is able to seal Thorn back within the weirwood.
24 years ago - 40-year-old Sir Ystin moves in with Danette Reilly when the All-Star Squadron closes its doors. He finds himself adrift in the world without a calling.
22 years ago - 42-year-old Sir Ystin stops Morgaine Le Fay from using the Rhongomyniad to free Mordred from the Paths Beyond. Taking ownership of the magic spear, he is called to venture into Paths Beyond to find Avalon, the hidden final resting place of Arthur Pendragon. Danette Reilly gives her blessing, knowing that his knightly purpose is a vital part of who he is.
Shining Knight is a surprisingly tough nut to crack, because there's the classic, well known and yet not really deeply compelling character, and the more recent, far more fun and exciting version that is actually really rough to make work in the timeline. The temptation exists to try to do both and make them some sort of legacy, but they just don't integrate at all. You have to do one or the other.
So of course we didn't do that at all.
So of course we didn't do that at all.
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Shining Knight's Comic HistoryThe original Shining Knight first appeared as a backup title in the pages of Adventure Comics in 1941, in issue #66, long before it became the Superboy book; this is when the cover was usually either Starman or Sandman in his yellow costume. In later years, comics would often feature non-superhero characters having their own adventures, many of them period-specific, so I've always assumed that Shining Knight came from that era, that his early stories would be set in in Arthurian times, and that he was only moved into modern times later on to accommodate integrating him into DC proper, but I was very wrong. He was introduced in his very first appearance as a man out of time, explaining how he received his magical armament and flying horse (gifts from Merlin) and how he finds himself gun-toting gangsters with a sword (trapped in a glacier).
In fact, not only was this his story from the very beginning, but he was actually moved into his larger role in DC almost immediately. Less than three months after his debut, Shining Knight was added as a member of DC's second major superhero team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, in their own book, Leading Comics. This is really the move that cemented his place in the DC's continuity, because even though he went on to appear in over 80 issues of Adventure Comics, and the Seven Soldiers only made 14 issues before they vanished to comic history, it was the return of the Seven Soldiers in the pages of Justice League of America #100 in 1972 that cemented his role in DC's timeline. He became a prominent feature in Roy Thomas's All-Star Squadron, and even as recently as the Courtney Whitmore Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E. comic in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was understood that Shining Knight was still active in the world, a cool throwback to an era that is throwing back to another era. It would be hard to follow in any other medium. |
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While this is happening, we should fast forward to 2005, to an extremely ambitious project by a very enigmatic creator (who we fanboy about all the time, so this should be no surprise to anyone) Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory was a strange, twisting series about seven separate heroes on seven very separate journeys, each with their own four issue story, none of whom actually ever meet, but together manage to save the world. It created lots of awesome original or reimagined characters, and while I love several of them, I don't think its a stretch to say that the reimagined Shining Knight might have been the most ambitious.
At first, Sir Ystin (not Justin) was from a different version of Camelot. The idea was that Camelot was a recursive event in human civilization... Ystin was from a Camelot from 10,000 years ago, rooted more in Celtic tradition. Ystin didn't speak English, but instead a sort of proto-welsh. He was leaner and more dynamic, with an unbelievably cool look by Simone Bianchi. Some of the action sequences absolutely defy description, and it all just went SO hard. By the end of the book we got a cool reveal; Ystin was actually Ystina. She was disguising herself as a boy so she could serve with the knights of Camelot. At the end of the story she had abandoned her disguise, and was just a girl going to a boarding school, but she would return with the Seven Soldiers in other appearances. In the New 52 launch series Demon Knights, a reimagined Ystin had adventures set in medieval times where they were now depicted as actually genderqueer, taking the disguise and making it part of their identity. |
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Our Shining Knight StoryIn our original timelines (which were started so far back in the past at this point that they might actually predate some of the later appearances of Sir Ystin), we were pretty confidant that the right move was to just use the original Sir Justin Shining Knight. His version of Camelot was the traditional Camelot rather than a high-concept proto-sci-fi dark fantasy version. He had deep ties in the standard timeline, and even if we weren't going to use the Seven Soldiers of Victory and all their time-traveling shenanigans, His role in the All-Star Squadron was solidly foundational in the timeline, and he also gave us a cool way to introduce the British heroes Knight and Squire.
Admittedly, as cool as the idea of a superhero Arthurian Knight riding a winged horse with a magic sword is, Justin himself has never really been a MASSIVE draw. The noble knight archetype is recognizable and easy to build around, but is sort of built for a different type of adventure story. He's reliable, conceptually, but we even struggled to incorporate his canon relationship with the Danette Reilly Firebrand, because there's nothing really all that compelling about the pairing. |
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Meanwhile... there's this whole other version of the character that freaking rocks just sitting here. He's WAY harder to integrate, but he immediately injects everything with dark fantasy and dynamic, bloody action movie energy. Also, the question about the character's gender identity is FASCINATING. Do you go with the original concept of a woman disguising themselves as a man... or are they actually outwardly genderqueer? The relationship with Danette is suddenly incredibly compelling.
So in the end, we've actually built a sort of amalgam timeline. This character is absolutely Ystin, but we're using an origin and history that is clearly much closer to Sir Justin, coming from the traditional Arthurian timeline, and with a long history with the All-Star Squadron. This does mean that, while Ystin starts out as a young, vital hero, he actually gets the time and experience to become a sort of elder statesman of the heroes of his era, which is also, I think, a cool blending of the two versions of the character. |
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Sir Ystin's Appearance & Gender IdentityYou'd think this would be an easy call once you decide to go with Sir Ystin, but truthfully there are two very distinct versions of this character. The original Grant Morrison version isn't TECHNICALLY a trans or genderqueer character. It's a woman DISGUISED as a boy. Different thing. Later, in the characters' appearances in Demon Knights, their status as a genderqueer person became a major part of their identity rather than just their story. This manifests in their look quite a bit.
I'm not an idiot. I know how important trans representation is; there is precious little of it in popular fiction, and we desperately need more. I might love the Grant Morrison girl-posing-as-a-boy look and narrative, but at this point it really isn't about me, is it? My solution here was to actually depict both. Ystin had to hide his gender back in the 5th & 6th centuries, and so that's really what he's doing. It's when he moves into the modern day that he's suddenly presented with a world where he could, if he chose, set aside his disguise. He could be a hero and a woman. I want to see him arrive at his own truth here, understanding that this is who he is. He's a trans man. I really, really want this depiction to click with people who have a similar lived experience, and this is my attempt at doing that... It's an important bit of content that is more than just beneficial to this story.... It's vital |
Sir Ystin's FutureOur original version of the Shining Knight timeline, the one we built for Sir Justin, ended with him choosing to venture into the Paths Beyond, departing the mortal realm to go on a knightly quest for Avalon, the final resting place of King Arthur. This felt like a classic direction for an Arthurian Knight, and given that he really did need to move on from our story, this felt like the perfect way to do it.
As we rewrite the story for Ystin, it continues to feel appropriate and knightly? But it also kind of feels like a darn shame. Justin was a character who really existed for their structural role in the timeline. Once that role was filled, their utility was kind of done. Ystin, on the other hand? Ystin freaking rules. He has no business going as hard as he does. The fact that he's both out of the timeline for utility reasons and kind of an older character at this point to boot feels like a missed opportunity. Still... It's not like he's DEAD. They come from a story tradition filled with youth-restoring McGuffins like the Holy Grail or the Fountain of Youth... and it just so happens that Morgaine le Fay has recently freed Mordred from the Paths Beyond. It's almost like it might be a perfect time for a classic hero who has quested to Avalon and back to make a triumphant return... |
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