The Star-Spangled Kid
47 years ago - Sylvester Pemberton is born into the wealthy Pemberton family.
38 years ago - 9-year-old Sylvester's sees Pat Dugan's rocket car project in hot rod magazine, and reaches out to him to commission his own real rocket car.
37 years ago - 10-year-old Sylvester's father is arrested for fraud. He is emancipated by the court, giving him full control of the Pemberton fortune. He begins building a superhero identity for himself.
36 years ago - 11-year-old Sylvester takes delivery of Pat Dugan's rocket car, and offers to pay for his education if he works as his valet and sidekick.
35 years ago - 12-year-old Sylvester spends millions to aquire the research into the original Starman's technology, and begins developing his cosmic converter belt.
33 years ago - 14-year-old Sylvester first becomes the Star Spangled Kid, working with Pat Dugan's Stripesy. They help the All-Star Squadron fight the Injustice Society, and become their newest members.
28 years ago - 19-year-old Sylvester accuses Pat Dugan of always trying to hold him back and fires him, leaving the All-Star Squadron to start working alone. He stops Brainwave from triggering several psychic bombs in major cities worldwide, but has destroy his satellite to do so, sacrificing himself.
I honestly don't know that we would have included the Star-Spangled Kid on his own. Since we've started this project and done just infinitely more research into classic comics, I've developed a much deeper appreciation of the types of stories and characters that were so prevalent in the Golden and Silver ages, and so I can now safely say that I really do love the whole idea of the original Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, but I absolutely did not start there.
Originally, we had a very watered-down and needlessly convoluted version of these characters in our timeline. They had to be there, of course, because this is all part of the backstory of one of the most beloved modern characters, but we really overthought how to depict them. Learning what made them fun, however, let us rework them into the fun idea they were in the beginning, and I for one like this version much better.
Originally, we had a very watered-down and needlessly convoluted version of these characters in our timeline. They had to be there, of course, because this is all part of the backstory of one of the most beloved modern characters, but we really overthought how to depict them. Learning what made them fun, however, let us rework them into the fun idea they were in the beginning, and I for one like this version much better.
The Star-Spangled Kid's Comic HistoryThe Star-Spangled Kid first appeared in a preview in Action Comics #40 before debuting in his own series, Star Spangled Comics, in 1941. A creation of Superman creator Jerry Siegel, he's a pretty clear confluence of several major trends in comics at the time. First of all, he's part of a literal explosion of patriotic-themed superheroes; Captain America had debuted only a few months prior, and these characters were all riding a tidal wave of pre-war patriotism. Second, and perhaps more important in the long term in making this character unique, was that this was a riff on the kid-sidekick trope that had become extremely popular. In this case, the new idea was that the roles were reversed; Sylvester, the Star-Spangled Kid, was the hero of the comic, while the adult Stripesy was his valet and sidekick.
While he would continue to appear in the series that bore his name, he was more often relegated to backup stories while the main story was usually the Guardian (another riff on Captain America). He saw more appearances as a member of the wartime team the Seven Soldiers of Victory, but essentially vanished from comics until the late seventies, when All-Star Comics returned to publishing stories set in what we now understand was Earth-2 and immediately introduced a new generation of legacy heroes, including a now-older version of Sylvester, now wielding Ted Knight's Star Rod. This take on the character eventually retired the Star Spangled Kid costume and rebuilt himself as the Post-Crisis Infinity Inc member Skyman, serving as the team's leader and financier until he was killed by a mind-controlled Solomon Grundy |
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Our Star-Spangled Kid StoryThere is admittedly a certain playful glee in the concept of the Star-Spangled Kid. Those original Golden Age comics, with the absolutely ridiculous art of Hal Sherman, are almost cloyingly adorable in their innocence. 1941 patriotism does look an awful lot like blind obedience to authority to a modern reader, but lots of the later versions of their stories have retconned their adventures to make them entirely nazi-punching based, and not just in the way that Captain America punched nazis. My favorite story of theirs is in their origin, when Sylvester and Pat were in a theater when some nazis tried to incite a riot, and the two of them just beat them up... which is the correct response, and that's a fun concept to build a superhero around.
Of course, in our timeline, they are going to be more modern heroes, because by far, the most important role both Sylvester and Pat play is in setting up one of the best modern characters DC has; Courtney Whitmore. Pat has more to do as part of her story, of course, so Sylvester's real job is to be a part of his backstory. To that end, we wanted to lean as hard as we could into the ideas that define the original Star-Spangled Kid; that he was a wealthy kid with the resources to do whatever he wanted, and who decided to spend his family fortune to make himself a superhero. He's smart enough and ernest enough that he's able to make real headway, building his cosmic converter belt and training himself to fight, and even getting the adult Pat to be his valet and sidekick... Of course, we imagine that Pat would be aware of how dangerous what Sylvester is doing is. He would try to stop him from taking unnecessary risks, which would absolutely infuriate a teenager trying to be a hero. This would lead to Pat being fired, who isn't there when Sylvester is killed... leaving him with an amount of survivor guilt and a desperate need to protect his stepdaughter when she takes up the same role. |