Awesome / Starman (DC Comics)

• Starman, Prince Gavyn, in Starman Annual #1. Gavyn ends up dying facing a wall of antimatter that threatens to destroy his planet. As Shade notes, Gavyn was royalty and he could have therefore fled from the strange threat had he wished to. Notably, even his queen asked him to let the two of them run away together in order to save themselves and continue living together. Instead, Gavyn flies off to face the threat and even though he fails to stop it even the Shade acknowledges him as a hero for such an action, choosing to face terrible odds in order to save his people.
• Wesley Dodds A.K.A. the '30s Sandman coming out of retirement in Starman #22. The splash panel of the last page where he decides to put on the costume one last time and rescue Jack, even if it kills him (he's in his 80s) certainly qualifies.
  • It is important to note, considering that the rest of the JSA are also technically in their eighties but physically younger due to magic, etc., that Sandman is ACTUALLY IN HIS PHYSICAL EIGHTIES during this.
  • Even at the end of the series, after Jack has decided to give up being Starman, when asked what he'll remember most about his time as a superhero, he goes back to fighting alongside Wesley.
• Starman #29, Jack and Bobo Benetti foiling the Royal Flush Gang's bank robbery together.
• Solomon Grundy's gentle incarnation, or Solly, had a chain of completely awesome moments: the Infernal Doctor Pip, an insane arsonist, was demolishing building after building in Opal. So Jack goes to stop him; in the process, Pip escapes, and Jack is trapped in a crumbling building as it collapses. Just when he thinks he won't make it, the debris stops... and it's Solly, repaying Jack's kindness by holding the debris for long enough for Jack to escape. He then falls himself, crushed under the weight. With the help of the Floronic Man, Batman, Green Lantern and Jack go into a Battle in the Center of the Mind into Solly's mind to do battle with the other, evil Solomons... and begin losing. Then the aged Starman, Ted Knight, goes into the same battle... and turns up in full Starman regalia, in his prime. He then begins brawling with them, turning the tide, scaring the other Solomons enough to let the others leave... though Solly still dies, completing his Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Infernal Doctor Pip, maimed and nearly killed in the blast that killed Solly, prepares to destroy a crowded building as his swansong. Just as Green Lantern, Starman and the regular police fail to stop him in the wake of losing their powers on an unrelated event, the Shade appears, and uses his shadow powers to dump the Infernal Doctor Pip in eternal darkness.
  Many whose powers are kissed by God's touch have seen their powers die... this is true. Of course, there are others whose powers God wants nothing to do with.
• On one corner: Doctor Phosphorus, an irradiated, nigh-indestructible monster with flame powers capable of melting steel with his bare hands. On the other: elderly scientist Ted Knight. Phosphorus is utterly owned by the frail, aged nerd. Twice.
• The entire Grand Guignol arc. The Shade's worst archenemy, Simon Culp, has stolen his shadow powers and encased Opal City in an indestructible bubble of shadow, primed to swallow the entire city into a shadow void, after being looted by an army of supervillains. One by one, all of Opal's defenders are captured to stage a mass hero execution. And then, one by one, the thread unravels: first, the heroes escape; then, they begin eliminating the villains, from crushing Doctor Phosphorus to death with a slab of pavement, to tricking an Ax-Crazy convict to teleport himself, smashing himself to atoms in the process, to duping Culp into absorbing the Shade's last loyal shadow imp and losing everything, including his own shadow powers, in the deal, to shattering the curse holding the bubble into place, and releasing an allied army all over the city to counter the few supervillains left... and then a hidden nuke comes into play. There's no time to find it, no way of escaping. Theodore Knight, Starman, uses his last invention to rip the entire building from its foundations and take it into orbit to safely detonate, making peace with his enemy and pulling a last Heroic Sacrifice.
• The last Talking to David issue. Jack, his brother and father gather for a last, final time to review the Starman legacy. Also very much a Tear Jerker.
• The arc where Jack is sent to the past has him convincing his father, without telling him who he is, to return to help them against family archenemy the Mist. Ted does help them foil the Mist's plan... and then realizes they won't be in time to help stop the villain. So he takes back his costume and power rod, and returns to beat the Mist and his Soviet allies to a pulp. When he's bound to go, Jack convinces him to go to a party to help relax. Hours later, he tells his brother, who reminds him of something that happened in that party... Ted met his future wife and mother of his two children.
• The series' finale. Lone supervillain the Spider attempts a last time to kill Jack through a high-rise window. Beat cop Mason O'Dare shoves him out of the way and takes the arrow to the heart himself. Everybody shrieks in horror and rage, and the clouds grow dark from above. Lightning strikes... and Mason is good as new. Zatara's final magic trick, pulled as a wedding gift to his apprentice, Mason's fiance.
• The Blackest Night issue. Black Lantern Starman rips out Shade's heart out, and the darkness begins pulling him... and he denies the call. He ruins the black ring and channels his powers through the heart the Black Lantern was still holding. Said Black Lantern is thrown into limbo after being wrapped in the heart's tentacles. And Opal is still saved.
• Jack making a stand, however short-lived, against Captain Marvel. And how Opal's citizens shame Marvel into realizing what he's doing is most definitely not the right thing.
• The Shade, a Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain (depends on the story) who just happens to be an immortal English gentleman who controls darkness, once got contacted by a powerful demon called Neron who offered him to increase his powers in exchange for his soul (the whole thing being a prologue to an important Starman story). The Shade declines his offer with such style that it was even more satisfying than watching him beat the crap out of Neron.
  Neron: You will rue the day you declined my offer!
  The Shade: Rue? If I had a rue for every time someone said that, I'd own Paris.
• Mikaal's eulogy for Ted Knight's funeral at the end of "Grand Guignol". This trouper still cheers.
• Starman #33 has both a moment of heartwarming and awesome, as Jack Knight, when he feels that Batman is treating Sentinel (Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern ) with disrespect steps right into Batman's face and tells him not to even dare treating a hero of Alan's standing in such a way.
  Jack: Whoa, Hey, you wanna be down on me for making fun of you. Fine. But don't you dare talk to this man that way. You may be Mr. Hotshot, big name hero now, but nothing you've done makes you worthy of kissing the hem of this man's cape, friend. You may think you're the dark, cool, grim hero. Me, I see another idiot running around with his underwear over his longjohns. You're everything I don't want to be.
• Starman #50. Jack and Mikaal have been sent into the far future, where they meet Legion of Super-Heroes members Shadow Lass and Starboy, and help them battle an enemy known as the Dark Colossus. The battle requires that the heroes journey to the center of the Colossus, during which time they have to keep fighting its dark or shadow demons. The entirety of the battle is noted to take over eight days, but the heroes never falter, continuing on to stop the Colossus from engulfing the entire universe. The conflicts ends with the discovery that the center of the Colossus contains The Shade, whose powers have grown out of control as a result of a battle that took place back in the 20th century. With a little teamwork, the groups is able to not only stop the Colossus, but to save Shade as well.
• Starman #53. Adam Strange has been transported back to Earth due to the Zeta Beam. Mikaal is locked in a struggle with Turran Kha down in a set of catacombs. And Jack is outnumbered by Turran Kha's group of rogues, with his Cosmic Rod in one hand and Adam Strange's young daughter in the other. Jack has a brief moment where he looks up into the sky, then he confidently tells Kha's thugs to surrender. When they mention that they have him outgunned he simply tells them to look up in the sky, which is filled with the combined armies of the different planets that have come to Rann to sign a peace treaty, all sent to save Jack, Adam, and Mikaal.
  Jack: There's more in the sky than stars tonight.
• Starman #58, Mikaal regaining his powers. Or at least Jack helping him to realize that his powers have been back with him for a while.
  Jack: Take 'em Mik! Take 'em all! You're Starman again, Mik! You're Starman!
• Starman #67: Adam Strange and Black Condor showing up to save Jack, Mikaal, and the rest of our heroes from Simon Culp
  Adam to Culp: Big words for a little man.
• Starman #70: Jack's fight with Culp comes to mind, as the former is internally admitting he's scared and how he feel as if his father, in his prime, would have already won the battle by now. Even then, he continues to fight in the face of Culp telling him the situation is hopeless. Then there's Ted Knight himself, an old scholar, now battling cancer. He tracks down Dr. Phosphorus and defeats him. Had it not been for Ragdoll sucker punching him Ted would have put Phosphorus down for the count then and there. And he still manages to get the better of him again in the next issue
• Starman #74: Brian Savage's final hurrah, a night spent ridding Opal City of the Tuesday Club, which results in 57 men dead by his hand.