YMMV / Starman (DC Comics)

• Audience-Alienating Premise: The first volume, which ran from 1988 to 1992. Main character Will Payton had the misfortune of being a played-straight example of The Cape who was invented right when The Dark Age of Comic Books was heating up and readers were in the mood for Darker and Edgier fare.
• Common Knowledge: Some mistakenly refer to this comic as having been published under Vertigo. While it does follow a similar style of reinventing a forgotten character and dealing with mature topics, in this case father and son relations and legacy, and it did crossover with Sandman Mystery Theatre, it was firmly taking place in mainline DCU: Not only do various DC characters appear through the comic but it was subject to events like Dc One Million. The crossover with Sandman is more or less due to that series being Broad Strokes in the larger DC canon.
• Complete Monster:
  • The first Ragdoll, Peter Merkel, was once just a two-bit thief whose gimmick was being triple jointed. Tired of being a joke, he decided to reinvent himself as a mass-murdering cult leader. Gathering together the lost, the homeless, the addicts together to fuel his growing ego, Merkel decided to revenge himself upon the world and directed multiple murders, making the streets of Opal City run red with blood, with Merkel indiscriminately targeting the innocent, intending to target the innocent families of his enemies. Merkel took advantage of his hold over his cult to take sexual advantage of the women, and hideously abused the resulting children. His son, Peter Merkel Jr., was hideously scarred by his attempts to surgically alter his body to be like his father, and he went so far as to have himself castrated since they "got in the way", only to be rejected by his father anyway. His daughter Alex—eventually the supervillain Junior—suffered worse. Having desired a little girl, Merkel subjected her to horrible sexual, mental and physical abuse. Merkel became despised until his death by the rest of the supervillain community for his treachery and depravity and stands as a unique icon of a former Harmless Villain becoming a genuine terror.
  • Grand Guignol arc: Simon Culp is the nemesis of Richard Swift, The Shade. Consumed with wishing to hurt the Shade for little reason, Culp, already having murdered 20 people, found himself in the Shade's body, occasionally stealing control from him. Going on killing sprees, trying to end the world, and committing other crimes, Culp initiates a process called "The Rite", where he contains Opal City in a shadow dome, unleashing other villains to kill and wreak havoc with intention of killing Opal and all who live within to take away the city The Shade loves the most.
  • "The Face". See that page for details.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Shade and Mikaal Tomas.
• Genius Bonus: In the first issue, the Mist's line "I could be tell you how I murdered a prostitute, cut out her kidneys, fried and ate one, and mailed the other to you," is a reference to the Jack the Ripper murders. After the initial killing spree in 1888, the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee received a package containing half of a human kidney, along with a letter from someone who claimed responsibility for the murders, and boasted about frying and eating the victim's other kidney.
• Magnificent Bastard: Richard Swift, The Shade, became immortal and an avatar of the Darklands in the 1800s. Becoming a genius thief and assassin to enrich and excite himself, Swift would also wipe out the Ludlow assassin family out, having many adventures before settling in Opal City. Acting as enemy and eventually friend to the new Starman Jack Knight, Swift fights to save Opal City, outwitting his opponents with signature flair before finally managing to defeat his nemesis Simon Culp as Culp seeks to utterly annihilate Opal City to spite Swift.
• My Real Daddy: James Robinson was obviously this for Jack, but more impressively, most people regard him as the true father of all the Starmen, even the ones he didn't create, because he did such an impressive job giving them Character Development and Arc Welding their divergent mythos together.
• Nightmare Fuel: Etrigan delivers a cold serving of it to Ted Knight in Starman #42.
  Starman (Ted Knight): You honestly claim to be a demon? That's... no. I can't believe it.
  Etrigan: You assume I care one jot,
  if you believe I am or not.
  You want the proof, I'll give it here,
  you'll know true Hell within a year.
  The toy you helped men conceive,
  its fiery breath will live and breathe,
  but you will feel so far from proud,
  at that o mighty mushroom cloud.
  You'll lie crazed in a sickly bed,
  the Hell I speak of in your head.
• Older Than They Think: If you're a fan of Harry Potter, you could be forgiven for assuming that the O'Dares are based on the Weasleys. Like the Weasleys, they're a benevolent family of redheads who serve as the Hero's allies, and their members include the love interests of two of the main characters, as well as a Black Sheep who falls in with the bad guys before having a Heel–Face Turn. Alas, Starman came out around three years before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone did. Both families seem to have been based on the popular stereotype about red-headed Irish Catholics having tons of children.