Line #36 ComicBook/StardustTheSuperWizard


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/551ecae4b1542af9e10748f64ccc29c3.jpg]]
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3	-> ''"You are now in the power of Stardust."''
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5	Stardust the Super Wizard is a [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeofComicbooks Golden Age]] superhero, written, penciled and inked by Creator/FletcherHanks for the [[Creator/WillEisner Eisner & Iger]] comic book "packager".
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7	The titular character is known for his vaguely defined, [[GodModeSue god-like]] superpowers and his [[CruelAndUnusualDeath creatively bizarre]] version of "justice". Stardust uses the power of science to save [[BigAppleSauce New York City]] from various nazis, gangsters and aliens bent on destroying it.
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9	Stardust made his debut in "''Fantastic Comics''" #1 (December 1939) and remained a staple of the magazine up until his last story, which was instead printed in "''Big Three Comics''" #2 (Winter 1941). The rather brief run of the series also happens to span the entirety of Hanks' career in comics.
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11	The aforementioned books have since lapsed into the PublicDomain, allowing for these comics to be [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes legally shared online]], and for the character to be appropriated by any author for any purpose. This has helped Stardust to attain something of an ironic [[CultClassic cult following]] in recent decades, including at least one attempt to reboot the character in webcomic form.
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13	Fantagraphics Books published two collections in 2007 and 2009 -- ''I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!'' and ''You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!'', respectively -- of Fletcher Hanks' known stories, which naturally includes both Stardust's demented adventures and those of Hanks' other characters (Fantomah, Space Smith, Big Red, et al). In 2016, a merged volume, ''Turn Loose Our Death Rays and Kill Them All!'', came out, serving as the most definitive and comprehensive compilation of Hanks' work.
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15	!!''Stardust the Super Wizard'' provides examples of:
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17	* AliensAreBastards: The alien villains are [[CardCarryingVillain card carrying villains]] who are out to destroy Earth ForTheEvulz.
18	* AmbiguouslyHuman: Stardust looks human, but is about eight feet tall and comes from outer space. His proportions are otherwise pretty freakish, but that's par the course for Hanks' art style.
19	* AntiHero: Unintentionally. While Stardust is on the side of good, he's needlessly cruel and brutal to those he goes against, torturing them in absolutely horrible ways even after they've been detained and can no longer harm people, and lacks anything resembling human warmth or kindness.
20	* AuthorAppeal: In Paul Karasik's books that collected Stardust's stories and had sections on creator Fletcher Hanks's personal life and family and outline his track record of selfish and abusive behavior towards his wife and children, it's implied that Stardust's weird inhumanity and ruthlessness is how an abusive personality like Hanks's would interpret a crimefighting superhero.
21	* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: With Stardust himself, this is hand-waved in an early mention of him having artificial lungs that enable him to breathe in space. This is otherwise played straight with an unnamed woman that Stardust brings home with him after her family is killed in a house fire. She apparently has no trouble on the trip flying home through space. The vultures from Venus can also apparently breathe in space.
22	* BigApplesauce: Many stories take place in or around New York City. Even when the city isn't mentioned by name, it's plenty obvious from the skyline. Almost certainly an example of WriteWhatYouKnow given that Hanks created these comics for the Manhattan-based [[Creator/WillEisner Eisner & Iger]] studio.
23	* BlackAndWhiteMorality: The ''intended'' message of the comics (but see below.) Stardust is portrayed as a pure and noble hero while the villains are irredeemable monsters.
24	* BlackAndGreyMorality: A rare unintentional variation. While Stardust is supposed to be IncorruptiblePurePureness, he comes off as needlessly sadistic and brutal at the best of times, and completely removed from human morality and emotion.
25	* BodyHorror: Stardust is very enthusiastic about inflicting this trope on his villains, transforming them into such horrible abominations and in such a painful manner that death comes as a relief to them.
26	* CardCarryingVillain: The bad guys declare their evil intentions with pronouncements like "I shall destroy all the civilized planets!" and "We must end democracy and civilization forever!"
27	* ChildSoldiers: A possible way to describe Stardust's "Sixth Column" -- an army of [[{{Eagleland}} "red-blooded" American boys]] that Stardust [[RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude picks for no apparent reason]] to be [[SuperEmpowering given some of his powers]] so that they can help him protect the homefront from Axis spies. By the next issue, these boys are to shown to have established recruiting stations across the country and have been given [[CostumeCopycat their own star-metal suits as uniforms]].
28	* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: Stardust's outfit is actually a "flexible star-metal skin" that renders him impervious to violent force, chemicals and electricity (though it's not like he ever needs it).
29	* CreepyGood: Stardust himself. Yeah, he's unsettling in plenty of ways, and he's known for getting... creative with his enemies, but he's firmly on humanity's side.
30	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: He is known for his very strange and creative methods of punishing villains, such as turning them into ice and having them melt away, or turning them into human-headed rats and drowning them, or using his shrink ray to shrink only a criminal's body, then throwing his head like a ball into space where it will eventually be caught by a headless giant and swallowed up in the hole where the head should be.
31	* CurbStompBattle: None of Stardust's adversaries had any chance against him.
32	* {{Cyborg}}: Stardust may be one, as is suggested by a mention of his "artificial lungs" in the very first story.
33	* DeathByIrony: He dishes this out sometimes -- for example, punishing greed-motivated villains by stranding them on a planet made of gold, or summoning a gold octopus to strangle them.
34	* {{Expy}}: Of Franchise/{{Superman}}. Possibly also of [[ComicStrip/FlashGordon Flash Gordon]], though that is more likely the intent behind Hanks' other character, Space Smith.
35	* GeniusBruiser: Stardust is an incredibly smart man, and also strong enough to throw people into space.
36	* {{Gonk}}: A considerable number of Stardust's foes are drawn with protruding lower lips, furrowed neanderthal brows, and large cartoonish eyes. The most prominent example is the Super Fiend, but even quite a few of the human villains have some of these traits.
37	* GoodIsNotSoft: Exaggerated. If you do anything evil, Stardust will find you, and will subject you to the most brutal torture humanly imaginable.
38	* HandBlast: Stardust can shoot various "rays" and "beams" from his hands, which can do things such as disintegrate people, crush people to death, shrink and grow things, and turn people into rats.
39	* HaveAGayOldTime: Stardust's "powerful retarding ray", which is used to slow down a planet on collision course with Earth, and not what you might think instead.
40	* HeroicBuild: Stardust is ''ripped''.
41	* HumanoidAbomination: No, really. While it's likely that Hanks didn't realize he was creating a Lovecraftian horror that happens to be on our side, here you have a creature who inflicts ''terrifying'' fates on evildoers, whose powers [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum run on nonsensoleum]], whose origin, nature, and motives are totally unknowable, and whose home is something that's as impossible as he is.
42	* InexplicablyAwesome: Stardust has no human identity (or any kind of mentioned backstory), he is simply Stardust. Where does he come from, how did he get his incredible powers, why does he protect the Earth? These questions and more will never be answered in the pages of ''Stardust the Superwizard''!
43	* InvincibleHero: Stardust isn't ''quite'' [[ComicStrip/TomTheDancingBug the Invincible God-Man]], but he's pretty darn close. At virtually no point in any of his stories do any of his enemies pose even the slightest meaningful resistance to his powers, let alone an actual threat.
44	* LanternJawOfJustice: His head is almost the exact width of his neck, with a perfectly square jaw.
45	* LightIsGood: Defied. Hypothetically, Stardust, who is a space wizard powered by the light of the stars who has a ray for everything. In practice, however, he is extremely violent and sadistic.
46	* MysteriousPast: Everything about Stardust's backstory is a complete mystery.
47	* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Stardust's powers are never clearly defined, other than his "tubular spacial" which he uses to fly, but mostly consist of whatever the author thinks would be cool at that moment.
48	* RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude: The sole demographic from which Stardust grabs recruits for his "Sixth Column" are "red-blooded American boys".
49	* ReedRichardsIsUseless: The blurb at the start of most issues unintentionally exemplifies the trope due to the sheer disparity between the powers it describes for Stardust, immediately juxtaposed with what he does with them:
50	-->Stardust, whose vast knowledge of interplanetary science has made him the most remarkable man that ever lived, devotes his abilities to crime-busting...
51	* ScienceHero: He uses his "vast knowledge of interplanetary science" to fight crime. This manifests more in his tendency to use bizarrely specialized machines for detecting the crimes as they being planned.
52	* ShowyInvincibleHero: He has the power to do basically anything, at any time, without effort. He never faces an enemy who's the least bit of a danger to him, and the cruel and bizarre punishments he metes out rub their powerlessness in their faces. What suspense there is in these stories doesn't come from "Can Stardust avert disaster ''this'' time?", but "What acid-trip absurdity will Stardust inflict on the bad guys ''this'' time?"
53	* TheSociopath:
54	** Rip-the-Blood, a DiabolicalMastermind who's perfectly willing to start a world war to make money.
55	** The Mad Giant, who believes that the destruction of all of civilization is a just response to the abolition of slavery.
56	* TheSpook: Absolutely ''nothing'' is known about Stardust beyond the fact that he is on humanity's side, is extraordinarily powerful and loves brutally punishing villains. Where he comes from, his real identity, how his powers work and where they originated from, his motivations. It's all one big question mark.
57	* StarterVillain: The unnamed leaders of a Nazi spy ring who try to destroy the US government upon learning of Stardust coming to Earth. They're arrested at the end of the issue after being forced to look at the skeletons of their victims.
58	* SuperEmpowering: As mentioned earlier, Stardust is shown to be quite capable of the first variant, sharing his bizarre and destructive powers with an army of prepubescent boys.
59	* {{Technobabble}}: Too many examples to list, and a good half of them sound blatantly wrong to anyone with even a high-school-level knowledge of natural sciences. The most frequently repeated instance is that he flies through space via "highly accelerated light waves in a tubular spacial" which doesn't even make sense as an English sentence.
60	* ThouShaltNotKill: Averted ''hard'': Stardust has absolutely no problem killing off villains, even just regular hoods that he could take in easily, and always does so in the most gruesome ways imaginable.
61	* TinyHeadedBehemoth: Stardust is a giant of a man with a disproportionately small head. Unlike many examples of the trope, however, he's very intelligent.
62	* WeirdSun: Stardust lives ''on a star''. On the surface of it. Which is on fire. And the star is literally star-shaped.
63	* WhatTheHellHero: Although he's not called on it, Stardust's M.O. (mind you, he's supposed to be the ''hero'') is to find out about a crime a criminal intends to commit (often with an enormous loss of life), ''let them actually commit the crime'', then apprehend them and torture or kill them in bizarre ways.
64	* YellowPeril: The one-time villain Slant-Eye's name and {{Yellowface}} strongly suggest this trope, although the script never mentions his race or nationality and he gets about as much development as a villain as the other evil men in suits.

Context ComicBook / StardustTheSuperWizard