Anna Daniels
Like a lot of great DC Comics characters who made their debuts in the ’90s, Courtney Whitmore is carrying on a legacy that goes all the way back to the 1940s. In fact, she’s actually carrying on two of them, but we’ll get around to the other one in a minute.
Before she was Stargirl, Courtney was known as the Star-Spangled Kid, and before she had that identity, it belonged to Sylvester Pemberton, a hero who made his debut in the pages of 1941’s Star-Spangled Comics #1. Like a lot of heroes at the time, he and his sidekick Stripesy — Stars and stripes, get it? Like the flag? — were riffing on characters who were already popular in hopes of riding that Golden Age boom to fame and fortune. In this case, they were a patriotic take on Batman and Robin. After all, they were a fabulously wealthy crimefighter and his sidekick who battled against evil with no super powers other than an incredible talent for hand-to-hand combat and an extremely cool car. There was, however, one neat little twist to the gimmick that set them apart from the more popular dynamic duo. This time, the kid was the star, and the grown-up was the sidekick. Sylvester was the teenage heir to the Pemberton family fortune, and Stripesy was actually Pat Dugan, his rough, two-fisted chauffer.
All things considered, they had a pretty successful run in the ’40s, but they started going through some rough times before the end of the decade. For one thing, they were eventually shoved out of their own book by a character who was introduced to be their sidekick — Merry, the Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks — and for another, they were members of a team called the Seven Soldiers of Victory who, unless you’re a big fan of DC deep cuts, you probably haven’t heard of. Stripesy would fall by the wayside as the the years went on, but Sylvester would wind up with a much more tragic end.
Written by: Looper
