Starfire #1

In a brand new DC Universe, DC You gives us a brand new story for fan favourite, extra-terrestrial Koriand’r or as she’s most familiar to everyone, Starfire. Brought to you by the same writers of Harley Quinn, are we to expect the same fun quirkiness from Starfire? 

Writers: Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti

Pencils: Emanuela Lupacchino

Inks: Ray McCarthy 

Colours: Hi-Fi

Letters: Tom Napolitano

Cover: Amanda Conner & Paul Mounts

Conner and Palmiotti have been pretty successful with their Harley Quinn series, giving readers something fun with a bit of heart buried under it. Now we’re to see if they decide to take Koriand’r and either do the same with her or try something new. 

So far it looks like they’re taking a similar approach, there’s quite a bit of heart that they’re trying to bring into it, seeing as Kori is from a peaceful race, she’s vey cute and a little bit clueless to Earth’s ways. Kori starts her new life on Earth in a police station trying to convince a rather nice woman to help her. 

As a first issue it’s supposed to set the story up, which is precisely what it does, only they also seem to think their readers are simpletons. Kori’s stuck on Earth with nothing except her clothes and a few bricks from her broken ship. It also seems she left some sort of common sense behind on her ship as well. She understands absolutely nothing about Earth and human life and needs absolutely everything spelled out for her. For readers it gets a little grinding, every other page seems filled with boring explanations with how the world works. It’s hard to accept that Kori is actually as naive as Conner and Palmiotti make her out to be. It’s likely they were trying to angle to make her seem cute and naive, but overall she comes off a little strange as she’s confused as to how she’s going to put three elephants in her tiny little pockets (seriously). 

It’s hard to really get into the story. There’s a lot of dialogue and very little of it is interesting as everyone tries to explain absolutely everything out to Starfire (and the readers, to establish story). There’s also the matter of setting up some sort of plight to move the plot forward, but it kind of gets buried under everything else, but there’s still time to have a small expose on guys being gross and objectifying Kori, not to mention a few pages later she’s making out with some cute guy, not that she’s not allowed to, but with a limited amount of space to establish a story, certain elements feel mis-prioritized. By the time readers need to have a feeling of urgency (say by the last page) it isn’t really there. 

The cutest part about Starfire is the art which is its biggest saving grace. They wanted to make Kori cute and she certainly looks the part. The art in this is absolutely gorgeous and it’s almost a shame that Kori’s story doesn’t quite match up to her visuals. There are dynamic colours and poses to grab the reader’s attention at the very least.

DC You is meant to be a service to its fans but Starfire doesn’t really cater to fans if all it gives us is a pretty face with no substance; it’s either a blow to readers or a stab at Koriand’r’s character. Either way, it’s not the best start a first issue could go.