I Am Not Starfire - What the Hell was DC Thinking?

 

Originally I wasn't gonna bother with this. Because I'm not a comic book reviewer, I'm more suited for movies. It's just when I saw this thing, I just couldn't let the opportunity slip by.

I mean just look at the cover alone. This just screams "I need to be riffed on", "Please, please! Rip me apart". And if the cover doesn't tell you that is gonna be unintentionally hilarious, just get a load of this trailer,

That's real folks. That's a 100% real trailer that DC put out for this comic.

And just to make things worse....or maybe they (DC) thought would be better, they have actively turned off comments to the video for the trailer and have even shut off comments you could make about it on their Twitter account. The downvotes are amazing, and you don't wanna know how badly it's getting ratioed on Twitter. Hell, videos mocking it are getting a better reception than this.

All of these signs are by no means good, but hey, enough of my rambling, let's get too it.

My Thoughts

Now let's start off with the art. Sure it didn't seem bad, but this is DC Comics. If I was an editor there I would want the best artwork possible for this story, even if it just fades into the background and is never talked about again. And it also doesn't help you get weird facial expressions like this....

What is this expression? Does anybody know what emotion the artist was trying to show with this?

Then we have Mandy's design (and her personality but don't worry, I'll get into THAT later). With the way she looks, you would never guess that she's Starfire's kid. There's not one generic trait of her mother's that shows they're related. And then there's the fact she's so short. This character is sixteen and she's no taller than an eleven year old. In real life, I would tower over her, and I'm by no means a very tall guy.

Now let's get into some story stuff, one of those being Mandy doesn't want to go to college, but instead go to France. But here's the thing, she doesn't really know that much about the country. You know what scratch that, she knows as much about France as a six year old would. I mean it, in the story she says something like, French people drink tea, speak french, and read poetry. So basically Mandy doesn't exactly have a plan of what she's going to do with her life outside of high school.

Throughout the story there's a romantic relationship between Mandy and her fellow classmate Claire, and it's terrible. Mainly because we don't know why these two girls are attracted to each other. Mandy gives no explanation at all of why she's in love with Claire, and the only info Claire gives us of why she's in love with Mandy is she thinks she's 'cool'. Okay, well....what certain trait of Mandy makes her cool in Claire's eyes? Never explained, we're just suppose to by into this relationship because...well, that made eye contact with each other, and apparently to the writer, that was good enough.

Now we have I Am Not Starfire's biggest story issue ever! Mandy not wanting to college?! Seriously.....this is treated like the world's most shocking thing to ever happen. Why? Why is Mandy not wanting to go to college treated like it's blasphemy? I've known plenty of people who have never gone to college and turned out fine. This really isn't as big as a deal as the writer is trying to make it out to be.

And speaking of college, here's a scene from the comic,

There's three things to breakdown from this scene, that showcase everything wrong with this comics.

1) It's one of the many ways that's trying to make Starfire look like a bad parent. From beginning to leading up to this scene and afterwards, the writer is trying to make Starfire look bad, but failing miserably. One way was trying to make it look like Starfire she doesn't know that there's something wrong with her daughter, but we've seen panels showing the exact opposite. Starfire knows Mandy's going through something, she just doesn't know what because Mandy isn't telling her. It's hard for a parent to help their child, when said child won't tell them what's wrong.

And then we have this part where Starfire is wanting to help Mandy with her future. Why does this make Starfire look bad? Does Mariko not know how many kids would've loved it if their Mom, Dad, or both did something like this for them? Also, if you reread the previous panels, Starfire didn't just get a college brochure, she went and got brochures from every college! She has such faith in her daughter's abilities, she believes she can get accepted into any college. Yet again, this isn't making Starfire look bad.

2) This just shows how Mandy is the worst daughter ever! Every since the story began, we see how unlikable Mandy is. Her attitude can be described as sour, she always has some sort of unnecessary rude comment to make, and she's constantly belittling her mother whether it be her trying to be a mother, or somehow people praising her mom's superhero activities as an inconvenience to her. And of course she's the clichéd angsty teenager. Which she really has no reason to be that way, considering she has a loving mother, a sweet place to live, and overall has it made.

3) I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but now I firmly believe it. I know believe this is Mariko Tamaki's self-insert story. This is her showing she has some unresolved issues going all the way back when she was a teenager. It would really explain the odd not going to college drama and all of the mommy issues.

With all of that in mind, I'm left wondering who is this targeted for? It can't be for little kids because words like fuck, asshole, douchebag, bullshit, pissed are used, and Mandy even gives the double middle finger. I don't know if teenagers are gonna find this enjoyable because nothing really exciting happens, and adults aren't the target audience for this and even if they were, the cover alone isn't gonna peak their interest. So who's the audience?!

So, after so much boring slice of life garbage, so much boring drama about college, and so many mommy issues, finally something interesting happens.....too bad we had to get through what I do believe was a 106 pages to get there. Sure, the previous pages were to set up character, story, and drama but, because those parts are so poorly written nobody cares, and we're just going to be happy that there's gonna be some sort of action-like conflict.

Now the big conflict is Starfire's evil sister, Blackfire has to challenge Mandy, because she holds a threat to being heir to the throne. Which no, Mandy doesn't. Only Blackfire knows of her existence, nobody else on Starfire and Blackfire's home planet knows about Mandy. So Blackfire's reign was by no means in danger. Also, how does Blackfire know Mandy? She hasn't seen nor heard from her sister in years, so she couldn't have possibly know about her niece.

But whether that made any sense, we cut back to, you guessed it...more stupid, boring teenage drama. Basically, after one of Mandy and Claire's studying sessions, Claire took a selfie with the Titans and posted it on social media. And this made Mandy upset because she doesn't like the whole superhero stuff. So now Claire is the bad guy, even though there's no reason for us to hate her now. Mandy never told Claire about hating the whole superhero stuff, and even if she did, why should that matter. Claire shouldn't have to drop liking superheroes just because it mildly annoys/inconveniences Mandy. Not only is this a non-conflict, but it's overly pointless, because it's fixed just as fast as it was brought up.

So after that bit of pointlessness, Blackfire challenges Mandy to a fight to the death.....at the school's football field. I get what Mariko is going for. Blackfire wants to humiliate Mandy in front of her classmates, but it's still such an odd choice to have a fight. It's like if Lex Luthor challenged Superman to a final battle at the nearest dog park.

Now, for real this time, Blackfire and Mandy are fighting, but it doesn't take long before Starfire steps in and fight her sister because not only does Mandy not know how to fight, doesn't have any powers, but she's also naturally scared out of her mind. But sadly Starfire is defeated, and then Mandy's powers finally manifest. That moment would've been cool, but you saw coming a mile away. Because the writer keep beating it into your head, she's powerless, she's powerless, she has no powers, she's just an ordinary girl with absolutely no powers what so ever. So with all of that, you're just rolling your eyes waiting for predictability to happen.

So it's Mandy vs. Blackfire, and Mandy easily beats her. The fight didn't even last two pages. It's Mandy's powers are finally here, she shoots a couple of starbolts at Blackfire, fights over. So basically an aged and experienced fighter like Blackfire stands no chance against a really anger teenager girl with mommy issues.

Then the ending arrives and it's so boring. It's just MORE TALK ABOUT COLLEGE! Cause we didn't get enough of that! Mandy now loves her Mom. Which doesn't feel us with any joy, because for a majority of the story she treated her pet bird better than her own mother. Mandy and Claire kiss, nobody cares because their relationship had no development to speak of, and now that she has powers Mandy because a superhero.

So that's I Am Not Starfire. And DC Comics has put out a lot of bad comics. Superman: At Earth's End, Batman: Fortunate Son, Amazons Attack, and many others, and this definitely belongs in the worst. It's biggest crime is it's beyond boring. It's just filled with boring slice of life stuff, too much talk about freaking college, bland art, the writer clearly projecting her mommy issues, and a very unlikable protagonist.

If I was to rate this graphic novel like I do with movies, I would give it a rating of Destroy It.

That's going to do it for me. Come back tomorrow, Jul 29th for my review of Batman: The Long Halloween - Part Two. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.