#clarence o'dare

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Starman #24 (1996)

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Nerdy's DC Comics OCs #2- Bridget Temperance and Clare Anne O'Dare

Who are they?: Bridget and Clare Anne O'Dare are the five year old and three year old, respectively, daughters of Mason and Charity O'Dare of Opal City and of James Dale Robinson's Starman run. Bridget is meant to be the unborn O'Dare child teased in Starman #81, aka the Blackest Night tie-in issue. The girls were first introduced in my Halloween 2024 picture as the trick or treaters who are greeted by The Shade/Richard Swift/their Aunt Hope's weird magic boyfriend.

About Them: Much like their mom, the girls have psychic abilities of varying degrees. Bridget is an empath, though as of now she is mostly in tune with Clare Anne, which is fortunate for the younger girl whose abilities manifests as a Second Sight after exposure to Lazarus rain, which causes her great distress. Bridget loves to go looking for bugs, isopods or "pill bugs" her favorites, and considers herself the best hitter on her tee-ball team. Clare Anne loves tigers and tries to hype herself up with the mantra "Tigers are not afraid".

Their relationship(s) with canon characters: Bridget is a daddy's girl. She loves talking to Mason about her day and asking him about his beat, more than once she asked if she could be a cop one day. She likes to paint her dad's toenails, but she does make of his "smelly troll feet". Clare Anne tends to shadow Charity, especially when her Second Sight scares her. Charity is the one who taught her the mantra and encourages Clare Anne to speak up when she sees scary things nobody else can.

The girls frequently visit Clarence and Faith, who is Bridget's godmother.

Despite the distance, the O'Dares are still friends with Jack and Sadie Knight, Bridget and Clare Anne frequently visiting Teddy and his little sister Emmy through Skype/Zoom. The first time the O'Dare girls met the Knight kids was when the Knights drove back to Opal City for a brief visit and Bridget and Teddy became pretty fast friends through a bug hunt in the city park.

Despite her insistence that she is not good with kids, the girls love their aunt Hope. They love riding in Hope's convertible, especially with the top down, when she takes them to the park and the observatory. Whenever the latest crisis occurs, Hope immediately goes to check up on Charity and the girls, even fighting off Bobo Benetti, transformed into a bear by Garro spores.

Richard Swift is a source of fascination for Bridget and a source of fear for Clare Anne. To Bridget, Richard is Hope's weird magic boyfriend who always has a story to tell and is rather game to have his nails painted, though she laments never having any black nail polish. To Clare Anne, the Shade is a continuous writhing mass of black smokey snakes with glowing eyes all over in the shape of a person.

Other Facts: Bridget goes to Gardner Public Elementary School for Pre-K. The school's mascot is Lynda the Fox.

[cakedupyoshi]

Starman #27

[thecomicsnexus]

STARMAN #12-16 OCTOBER 1995 - FEBRUARY 1996 BY JAMES ROBINSON, TONY HARRIS, WADE VON GRAWBADGER, TOMMY LEE EDWARDS, STUART IMMONEN, CHRIS SPROUSE, ANDREW ROBINSON, GARY ERSKINE AND AMANDA CONNER

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC WIKIA)

Jack’s half day

As Nash goes on a killing spree, she also kidnaps Mikaal Tomas and Solomon Grundy. Later, she captures Jack Knight, strips him and places him in a labyrinth, telling him she has scattered his clothes and Cosmic Staff throughout the maze. To live, he has to run the maze.

Jack starts running and manages to take out one of Nash's aides before being surrounded by three more.

Ted’s day

Out for revenge because of her brother's death by Jack Knight, Missie Mist's murdering rampaged continues on. She enlists the help of Dr. Phosporus to take out Jack's father, Ted Knight.

Meanwhile, Solomon Grundy and Mikaal Tomas go missing.

Opal’s day

During Nash's killing spree, she also murders retired Commissioner Red Bailey.

Meanwhile, Clarence O'Dare stops a robbery, Mason O'Dare saves some hostages and Hope O'Dare chases another set of robbers across the rooftops. She is nearly killed by one of them before the Shade kills him instead.

Mikaal’s day

Nash continues her killing spree.

Earlier, her henchmen had kidnapped Mikaal Tomas and Solomon Grundy. Their captors are beating the snot out of both of them. Finally, the stone embedded in Mikaal's chest glows and blows up the entire top of the building in which they are being held.

Jack’s last half day

Jack Knight makes it to the end of the Mist's maze. They confront each other, and she lets him go. She wants him to train and become a better hero, and she a better villain, then when they have fulfilled their destinies, she promises to return and kill him.

REVIEW

You know how the main idea behind a myth or more specifically, in a western, is that someone has to take up the role of the hero when the situation requires so? Well, what those usually do not explore very well is what happens to their children.

That is one thing that shines throughout this series. Heroes, Villains, Policemen... those are a family business in Opal City. Our protagonists are part of generational never-ending battle. They do not need their own purposes (they have them, but in the end it doesn’t seem to matter, at least not yet). At the same time there are things that seem constant. One of them being The Shade. Or as I guess we will explore eventually, the Scalphunter.

This is the key to understand this story. It would be easy to fall for the trap of the average superhero story, looking for motivations. Here the main motivation is a romantic nostalgia of the past. It is present not only in the art. but also in the dialogues. These characters are in love with the past, they are in love with a time when heroes were black and white. Popular culture of that time is as fresh to them as present pop culture is to us. Opal City loves its past.

One of the first visual changes in this story is when Ted Knight goes back to his house. While he is driving, everything turns black and white. Everything is black and white in his house, except the villain. The villain has very bright colors. He doesn’t live in the past, he doesn’t care about it.

The bright colors, by the way, were very popular that month, as Underworld Unleashed was printed with a “fifth ink”.

The middle chapter of the series has six guest artists. Each one taking on a different character: Tommy Lee Edwards (Barry O’Dare), Stuart Immonen (Clarence O’Dare), regular artist Tony Harris (Tony Florence), Chris Sprouse (Lucy Collins), Andrew Robinson (Mason O’Dare), Gary Erskine (Matt O’Dare) and Amanda Conner (Hope O’Dare). Now, if you are familiarized with these artists styles, you know they do not look the same. But here, by the magic of Wade Von Grawbadger and Gary Erskine, they look very similar. Sure, Immonen is probably the one that looks more different than the others, but it is still in the same tone.

While reading the middle chapter is when I realized why the O’Dares story is important for the series. A family of policemen is not different than a family of heroes or villains. They do it because their parents did it. It is their role in society. Sure, at least one of them is corrupt, but looks like it won’t last long.

In Mikaal’s episode we learn (in case we weren’t aware of it), that Solomon Grundy is basically a plant. I wasn’t aware of this for some reason and I am not sure other writers took this little fact in their Solomon Grundy stories. In this story, one of the Mist’s henchmen wants to kill Mikaal because he was an enemy of his father. See the trend here? Sins of the child isn’t only about Nash.

In the last episode, and with creepy puppets as witnesses, we have this surreal conversation between Jack and Nash about their roles in their lives. Nash considers that neither Jack nor her are at her prime. And she will have to wait until they are both fully realized as hero and villain to put an end to him. I mean, these are character that can use reason. Nash agrees to leave Ted Knight out of their fight. Their fight is just between themselves. This sets the climax for the series, surely. And this is another thing you should now about this title. It’s a full story. It’s a puzzle. We get to know in the narration of the first part of this story that Jack will have at least one daughter. Among other revelations. So it is comforting to know that, even if Jack doesn’t appear in three issues of this story... there is a destination. There is a full fleshed puzzle at the end of the road.

Now, the artistic choices here are phenomenal. From the contrast of the black and white and colors, to very odd perspectives, to a pulpy feel throughout. The art celebrates pulp. Feels nostalgic about the old times. The whole thing is steampunk!

You will not find two series like this.

I give this story a score of 10

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