WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Stargirl Season 2, Episode 13, "Summer School: Chapter 13," which aired Tuesday November 2nd, on the CW.
Stargirl concluded its second season with a bang as friends and enemies joined forces to defeat one common enemy: Eclipso. The heroes included Courtney Whitmore, Yolanda Montez, Rick Tyler, Jennifer-Lynn Hayden, Beth Chapel, Charles McNider, Jakeem Williams as well as Pat and Mike Dugan. The enemies turned allies included Cindy Burman, the Crocks, The Shade and Solomon Grundy. The biggest surprise of the Season 2 finale, however, was the brief appearance of the former Starman himself, Sylvester Pemberton.
It's been confirmed since the Stargirl Season 1 finale that Sylvester Pemberton somehow survived the battle between the JSA and ISA a decade earlier. Exactly how he cheated death has yet to be revealed, but throughout his sporadic Season 2 appearances, it's been clear he wanted to reunite with his former sidekick, Pat Dugan. Though Sylvester didn't have a major presence in the Season 2 finale, he arrived just in time to fulfill two important roles: help Courtney reclaim her light from Eclipso and offer to become her mentor -- a development viewers can expect to see further fleshed out in Season 3 next year.
While little has been shown about Sylvester's past within the show's canon, the bits and pieces that have been revealed about him are still informed by the character's history in the comics. For starters, Sylvester -- like Courtney -- also started out as a teenaged superhero in the 1940s, called the Star-Spangled Kid. At some point during his Golden Age adventures, he acquired Pat Dugan as his adult sidekick called Stripesy, effectively challenging the hero-sidekick dynamic. Sometime during their adventures together, Sylvester and Pat joined The Seven Soldiers of Victory and worked together as a team, similar to the JSA.
In one of their last adventures during the early 1950s, The Seven Soldiers of Victory were time-displaced by Nebula and resurfaced two decades later in the early 1970s. At first, Sylvester struggled to adjust to the new decade, as he'd missed out on a lot. During this time, Sylvester acquired the cosmic rod from the original Starman, Ted Knight, and later repurposed it into a cosmic belt. He also joined the JSA and later gave up his seat to the Huntress to reclaim his family fortune and his life. About a decade later, Sylvester briefly re-joined the JSA, only to leave again to start his own team of legacy heroes called Infinity Inc. Around this time he also changed his name to Skyman.
A lot of this history has either been shown or been alluded to in Stargirl, which is pretty significant. Sylvester having started out as a teenaged superhero gives him and Courtney some common ground to bond over, which will most likely be explored in-depth in Season 3. Not only will Courtney find his insight helpful, but he may especially be useful against Mister Bones of Helix (and later the DEO), who made a surprise appearance in the Season 2 finale.
Given Bones' current connection to Jennie-Lynn's twin brother, Todd Rice, this could potentially mean a deeper dive into Sylvester's past in Season 3. Considering Bones started out as an enemy of Infinity Inc in the comics, this could either hint at the team having once existed with Sylvester as its founder, or it could potentially set up the first incarnation of the team within the show. This is especially likely when taking into account four of the team's original members in the comics are already present in Stargirl: Jennie-Lynn, Yolanda, Beth and one of the few characters who has yet to made a full-time return from death in this show, Henry King Jr.
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