Random Happenstance

I dropped it mid-stream, and I still like Firearm better, but Starman did have more issues. And this random one's cover grabbed me, at least! From 1999, Starman #55, "Taxicab Confessions" Written by James Robinson and David Goyer, pencils by Peter Snejbjerg, Chris Weston, and John McCrea, inks by Keith Champagne. Cover by Tony Harris.

The Starmen--Jack Knight, his dad Ted, and alien Mikaal--were doing a lost-in-space/time storyline at the time; but we don't really see them this issue. Instead, Space Cabbie picks up a couple guys who want to go to the Karloff sector. Figuring this was probably going to end in gunplay or something, Cabbie chats them up, trying to get at what they want out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing to see there but a debris field, and the Cabbie knows the story of that one: the Starmen had answered a distress call there, and fought Jovian pirate Jarko, to rescue the Teen Titans' Starfire. Jarko had a strange, curved staff--that you might recognize as another Starman's, Prince Gavyn's! His duel with Jack's Cosmic Rod is inconclusive, since the Knights of the Galaxy arrive and start shooting the place up, but Mikaal frees Starfire and they escape before it explodes.

EDIT: Did I have the wrong picture here? Lemme try that again.

The first passenger, revealing himself to be Space Ranger, disagrees on some of the details: yes, the Starmen were answering a distress signal. But it wasn't from the Titans' Starfire, it was from the 70's sci-fi revolutionary leader Starfire! Speaking mangled "ye olde Englishe," like they spoke back then, Jack challenges Jarko...to a game of a Twister knockoff? This time, the duel is interrupted by the Star Rovers, but Mikaal (looking very Spock-like in this version) still frees Starfire and they escape.

The second passenger also disagrees, and he was Ultra the Multi-Alien! In a far more bombastic version, the Starmen (including Jack in a more classic costume, as Mikaal as space Bucky) rescue Russian Starfire Red Star--why he was there is anyone's guess. Jarko challenges Jack to the contest of "unflinching gaze," and whoever grinned first lost! This time Tommy Tomorrow and the Planeteers blast up the joint, but the Starmen free Red Star and escape.

Although they had split a cab, Space Ranger and Ultra had been sent separately, by the Space Museum, to recover Gavyn's staff, since it could be dangerous. How'd Gavyn even get that thing--the guys all argue on that story, on their way home. 

Do comics do a better job of Rashomon'ing a story than Rashomon does? Sometimes, when the art shifts go hard enough, I'd say they might!