Jack Knight, Starman: “Fathers and Sons”

When Kyle was old enough, when he was beginning to understand the world around him existed, and one day mentioned to his father having seen Stargirl on TV, Jack Knight remembered.

He remembered the old days. He remembered when he used to parade around in a leather jacket and goggles as Starman.

And he wondered if it had been the right thing to give the rod and mantle to Courtney Whitmore.

He wondered that, now, because he’d begun to think, had he given away his son’s birthright? At the time he’d just wanted the story to end, to walk away, to start over fresh. But as time had made clear to him, there was such a thing as legacy, and he had honestly not thought of his own son as a part of it until that moment.

He wished he had his father to talk to about it. Or his brother. But those times had passed.

He’d built a new life with Sadie, in San Francisco, that was unconnected to Opal, to all of it. He really had moved on. He’d raised his son in what he’d thought of as true innocence.

He’d been wrong.

He struggled to find words, to have something to say about Stargirl, about superheroes, about his son’s clear fascination. Which felt like a knife. An accusation.

He sat there mute. The TV blared. He wished he’d never let Kyle watch the thing. Jack Knight had never been a TV kind of person. His thoughts drifted to the attic.

In previous eras the attic was symbolic of the past. It contained treasures. Jack had run a business that emptied attics of such things. He’d been very content, surrounded by them. All he had in his attic was a leather jacket, and a pair of goggles. If he showed them to Kyle now, he wondered how his son would react.

If he did it now, before Kyle had traveled too far afield, he might understand. If he waited his son would only scoff. But he would never really be able to understand. Jack had made sure of that.

Yeah.

It had been a mistake. All mistakes come from the best intentions, like the road to Hell. He couldn’t just ask Courtney, either. And he couldn’t build himself a new one. That was his father’s magic.

And what was his? What did Jack Knight have to show for himself? He’d been so certain of such things, before. When it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Now he wondered.

And then Kyle ran off, bored, his mind on something else entirely, into the backyard, on another grand adventure. Jack watched. Sadie caught him wiping his eyes. He claimed ignorance.

She knew better.

Star Trek: “Before the Bell Riots”

He doesn’t spend much time dwelling on the past. The past is painful, is why he ended up in the Sanctuary District in the first place. Better to try and forget. Better to try and make it work. Better to try and make it better. If that’s possible. He used to have more optimism. He knows that. But Gabriel has seen better times. They can happen again. Even here. He has to believe. He does. He believes it’s possible. It has to be.

There’s no way this is how the story ends. No. So much bad news. The tyrants over in Europe, the Middle East. Everywhere. Their wars. Their perversion of science. This was supposed to be the road to utopia! Wasn’t that what that tech guru, Starling? had spent so much time proselytizing? 

And that wasn’t what brought Gabriel, here, to California. No, that was just a coincidence. But he certainly found no paradise, here. 

No, things had been rough, they’d been bad, even before he saw the conditions in the Sanctuary Districts for himself. Oh, yes. He had seen horrors. He’d…

No, best not to think of that. The riots. The…Gabriel sits in filth (there’s really no other way to describe it; there’s no sanitation department, here, and he’s never known a humanity overly interested in cleaning up after itself, only advertising, the false face society wore when it still gave a damn), and he struggles with his past. He yearns to escape it, needs to, but can’t.

He had a wife, they had a son. The riots they found, when they came to live here, in California, when they tried to find a home that wasn’t infested by the breakdown of the social order, the factionalism, the tribalism…But when life works that way and you haven’t found a way to fit in, and all you hope for, yearn for, is a belief that we can be better than this, that we can still help each other, hold each other, regardless of the differences, perhaps even in spite of them…

He still has the nightmares. He’ll always have those. He’ll never be able to escape them. And perhaps that’s why he ended up here. He has to find a reason. He needs to believe. 

He’s heard chatter, here. The man called Webb. Gabriel keeps to himself, and most of the people here are only looking out for themselves, like everyone else. But Webb can’t help but try and organize. Always hustling. Finding volunteers. Even with that family of his. Even with something to protect. Gabriel listens. He’s slow to trust, these days. But quick to hope. He’s looking for an opening.

It feels as if something’s about to happen. Maybe it’s something positive, for a change. He’s ready. Whatever it is, he’ll play his part.