DC’s Stargirl season 1 and 2 recap: All seasons explained
Stargirl season 1 recap
Stargirl season 1 was all about new beginnings. 10 years after the Justice Society of America fell to the Injustice Society, the JSA were set to be reborn with a new leader. But that’s not the only reboot we saw in that season. Courtney Whitmore had the reset button pressed on her life when she and her family moved to Blue Valley – a move suggested by Courtney’s quirky stepfather Pat Dugan.
Pat had a tough time making his stepdaughter see that the move was right for her, her mother Barbara, and Pat’s son Mike, but that all changed when Courtney came into possession of the Cosmic Staff. The Staff only worked for Starman, so when it activated for Courtney, it set her life on a new path: Stargirl was born.
Throughout the course of the season, Courtney discovered the truth about Pat’s allegiance with Starman, the JSA’s heroics and their untimely demise. She then took it upon herself to build a new generation of the JSA to battle the re-emerging ISA. On her team her were high school acquaintances Yolanda Montez/Wildcat II and Beth Chapel/Doctor Mid-nite II. As for Hourman II, she picked none other than Rick Tyler, the son of the original Hourman Rex.
As this was happening, the ISA was busy hatching a plan to control the minds of everyone in America in order to make them see their vision of their American Dream. Calling the shots were Jordan Mahkent/Icicle and Henry King/Brainwave. But when Stargirl’s debut rendered Brainwave comatose, Jordan fast-tracked his plan and reassembled the ISA. What’s more is that a second generation of the villains was also slowly coming to life, as Brainwave’s son, Henry, was beginning experience the same telekinetic abilities as his father, while Dragon King had experimented on his daughter Cindy Burman to turn her into an unstoppable assassin.
Meanwhile, Courtney was convinced that Starman was her father. Not only did the faded photograph of her dad look like Sylvester Pemberton, it would explain why the Staff worked for her. That is, until it didn’t. Courtney’s father would turn up and reveal himself to be the abandoning lowlife her mother knew he was. And this, more than anything, made Courtney realize that Pat was her true father.
The season culminated in an epic showdown that saw the JSA battle the ISA. Yolanda battled and ultimately killed Brainwave (who had killed his own son just episodes before), Rick battled Grundy (who had killed his parents) and chose to spare his life, and both Stargirl and Pat battled Icicle on the top of the America Dream building to protect Barbara.
In the end, the JSA won out (with a little help from Mike, who ran over Icicle and shattered him into thousands of pieces). There was trauma to deal with, particularly for Yolanda who was still grieving over the loss of Henry Jr. and what she did to Brainwave, but the Whitmore-Dugan clan could rest easy knowing that Blue Valley was safe under its new protectors: Stargirl and the JSA.
But wait, there’s more! The season’s final scene revealed that Starman is alive after all.