DC's Stargirl Creator Confirms There Were Spinoff Plans

DC's Stargirl ended its three-season run last week and while fans are sad about the end of The CW series but turns out that the fan-favorite series may not have been the only loss. Series creator Geoff Johns says that there was a potential Infinity Inc. spinoff that the series was laying the groundwork for that sadly will not come to fruition. In a recent interview with TVLine, Johns explained how the Season 2 introduction of Jennie Hayden/Jade (Ysa Penarejo) and the story with her brother Todd (Tim Gabriel) in Season 3 set the stage for a spinoff.

"Yes, I think there was a great show in Infinity Inc, with The Shade and Jade hunting down the remaining family members — the sons and daughters and nephews and nieces — of the original JSA, those who were born with power that didn't yet unlock it," Johns said.

Jennie first arrived in Season 2, the daughter of Alan Scott/Green Lantern and, after developing her powers and working with the JSA briefly, ended up looking for her twin brother Todd — a quest that led her to The Helix Institute. In Season 3, Jennie ended up at Helix again — and Richard Swift/The Shade (Jonathan Cake) brought Courtney (Brec Basinger) and Pat (Luke Wilson) along as well where it was discovered that Todd was, dealing with his own shadows-based powers. The arc resolved with Pat convincing The Shade to help Todd and Jennie as a mentor and Jennie agreed, so long as they could also help Sandy Hawkins, the nephew of Sandman Wesley Dodds. It was a conclusion that very much set the stage for an Infinity Inc. team and a spinoff that would have seen "characters that were born with powers that had to learn how to handle this power they inherited," 

"I think there would've been something fun about watching The Shade as a villain trying to reform himself by recreating a new superhero team," Johns noted. "There would've been something really compelling about that as a show."

For fans of Stargirl, the idea that Johns was laying the groundwork for a Stargirl spinoff should come as no surprise. Back in 2020 when the show first debuted, Johns told ComicBook.com's Nicole Drum that the "Easter Eggs" of references in the series weren't Easter Eggs at all. Instead, they were pathways to additional stories that would play out as Stargirl continued.

"We go deep into the lore because we love the lore," Johns said. "People want to say, 'Oh look, an Easter egg of the pink pen or the green lantern' but those aren't Easter eggs. Those are pathways to new stories. And what those stories are, my hope is we get to continue to tell these stories with more seasons of the show. We'll see. But everything leads somewhere. And so, there's no throwaway. There's nothing that's a throwaway mention, there's nothing that's a throwaway prop, there's nothing that's a throwaway anything. It might not be something we get to immediately, but it's something we have plans for."

Unfortunately, the cancellation of DC's Stargirl — as well as the general changes with The CW now that Nextstar owns the network — will keep those plans from ever coming to fruition.

Fans can watch the final season of DC's Stargirl now on The CW's website. The first two seasons are currently streaming on HBO Max.