One of the fun things about DC’s Stargirl are the comic book references. From the very first episode, the DC Universe/The CW series has been full of references and nods to a wide range of not just comic book moments but characters as well. For fans, some of the most exciting references are the glimpses of other heroes within the DC Universe specifically in photographs from Pat Dugan’s life before he was Courtney Whitmore’s stepfather and while we’ve seen the heroes of the first Justice Society of America before — including beloved heroes such as The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and more — this week’s episode went back even a bit further and in the process confirmed another team before the JSA and that Earth-2 has its own Green Arrow out there, somewhere.
Warning: Spoilers for this week’s episode of DC’s Stargirl, “Brainwave”, below.
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Early in this week’s episode, Courtney (Brec Bassinger) talks with Pat (Luke Wilson) and says that she thinks the new JSA should recruit Henry King Jr. (Jake Austin Walker) to help them deal with the ISA, but Pat is thinking about a different kind of help. Now that he realizes Dr. Ito/Dragon King (Nelson Lee) is involved with the ISA, he knows things are more serious than ever and he explains to Courtney why.
You see, before he and Sylvester Pemberton/Starman (Joel McHale) were part of the JSA, they were on another team named The Seven Soldiers of Victory. That team ended up stopping Dr. Ito from destroying New York. He even shows Courtney a photo of the old team — and Green Arrow is among its heroes, though Courtney describes him as “Robin Hood”.
For DC fans, this is a major reveal for a few reasons. The Seven Soldiers of Victory was a short-lived but classic team of heroes in the DC Universe who first debuted in Leading Comics #1 from 1941. The team featured Star-Spangled Kid/Sylvester Pemberton, Stripesy/Pat Dugan, Vigilante/Greg Saunders, Green Arrow/Oliver Queen, Crimson Avenger/Lee Travis, Shining Knight/Sir Justin, Speedy/Roy Harper, and Wing who was an unofficial eighth member of the team. In the original comics, the heroes come together when the mastermind the Hand — who believes he’s dying — enlists five other criminals to carry out his greatest unused schemes and then challenges the heroic enemies of those criminals to stop them. It’s kind of a wild story, but the heroes ultimately end up working together to take down the villains and become the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
There are a couple of interesting takeaways from the introduction of the Seven Soldiers of Victory team in “Brainwave”. First is that Green Arrow glimpse. Pat notes that the Seven Soldiers of Victory lost touch years ago and he wishes he knew where they were now, implying that those heroes are all very much likely alive and well (except for Starman) somewhere. In The CW’s Arrowverse, the Earth-1 Green Arrow/Oliver Queen died saving the Multiverse so the idea that Earth-2’s Oliver Queen is out there is just flat-out exciting. While this version of Green Arrow is very different from the one that The CW fans are used to — the original comics Green Arrow was an archeologist and anthropologist with an area of expertise in Native American culture who trained with the very cultures he studied as opposed to having developed his abilities after being shipwrecked — series creator Geoff Johns has previously noted that not all references in Stargirl are Easter Eggs and are instead potential pathways to new stories in the future. That means that maybe there could be more Green Arrow nods in the future.
The second, and most important, takeaway from the Seven Soldiers of Victory reveal is actually the hero Courtney refers to as a knight. Since the very first episode of Stargirl, fans have wondered if Justin the Janitor would end up being Shining Knight and while the show hasn’t fully gone there just yet, the episode two weeks from now is titled “Shining Knight” — and if you look carefully at that photo, the knight with the Seven Soldiers is holding onto a sword that looks an awful lot like the one Justin used against Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy) in “Shiv Part One”.
What do you think? Were you excited for the Green Arrow moment in this week’s Stargirl? Were you excited for the Seven Soldiers of Victory reference? Let us know in the comments below!
DC’s Stargirl airs Tuesdays at 8/7 on The CW. New episodes debut Mondays on DC Universe.
