DC’s Stargirl Producer on the Balance of Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite

Last week on DC’s Stargirl the new generation of the Justice Society of America fully came together with the addition of Rick Tyler/Hourman (Cameron Gellman) and Beth Chapman/Doctor Mid-Nite to Courtney Whitmore/Stargirl’s (Brec Bassinger) young superhero team. Almost immediately, though, a few things became pretty clear about the new heroic recruits, the first being that Beth largely recruited herself and the second being that Rick is going to be a bit of a wildcard in that his motivations are quite different than Courtney’s when it comes to dealing with the Injustice Society. However, despite Rick being a bit of a loose cannon and Beth being more put together and eager, according to series executive producer Geoff Johns, the pair represent a kind of balance — just as their predecessors did.

Speaking with us in a recent interview, Johns explained that Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite feel a bit like “a yin and yang” both in their temperament as well as their abilities — not to mention that they just look cool together, too.

“If you’re going to have Courtney actively recruiting… like Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite kind of always felt like a yin and yang to me because you have one that’s very physical and one that’s very intellectual,” Johns said. “And I always saw them as The Flash and Green Lantern of the JSA and even when Rick and Beth joined Infinity Inc., they did it in the same issue. They just felt, they’ve always felt like they were this interesting pair that, to me, that they look cool together, they were very different, they approach things differently.”

He continued, “Rex was an extrovert and Charles McNider was an introvert. They had these great dynamics between these two and I love the characters for that. And I felt like when we were introducing them both, if Courtney was actively pursuing Rick, well, then we’d have Beth, as she’s trying to recruit one person, while somebody else is kind of recruiting herself, is getting involved herself.”

John went on to explain how Beth getting involved helped also bring Rick into things as well and establish that balance between the characters right away.

“And I think Beth really proves herself at the end when she comes in there and shows the truth to Rick,” Johns said. “And Beth will continue to prove her worth, but we really wanted to, rather than have Courtney keep going person to person, you want to vary it up and change it. And in particular, when we were going to introduce Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite together in this same episode, we wanted to show different was that they came into the group.”

And according to Gellman, we’ll be seeing more of Beth and Rick as a sort of team within a team as the series continues.

“So, both of us are sort of without a tribe, and then we have each other. And I think you’ll see a lot of really fun push and pull between them, as Rick sort of gives a little bit and trusts her and then pulls back a little bit, and she just sort of continues to show up and be a good friend,” he told us. “And she’s also so sensitive, and Rick is not always considerate with his words, and he can be too aggressive and hurts Beth’s feelings a lot. So, it’s kind of a constant struggle with them because she really is just trying to help. And he goes back and forth between accepting that help and completely pushing her away.”

Stargirl airs Tuesdays at 8/7 on The CW. New episodes debut Mondays on DC Universe.