The Darkstars #8
The Darkstars #8 (cover date May 1993) is most frequently cited by dedicated readers as the single strongest issue of the series' early 'Earth-based' phase — a character showcase that lets writer Michael Jan Friedman's fish-out-of-water dynamic breathe with genuine wit, as Ferrin Colos navigates a Dallas honky-tonk, confronts human racial prejudice head-on, and fights off the alien assassin K'Lassh in the same evening. The issue also marks the first appearance of Annie Bonelli, who joins the supporting cast as the Darkstars' office manager — a grounded, purely human presence that anchors the cosmic premise to street level. Published in the thick of the 'Reign of the Supermen' wave of 1993, the issue arrives at a moment when DC was aggressively expanding its operational-police-force corner of space, and Darkstars #8 demonstrates that the series had genuine comedic and social ambitions beyond its Green Lantern analogue premise.
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The Darkstars was conceived by writer Michael Jan Friedman, who — after being turned away from both Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter solo pitches by editors Bob Greenberger and Brian Augustyn — proposed a series that blended the two characters' core appeals: a Corps-style interstellar police force paired with an isolated, alien outsider on Earth. The series launched in October 1992 and Friedman wrote every one of its 39 issues without a single fill-in, a remarkable feat of consistency for an early-1990s DC title. Issue #8 arrived during an editorially turbulent stretch for the art team — the series cycled through pencillers in its first two years — with Patrick Zircher providing layouts for this installment (with inking assists from Scott Hanna and John Lowe) and the increasingly sought-after Travis Charest supplying the cover, as he did for much of the run.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys!' — written by Michael Jan Friedman, with interior art by Patrick Zircher (pencils) and Scott Hanna & John Lowe (inks); cover by Travis Charest.
- Cover date: May 1993; published by DC Comics as part of The Darkstars Vol. 1 (1992–1996), a 39-issue series.
- First appearance of Annie Bonelli, who joins the Darkstars' support structure as their office manager, proving her worth by immediately mastering the team's alien computer systems.
- The issue introduces K'Lassh, an alien assassin whose attack on Colos and his deputies is the cliffhanger that carries into issue #9 ('K'Lassh!').
- Core character focus: Carla White — the Black lawyer-turned-deputy who replaced the reckless John Flint — takes alien Darkstar Ferrin Colos to a Western bar, generating an extended dialogue sequence in which Colos, who has never encountered racial segregation, calls it out as the most illogical custom he has encountered across the galaxy.
- The Darkstars series was created by Michael Jan Friedman and artist Larry Stroman; Friedman authored all 39 issues without a fill-in writer, an unusual level of creative continuity for the era.
- The series is set within DC's NEMO (Network for the Establishment and Maintenance of Order) cosmic framework, positioning the Darkstars as a Controllers-backed space-police force operating independently of the Green Lantern Corps.
- The issue has never been collected in a trade paperback; the Darkstars series as a whole remains uncollected in any reprint format as of 2026.