The first season of Stargirl ended with a bang as the JSA took down the majority of the Injustice Society, but the final moments of the season hinted at the villains we’ll see the team tangling with in future episodes. Showrunner and Stargirl creator Geoff Johns talked about those villains at at a New York Comic-Con 2020 virtual panel for the show to give us an idea of what’s to come. Spoilers for the end of Season 1 follow.
After Stargirl/Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger) and her friends took down Icicle (Neil Jackson), Brainwave (Christopher James Baker), Dragon King (Nelson Lee) and left Sportsmaster (Neil Hopkins), Tigress (Joy Osmanski), Solomon Grundy, and the Gambler (Eric Goins) in the wind, the Dragon King’s daughter Cindy was all that was left of the ISA at the end of season 1. But in the final moments, a shadowy figure appears in the ISA headquarters while Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy) digs an ominous-looking gem out of storage. These are Season 2’s big bads: The Shade and Eclipso. We don’t know much yet about how they’ll figure into future episodes, but Geoff Johns is excited to say the least.
“[Eclipso] is so terrifying; I’ve always loved the character and you guys probably did a little bit of research,” Johns said to the Stargirl cast members also attending the panel. “But he’s a very different antagonist or villain than the ISA.”
“We’re just starting to cast him,” Johns continued. “I’ve got these wonderful designs from [costume designer] LJ Shannon. You know what he’s gonna look like, but it’s such a different, darker, scarier threat. The threat of Cindy’s one thing, and she’s got the black diamond and we’re going to obviously explore that. The thing inside it, this entity that’s trapped–this ancient being that feeds off humanity’s own sins and grief and fear and darkness.”
Johns hinted at some of the conflicts that will arise from this character, explaining that he has a history with the original Wildcat and Dr. Mid-Nite, as well as the rest of the JSA, and that it will take the show’s characters to “a place that’s going to be tough for them to explore.”
The Shade is another threat altogether, and Johns said that he’ll be a main character in Season 2. The Shade is an immortal that’s been around for hundreds of years and keen-eyed viewers will have seen his glasses in the background of the ISA’s mural. We missed, though, that he also appeared in Stargirl’s pilot episode as an inky-black hand grabbing the original Dr. Mid-Nite and pulling him into darkness.
“[That shot from the pilot] is his power,” Johns explained “Pat (Luke Wilson) will tell Courtney at some point that he’s the most powerful of them all. And he’s very threatening because no one knows exactly what he wants.”
That makes villains like Brainwave and Icicle look like small fries by comparison. Stargirl Season 2 is currently early in production, but will be a CW exclusive for its second season, most likely sometime in 2021.
