Star City (comics)

According to several published accounts, Star City was incorporated as a city under its current name over 200 years ago.

Before moving on to service in first Metropolis and later Gotham City, Maggie Sawyer began her career as a police officer in Star City.

The first costumed vigilante to serve as mayor was Thomas "Steelclaw" Bolt, who adopted an undercover persona as a costumed criminal as part of his efforts to bring local crime under control. He died in office of that attempt.

During the years that Green Arrow spent outside of Star City, at least one other costumed crime-fighter operated there: Chase Lawler, one of the several known Manhunters.[3]

The final Green Arrow storyline before One Year Later featured Doctor Light and Merlyn detonating explosives, leaving nearly a third of Star City in shambles in what becomes known as the "Amsterdam Avenue Disaster".

In the One Year Later storyline, Oliver Queen becomes the mayor of Star City.[4] News that he had been secretly funding the Outsiders, essentially a bounty hunter team at this point in their history, causes a scandal. Coupled with his marginal popularity with the voting public (he never had more than 50% of the city supporting him while in office), this prompted Queen to resign from his position. His resignation carried the stipulation that his successor maintains the various social aid organizations and resources Queen had established. Ollie was able to beat his opponent by resigning prior to the election and putting someone he trusted in charge of the city.[5]

In Justice League: Cry for Justice mini-series, Star City is the scene of a devastating tremor set by Prometheus.[6] Prometheus' plan is to teleport Star City—which he has targeted solely because it is the home city of a member of the Justice League—to an alternate universe. As the plan fails, Star City's outskirts are left mostly intact but there is a vast, star-shaped ruin in the center of the city, and a death toll of ninety-thousand people and rising.[7]

During the events of Brightest Day, Deadman's white power ring teleports him to the site of the tremor, where his newly acquired White Lantern's powers turn the ruin into a lush forest.[8] Shortly after this event, Martian Manhunter is informed by the Entity that he has been resurrected in order to burn the forest to the ground.[9] Martian Manhunter arrives in the Star City forest and attempts to complete his task, however, he is stopped from doing that by the Entity who revealed to him that the forest he is to burn down is on Mars.[10] Green Arrow discovers that the forest appears to have some sentient intelligence or some kind of powers of illusion with instructions to protect or kill someone.[11] The Entity later reveals that Nekron's attack on the Entity not only was mortal to it but also heightened the contamination of the planet, and the corruption will rise in the form of another "dark avatar" of the darkness who will try to destroy the Star City forest, in which is the key to save Earth's soul and the new champion of life, causing the Earth to die.[12]

Green Arrow later discovers that the forest is not what appeared to be and that the heart of the forest is evil.[13] This evil eventually became the "Dark Avatar" which the Entity mentioned would come to destroy the forest. This Dark Avatar is actually the original Swamp Thing resurrected as a Black Lantern. Also as the entire Earth falls victim to its poisoning and corruption it is revealed that the only place that is not yet touched is the forest where the sky is still blue, however as the population began to take shelter they are stopped by a white barrier. To defend the forest from the Dark Avatar, the Entity summoned the Elementals, which are revealed to be the heroes whose life force had been collected by the Entity and which reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of nature, each one representing one of the four elements, the Entity also reveals that the central tree in the Star City forest is the foundation for the Parliament of Trees.[14] The Elementals are fused with the body of Alec Holland to resurrect him and then the forest fused Alec Holland to transform him into the new Swamp Thing. After the Dark Avatar is finally defeated, Alec Holland reclaims the title of Swamp Thing and begins to restore life in Star City's areas.[15]

Star City's location, like those of Metropolis, Gotham City, and other cities in the DC Universe, was uncertain for many years, with varying depictions over the decades. Several golden age stories depicted Green Arrow and Speedy fighting seafaring villains – the Angler, the Harbor Thief, and the Turtle, among others – implying the city was on a sea coast. Long before Green Arrow joined the Justice League of America, he and Speedy often teamed up with underwater adventurer Aquaman (whose adventures, like those of the two archers, appeared in Adventure Comics), supporting the notion that Star City was a coastal city.

Star City's location was given as near the Great Lakes in the 1960s and on the southern coast of New England from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. In Detective Comics #470 (June 1977) it was stated that Star City was in Connecticut.[16] In DC Comics Presents #87 (Nov. 1985), Superman is flying above “Earth-Prime” (the real world without superheroes) and notices that Star City has been replaced by Boston, Massachusetts.

A map published in 1985 and occasionally modified by Mayfair Games detailed Star City's geographical layout. Though the Atlas placed Star City on California's Pacific Coast, north of San Francisco, the layout used for the city map resembled the geography of metropolitan Chicago, but reversed, so that it would be on the Michigan side of Lake Michigan. The neighborhood of "East Gary" was approximately where the real Gary, Indiana, would be on the reversed map, but on the Pacific Ocean instead of Lake Michigan.

In Birds of Prey #119 (August 2008), Star City is depicted as being in the San Francisco Bay region, although the published map erroneously substitutes Star City for San Francisco. Also, the city of Platinum Flats (based on Silicon Valley), is described as "half an hour" away.

In the TV show Arrow (2012–’20), Star City is generally described as being on the West Coast, or Western Seaboard, and in dialogue is described as 600 miles from Central City. A season five episode gives the city a Washington state postal code. Near the end of season 5 episode 22, a computer generated map showing the flight path of Chase's plane puts Star City on or near San Francisco as the coastline perfectly matches that of northern California. Season 7 episode 15 has Felicity giving coordinates (which turn out to be for the Glades) of 47.119N, 122.3301W, which actually maps to the south suburbs of Tacoma (about 40 miles south of Seattle). However, in season 3 episode 9, another flight map shown briefly onscreen locates Starling City (changed during the show) in the Great Lakes region.

The DC Rebirth Green Arrow series (2016—2019) specifically states Star City as actually being Seattle, only later being renamed Star City. After some time the city was once again reinstated as Seattle.

Star City's population is given in Green Arrow ("City Walls" Pt.3) as being roughly five million.[17] The population is given as just under 600,000 in the CW series Arrow. In the third season episode “Guilty”, Felicity mentions there being “roughy 86,000 ‘Paco’s’, give or take a few nick names". This estimates the total population being almost 15% named “Paco”.

The fictional Star City Rockets play baseball in Papp Stadium, while the fictional Star City Thunder play basketball in Tinder-Smith Garden.