Stargirl doesn’t know what to do with its superhero nostalgia

Image: CW

Here’s something that can be easy to forget about comic book superheroes, given how popular they’ve become over the last decade: they’re really quite old. This is especially true for DC Comics characters like Batman and Superman, who were created in the 1930s. Comic books were extremely different then, and many superheroes of the Golden Age were specific to their era in ways that don’t necessarily translate to modern success outside of the odd period piece. Stargirl is a modern love letter to those old superheroes, but it never really sells you on why you should love them.

Stargirl — which you can watch Mondays on DC Universe or a slightly edited for broadcasting on the CW on Tuesdays — begins 10 years before the present day in the…