Joel McHale
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Joel McHale has joined the cast of DC Universe’s upcoming series ‘Stargirl’ as DC Comics character Sylvester Pemberton.  In an alteration from the comics, Pemberton will be recast as the Golden Age Starman.  McHale will be recurring on the series.

Here is the description of his character:

A courageous and confident superhero, Starman is a member of the Justice Society of America. He wields a mysterious anti-gravity weapon called the cosmic staff and has a longtime sidekick named Stripesy, who is better known as Courtney Whitmore’s stepfather Pat Dugan.

In the comics, Sylvester Pemberton was named the Star-Spangled Kid and was the partner of Stripesy.  Originally, neither hero had super abilities, but in the 1970s, Pemberton was given a belt which gave him super strength, flight, and other abilities and it was this belt that Courtney used to launch her heroic career as the new Star-Spangled Kid.

Starman was a separate hero, scientist Ted Knight, who wielded the Cosmic Rod (or Staff, as it is listed here).  During the ’90s, Ted’s son Jack became the new Starman and actually worked alongside Courtney in a revived version of the Justice Society of America.  When Jack decided to retire, he gave Courtney his weapon and she switched her name to Stargirl as a tribute to both the Star-Spangled Kid and Starman.

It looks like for simplicity’s sake, the creators of the TV show have decided to mash them together into one.

McHale hosted E!’s ‘The Soup’ for a dozen seasons and recently revived the clip-show format for Netflix’s ‘The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale’ which only lasted for two cycles.  He is also known for starring on ‘Community’ for six seasons and went on to appear on ‘The Great Indoors’ and the revival of ‘The X-Files’.  He was recently seen on the big screen in ‘The Happytime Murders’.  He has also reportedly been cast in a separate superhero series, ‘Quantum and Woody’ which is in development for TBS, under the guidance of the Russo Brothers.

Brec Bassinger headlines ‘Stargirl’ as the titular hero.  Also cast are Christopher James Baker, Yvette Monreal, and Anjelika Washington, but their roles are currently under wraps.  The series is expected to premier in the fall of 2019 exclusively on DC Universe.

Source: Variety