Sylvester Pemberton

Superherobox|left|

caption=
character_name=Skyman
real_name=Sylvester Pemberton, Jr.
publisher=DC Comics
debut="Action Comics" #40 (September 1941)
creators=Jerry Siegel
Hal Sherman
alliances=Seven Soldiers of Victory All-Star Squadron Justice Society of America Infinity Inc.
aliases=Star-Spangled Kid
powers=The Cosmic Converter Belt gave increased strength, agility, and the ability to create solid light objects and fire stars that blind in low grade explosions. After retooling it, it enabled him to fly.|

Sylvester Pemberton, alternately known as The Star-Spangled Kid and Skyman is a fictional superhero in the DC Comics universe.

Fictional character history

tar-Spangled Kid

The original Star-Spangled Kid was Sylvester Pemberton, a Golden Age character. He became the Star-Spangled Kid in order to battle Nazi spies and fifth columnists during World War II. He was unique in that he was a kid superhero who operated with an adult sidekick, Stripesy a.k.a. Pat Dugan. Both he and Dugan were superb acrobats along with having sufficient training in hand-to-hand combat. They devised a series of acrobatic maneuvers that allowed them to build upon one another's strengths, the Kid's agility and Dugan's strength. They also built the Star Rocket Racer, a bubble-topped limousine with the functions of a rocket and helicopter.

The Kid and Stripesy were members of the Seven Soldiers of Victory as well as the All-Star Squadron. In 1948, Pemberton and Dugan were joined by Merry, the Girl of 1000 Gimmicks , eventually supplanting The Kid and Stripsey from their own feature.

The Seven Soldiers were lost in time in the late 1940s and rescued decades later by the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America. Sylvester then joined the JSA, at which time a then-injured Starman Ted Knight loans him his cosmic rod (it was later retconned that Starman wanted the young man to become his heir as neither of his sons expressed interest in carrying the mantle). Soon afterwards, the Kid refines the technology of the rod, devising a belt with similar powers such as energy projection, flight and matter transmutation. Eventually the Kid retires from superheroics to reclaim his inheritance, his father's business, from his corrupt nephew. In addition, he would patch up his long since neglected relationship with Dugan.

kyman

He eventually changes his name to Skyman and took leadership of the team Infinity Inc. During this period he was able to form a partnership with the city of Los Angeles to commission his team as for-hire protectors. He also purchased property to revitalize related movie production facillities.

He later confronts Solomon Grundy, who is under the control of the third Harlequin. She herself is under the employ of the Dummy's Injustice Unlimited. During the incident, Solomon Grundy uses the fatal touch of Mister Bones to kill Skyman.

Stripesy's stepdaughter Courtney Whitmore eventually takes up the mantle of the Star-Spangled Kid, although she is now Stargirl after receiving the Cosmic Rod from Jack Knight. Pemberton later returns, due to an alternate timeline, in the prime post-Crisis Earth to assist the JSA against Extant. During this adventure, he teams up with Courtney.

52

In the series "52", Lex Luthor buys the rights to Infinity Inc.'s name from the Pemberton Estate and gives the codename 'Skyman' to a new superhero. The new Skyman has a relationship with Natasha Irons, and is portrayed as one of the more sincere heroes in Luthor's Infinity Inc. He is killed and replaced by the shapeshifting Everyman.

External links

* [http://www.dcuguide.com/who.php?name=skyman DCU Guide: Star Spangled Kid]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/s-s-kid.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia]