Posted by Douglas Fir at usr6813-kno.cableinet.co.uk on April 22, 2001 at 17:21:17:
Take a look at the picture above... that's your Star City Slayer right there!!! Read on if you want the full scoop!!!...
Okay look back at the last page of Green Arrow #2 which gives us our first look at the Star City Slayer. We basically see a man who has a creature drinking blood, feeding some of this to the creature and then saying that soon it will be like old times "a boy and his dog".
There was a DC comic book in the sixties called "Fox & Crow" that featured a back-up strip called "Stanley And His Monster" from #95 upwards (and in fact the strip was so popular that the comic was renamed "Stanley And His Monster" for the last four issues #109-#112). The story was basically about a boy, Stanley, and his pet demon having wacky adventures in that typical sixties DC funny book kinda vibe!!!
Flash forward a few decades and the characters were tweaked slightly and reintroduced into DC continuity by writer Phil Foglio (as best I can tell their first appearance, disregarding the sixties stuff, is in Secret Origins #48, March 1990... which I have!!!). They eventually got their own four issue mini-series in 1993 and the basic story was the monster was banished to earth and he eventually befriended a young boy, Stanley, who always wanted a pet dog but couldn't because he was allergic to them!!!
Just in case you're wondering - although the books where your usual funny books they did take place in DCU continuity (the origin story referenced a plotline from Vertigo's Sandman and the mini-series had guest appearances by the Phantom Stranger and Doc Savage). This is all based on what I've read because I only have the Secret Origins issue but it does all add up because in that issue we are told that Stanley's surname is... Dover!!! So we have a kid that has a pet monster called Stanley Dover... and in Green Arrow we have a guy with a demon in his basement and a prime suspect named Stanley Dover!!! The line at the end of #2 "Not much longer now 'til it's just like old times. Me and you against the world... a boy and his dog"!!! It certainly adds up in my head and if this isn't true then Kevin has certainly planted the best red herring that I've ever seen!!!
Of course why is Stanley now an old man and not a boy??? Who knows maybe having a demon as a pet for so many years has taken some sort of averse toll on poor Stanley... maybe resulting in magically induced aging. Maybe drinking the blood of his victims somehow helps slow down this aging??? And in the advance copy of #3 that I read this weekend Mia (the young girl Ollie saved in #2) has a conversation with Stanley and says that even though he is older than Ollie he seems a lot younger in his attitude to things!!!
Anyway that's the whole theory and I think it's a pretty good one!!! And for anyone that doesn't trust my detective skills I would like to point out that as soon as Kevin pointed out that Bluntman & Chronic where to be used in JASBSB at Vulgarthon I posted on the board a brief plotline that was very close to what we now know!!! So bite me!!!
Paul :)
(The Batman of this web board!!!)