Everything seems to come so easy to Starfire sure, she fights epic space battles to save the world every day, but she has superpowers and confidence and the admiration of everyone around her. She feels immense pressure to live up to her mother’s example. Mandy feels a desperate need to express her own unique identity and distance herself from her mother and her alien heritage.
The graphic novel opens with Mandy reapplying black dye to her hair to cover up the fiery orange roots she inherited from her mother. As a son of Vietnamese immigrants, Lincoln can relate to Mandy’s struggles with fitting in. Her best friend Lincoln is the only person who isn’t more interested in her mom than her. Her classmates approach her often, but only to ask about Starfire’s recent missions and try to determine whether Mandy secretly has superpowers (she doesn’t). Since childhood, the public has known her as Starfire’s daughter, the offspring of a beautiful alien superhero and some unknown human. Nearly seventeen, Mandy Anders understands exactly what makes her different from the people around her – at least, she thinks she does. But I was surprised to find that this story resonated not only with the lesbian aspect of my identity, but also with the part of me that is a daughter of immigrants. As I predicted, I did find the story very relatable. Yoshitani’s colors, costumes, and backgrounds greatly contribute to the story’s themes, and Aditya Bidikar’s letters are expertly done. Yoshi Yoshitani’s lineless art and vivid colors are simply spectacular, conveying personality and mood in a way that is not just effective storytelling but also pleasing to look at. Tamaki excels at writing teenagers who sound like actual teenagers, and her depiction of the central mother/daughter relationship feels authentic and nuanced. When I read the book, I loved it even more than I had expected. I predicted I would find parts of it relatable as someone who was once a misfit lesbian in high school. When I Am Not Starfire was announced as part of DC’s young adult graphic novel imprint, I was excited about it for a lot of reasons: I adore Mariko Tamaki’s writing, I love Starfire, and I enjoy stories about young lesbians. Here’s her first piece on I Am Not Starfire.
Starfire daughter free#
I Am Not Starfire is a story about teenagers and/as aliens about knowing where you come from and where you are going and about mothers.Priya Saxena spends most of her free time reading comic books and overanalyzing pop culture. When someone from Starfire's past arrives, Mandy must make a choice: give up before the battle has even begun, or step into the unknown and risk everything to save her mom. Or she did until she gets partnered with Claire, the person she intensely denies liking but definitely likes a lot, for a school project. Everyone thinks Mandy needs to go to college and become whoever you become at college, but Mandy has other plans. And ever since she walked out on her SATs, which her mom doesn't know about, Mandy has been even more distant. To Starfire, who is from another planet, Mandy seems like an alien, like some distant, angry, light-years away moon. She's a kid who dyes her hair black and hates everyone but her best friend, Lincoln. Starfire is gorgeous, tall, sparkly, and a hero.
Seventeen-year-old Mandy, daughter of Starfire, is not like her mother. From New York Times bestselling author Mariko Tamaki (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass) and artist Yoshi Yoshitani (Zatanna and the House of Secrets) comes a story about Mandy, the daughter of super-famous superhero Starfire.