Warning: SPOILERS for Blue Beetle: Graduation Day #3Rarely seen in battle contexts, Starfire's most underrated power is unleashed once again in a new issue of Blue Beetle: Graduation Day. She may have a great number of energy-based abilities, but Starfire' best (and sometimes funniest) power has always been her ability to learn a language through touch—and usually through kissing.
Starfire's language-learning ability makes its triumphant return in Blue Beetle: Graduation Day #3 by Josh Trujillo, Adrian Gutierrez, Wil Quintana, and Lucas Gattoni. Starfire and Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes are walking around Palmera City, which has a large Spanish-speaking population (including Jaime and his aunts). When Starfire encounters the language barrier with a street vendor, she solves it the best way she knows how.
Starfire kisses the vendor and can suddenly converse with him in Spanish. When Jaime asks her how, she explains,"One of my gifts is to learn any language through touch."
How Starfire Uses Her Language Powers Has Always Been Hilarious - And Endearing
Jaime, of course, replies with skepticism: "Okay, but kissing is a little aggressive, don't you think?" Jaime might be right in his own view (though the vendor certainly doesn't seem to mind), but Starfire's language-learning "gift" is a traditional part of her character and power set. In fact, this particular power debuted in one of her earliest appearances. Starfire kisses Robin in order to learn English in The New Teen Titans #2 by Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal, Adrienne Roy, and Ben Oda. She explains, as she does to Jaime many decades later, that she can learn language through touch. When Robin asks if she had to kiss him, she replies, "Not really. But it was certainly more enjoyable this way."
That Starfire has always chosen and continues to choose to kiss people as her form of "touch" when learning languages is a testament to her particular character: cheerful, joyful, and someone who loves without limits. The return of this power in such a mundane context—shopping in a small city with her mentee, Blue Beetle—also marks the return of Starfire's New Teen Titans characterization. Her appearance in Blue Beetle: Graduation Day shows her as a warrior and a mentor, yes, but also as a direct, charming force—someone who loves what her body can do in every context and isn't afraid to use it.
Hopefully this characterization—as well Starfire's broad and powerful set of abilities—continues to be showcased here in Blue Beetle as well as in Nightwing, where she will be featured along with the other classic Titans in a new storyline. Starfire has always been a force to be reckoned with, and this particular power will always be a (hilarious) part of that force.
Check out Blue Beetle: Graduation Day #3, available now from DC Comics!