365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 73: Oh My Stars and Garters Week, Day 1

Every superhero needs a catchphrase! From Up, up, and away! and It's clobberin' time! to Don't make me angry...you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. and Feel the focused totality of my psychic powers!And don't forget SPOOOOOON!!! But there's only one superhero catchphrase we're gonna celebrate this week: the exclamation of surprise and astonishment by one Doctor Henry P. McCoy:

"Oh my stars and garters!"

Now, despite the kick-ass header for this week's feature, Hank is not going to spend the week in a galactic Victoria's Secret. (We will now pause for all of you to go "awwwwwwwww!") The phrase "stars and garters" originates with the Order of the Garter, the top level in the elaborate British honours system. It's so exclusive (how exclusive is it?) that only the Queen, Prince Charles, and twenty-four knights companion can wear the Order of the Garter. In the Marvel Universe it would be pretty fitting if Hank McCoy had gotten one, but it's much more likely to go someday eventually to someone like Brian Braddock or Jack Staff, but definitely unless they've retired and attained a suitable respectable life as a knight of the realm already. (So start kissing up to HRH, Brian!) Well, sure, you say, but what about other heroes from the United Kingdom. Can, say, Rahne Sinclair someday be awarded the Order of the Garter? No! She cannot, because she's Scottish (only citizens of England can be awarded the Garter). And, more important, she dresses like this. The Queen ain't fond of that, you know.

But where did the phrase come from? From the shape of the Garter medal, and other honours and awards, the phrase "stars and garters" can be used to describe the medals and decorations of the knighted class...or of the class themselves. Or, by the mid-nineteenth century, an astonishing and impressive display or sight of any kind! Hence, Hank exclaiming his favorite catchphrase when, say, one hundred Sentinels rip the roof off Xavier's and grab Marvel Girl.

The words in conjunction show up in literature in 1712, in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock:



and in Charles Dicken's Bleak House (1853):



Here it is in the form Hank uses it, as an exclamation of wonder and surprise, from a more obscure work of literature: William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 The Book of Snobs. I wonder if this is where young Henry learned it from himself, when his voracious appetite for learning led him to consume books at an ever-increasing rate. Thackeray didn't invent the word "snob," but his writing (a series of satirical articles from Punch) popularized it, and it's likely a book that Professor Xavier would have had in his vast library.



Go to the UK today and ask about the stars and garters and you'll likely get directions to a local pub: "The Star and Garter" is a popular name for public houses.



Enough of that, though! I know what you wanna see: the great man himself saying it! Take it away, Hank!:


Panels from Uncanny Origins #6 (February 1997), script by Michael Higgins, pencils by Dave Hoover, inks by Don Hudson, colors by Bob Sharen and KGM Graphics, letters by Janice Chiang and Jon Babcock

Be here all this week for Oh My stars and garters week! Me 'n' Hank cordially request it of you!