Because James Robinson isn't a popular writer. Starman was a critical darling, but never sold well (also, I hated it). Leave It to Chance was OK, I thought, but it just didn't hit the mass market's sweet spot the way the magical girl anime did.

Speaking of Starman, I've been reading the second Starman Omnibus, and while I am enjoying the series, it strikes me as quite self-conscious. For example, Robinson had the Shade refer to the Portrait of Dorian Grey at one point, and a while later there's a three-panel sequence in which Jack and another character are talking about the fact that the story is actually called the Picture of Dorian Grey, and shouldn't the Shade know that, and it's not like him to make such a mistake, but really, most people make that mistake so maybe it's not so surprising that Shade did. And to me, it just comes across as "Oh, I guess Robinson got a letter pointing out that he goofed up the title of the Wilde book and felt that he had to explain himself. That's nice. Can we please get back to the story?"

All of that said, I am enjoying it -- for all the rough edges, it's a compelling portrait of a character growing into the role of being a superhero built around a solid narrative.

Jason--As I recall, Robinson actually turns the "Dorian Grey" thing from an obvious mistake into a plot point towards the end of the book's run, which I thought was fairly clever. But then, I really liked Starman--as well as "Leave it to Chance," which I miss too.

For whatever it's worth, Starman--the comic that's supposed to be so opaque and continuity dependent, etc.--was my non-comics reading wife's favorite title. She asked me numerous questions every time she read an issue, but she loved it.

James Robinson was an extremely popular writer. Back in the late-1990's he was just about the hottest writer in comics. Starman, well, I always hated Starman. Feh. Who could possibly like that book? But it was having stories written on it in Entertainment Weekly.

Leave It to Chance was not succesful because james Robinson lost interest in it. 13 issues came out in six years. 12 of them from 1996-2000, iirc. That's not a high frequency. I don't think there was enough material there to generate interest.

Actually, while i liked both STARMAN (I was so disappointed when ABC turned down a TV show idea based on it, about the time BIRDS OF PREY the show flopped) & LEAVE IT TO CHANCE (It was both dark & sweet at the same time, a tough feat i feel), to go back to the original theme of this discussion, the comics I miss the most are the Mike Parobek run on JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA and the Bierbaums run on LEGIONNAIRES. Both captured what I loved about these, my 2 favorite teams of characters, & both ended FAR TOO SOON.