Starborn #4 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Khary Randolph (art), Mitch Gerads (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Bryce Carlson (editor)

The Story: Ben & Tara continue their escape from a whole host of bad-guy aliens as the initial arc of Starborn wraps up.

What’s Good: This is a pretty well executed story.  The themes are all things we’ve seen in fiction before, and (as they say) there are no “new” stories… But that doesn’t mean that creators can’t do a snappy job of giving us a fresh take on something we may have seen.  We wrap up the first story arc with this issue and it leaves us in a pretty compelling place:  Earthling Ben has been plucked from his mundane life where he writes mediocre science fiction as a hobby.  A few issues ago, he was attacked by aliens who seemed ripped from the pages of one of his novels but he was saved by the remnants of some galaxy spanning civilization.  The rescuers claim that Ben is the heir to the throne and that all the aliens trying to kill him are insurgents of some stripe or another.  Clearly, the mission will be to put “the rightful heir back on the throne”.  At his side, he’ll have the sexy/competent bodyguard, Tara, and the gruff/grim General Talon.  Color me intrigued, I’ll read this story going forward.

I’ve really enjoyed Khary Randolph’s art and Mitch Gerads colors in this series so far.  Randolph comes from the Humberto Ramos/Chris Bachalo style of character design that I love so much, and his work is especially strong in this issue.  It looked like he was using a heavier (but still varied) line to ink his work this time and I really liked the way this works with Gerad’s bold colors.  These characters are all expressive and alive and that’s what I want from sequential art.  If I just want a pretty picture, I can look at something in a museum.  If I’m reading a comic book, I want my characters to look vital.

Starborne #3 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Khary Randolph (art), Mitch Gerads (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Bryce Carlson (editor)

The Story: Benjamin & Tara continue trying to escape from the supposedly bad aliens that have descended upon Earth.

What’s Good: I said in some other recent review that strong art is vitally important to a comic book because it can help the comic remain interesting when the story hits a lull.  Stories are going to do that because that is simply how drama works and strong art is what keeps you from saying, “Boring!” and possibly dropping the series (especially in this brutal comic sales environment where there are too many series chase a shrinking pool of readers).

That’s a round about way of saying that the art is (again) a very strong point for Starborne #3.  In reviews of the first couple issues on this site I’ve spoken about the strength of Khary Randolph’s loose, cartoony style.  I think it is more effective for this series when the characters are running and jumping, but it still works pretty well even when the characters are standing around more (as they are in this issue).  So, let’s take a second to talk about Mitch Gerads’ colors.  Starborne is a cosmic book and coloring is very important to putting the reader in a “cosmic” frame of mind.  The action going on in a story like Starborne is a level of non-realism that is well beyond a typical superhero book, so normal color palates aren’t going to cut it and there are a few panels in this issue where Gerads just kinda cuts loose with a whole spectrum of colors to emphasize the fantastical nature of that element of the story.

Soldier Zero #4 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Javier Pina (art), Archie Van Buren (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Bryce Carlson (editor)

The Story: Big time throw down between the Soldier Zero/Stewart construct and the bad guy.  Or is he?

What’s Good: If you’re into sci-fi themed comics, there really aren’t too many outlets right now, so you might want to check this out.  This is an pretty solid issue that showcases a huge throw-down between our protagonist, Stewart, who is wearing a good suit of armor and the evil suit of armor that has taken as its host a decomposing policeman.  Ewwww!  Does that give him magical stink powers?

The battle itself is really nicely done and some of the events start to call into question whether Soldier Zero (which I think is the name of Stewart’s armor) is really a good guy.  Thus, it’s also open to interpretation whether the “bad guy” is really bad.  Nonetheless it is a good fight and there is just enough of this “shades of gray” drama that you know that things are not quite as simple as they seem.

I have no major complaints about the art.  I’m not measuring a spot on my wall for where a framed original page can go, but it is perfectly fine and tells the story nicely.  Many comic artists that are trying to do creative things on the page need to master good, basic storytelling first which is what we’re getting on Solider Zero right now.

Starborne #2 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Khary Randolph (art), Mitch Gerads (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Bryce Carlson (editor) & Stan Lee (Grand Poobah)

The Story: Benjamin Warner starts to lean WHY it seems that a science fiction story he has had in the back of his mind for years is coming to life around him.

What’s Good: This is a cool little story.  In the last issue we saw the first bits of Benjamin’s sci-fi story coming to life around him in a scene that was very reminiscent of The Matrix or Wanted or A New Hope where suddenly this nothing-special cubicle worker finds out that he may be a part of something bigger than he can imagine.  Only…he did imagine it, because the people and aliens showing up all around him are from a novel/story that he has been trying to write since he was a kid.  WTF is going on???

I really enjoy stories that just toss you into the action and then dole out little bits of background as the story unfolds.  So, here we learn that [SPOILER] Benjamin’s imaginary world is real and that he (and all the other humans) have somehow ended up on Earth (as in BSG) with a big memory wipe.  The reason he has been writing his story is that his memory blocks are falling apart.

Adding to the fun is his protector: Tara Takamoto.  Benjamin has had a crush on her his entire life and now we learn that she has been assigned by some secret society to guard him, so she has a vibe like the Fox in Wanted or 355 in Y the Last Man.

All of this action unfolds against what looks like a huge cosmic backdrop of warring alien races that seems yanked out of any number of space operas.  What is really neat about this issue is that although many (all?) of the plot elements borrow from other fictional works, the result is pretty slick.  It just goes to show that there aren’t really any new ideas, but you can certainly do an excellent job of putting a unique spin on stories we all know.  Not to mention that when a story reminds me of Wanted, The Matrix, Y the Last Man, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica that means I enjoyed the story.  This is really what Stan Lee does well: Take other folks’ concepts and polish/repackage the hell out of them to make a fun story.

Soldier Zero #3 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Sergio Arino (art), Archie Van Buren (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Bryce Carlson (editor)

The Story: Our protagonist comes into contact with a very smelly bad guy!

What’s Good: This continues to be a pretty good comic good.  It isn’t anything awesome that will change your life, but if you’re looking for a good, well-written comic in the sci-fi/superhero genre that will (probably) never require you to buy other titles as part of a company-wide crossover event, you might be pretty happy with it.  In fact, this is probably the type of comic that I’d suggest to new readers because it is self-contained and it represents comics very well.

The basic story is interesting: paraplegic Marine Capt. Stewart Trautman has bonded with a sentient and symbiotic alien suit of armor that fell to Earth.  Stewart has only caught a glimpse of what galactic events led to that suit being on Earth, but he has learned that others of these alien symbiotes are on Earth…and not all of them are friendly.  For some reason, this comic continues to give me a ROM Spaceknight vibe (which is a good thing).

In this issue I especially enjoyed the depiction of the other alien as we learned that policeman the alien has boded with is actually dead.  So, the symbiote is actually piloting a corpse around and that means that things are going to get smelly and fly-infested and that he has to do things to repair the corpse since it doesn’t heal itself.  Neat-o!

The art continues to be pretty standard fare at Boom!  There is nothing too adventurous in terms of style.  If you showed this to someone who hadn’t read comics in decades (or ever), they would agree that this is what a comic book looks like.  All of the anatomy is correct and there are no technical mistakes.  All of the storytelling works.  That may sound like I’m handing out a backhanded compliment, but I’m not.  It is incredible how many artists screw up basic stuff.

Starborne #1 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Khary Randolph (art), Mitch Gerads (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Bryce Carlson (editor)

The Story: Is this man crazy, or is the novel he’s writing really coming to life around him?

What’s Good: This was a good first issue.  I’ll go ahead and spoil the basic premise because it is the most enticing aspect of the title so far.  After a really rough first couple of pages, you realize that those pages were actually from a novel being written by our protagonist, Benjamin.  Ben is a struggling author, stuck in a job he hates while he tries to write a space opera.  It turns out that he has had this story in his head since he was a small child and that his imagination was so intense that his parents actually thought he might be insane and took him to psychologists.  All seems well, but then his novel starts to come to life in a scene that reminded me of a cross between The Matrix and Wanted (the movie moreso than the comic).  All of this begs the question: Is he crazy or is this stuff really happening?

Soldier Zero #2 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Javier Pina & Sergio Arino (art), Archie Van Buren (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Bryce Carlson (editor)

The Story: We learn a LOT more about “Soldier Zero”, why he is here, how he works, etc.

What’s Good: The first issue of Soldier Zero was not so hot.  It spent a lot of time mewling over the central character and establishing that he was a Marine officer in a wheelchair, but he didn’t need any kind of special help…dammit!  It was okay character work, but we didn’t really see Soldier Zero until the very end.  With that lead in, I was surprised to see that….

This issue really kinda kicks ass!  We learn that this Soldier Zero thing that has come to Earth and bonded with our main character is a combination of Iron Man’s Extremis armor suit and the Trills from the Star Trek universe (or Venom, I guess).  [SPOILERS]  The suit is an alien symbiote, whose original host died during the space battle that was shown, but not explained, in issue #1.  The suit needed to grab someone just to stay alive and it settled for our main character.  The Iron Man thing comes in with how the suit manifests as it just kinda appears and can cover only certain parts of the body if need be, but it is not something that you put on like a pair of pants.

Why is the alien here?  Well, the mission is very interesting as well: It seems to be a modernization of ROM Spaceknight, one of my favorite comics of the early 1980’s.  Somehow Earth has been infiltrated by evil aliens that can assume human shape.  The Soldier Zero construct has fought against them in the past and can see them, but it is probably going to look like he is murdering innocent humans when he zaps them (just like ROM) and he won’t be able to get help from the authorities because he doesn’t know how pervasive the evil aliens are (just like ROM).

While it does seem to be an amalgam of story elements that we’ve seen before, it works for two reasons: One, ROM is so screwed up from an intellectual property standpoint that Marvel will never be able to do that character or even reprint the original comics.  So I’m happy to see someone continuing a ROM-like adventure.  Two, the story is well written and illustrated.  Story concepts are pretty easy, but writing and drawing them in an engaging fashion is hard and the creative team pulled it off (which was an especially difficult challenge given that I really didn’t like issue #1 very much).