Saturday Splash Page #129

 

"Dark Star," in Star Power and the Search for Black Hole Bill #2, by Michael Terracciano (writer), Garth Graham (artist)

Set in a far future where Earth has joined a community of inhabited worlds called the Millennium Federation, Star Power is about a young astronomer named Danica Maris, recently assigned to a top-level space station research facility. While studying a seemingly innocuous star, Danica is hit with a burst of energy that turns her into a "Star-Powered Sentinel". The last one, in fact.

The comic ran for six storylines, usually around 5 issues, plus a short one-off between 5 and 6 I think Terracciano wrote and drew himself. Each volume takes a different approach or tells a different kind of story. Volume 1 is the origin, whereas Volume 6 was sort of a noir or "undercover cop" arc, albeit with a character who transforms in a flash of light into a flying, energy sword-wielding warrior. Volume 5 is a thriller/horror story, while volume 4 was about the horrors of war and how you make a difference in a conflict where neither side wants to stop. Volume 3 is more of a treasure hunt.

Terracciano keeps some other subplots building in the background, so that one of the mercenary starfighter pilots that tries to kill Danica in Volume 1, ends up being critical to an investigation that finally concludes in Volume 6. Additionally, there steadily built relationships between the main cast, and usually some subplots related to them in each volume. The former merc sniper Grex has to deal with someone she works with getting hurt by Black Hole Bill (a perfectly smug and sleazy hired gun) during his escape, and struggles to weigh her desire to protect her friends against her desire to kill Bill. An archaeologist that joins the others in their search in Volume 3 is overly confident she'll solve every puzzle, and has to cope with that not being the case at all.

Graham's art work is clean and cartoonish enough the various aliens look noticeably different from humans (even if most still correspond to a basic "two arms two legs" human body plan), while not looking out of place next to the humans. All these species have been interacting and cooperating for some lengthy period of time, there should be a measure of familiarity and ease between them.

The varying types of stories also give Graham the opportunity to draw a lot of other stuff. One arc may involve giant sand worms or an arboreal planet inhabited by what look like intelligent red pandas. The next involves war-torn cities and robo-scorpions. Then it might be all cityscapes of dirty streets and narrow alleys, people in trenchcoats and fedoras. And Graham makes it all work. Some of it might be the fact the Federation consists of over 1000 different worlds, which allows the possibility of different settings and societies, but it never feels like something doesn't fit.

Terracciano writes Danica as mostly cheerful, inquisitive and kind, if a little shy. She gets really excited about stars, but feels embarrassed if she starts to ramble about them around other people. She anthropomorphizes most things, giving them cute names. And while she's sometimes scared or uncertain, her first instinct is to try and help people. Some characters shuffle from the background to the foreground depending on the arc, but she develops a core supporting cast of 3 security officers that were present when she first gained the powers. Initially assigned to help Danica as a task, we get to see how Grex, Kaylo and Shu Lalis interact with each other as friends, and how Danica is steadily integrated into that group.

The series ended after the sixth storyline, I believe because Terracciano had the opportunity to return to an earlier series and wanted to do so. Given the scope of the setting and the fact they'd established the Millennium Federation comprised only a small portion of the galaxy, while the rest was largely in chaos, there was a lot of ground for different stories out there, but so it goes.

Watch for the Remix

Now that's an Evil Star Power.,

Where volume 4 was a "horrors of war" story, volume 5, Star Power and the Choir of Dr. Hymn, starts as a suspense/mystery story that shifts into body horror or a sci-fi monster territory in the later stages. Set roughly a year after volume 4, Danica's been exploring the worlds beyond the Millennium Federation's borders, confirming there's a lot of chaos out there.

While Danica's pleased with the data she's gathered on numerous stars, it's all the warlords she's punched that bring her to the attention of Dr. Hieronymus Hymn, regarded as the finest composer in the known galaxy. (The concept sketches in the back include a note from Garth Graham that Terracciano wanted a Vincent Price as Dr. Phibes vibe, but Graham insisted on the mustache even though it really does make Hymn look a lot like Dr. Strange.)

Hymn is characterized by a massive ego that demands perfection, so much so each applicant for his choir has to perform solo first. If he deems them inadequate, he shoots them. So along with the question of what he wants from Star Power, there's the mystery of where he's getting these applicants, as well as why he keeps them masked. 

This ends up tying into a case the Chief at Space Sanctuary Six had been investigating for some time, and which also involves the former Void Angel pilot, Burke. He's done his time, and looking to start over. And Danica's friend Grex, a former Void Angel herself, is willing to give him a chance. Danica's less inclined, what with the multiple time he tried to kill her and all, but gives him a chance.

This part I'm less enthused by. It follows a kind of predictable arc where Danica is wary, but is thrown by the revelation he cleans up good. Burke figures out something's going on with Hymn, so Hymn has him framed to look drunk and violent so Danica will assume the worst and then have to apologize later.

Some of that is to parallel and contrast with Danica's supervisor Dr. Brightman, who is a Dr. Hymn superfan, but not so enamored she overlooks the horrible things he's done once she finds out about them. Meanwhile Danica is so suspicious of Burke because of his past actions that she can't see him clearly until after the fact. But it's still an "enemies to lovers" thing and I do not truck with that.

That said, the slower pace and build of this story compared to The Lonely War allows for more humor. Some of it is just star-based puns, or bits revolving around the pronunciation of "Hymn". Those are hit or miss. I got a better laugh out of the gags about Burke's appreciation for Earth "classical" music. Sure, both Star Trek: Beyond and Futurama have done that bit before, but it's still good. Especially since Terracciano uses it for a "play Freebird!" gag at one point.

First Contact with a Closed Fist

Life on the Internet.

I actually bought volume 4 of Star Power, titled The Lonely War, a few years ago, but didn't get around to reviewing it. I asked Alex for Volumes 3 and 5 for Christmas a couple years ago, he bought 4 and 5, and here we are. Well, the copy he bought is in better condition than mine, anyway.

Volume 3 (which I ended up reading online just to see what I missed) revealed the origin of Danica's powers, and also introduced a robot sentry. His designation is "T-O.M", and he's thousands of years old, so Danica naturally named him "Old Tom". With his permission, of course, because she's considerate like that.

Tom factors into a theme of characters wondering if Danica is up to the challenges of wielding this power. There are certain precepts a Star-Powered Sentinel is meant to uphold, and if she doesn't meet the standards, Tom's supposed to deal with that. Terracciano teases that out over the course of five issues, through a series of conversations between Tom and Beena, an archaeologist who had been a background character trying to befriend Danica in the first 2 volumes, and joined the main cast in the third story. So she gets her own little arc of being friendly with, then terrified of, Tom, before finding her resolve to learn from him as a way to protect Danica.

Danica herself is elsewhere, as she's been transferred to a special ship the Millennium Federation uses to travel to star systems beyond their "jump-gate" network. Danica questions whether she's up for making first contact with new worlds, considering her previous experience was the fighting a homicidal Scintillian queen in volume 1. She's also questioned by a psychological operative, or "psi-cop" (that Terracciano and Graham introduced in volume 3) under the pretenses of friendship. The mission involves her being far away from the friends she's made through the first 3 stories.

That the world she reaches is embroiled in some old race war between two groups who no longer remember why they originally started fighting doesn't help. Graham draws the two groups as distinguished by hair color, ear shape, and the color of their eyes. Not all that different from Danica (something she immediately notes), probably for the purpose of emphasizing how ridiculous it seems to her that these two sides are determined to commit genocide against the other. 

All Danica's attempts to protect them accomplish is making her an enemy of both sides. The commander of the emissary ship tells her to simply observe and report back, but Danica can't just float there and watch people kill each other. Worse, Mitch is receiving some sort of upgrades, but it's rendering him unable to communicate with her. So she's really on her own (though Mitch does eventually return late in the proceedings, with a solid light form that's kind of Gumby with a messy pompadour.).

Terracciano has Danica come close to breaking down a couple of times, including fleeing her observation post for a time. Which comes back to Tom's mission to make certain she's a proper host for the power, as well as the psi-cop's concerns that she may not be ready for the less-civilized circumstances beyond the Federation's borders.

(There are also references to Danica's relationship with her parents, where she seems to get along well with her dad, but her mother is overbearing and Danica's feelings for her are complicated. It seems to be her father who instilled in her the idea she needs to help people in a crisis, while her mother's the one who makes her doubt she's ever doing anything well enough.)

We get several panels switching between her watching with increasingly horrified expressions and the two races fighting and dying. Graham doesn't make it gory, mostly bodies slumped and staring vacantly, maybe some (purple-colored) blood stains. But there tend to be several dead bodies in those panels, and the places they're fighting are usually damaged or crumbling, indicating this has been going for a while. Either nobody has time to repair their homes, or no one bothers.

Danica does eventually find a way to help at least some people. The story avoids having her stop the fighting or convince everyone to get along. Instead she finds locals who don't divide themselves, and are considered heretics by both sides. I expected Graham to draw some of the children as having mixed characteristics, but he doesn't. Maybe to emphasize they're more different than Danica thinks from just looking at the surface?

There are also some background plots involving Grex, the angry lady in the panel at the top, interviewing one of those three pilots that tried killing Danica in the first story, and have kept popping up since then. Burke turned on the other two in volume 3, but his backstory here makes it seem like he was a decent guy who made a rash decision, then compounded it with more poor decisions. Making him discuss working for the Void Angels forces Grex to deal with her own past doing the same. 

There is a lot going on in these five issues, most of it pretty heavy. So Terracciano lightens things up with brief cuts to Danica's friends back on the space station watching a show called "Psi-Cop", which includes an episode titled, "Showdown on the Bikini Planet." It's ridiculous, but having the story begin and end with that brings it around nicely to how much Danica relies on her friends and likes having them around, and how difficult it was being away from them.

The Stars Bring Them Together

Yeah man, what are you doing? "Dark Star Power" was right there.

The Search for Black Hole Bill is the second collection of Michael Terracciano and Garth Graham's Star Power comic. Picking up where the first story ended, it's one of those stories where a bunch of different characters and threads all end up converging in a place none of them would expect.

Danica is back on the space station where she works as an astronomer. The Star Power seems to have burned itself out, so Danica is trying to contact the tutorial/informational system "Mitch", and then to recharge.

Black Hole Bill, who botched his attempt to kill her in the first story, escapes, beating the crap out of Danica's new friend Grex in the process. Bill runs to a group of Mad Max-looking guys called the Supernova Dragon Lords looking to re-arm, right as there's a change in leadership.

In the way those things happen, the Dragon Lords head for a quiet star system where they have a weapons cache hidden, Bill unwillingly in tow. Danica's sitting on a satellite orbiting the star to recharge, and Grex is part of the security team tagging along to watch out for her. On top of all that, the weapons cache was supposed to be hidden in a bar where the three guys who hired Bill in the first place are drinking and trying to decide on their next move.

All the parts colliding is pretty fun, especially as most of the characters are struggling with one bad impulse or the other. Grex is overly protective of Danica, but also really badly wants to kill Bill. Get in line, sister. Bill's getting caught up in the Dragon Lords' plan to wage war against the Galactic Defense, as well as thinking he's a lot smarter and more competent than he really is. Just excellently written as a completely insufferable smug asshole.

Danica is trying to weigh the need to to help people right now against the danger involved in trying to do so. Mitch is struggling against the fear of non-existence and the loss of all the knowledge that would represent. He's significantly less annoying about it than the Xandarian Worldmind was, though, so that's something. One of the three Void Angels that hired Bill is obsessed with trying to finish Star Power. He figures if they'd succeeded in their mission to kill her, the rest of their group would still be alive.

Lotta characters struggling to remember where their loyalties lie, or where they should lie. Bill's, of course, are to himself and no one else. Which ends up being a bad call on his part. But does lead to an extremely satisfying conclusion to the story. And Terracciano and Graham actually made me care about the 3 Void Angels, enough to where I'm curious whether they'll stick together or not. Who are they loyal to now? A group they believe is dead, or to each other?

Thrown Into the Deep End

Yeah, that's a lot of laser fire. Or singularity bombs, or whatever it is they're throwing at her.

Star Power is an online comic, but you know me, I prefer to have physical copies of things, so I picked up the first volume, Star Power and the 9th Wormhole, a few months back. The comics follows Danica Maris, a lab technician in the astronomics section of a deep-space research/defense/cultural hub kind of location. Danica gets tapped to be the last of what are called Star-Powered Sentinels, and is almost immediately under attack from forces bent on making sure her stint is as brief as possible. She's got to figure out what she can do, who's after her, protect herself, protect the station, and try to deal with the threat, and do all of it pretty much at the same time.

Michael Terracciano writes Danica as mostly cheerful and eager to help others, endlessly curious, a bit self-sacrificing, and prone to getting down on herself. She seems quick to blame herself if something doesn't work out. But it's kind of endearing, alongside her excitement over the chance to learn and explore, and her tendency to quickly grow attached to inanimate objects. At one point, she's asked to attack one of the station's security droids to test the limits of her power, and she's reluctant to blow it up because it helped her out during her first fight (it's what she's sitting on in the panel above).

There's a lovely sense of just how much is out there that we haven't seen yet. The Millennium Federation, who Danica works for, has a thousand worlds within its boundaries, and that doesn't even encompass one spiral arm of the galaxy. But there's a variety of alien species, albeit most of the ones seen in this volume are roughly humanoid, bipedal organisms. Maybe that's just how it is in that universe, or maybe that's particular to this station, or region of the Federation. Don't know yet. There are mercenaries and the Void Angels, who are some sort of crazy destructive militaristic group, just to start with, could be a number of other problems. The empire that created the Sentinels covered most of the galaxy at some point, and is, as far as we know so far, basically collapsed. But that doesn't mean there's nothing and nobody out there.

Terracciano goes the route of having Danica's powers be known to the higher-ups at the station, and then makes sure those characters are both supportive (within reason), and competent. She isn't stuck under the thumb of useless bureaucrats who make it harder for her to help people. They know their jobs, they do them well, Danica's powers just give them more help with that. It's interesting that both Dr. Brightman and the Security Chief agree they shouldn't let their bosses know, because Danica will end up dissected. They didn't actually manage tom keep a lid on it very long, but that wasn't an approach I expected, either.

I kept thinking Graham's artwork reminds me of someone else's, and the closest comp I could come up with is Salva Espin. Which is fine, I generally like Espin's work. They aren't identical; Graham's inking is heavier than what's normally on Espin's, and that tends to give characters very solid appearances. Strong jawlines, browlines, and noses. Graham doesn't exaggerate for comedic effect as much, but it isn't really that sort of book. The humor is more understated, the style where one character says something, there's a silent panel where it sinks in, then some sort of reaction in the third panel.

I wish there was a little more variety in Star's color scheme for her costume. There are some concept sketches in the back of the trade, and Graham originally toyed with some that had a large star somewhere on the front. Depending on the color, that might have been a good call to break things up a bit. I do like the design for the power's tutorial/operating system, which is a small, swirly ball with some script revolving around it. A little starlike, a little like a ghost, not too flashy (because you probably don't want to alert everyone to the thing helping you out), but distinctive.

Panel layouts are straightforward, 5-7 panels for most pages, the emphasis is on getting the information across clearly to the reader. Graham knows when to back up for a sense of scale, and Terracciano knows when to stop the dialogue and just let characters fight (although Danica is usually trying to resolve things peacefully, so she tends to talk a lot).

The first volume ends with the possibility that Danica burned the power out stopping the 9th Wormhole, but seeing as I just bought the second volume today, I'm going out on a limb that doesn't last for long.