Well, it looks like I still can’t find the Spider-Man minicomics from Peter Pan peanut butter lids besides the one I own, so it’s back to the Starriors and the destroyed Earth they came from. There’s a time that didn’t feel prophetic.
For the newcomers: Starriors was a toyline from Tomy in the 1980s, trying to cash in on the robot craze. The idea is that solar flares drove man into hibernation, leaving robots called Starriors to fix the planet when the mess was done and restore humanity. However, one of the Destructors, Slaughter Steelgrave, is convinced that man’s time is done and the Starriors should rule. He’s tricked even his own side into believing man is a myth, and tries to hide evidence of them from Destructor and Protector alike. However, a group of Starriors led by Hotshot are out to prove they did.
Everyone’s an art critic.
Except we aren’t following those groups in this one. I guess we managed to get some new toys by the time issue five was produced, because we’re focusing solely on them this time. Six new characters, three on each side, are still operating back at the old homestead, and this issue we’re going to see how the other Starriors are reacting to these events.
Like the other issues we have no creator credits outside of it being made by Marvel, who also made the four issue store comic miniseries, so we’ll just hop right into issue #5 of the Starriors pack-in minicomic, “The Wall”, and see all the new figures for the kids to bug their parents for. You can read along by downloading the CBR file from Virtualnaut. He has the rest of the series up as well, but I’ve reviewed the earlier issues, and there’s one more after this that will have to wait for the rotation to come around again.
Praising Physical Media Doesn’t Mean Trashing Digital Media
Between here and my other website, The Clutter Reports, I’m a staunch defender of physical media. It can’t be altered once you get it, unless you alter it. The physical disk doesn’t disappear because the company that released it wants you to buy the new version, which is why they hate it because they want to keep getting money rather than get it once. There’s also that tactile sensation of holding a book or a comic, of putting in the disk, cassette, or cartridge and knowing it will start up relatively fast compared to a download, and there’s no ads except what’s snuck into the background, which at least makes it feel more like real life. (Admittedly difficult to promote Starbucks that way in a fantasy setting or an alien planet. Though you can have an alien NAMED Starbuck.) If I have a choice, I’d rather own it than stream it.
However, there are advantages to digital media as well, and it seems that gets forgotten in the worries over kids always being on their smart devices or computers all day. Don’t get me wrong, they should get out and enjoy the world we live in if possible. If you live in a bad neighborhood or the weather’s bad, it isn’t possible. The 2020 lockdowns did teach us to keep our distance, and that allowed the control freaks using activism to keep us separated as a people to get us out of social connections in person rather than social media or an MMO, either using a screen or a VR headset. We totally need to get people out of the house and into the real world…but a book nook isn’t getting out into the real world, either. And I do love me some books.
When I first started writing this article, it was the idea that books were better than the internet, as if somehow ebooks, news sites, and the aforementioned social media isn’t reading. I couldn’t go far with that alone, but if we go over all the dumb arguments against digital media when it’s not the enemy, I have something to do commentary stuff on. So let’s do that.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 1, 2026 in Book Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Internet Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Music Spotlight, radio/audio drama, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged commentary, digital media, physical media.
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