“Yesterday’s” Comic> Star Power #4

“It was just one flower.”

Star Power #4

indie comic (December, 2013)

“Star Power And The Ninth Wormhole” part 4

WRITER: Michael Terraccino

ARTIST: Garth Graham

[Read along here]

Star Power learns how to use the Sentinels’ jump gates and travels to the meeting. The Void Archangel believes forcing her to serve the Void Archons is a better plan, but despite her previous comment about “not wasting resources”, the Countess of the Ninth Wormhole has such a strong hatred for their ancient enemies, the Star Power Sentinels, that when they came to aid the Eight Wormhole so they could escape an evil empire the Countess killed her own mother and all the people on the ships, including the children, for wanting to run instead of staying to fight and for accepting aid from their former enemies. Basically she’s kind of crazy. She orders Star Power killed and sends her robot forces to do the job and kill the “weak” Void Angels. Star Power protects them but the Archangel is more interested in his own skin, and blows up the ship anyway to pay back Star Power for protecting his men rather than him. Hopefully the folks at Sanctuary Six disarmed the bombs in time. Star Power is knocked out and the Countess decides she wants to kill “it” herself.

What they got right: First off, the bios on the various alien races that make up the main and guest cast of this story was a nice addition. If you can’t put the worldbuilding into the story but want to explore them in detail later (a later storyline actually will with Grex for example) this is a good way to do it without stopping the story. Points to not giving us some sympathetic villain. At first you think she has a legit grudge against the Sentinels only for them to protect their former enemies anyway because the other army is targeting the breeding ships. She’s just plain evil, with a warped view of strength and what her people should be. It still works because they give her a good characterization.

What they got wrong: A couple of panels did have some wonky word balloon placement.

What I think overall: This is totally what I’m looking for in superheroes. Star Power has at best a one second slip before remembering what a hero is and she puts others before herself, not even wanting to kill her enemies. It’s nice to see a superhero story about being a hero without needing to “become” heroic. She just needs to learn how to control her powers, not how to be a hero. I miss this.