“What’s Lara Croft have on me? Guns? I’ve got superpowers that are also my best friend.”
Star Power #11
(August, 2015)
“The Mystery Of The Zel Gux Dynasty” part 1
WRITER: Michael Terracciano
ARTIST: Garth Graham
Tracking the Star Power signal through the network, Mitch finds a clue in the system of the Zel Gux Dynasty, a legendary race that tried to uplift other races before mysteriously vanishing. Dr. Brightman joins our heroes along with Danica’s #1 fan, Breena, who is also supposed to be an expert in the Dynasty. They travel to the last world the Zel Gux touched, who have created a theme park around the legend and a lot of paperwork to see the “city-palace” on their world. Finally our group gets to visit the city-palace and guided by the Star Power are led to a hidden door in a lavatory (aka the bathroom) to a secret chamber with two statues and a replica of the guides like Mitch. Trying to interface with it brings the statues to life and Breena must translate the writing on the wall, revealing how to stop the statues, who allow Danica and Mitch to access the first key and the location of the next vault. Meanwhile, the Void Angels’ tracker locates the Star Power Sentinel and elsewhere the Countess awakens, screaming Star Power’s name.
What they got right: Further exploration into the origin of the Star Power as well as lore building, all told in a fun day with our heroes, and a decent fight scene, all of which goes together and none of which is boring. At this point they were totally writing with the trades in mind and I don’t even think these remaining stories come in physical form outside of the graphic novels, just the digital releases. We also get more of the story of an ancient race in a back-up feature that I’m expecting to tie-in with the story of the Zel Gux Dynasty. And fangirl finally has a name, unless I missed it the rest of the time she’s popped up yelling “Star Power!”. I also like seeing Dr. Brightman get to be part of an adventure and hiding how excited she is to be exploring the remains of the Dynasty.
What they got wrong: I’m starting to get sick of Skyle, the commander of the remaining Void Angels. He’s becoming a real jerk. Burke and I haven’t caught the lady’s name are not sharing his obsession and aren’t attacking people trying to help them like Skyle did last story. I like them, even if they turn out to remain bad guys (I know one of them doesn’t because I’ve read the series before), but Skyle needs to get over himself and his obsession with killing Star Power. It makes him unlikable as a character because his being forced into the story is getting obnoxious. The Countess at least has ties to Star Power’s origin, claiming her race created them as enforcers in the first arc.
What I think overall: This has the makings of an interesting storyline (if Skyle gets lost in space traffic and misses the story). I’m still enjoying this reread and this is better than reading each page when it goes live like how I had to read it before.
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