“Yesterday’s” Comic> Star Power: The Heavy Metal Showdown

I didn’t know Danica grew up watching She-Ra. Or He-Man. I’m not judging. Hope if wasn’t the Netflix version of either.

Star Power: The Heavy Metal Showdown

(January, 2019)

WRITER/ARTIST: Michael Terracciano

There is no issue number attached to this comic. It’s something Terracciano put together between the previous storyline and the next one. I’m assuming it’s canon but it is separate from the regular Star Power series, like a one-shot special. Outside of the Christmas special attached to the previous issue in the site’s archives it’s the first time Terracciano drew a comic since the original Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire ended. I looked up a few blog posts he wrote from that time, partly to put a date on it since there’s no “publisher” to list. He wanted to push himself as an artist and step out of his comfort zone. However, there is still no color. Terracciano’s original work was in black and white and this is as well, also like the Christmas story.

Note that I’m taking all of that into account when judging the art, but since he’s the regular writer of Star Power I’m not expecting any changes in the quality of the writing, just more excuses to push his drawing skills.

[Read along with me here]

While exploring space, Danica and Mitch pick up a signal from a nearby world asking if there are any worthy challengers. Curious, they head to investigate, and meet Karudak. He sent the signal and he made the challenge. Star Power doesn’t want to fight until she gets beat down. As he walks off she goes into Centurion Mode and eventually wins. She learns Karudak’s world only respects power and when his clan tried to push for a more peaceful way they were killed, Karudak being the last. Even his infant son was killed by the others, so he found a giant hammer he had hoped to use to get revenge. Star Power convinces him to fight with his heart instead of his rage, and continue the pursuit for peace.

What they got right: This is a story that wouldn’t have worked in the usual multi-issue style, so doing it this way not only gave them something to post as artist Garth Graham worked on the next storyline but allowed Terracciano a chance to write some larger action panels, which Graham was hoping for. In essence he was training his writing for the comic book page layout, something any comic writer should think about. Both the artists/art team and letterer(s) would be grateful. The action itself is quite good, though Terracciano isn’t as good as Graham is. Note this is coming from someone who isn’t as good an artist as Terracciano and I don’t hate the art. It just different from the rest of the series. I listed this in the “got right” for a reason. It’s still good but the goal was to push Terraciano’s layouts and it succeeds. There’s also a normal style history of Grex’s race, as that will be important in the next storyline, serving as a good preview.

What they got wrong: There is at least one page where the layout does need work, as I couldn’t follow the line of dialog where Star Power is confused about why Karudak wants to fight. I’m also not sure why she decided to take up “round 2” if she didn’t want to fight. He didn’t explain his actions until after she won in “round 3”, but I would think she’d ask that first. It might have been interesting to see her engage in a sort of training battle with someone who had more noble reasons to fight, possibly in competition or something, but I don’t hate the explanation given.

What I think overall: This was Terracciano trying to push his skills, and given that’s one of the reasons I do the various comics here I can relate. Overall it is a decent story and worth reading, even if it stands alone and doesn’t tie in to the next, and sadly final, storyline in this series.