I know this isn’t the comic I said I’d do but I’ve had this article in my toolbar waiting for me to finally review a Starriors minicomic so I gave in. What are the Starriors?
Created by Tomy, the Starriors takes place in one of may post-apocalyptic Earths, back when they still had utopias to balance things out. By now dystopia is all sci-fi wants to do to our planet and I’m long since tired of it. I used to be able to enjoy a story set in Earth gone to heck on occasion but now I’m long past over it. I wasn’t into the toys because by that point if it wasn’t tied to Star Wars I wasn’t into robots that didn’t transform into something.
The gimmick of the toys were that parts were interchangeable. The story of the line is that a cosmic event forced the remnants of man underground, leaving the Starriors to protect and restore the planet. For reasons explained in the Marvel miniseries (which will get reviewed in the daily comic reviews once I get there, though I’m missing an issue or two) to groups form. The Destructors are out to wipe out the Protectors for basically going against the cultural norm…most of them unaware that the Protectors are actually trying to find and reawaken man after finding proof he did exist. The Destructors’ leader, Slaughter Steelgrave, is convinced man’s return will mean the end of the Starriors and in his paranoia is manipulating everyone until the Protectors’ leader, Hotshot, learns man is alive and leads a group of other believers to find them. It helps that Hotshot’s group are mostly collectors and builders while Slaughter keeps all the nasty psychos in his party. And thus a toyline was born.
Marvel also produced six minicomics, released with the Starriors figures. In Marvel’s take, unlike what you saw in the commercial, the Starriors are the giant robots, like the Transformers and Robotix so someone was in a rut. For years I was hoping to find scans of the miniseries and got lucky recently when I found a site hosting all six issues. So let’s see if the minicomics were any good.
“Man, what did you have for breakfast?”
Starriors minicomic #1
Marvel/Tomy (1984)
“Deadeye”
scanned by Virtuanaut.net, link earlier in this article
Sadly this is another minicomic where nobody is credited for working on it outside of Marvel producing it. It’s always a shame to see that happen.
Daisy Ridley’s Defense Of The Sequel Trilogy Highlights The Perspective Difference
I don’t know why I’m doing so much Star Wars related stuff this week either, for the record. Let’s see if the rest of the week surprises us. Or subverts something. With this franchise right now that’s possible too.
Let’s start by saying for the record that I have no problems whatsoever with Daisy Ridley. Well, maybe that hip hop song she did on The Tonight Show that MechaRandom42 keeps digging out because it’s kind of lame, like everything the dance game from Star Wars Kinect wasn’t. Those parodies rocked, man! My favorite is “I’m Han Solo” and I’m so happy there’s a clear version out there now.
Sorry, had to. I’m not even a Jason Derulo fan.
Anyway, I don’t even have a problem with Rey as a character on her own. Granted I’m still waiting for the quarantine is over so my friends and I can finally watch The Rise Of Skywalker so maybe that will change my opinion, but what bothers me is how the character had little if any challenge and learned her Force powers so easily compared to every other male AND FEMALE Jedi character in the franchise. That’s on the writers and directors though. Rey had good potential but we live in a culture that we’re afraid to have women shown struggling except against the patriarchy. Some of the best woman protagonist struggled just like their male counterparts, and while sexism was part of it back then it wasn’t the only thing they fought against.
In the past we looked at the actors from the DC Universe Titans show and highlighted one key point about their defense: it didn’t come from a connection to the source material but that they loved making the series and portraying those characters. They didn’t care if they were inaccurate, they just really enjoyed it. It’s a disconnect because they couldn’t understand why fans were annoyed with a show they thought was well done because they didn’t care about the universe or its characters.
Now as far as I know Ridley is not a huge Star Wars fan or at least I haven’t heard her say she was prior to getting the role of Rey in The Force Awakens, so I’m not surprised she shares this disconnect when it comes to the sequels and this franchise. In a recent DragCast podcast (yes, hosted by a drag queen–really the only other choice was a drag racer though for all I know the drag queen could also drag race, RuPaul competitions aside) Ridley appeared during her birthday to discuss her career and her Star Wars character–and the reaction to her character. I wasn’t going to listen to the whole hour long podcast because the important details for our discussion was posted to other website, the most substantial of the newssites I follow being this article by Bounding Into Comics, and I’ll pull the quotes from there. I understand Ridley’s position but only because I know where it’s coming from while she doesn’t understand where the opposition is coming from. Let me help with that.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on April 15, 2020 in Movie Spotlight and tagged commentary, Daisy Ridley, Rey, Star Wars, Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
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