Not quite a Christmas comic, but a comic that I got for Christmas. One of the other things that I really enjoy doing is garage saling, and for the last decade or so I've been trying desperately to track down toys from the Starriors line. I've had very, very little luck, having only found a single toy (though it's the largest one in the collection) in all the time I've been looking. I used to have a number of these when I was a kid, and I loved them, and looking back, it makes sense that I glommed onto Bionicle the way I did.
So yesterday morning, as we were finishing off our Christmas presents, my wife pointed to a Godiva Chocolates box and said I should open that - I'd assumed, naturally, that it was simply a box of chocolates. When I opened it, there was a Starrior looking back up at me, accompanied by this comic. There's a great picture Tara took of my face as I opened the box showing a genuine look of shock. She really managed to surprise me with this.
Starriors is a post-apocalyptic narrative, following the adventures of a group of sentient robots who were tasked with protecting and rehabilitating the Earth for humankind after a series of solar flares forced the species into hibernation. There's a four-issue comic series from Marvel that came out around the same time as the toys, with gorgeous covers by Bill Sienkiewicz, and a really intelligent script from Louise Simonson. Toy tie-in comics are always a bit of a gamble, but this one tells a great story, and the characters are actually characters, with flaws and strengths, rather than simply advertisements. The stories in these promotional comics take place during the action of the main series, and I'd be surprised to find that they're not written by Simonson, given that they, too, are relatively intelligent little tales.
I think one of the things I really appreciate about Starriors is that the relationship between antagonists and protagonists is very complicated. They acknowledge that they need to rely on one another (the Protectors are programmed to be pacifists, and thus cannot use their tools as weapons, whereas the Destructors are programmed to guard and be vigilant, but don't seem to have the requisite skills for maintaining their environment). One of the Protectors, named Cut-Up, wrestles through the whole series with overcoming his programming in order to combat the Destructors, and some of the Destructors worry that the actions of their leader are less than laudable. There's some real grey area explored in the story, which, again, raises it up above some of the other toy tie-ins of the era. Try reading the original Transformers series without feeling like you're just reading a 20-page ad.
I've just re-read the series from Marvel, so it probably won't show up in the project for a little while, but having received this toy for Christmas has renewed my interest in the franchise, so we'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment