Reading Comics #123 "Paging John Carter"

via Wikipedia

No, not that John Carter (Noah Wyle's doctor from ER), but this one:

via Gonzo Geek

Specifically, in relation to a couple of comics I picked up recently: Starlight #s 1-2 and Star-Lord: Tears for Heaven.  The whole reason I'm referencing John Carter (the above image, of course, from the 2012 movie that a handful of people, such as myself, really loved) is that the main characters in both comics are a lot like the other Edgar Rice Burroughs creation, the one best known for being associated with Mars (or, Barsoom) despite the fact that he is human.

Now, as a comics fan I'm more familiar with this concept when it comes in the form of Adam Strange, a DC character who has never really been a major part of that landscape but has been prominent enough that anyone who knows DC should at least be familiar with him.  As the lead character in Guardians of the Galaxy (both the upcoming movie and in the comics), Star-Lord...has not exactly been the Marvel equivalent, though a lot of people want you to think so.  He was completely obscure until a few years ago, when Brian Michael Bendis dug him out of the archives to lead the current Guardians initiative.

Tears for Heaven is one of those periodic reprint one-shots that Marvel does, collecting some older material that wouldn't necessarily suit a trade collection.  I got a couple Thanos releases this way from stories that weren't Infinity [Fill-in-the-Blank], and those were all worth reading.  I assumed this would be, too.  I figured, if Marvel has such faith in this character, maybe he's got some hidden gems behind him.

He really doesn't, apparently.

via Previews World

I would've used some art from the interior, as I've been doing lately, but this misleading cover is as good as that gets.  It's not the fact that some of the stuff inside is black-and-white, but that it's completely generic material.  Maybe I reread this stuff later and derive some actual enjoyment from it, and maybe it remains..."meh" material.  That's really disappointing to discover.

Included is a typically overblown Marvel write-up of how awesome Star-Lord is supposed to be from a previous reprint special edition, plus covers from '90s attempts to revive him, among other bonus material.  There are a couple of other Star-Lord reprint specials from this Guardians push.  I wonder and/or hope they have better material, but I've been scared off.  This may be why the majority of people who watch comic book movies don't read actual comic books, because they're afraid the source material is exactly like this.

Fortunately, I had another Not John Carter/Not Adam Strange moment in Mark Millar's Starlight.  At the same time Marvel was relaunching the Guardians comic, they were also relaunching Nova, which is kind of Marvel's Green Lantern (or perhaps Darkstars).  The first issue of that relaunch (one of precious few written by Jeph Loeb) was one of the best comics I read last year.  Easily.

Starlight, as it turns out, is a lot like that issue, but expanded.

via Comic Book Movie

Both Nova #1 and Starlight are about the John Carter/Adam Strange/Star-Lord experience years after the fact, when the cosmic adventurer has returned home and is just another human again, and no one (in Nova's poignant case, the guy's own son) particularly believes he really experienced all those cool things.  I was disappointed when the second issue of the Nova reboot dropped the drama in favor of fairly generic cosmic adventuring (kind of the new version of what I found in Tears for Heaven, then), so to find something like Starlight is very, very welcome.

The writer is Mark Millar.  This is apparently the first time he is going to be a label here at Comics Reader, but this isn't the first time I've read him.  Chances are you known him best from the Kick-Ass comics and/or movies.  He was also responsible for the Wanted comics that...bear no real resemblance to the later movie, and at one time had a close working relationship with Grant Morrison (they collaborated on Aztek and The Flash among other projects).  Lately, thanks to the huge success of Kick-Ass, he's been working virtually exclusively (okay, pretty much exactly exclusively) on his Millarworld comics.

The whole reason I looked at Starlight at all is because I haven't really read a lot of these efforts, and I figured they were worth it.  This one was definitely worth it.  Another recent Image series (lately he's been releasing most of his comics through Image although he still has some, like Kick-Ass, over at the Marvel imprint Icon) I've been enjoying in recent years is another space comic, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga.  If you like Saga you'll like Starlight, too, which is saying something because Saga has been one of the best comics being published since it debuted.

Usually when I sample a comic I don't pick up more than one issue at a time.  I looked at Starlight long enough where I figured it was worth the gamble of snatching up the first two at the same time.  It really was.  It's really good.  Best new comic of the year kind of good.