Starlight #6 (Image)

via Comic Vine

writer: Mark Millar

artist: Goran Parlov

The conclusion of the story is pretty formulaic to a certain degree, so in some ways, I didn't have to worry so much about potentially missing it.

The human who became a hero on an alien world, Duke McQueen, does it again, saves the day.  Pretty straightforward.

The ending I'd been wanting doesn't happen, exactly, either.  The wish-fulfillment factor from that first issue of Jeph Loeb's Nova had to instead give way to Mark Millar's Starlight:

The alien kid who, unlike Duke's human children, never stopped believing in him, arranges for a spectacular demonstration that turns the whole story on its head.  Dropping Duke back home on Earth, he arranges for dramatic flybys in his spaceship that can't help but be noticed, and even contacting the grown men so they must.  Then he goes a step further and lands right on the lawn of the White House.

Boom.  Humans, acknowledge the existence of aliens!

But Millar doesn't end the story bothering with whatever Duke's kids or the president think about all this.  It ends with a hug between the only two characters who really matter.

It is a great ending.

Starlight #5 (Image)

writer: Mark Millar
artist: Goran Parlov

via Image Comics

The penultimate issue of the series already?  I guess I'd allowed myself to believe it was going to be a longer journey, probably because it reminds me so much of Saga, and that's a series that's going to be hitting twenty-five issues when it comes back from hiatus early next year.  I fell pretty heavy for Starlight early in the year.  Its release schedule hasn't been strictly monthly, which is why far more than six months passed from the first to sixth issues.  

Mark Millar has reached a point where, I guess, it's assumed fans will find his work on their own.  He gets to do pretty much what he wants and he's guaranteed to get attention, although he's no longer quite at the vanguard like he was during the height of Kick-Ass's success.  That's allowed Starlight to fall through the cracks, and subsequently difficult for my local comics shop to stay on top of it like it should.  (Smallish sales means questionable availability.)  This issue was released in August but I didn't catch it until October, which is the same month the final issue was released, and I haven't seen that yet, which means the lag time Comics Reader always has even when I've actually read something is more real than usual.  

Duke McQueen by this point is fully committed to being the hero once again, and at the end of the issue is about to reach the moment his supporters have been waiting for, even though it's come at their own expense.  It's the story beat where the bad guys seem to have won, all the supporting good guys look like they've all but bought the farm, and the lead has had to overcome one last obstacle before he can accomplish his ultimate goal.

While there's some emotional heft to watching Space-Boy's parents, in flashback, buy the farm, with the increasing disconnect between Duke's Earth-bound past that served as my personal hook for the series, it's the adventure itself that needed to carry the weight for the issue.  Hopefully the final installment brings everything full circle, because that's still my favorite element of the story, the one that Millar most needs to nail in order to call this one a full success.

Starlight #4 (Image)

writer: Mark Millar
artist: Goran Parlov

via Panels and Pixels

Any time you discover something new and love it instantly, you kind of wonder if you're jumping the gun.  Will you still love it the next time?

So that's where I was with Starlight, which has become my favorite Mark Millar project.  It's a pastiche of John Carter/Adam Strange/Star-Lord (the last being our fearless leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy variety, lately star of his own series, naturally), but from the vantage point of a hero revisiting his glory days years past his prime.  His family, once he returned and he became an ordinary guy once again, didn't necessarily believe he stomped around in space having adventures (the perfect setup for the Nova reboot that hasn't necessarily been capitalized on in that title).

Being drafted into the role of hero again, especially when you're older, may not exactly be wish-fulfillment, but Duke McQueen is working himself back into the role.  It doesn't hurt that he gets to enjoy one of those classic dramatic prison breaks this issue, or that the little boy who drafted him reveals more of his own story.

It doesn't hurt that Starlight increasingly matches up well with another space adventure I'm loving, Saga.  It's prone to some of the same cool random alien details (wood-giants who are, alas, extinct!).  It's got a different approach, different art style (though Goran Parlov isn't as lush as Fiona Staples, he's perhaps got a better grasp of storytelling), but even though I've got more experience with Saga, Starlight is fast catching up in my personal estimation.

There's a big twist on the last page.  That's another hook right there.  Not that I need it at this point.  However long this Millar journey lasts, I'm pretty sure I'll be following along.

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.