Jim Starlin is one of my favorite writers, and definitely an influence on my fiction writing.
I remember reading his Adam Warlock stories, his Captain Mar-vell stories, his run on Avengers, and of course the Infinity Gauntlet (as well as Cosmic Odyssey, DC Comics Presents with Mongul, Thanos Quest, etc.).
Jim Starlin was one of the reasons I enjoyed the fantasy of comics. He took things far beyond the typical throwaway space stories or the cheesy sixties stuff, he made the "Outer Space" of the Marvel Universe come alive. The mythology he wove still inspires me to write.That's why it is with great difficulty that I have to critique his latest at DC: "The Rann / Thanagar Holy War".
The first "Rann/Thangar" war was pretty good, aside from it not really allowing the DC heroes who went to intervene doing anything really note worthy during "Infinite Crisis" (I guess blowing of one of Alexander Luthor's fingers at a good time to distract him counts for something). Even with that, I enjoyed Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Adam strange, Starman, the Omega Men, etc. It seemed like that with this, and the Green Lantern series, that DC was really doing a great job at restructuring it's "Cosmic" part of it's universe.
Some of you may remember DC's wild and very inconsistent space stories. The JLA had those Despero, Starro, and various no name space villains. DC also had a very large and often not present during great "universal" crisies Green Lantern Corps, who had big baddies like Krona and Necron. They also had and a universe with Adam Strange, Thanagar, Starman, the Omega Men, Captain Comet etc. with their various cosmic bad guys, they had the great Fourth World with Genesis, Apokolips and of course DC's urber bad guy "Darksied". All of that and all rarely meeting or even knowing about the others.
Well, the first Rann / Thanagar war (and the subsequent 52 series) kind of brought things together for DC's cosmic side. Jim Starlin was slated ro write the sequel, at first I was thrilled, then I remembered the "Infinity Crusade" and his run on Thor, and got a little nervous. Unfortunately my fears have been realized.
The "Rann / Thanagar Holy War" is just another rehash of the old "Universal Church" cult story from Adam Warlock's series. This whole "death goddess worship" shtick too closely resembles the whole "Magnus/Thanos" story line. All this packaged extremely like the very horrible "Infinity Crusade". Don't get me wrong, if DC or Marvel threw big bucks at me to write a story fast, I would, but I'd like to think I have enough creativity to not so blatantly clone my older work in such a bad way. With the set up from the first "Rann / Thanagar" war, there are just a slew of better directions a writer could have gone. Either way, I am not enjoying the sequel.
What are your thoughts folks?
Yeah, you know I'm an atheist myself, but it really bothers me that every Jim Starlin story I've ever read was about how evil religion is and such. I got sick of it by the time I was done reading Mystery in Space and it looks like it's the same thing all over again in Holy War.
And besides that, all his characters speak with the same voice. It's like there's a standard "Jim Starlin protagonist" persona that he has on hand to use for every single story he writes. His Captain Comet, Superman, and Mister Miracle all sound exactly the same, I swear.
Posted by: Will Staples | 04 July 2008 at 06:05 PM
Man, I am not even reading this series...
Posted by: Zackory Kirk | 09 July 2008 at 07:47 PM