It Came from the 1990s: Starblast

In my previous post I took a look at the unusual Questprobe project Marvel Comics published in the mid 1980s. I indicated this would lead into an installment of “It Came from the 1990s.” That brings us to today’s post, where I will be looking at the Starblast crossover from Marvel that came out in late 1993.

Often I put together these “It Came from the 1990s” entries to spotlight comic books from that decade that I feel are overlooked or underrated. Unfortunately, this is NOT one of those series.

Starblast has regrettably been described as one of the worst comic book crossovers of all time. I was reminded of it by longtime Marvel editor Tom Brevoort on his own WordPress blog in which he took a look at Quasar #56, which he brands with the label of “Worst Cover Ever.” Brevoort’s piece reminded me of Starbast, which in turn got me thinking about Questprobe, as the later indirectly inspired the former. And here we are.

Starblast #1 cover by Claudio Castellini

It would not be accurate to say that no one ever sets out to make bad movies, or TV shows, or music, or artwork, or whatever. There are some people who recognize that crap sells, that there is an audience for absolute drek, and so they produce terrible products because they know it will make money.

Having acknowledged that, it is my general observation that the majority of creators who go to work in the comic book industry do so because they truly love the medium, they desire to work within it, and they wish to create genuinely good stories & art. The fact that they don’t always succeed is down to a number of factors, such as unforgiving deadlines, poor pay rates, difficult marketplace conditions, clashes with editorial, and the existence of management that is frequently unsympathetic to talent.

I really do believe that the creators behind Starblast set out to produce a good comic book; the fact that they did not succeed offers a sad snapshot of the comic book industry three decades ago.

Mark Gruenwald was the main creative force behind Starblast. As both a writer and editor Gruewald enjoyed utilizing the more obscure elements of Marvel continuity. He frequently drew on these elements in Quasar, the ongoing series that featured everyman Wendell Vaughn as the reluctant Protector of the Universe. It really felt that Gruenwald was personally invested in the character of Quasar, with Gru even giving Wendell some of the same personal background that he had.

Gruenwald spent two years building up to Starblast in the pages of Quasar. First he had Wendell temporarily acquire the incredibly-powerful cosmic force known as the Star Brand from Marvel’s ill-fated New Universe imprint. Wendell accidentally passed the Star Brand on to his girlfriend Kayla Ballentine. She was then abducted by the Chief Examiner from the Questprobe series, who wanted to duplicate the Star Brand’s power to use against the ravaging Black Fleet that was attacking his world. The Star Brand proves to be too powerful for the Examiner to replicate, and so he is forced to battle the Black Fleet with the powers of the other Earth superhumans he’s previously duplicated. Unfortunately this isn’t enough and he’s defeated, forcing the reluctant Kayla to use the Star Brand to obliterate the Black Fleet.

Quasar #37 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Greg Capullo, inked by Harry Caldelario, lettered by Janice Chiang, and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in August 1992

That at last brings us to Starblast. The cyborg Skeletron and his crew of space pirates the Starblasters are the sole survivors of the Black Fleet. Having witnessed his entire armada destroyed by the Star Brand, Skeletron seeks to acquire its incredible power for himself. He dispatches the Starblasters to attack Earth, distracting the planet’s superheroes so he can abduct Kayla.

I feel there was a certain potential to Starblast. It’s an interesting premise. Gruenwald, despite his unfortunate tendency to write Quasar as a dry series of encyclopedia entries rather than an awe-inspiring exploration of the Marvel cosmos, was a good writer. The editor of Quasar and Starblast was Mike Rockwitz, out of whose office a number of enjoyable books were released in the early 1990s.

Regrettably the Starblast crossover just did not come together in the way Gruenwald must have imagined.

Starblast #1 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Herb Trimpe, inked by Ralph Cabrera, lettered by Michael Higgins, colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in January 1994

Starblast was a four-issue miniseries, with Quasar #54-56, Secret Defenders #11, Namor the Sub-Mariner #46-48, and Fantastic Four #385-386 all being labeled as parts of the crossover. Starblast and Quasar were both written by Gruenwald, and so the story runs directly between those two books. But the other parts of the crossover are at best peripheral, telling almost-unrelated stories. It seems like there was some problems getting everything coordinated between Gruenwald and the other writers.

The artwork on Starblast is also a major issue. Beneath a gorgeous cover by Claudio Castellini on issue #1 is interior art by penciler Herb Trimpe & inker Ralph Cabrera. Trimpe was a good, solid artist who had been working for Marvel since the late 1960s. However, by the early 1990s his style of art had unfortunately fallen out of favor, and the young, hot artists who worked on the X-Men and Spider-Man books before founding Image Comics were very much in demand. In an effort to make himself more bankable, Trimpe adopted a style inspired by the Image founders.

I am a fan of Trimpe, and I’m usually very charitable towards his work from the 1990s. He was in a tough position, trying to stay employed, doing the best he could. But his art on Starblast is difficult to look at.

Starblast #2 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Herb Trimpe, inked by Ralph Cabrera, lettered by Michael Higgins, and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in February 1994

Trimpe does well enough on the first few pages of Starblast #1, with his weird work actually enhancing the unearthly menace of the alien Starblasters. But as the issue progresses and Gruenwald brings in Quasar and Earth’s other heroes, the wonky anatomy and bizarre layouts become really painful.

It’s sad that in the early 1990s an experienced, reliable artist like Trimpe had to churn this stuff out in an effort to extend his career. I’m just glad that when he finally started getting work in comic books again beginning in 2008 he was able to go back to his normal style.

Trimpe & Cabrera also drew the second issue of Starblast, and the artwork is just as poor. By the third issue they’re gone. Pencils are by Grant Miehm. The credit for inks is “Many Hands” which really tells me that there must have been some horrific deadlines and behind-the-scenes problems facing this series.

Miehm is another good, solid, underrated artist. I had been a fan of his art since a few years earlier when he penciled Justice Society of America and Legend of the Shield for DC Comics. He then worked on Ravage 2099 at Marvel, doing very nice work, as well as penciling a couple of fill-in issues of Quasar. Miehm’s previous fill-in work on Quasar, and on the third issue of Starblast, really convinces me that he should have been the artist for the entire miniseries. He draws all of the characters in his chapter really well and his storytelling is solid.

Starblast #3 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Grant Miehm, inked by “Many Hands,” lettered by Michael Higgins and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in March 1994

Regrettably Miehm only drew the third issue. Starblast #4 has three pencilers, Brian Kong, Rich Buckler Jr & Nate Palant, and two inkers, Don Hudson & Ernie Chan, and so is a bit of a stylistic mess. Probably the strongest part is the first third of the issue which Kong penciled. I like his work, but I imagine that this must have been another deadline nightmare. Hudson and Chan are both good inkers, but they have such very different styles. All of this gives the impression that Rockwitz must have been forced to grab whoever was available just so he could get the issue finished.

All three issues of Quasar that are part of Starblast are penciled by John Heebink, with inks by Dan & David Day and Aaron McClellan. Their work isn’t flashy, but it gets the job done, and it’s consistent in quality.

The artwork was not the only problem with Starblast. Gruenwald’s story is overly ambitious, unfocused, and crowded. There are too many characters fighting for the spotlight. The second issue of Starblast literally wastes the entire chapter with Quasar, the Squadron Supreme & various random heroes fighting Gladiator & the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

Quasar #54 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by John Heebink, inked by Dan & David Day, lettered by Janice Chiang and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in January 1994

Well, there is one interesting footnote to this: Gruenwald did finally have Marvel’s two main Superman expies, Hyperion and Gladiator, meet in Quasar #54. He obviously relished the idea of presenting such a metatextual battle.

The Starblasters are visually interesting, but again there’s just too many of them, and most of them are barely developed, with the majority just getting lost in the crowd. It’s odd that Gruenwald would dig up a bunch of obscure alien bad guys and then do almost nothing with them.

For example, one of the Starblasters is Threkker, and he’s either supposed to be the space vampire “The Captive” that Jack Kirby introduced in Captain America Annual #3 or another survivor of his nearly-extinct species the Epsiloni. (Threkker is the guy with the biiiig teeth.) Kirby wrote the character as this horrifying cosmic menace, but here he’s basically just some big generic thug working for Skeletron.

Starblast #4 really rushes along, ending very abruptly. So abruptly, in fact, that Quasar #57 is actually an unofficial epilogue that wraps up a lot of the Starblast plotlines. It does seem like Gruenwald was treating the Starblast miniseries as four extra issues of Quasar, rather than as a self-contained event, and as a result it’s something of a narrative jumble.

I feel it’s also worth pointing out that Starblast was simultaneously published at the exact same time as two other Marvel crossovers, “Siege of Darkness” in the Ghost Rider family of “supernatural superhero” books, and “Blood & Thunder” in the “cosmic” books written by Jim Starlin & Ron Marz. Almost comedically, there are scenes in both Quasar #54 and Secret Defenders #11 where Adam Warlock and Doctor Strange explain with some annoyance that they can’t help out against the Starblasters because they’re too busy with the events in “Blood & Thunder” and “Siege of Darkness” respectively. That demonstrates just how cluttered and glutted the Marvel line had become by the end of 1993. Something had to give… and it would very soon after.

Starblast #43 written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Brian Kong, inked by Ernie Chan & Don Hudson, lettered by Michael Higgins and colored by Paul Becton, published by Marvel Comics in April 1994

One of the reasons why I am so forgiving of Starblast is that, with the benefit of hindsight, I recognize it was produced at a time when the Marvel line had expanded to a completely unmanageable degree, and that it was released immediately before the start of the catastrophic market crash of the mid-1990s. Within a few months various titles would be canceled, including Quasar. Numerous creators and staff at Marvel would lose their jobs. In other words, it was a really dark time for the industry. People like Gruenwald and Rockwitz were just doing their best to get the books out on time and with as much of a level of professionalism as they could in an extremely difficult climate.

I’ve said before that while I love the medium of comic books, I often find the realities of the industry incredibly depressing. It can be a very difficult field to work in. And then, of course, someone like me comes along with his blog and says “Hey, remember that crazy stuff you worked on thirty years ago?”

In the near future I’m planning to look at another project that Mike Rockwitz edited, one that was much more successful. Stay tuned.

Magneto vs. the Red Skull round one

The current Marvel Comics crossover Avengers/X-Men: Axis sees the Fascist mastermind the Red Skull gaining the devastating powers of Onslaught, threatening the entire world. A key aspect of this storyline has been the conflict between the Skull and Magneto, the mutant Master of Magnetism.  But this is certainly not the first time those two have encountered one another.  For that we must look back to late 1989 and the “Acts of Vengeance” crossover.

It is actually a bit surprising that it took Magneto and the Red Skull so long to meet. In certain respects they have much in common; in others they are complete opposites.

Magneto, the long-time ideological opponent of the X-Men and one of their greatest foes, spent his early years as a one-note mutant supremacist. He was almost a Hitler-like figure, a ranting, sadistic conqueror who wanted to crush humanity and rule the world in the name of mutant-kind, who he saw as their superiors.

Then throughout the 1980s, in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, writer Chris Claremont developed a back-story for Magneto. He was a Jew from Eastern Europe who had spent much of his childhood imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, who lost his entire family in the Holocaust.  At the end of World War II the barely alive Magneto fled to Russia with the gypsy Magda, who he married.

Eventually, as seen in Classic X-Men#12 by Claremont and artist John Bolton, when Magneto’s mutant powers began to manifest, a fearful mob attacked him, preventing him from rescuing his daughter Anya who was trapped in a burning house. Magneto lashed out in anger, slaying the mob.  Magda fled from him in fear, and he never saw her again.

The death of his daughter, the loss of his wife, and the actions of the mob brought him right back the horrors of the Holocaust. Magneto became convinced that it was inevitable that humanity would attempt to destroy mutants in a new genocide.  Between his overwhelming fear of a mutant Holocaust, and an unfortunate side effect of his powers creating severe emotional instability, Magneto became a violent revolutionary determined to protect mutant-kind by conquering humanity.  In effect, he became very much like the Nazis who he hated.

The Red Skull’s real name is Johann Schmidt. In the back-story originally set down by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, and developed in detail years later by J.M. DeMatteis, Paul Neary & Roy Richardson in Captain America #298, we learn that Schmidt was born to an alcoholic father and his abused wife in a small German village.  When the mother died giving birth the drunk, angry father attempted to murder his newborn son.  He was prevented from doing so by the delivering physician.  The distraught father committed suicide soon after, leaving the infant Johann Schmidt an orphan.  Although only a newborn when all this occurred, the Red Skull claims to remember these events with crystal clarity.

Schmidt spent his childhood and teenage years as an outcast and a vagrant, ostracized by his peers. One time the daughter of a Jewish shopkeeper showed the coarse man kindness.  Schmidt responded by clumsily attempting to woo her, and when she spurned his violent advances, he responded by beating her to death, taking out on her all the rage he felt at humanity as a whole.  The experience filled him with “a dizzying joy such as I never suspected existed!”

Years past, and eventually Schmidt was working as a bellboy at a German hotel. One day Hitler and his advisors were staying there.  By chance, Schmidt was bringing refreshments into Hitler’s chambers right when the Fuhrer was berating the head of the Gestapo for letting a spy escape.  The fuming Hitler was despairing at ever having anyone competent enough to carry out his vision.  Motioning towards Schmidt, Hitler declared “I could teach that bellboy to do a better job than you!”  Glancing at the young man, Hitler was startled to see the look in Schmidt’s eyes.  Within them Hitler recognized a bottomless capacity for hatred and violence.  The Fuhrer realizes this was someone who he could transform into the ultimate Nazi, a being who would mercilessly advance the cause of the Third Reich.  Thus was born the Red Skull.

It is interesting that circumstances both led Magneto and the Red Skull onto a path of violence and conquest, each driven by the belief in their own superiority, by the desire to punish the world for the harms inflicted upon them. The difference, I think, is that if young Magneto had grown up in a different place & time, and never lived through the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, he might very well have grown up to be a normal, happy, well-adjusted figure.  In contrast, one gets the feeling that Johann Schmidt, even if he had been raised by loving parents, was of possessed some form of anti-social personality disorder and would have inevitable become a cruel, unpleasant individual.  He simply might have become something slightly more socially acceptable, such as a corporate executive or a politician!

These two men finally come face-to-face during “Acts of Vengeance,” when the Norse god of evil Loki brought together several of Earth’s greatest villains and criminals to organize a series of attacks directed at destroying the Avengers. At first Magneto thinks that this is a different Red Skull, believing the original died some time before, not realizing the Skull’s consciousness was transferred into a new body cloned from none other than Captain America.  Nevertheless Magneto cannot put the matter out of his mind.  In Captain America #367 written by Mark Gruenwald, with excellent artwork Kieron Dwyer and Danny Bulanadi, Magneto breaks into the Skull’s office in Washington DC, demanding to know the truth.  The Skull admits he is the original.  He attempts to convince Magneto that the two of them are in fact very much alike, hoping to trick the Master of Magnetism into lowering his guard.  This fails, and the Skull is forced to flee.  (Click on the below image to enlarge it for the full details of their exchange.)

Despite the fact that the Skull now resides in a body that possesses the Super Soldier Serum, he has never bothered to undergo the extensive regular training that Captain America himself engages in which has made the Sentinel of Liberty one of the world’s greatest fighters. Instead the Skull still relies on lackeys such as Crossbones and Mother Night, and on the advanced technology & robots developed by the Machinesmith.  So rather than possibly having a chance of at least holding his own against Magneto, as Cap probably would, the Skull quickly finds himself outmatched.

Soon enough Magneto captures the Red Skull. He spirits him away to a subterranean bomb shelter, leaving him with nothing more than several containers of water.  Magneto tells the Skull “I want you to sit down here and think of the horrors you have perpetrated.  I want you to suffer as you’ve made others suffer.  I want you to wish I had killed you.”  With that Magneto leaves, entombing the Skull in darkness.  Dwyer & Bulanadi definitely draw the hell out of this page.  That look on the Skull’s face in the final panels, as he silently fumes in a mixture of defiance and horror, is genuinely unnerving.  And you are really not sure if justice has been served, or if you actually feel perhaps the slightest bit of pity for the Skull for not having been given a quick, clean death.

The Skull spends a lengthy period of time imprisoned in the bomb shelter. Eventually he begins to hallucinate.  In Captain America #369, in an eerie sequence written by Gruenwald and drawn by Mark Bagley & Don Hudson, the Skull sees his father, Hitler, and his daughter Sinthea berating and belittling him, urging him to commit suicide.  We see that beneath the Skull’s belief that he is better than everyone else is a horrible fear that he is an insignificant nothing, and that everyone is looking down at him.  The only way he can prove that wrong is to trample the whole of humanity beneath his heel, demonstrating his superiority.

Eventually of course the Skull is located by his underlings. Weakened and dying, his burning hatred of Captain America gives him the strength to keep living and recover.  Even when Cap attempts to offer him the slightest bit of concern and sympathy, all the Skull can react with is venomous contempt and malice.  As far as the Skull is concerned, kindness equals weakness, and only hatred will keep him strong.

Much time passes by. The Red Skull dies and is resurrected at least a couple of more times.  Presently he has been revived within a copy of his own original body in its prime.  As seen in the events of Uncanny Avengers and X-Men: Legacy, the Skull has stolen the body of the recently deceased Charles Xavier.  He has ghoulishly had Xavier’s brain grafted onto his own, gaining the immense telepathic powers of the X-Men’s founder.

In the aftermath of the “Avenge the Earth” storyline written by Rick Remender, Kang the Conqueror’s sprawling Xanatos Gambit to wipe out all future timelines save for the one where he rules and to seize the power of a Celestial, becoming a literal god, was thwarted by the narrowest of margins. It was also a most pyrrhic of victories: Havok was horribly scarred in his final battle with Kang, the young daughter who Havok and the Wasp had in a now-erased timeline is a prisoner of Kang’s in the distant future, Sunfire’s body was transformed into an energy form, Wonder Man’s consciousness is trapped in Rogue’s mind and, as usual, people still hate & fear mutant-kind.

Uncanny Avengers #23 by Remender and artist Sanford Greene shows that the vengeful Kang, seeking to rub salt into these wounds, has dispatched Ahab, the cyborg slave-master from the “Days of Futures Past” reality, to assist the Red Skull in his plans for mutant genocide. Thus is set the stage for the Axis crossover, and for Magneto to once again confront the Red Skull.  I will be taking a look at that encounter in the near future.  Stay tuned.

Click here to proceed to round two in the war between Magneto and the Red Skull.