Top 20 Starblazer Stories

 

Timeslay

To start off the list we have this story, which sees a teenager being dragged to a post-apocalyptic dystopia after he jumps a would-be assassin from the future. Finding himself in a strange, barren land he manages to befriend some of the locals and agrees to go on a quest with them to a dark citadel to dispose of an evil warlord. The story progresses at a good pace and the artwork is grim and detailed, being drawn by the heralded Argentinean artist Enrique Alcatena, a mainstay artist of the Starblazer series and one of its greatest assets.

The Black Lord

The Black Lord is a story about the son of a Blacksmith who's father is arrested and sentenced to death for killing one of the soldiers of a local despot in self defense. The boy goes searching for a mythical warrior of legend to help him save his father from his dire fate. Another book with artwork from Alcatena, the gifted artist provides some memorable designs for the story's grotesque monsters and war machines.

The Robot Kid Strikes Back

The Robot Kid series of stories were a set of three humour stories each of which Pastiches famous films, ranging from Seven Samurai to old westerns. This one, the third in the series focused its sights on Rambo, with the Robot Kid and his buddies being sent to the jungle planet of V8 Nam where they become involved in a hostage mission. In my opinion this issue was probably the best release in the likeable and amusing Robot Kid series of stories.

This story follows an indoctrinated member of a government death squad who is operating in a dystopian police state of the future. All is well for the operative until he receives his latest target, an old, long estranged friend, this leads him to begin to question the system he works for and the true motives of his superiors. A reasonable plot with some brilliantly surreal artwork provided by the ever excellent Alcatena, with him taking the reader on a journey through the overpopulated cityscapes and decrepit garbage heaps of Earth, to odd alien planets of organic machines.

Citizen Kayn

This story stars Mikal R Kayn, a kind of Philip Marlowe of the future style character who had the highest number of appearances in Starblazer. Mikal was created by Grant Morrison for the comic all the way back in 1981, before he'd made a name for himself writing his superhero strip Zenith for 2000AD and going on to fame writing Batman for DC Comics. Morrison wrote a few books himself before leaving the character to other Starblazer writers such as Corderoy, who wrote this particular story. In the book Mikal purposefully gets himself arrested and sent to prison in order to investigate the murder of one of his old friends.

The No Name Man

One of the last issues of Starblazer, The No Name Man is set in a post-apocalyptic future where the Earth has been thrown off its natural orbit after a near miss with an asteroid, leading the Earth to become a barren wasteland of lawlessness and mutant bikers. The plot has a kid being abducted by a local warlord interested in grooming a successor to carry on his empire. A mysterious stranger appears on the scene offering to help the child's mother and they set off to rescue her son.

Carter Breaks Loose

Carter Breaks Loose is the tenth story in the Frank Carter series, a series that starred a future cop who, after being gravely injured in the line of duty was rebuilt as a "Mandroid" (effectively a cyborg). In this story the Mandroid stumbles onto a den of corruption in the police force and goes undercover to root out the leaders. Frank Carter would go on to become the second most prolific character in the comic.

Zero's Hour

Groc and Zero were a couple of intergalactic police officers who starred in a series of humour stories. Groc was a long suffering, short tempered alien and Zero was the dimwitted human partner that he'd been lumbered with. This particular story has the two bringing on board a state of the art robot to help with the ship duties, but the computer is corrupted by one of their prisoners and goes on a crime spree after stealing their ship!

Skarr - Warrior of the Northlands

A heavily decorated soldier named Skarr is betrayed, narrowly escaping an assassination attempt from a disgruntled politician. Ending up banished from his homeland he roams the land searching for a new place to live, eventually finding himself in the service of a royal family that are badly in need of his military experience and courage. A story with lots of twists and turns crammed into its 60 pages and excellent art.

Mandroid

The first story in the Mandroid series has Frank Carter investigating a suspicious death and ensuing mystery on a mining planet. The story includes a lot of ever popular sci-fi tropes (such as whether advanced robots should be considered human and deserving of their own set of rights). Its a well paced story, and there's some intrigue in the form of strange alien specters that have been sighted. A very good start for Carter overall.