Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Wednesday Comics: Nightfire

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Nightfire (Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter XI)"
Epic Illustrated #7 (August 1981) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: Zygotean cruisers swoop down on our protagonists, so they make for the shelter of Vanth's ship. Aknaton wants to resort to magic, but Vanth suggests it's his magic power that they followed to begin with. Better to use Vanth's ship that's small, fast--and loaded with weapons.

They could easily slip past the slower cruisers, except those ships must have been transported there by a swifter dreadnought.

First, they need to deal with the cruisers. Vanth turns the ship and comes up behind his former pursuers.


Now for the dreadnought. Even the Osirosians were ultimately unable to stand up to their power.


Vanth asserts they didn't study their enemies' ships closely enough. The dreadnought has dispatched all its cruisers to catch them. Its hangars are open and its shields are down. Vanth flies inside the dreadnought, firing.


The dreadnought is destroyed thanks to its unshielded power pods. Vanth's light cutter's shields hold. Cunning did what Osirosian power could not. Aknaton wonders if they had had warriors like Vanth, if they would have had to resort to the plan they embarked on.


They're off. To a planet called Dreamsend.

Things to Notice:
  • We get some Star Wars-esque space battles.
Commentary: 
This chapter injects some action after the exposition of the last one. It also serves to highlight just how Vanth will be able to defend the others.

Aknaton's tale last chapter did its job. Vanth now seems to come around to Aknaton's way of thinking about the Zygotean menace.

3 comments:

garrisonjames said...

I remember this issue--it sparked a lot of heated debate over One Big Ship versus Lots of Little Ships...an argument that never quite got resolved. For all I know some of those guys are still arguing about it in the Hereafter.

Too bad the Osiriosians didn't use their Uber-Intellects to develop warriors like Vanth earlier. Seems like a sound strategy. Wonder what held them back from doing so...or did they try this once and wind up with the Zygoteans for their troubles?

Tom said...

This all makes me wish Starlin would do Doc Smith's Lensmen as a comic.

garrisonjames said...

Starlin would do a great job on Doc Smith's Lensmen!