What I Bought 6/1/2020

All the world's a trash fire, but at least I have comics to help me ignore that fact. Less corrosive to the liver than alcohol. Now here's two comics about dying worlds!

Rogue Planet #1, by Cullen Bunn (writer), Andy MacDonald (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Crank! (letterer) - I don't think that suit is still sealed against the outside.

There's a planet that drifts, not tethered to any star or other celestial body. And a salvage crew picks up a distress beacon, so they go to investigate. They find a whole bunch of downed ships, then some weird fleshy structure. They get attacked by a giant snake thing made of teeth and mystery meat and one of them dies. Most of the crew is, understandably, ready to leave, but the boss guy insists they are going to make money on this stop. Then some bodies appear.

This didn't land with me. It should. Strange setting, weird monsters, vague mysteries to theorize about. Ought to be right up my alley, but no luck. I don't know why, other than something about Bunn's writing doesn't connect with me. The dialogue doesn't get any reaction from me, doesn't have any punch to it. The closest attempt to something snappy is one of the characters agreeing they should wear their environmental suits, because he needs extra protection for his junk. But it falls flat.

Maybe that's the point. These folks have been a crew for a long time, it's not working from a profit standpoint. They're tired, they're a little lackadaisical. They all know each other well enough they know each other's tics and dumb jokes. Them being tired and on the brink is in the text, them being too well-acquainted with each other is me extrapolating.

MacDonald is definitely going for an Alien vibe with things. The design and shape of the ship is boxy rather than anything sleek. The weird creatures that seem to get inside and attack from within. Granted that instead of structure that look like ribs or skeletal structures, you get weird fleshy obelisks and whatnot, but that same sort of thing. Except nothing has quite the same dingy, battered look as the Nostromo. The mechanic, Franco, mentions the environmental systems have always been a bit tweaked (in response to the Captain's question of why it is snowing inside his ship), but the ship looks perfectly fine. There aren't a bunch of panels pulled open to expose wiring, nothing dented or with peeling paint. Maybe that just means these people take better care of their stuff, but for a crew that sounds like it's about to go under if this mission doesn't produce a big score, that doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

Sera and the Royal Stars #7, by Jon Tsuei (writer), Audrey Mok (artist), Raul Angulo (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - I see the flaming serpent lady has made herself a nice anime sword. But is it a gunsword? I've heard those are kinda essential.

Sera wants to chase after her captured sister, but is talked out of it by Antares. It's one of those "everybody will suffer if you don't get your shit together" speeches. Aldebaran and Fomalhaut almost get killed by a couple of the Draco siblings, but reach the Demon Star, Algol. Algol tells them why and how she succeeded in killing another star once before, and what the price was.

The question becomes, how much are the Royal Stars prepared to sacrifice to restore themselves, which will allegedly aid this world? From what Algol describes, the star she killed became a black hole, which then destroyed many worlds, stars, and lives. More than what that star had already destroyed? Don't know. More than it would have destroyed if left unchecked? Probably not based on her description. We don't know how many other worlds might benefit if the Royal Stars regain their old power, and we don't know how many stars they'll have to kill to achieve that. The two siblings are planning to call in the rest of their family, so the numbers are gonna go up. It's a murky ground.

I like Algol's design. I always have to remind myself blue is hotter than red when it comes to flames and stars, which would mean she's burning hotter now than she was before. Not sure what I should make of that, though. She's also the first star we've seen that wasn't strictly a biped. All the others conform to "two legs, two arms". She has the arms, but no legs obviously. It's not related to her actions killing the first light, because even in her original form, she was like this. I was going to wonder if it had something to do with her perhaps being a much older star, if she was possibly the second star, after the one she killed. That may not be how it works, as the Seven Sisters were around for her to consult before she acted, and the First Light was bipedal as well.