“Fire washes the skin off the bone and the sin off the soul. It cleans away the dirt. And my momma didn’t raise herself no dirty boy.” So spoke Franko Tildon, the first fighting Firebat in the greater lore of Blizard’s long-running sci-fi series Starcraft. I quote the eloquent Mr. Tildon to note that the Koprulu Sector is filled with some truly out-there characters. The Starcraft games carefully walk in the area between emotional space opera and gonzo redneck slapstick. “Starcraft Soldiers” #1 is nothing like that. In picking up this comic, you’ll find a much more straightforward science fiction action comic. But is it any good?
Written by Jody Houser and Andrew R. RobinsonCover by Miguel Sepulveda
Illustrated by Miguel Sepulveda
Colored by Maria Santaolalla
Lettered by Steve DutroJody Houser (Stranger Things, Star Wars) joins Blizzard Entertainment writer Andrew R. Robinson (Overwatch Anthology) for issue #1 of StarCraft: Soldiers, the latest addition to the StarCraft expanded universe. Newly graduated Lieutenant Shivani Singh wants to defend the Dominion on the front lines, but it will take more than good grades and confidence to survive on the edge of zerg space.
The good news is that the creative team in “Starcraft Soldiers” knows what the hell they’re doing. My interest in this issue came less from my love of Starcraft lore (though I do love me some Sarah Kerrigan/Jim Raynor/Tassadar drama as much as the next kid who grew up on Brood War). No, I was more drawn in by the promise of a script from the excellent Jody Houser. Houser’s work for Marvel has been stellar, in particular her next-level adaptation of Thrawn. I was ready to see the Houser magic.
And for the most part, she delivers! What Houser brings to the table is a near perfect command of comic book scripting. The common thread through her comics is her perfect sense pacing, which she controls through brilliant panel work. What Houser scripts can get out of a six-panel grid should be studied by anyone who loves comics. Her cutaway panels always set a perfect tone, before pulling back into a wider conversation.
What fills the panels in “Starcraft Soldiers” #1 is more of a mixed bag. Miguel Sepulveda is clearly a big fan of Starcraft, and when he gets a chance to draw Terran buildings and gear, he revels in it. It’s almost distracting in fact. While his close-up images of faces are serviceable, there’s a notable change in the art quality when Sepulveda gets to draw big splash pages filled with Terran marines and Goliaths. In dialogue scenes, backgrounds are limited to a blobby blue-grey. In crowd scenes, far-off figures look like mannequins. But when our hero lands on a new world on a Terran Dominion base, the war machines bring Sepulveda to life.
That’s a big part of the appeal of the issue. While there are no familiar characters mentioned in this story (besides Emperor Valerian), every suit of armor is like an old friend, down to the worn-out rivets. The story on the other hand, doesn’t feel all that Starcraft-y at all. As I mentioned earlier, it’s missing a lot of the heightened humor of the game series.
The story is this: Shivani Singh (Shiv to her friends, great Starcraft name) is a newly graduated officer on Korhal. She could get a cushy assignment in the capital, perhaps fast-tracked to a command or even a political position, but she wants to make a difference. She begs for a posting on the front lines. The script does a great job at building empathy for Singh, so that her cluelessness seems tragic rather than annoying. She’s a real believer in the Emperor and the Dominion, so that means following all the rules and arresting some locals to prove her authority.
It’s the kind of military story you’ve seen a hundred times, in sci-fi and elsewhere. Singh is well-meaning but doesn’t get how things really work, and she’s got to learn humility and pragmatism from the enlisted men. We don’t really get a chance for her to learn from her mistakes here (there are three more issues after all), but the final splash page of Zerg bearing down on her doesn’t really connect with that thread. She’s in danger sure, but the danger seems random, disconnected from her naivety. Lurkers and Hydrolisks are cool, but if I can’t get pyromaniac rednecks in my Starcraft comics, I at least want some thematic resonance.
Continued belowHouser isn’t the only writer credited on “Starcraft Soldiers” #1. There’s also Andrew R. Robinson, a Blizzard writer who scripted most of the Overwatch shorts, and some excellent episode of the Young Justice cartoon. Robinson and Houser seem like the perfect team. He’s great at delivering an emotional wallop in just a few minutes, she’s a next level comic script genius. But the fusion never happens. The panels are good. You can see where the emotional beats are supposed to happen. But the whole never feels as much as the sum of its parts.
That’s too bad. If I were to break down all the components of “Starcraft Soldiers,” I think every category would get a decent score. I’m interested in people living in the Koprulu Sector, and I think this team has one of the most impressive toolkits you could hope for in a comic adaptation. But the perfunctory story could be transferred to one of a number of settings. We could be dealing with Weyland Yuntai. Or the armies of John Sclazi’s Old Man’s War. Or Starship Troopers played painfully straight. Without the Zerg and the Siege Tanks, “Starcraft Soldiers” lacks the unique flavor that brings Starcraft to life.
Final Verdict: 6.5 – A sharp script by Jody Houser and Andrew R. Robinson isn’t enough to elevate a humdrum space marine adventure.
