Review: Stone Star
Imagine a gladiators' arena from the Roman Empire. Now put it on a huge asteroid. Now attach huge engines to the huge asteroid, turning it into a giant space station. Now hollow out the interior to create living spaces for the gladiators, training pits, a market where they can buy food, quarters for support staff, trainers, vendors, servants, security, administrators, technicians, waste disposal systems, engineering sections, a control hub... Now populate it with a wide variety of alien life (some of it almost - but not quite - human). Now send it flying through space like a travelling circus on the look out for new planets to entertain with its brutal death matches.
What do you have? Stone Star by writer Jim Zub and artist Max Dunbar. The flying arena puts down anchor (literally) on the planet Quellaquaserris, a beautiful rose-hued forest world. It beams out its hologram to the populace, calling the people to come and see the shows. All intelligent life craves entertainment, and Stone Star has plenty.
In the hustle and bustle of the market, two young orphans are engaged in some petty theft; the not-quite-human boy Dial and his not-quite-green-monkey pal Kitzo. When things go sideways Dial uses his innate ability to merge his mind with machines to create a hasty escape, but nearly kills himself in the process. His life is saved by the one-armed - yet supremely sprightly - ex-gladiator Volness Vildari.
The Stone Star is taking on supplies. As well as food this seems to include a small bunch of the native Quellaren people: in fact, the recently deposed royal family. It seems the host planet has no shortage of their own home-grown brutality going on, what with an uprising against the elite under way...
Princess Kikanni stands up to the overbearing guards on the station, displaying some fine fighting skills. Nevertheless she is outnumbered... until Dial comes to her aid.
Soon both are on the run and Volness agrees to hide them, but destiny seems to have other things in mind when Dial finds himself bonding with a hulking fighting machine. His power finds its purpose...
Naturally there are fight scenes aplenty here, and not only in the arena. The wide variety of aliens and monsters makes for a rich offering of diverse action. The cartoon style artwork is suitably energetic but also finely finished. The characters are nicely rendered; Kikanni is exotically purple with tiger stripes and Volness is channeling pure Clint Eastwood grittiness.
The drama never lets up for a moment. Courage, power and fighting skills are all well and good, but when your opponents surround you on every side, how good are your chances for survival? Will it be a glorious victory... or will the arena claim yet another victim for the insatiable, baying crowd?
Zak Webber
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