Series: Starfire
Writer(s): Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotto
Pencils: Emanuela Lupacchino
Inks: Ray McCarthy
Colors: Hi-Fi
Summary from Comixology: “From the writers of the outrageous smash hit HARLEY QUINN comes former Outlaw Starfire in her all-new ongoing series! She’s an alien warrior princess trying to find peace on Earth, and she’ll fight anyone and anything to get it!”
Overview:
Stephen Andrew absolutely loves the Harley Quinn book. Like, he never shuts up about how great that book is and how the character is DC’s version of Deadpool (Let’s not get into the Wade Wilson/Slade Wilson, Deadpool/Deathstroke argument again…). I have read a couple of his issues of Harley Quinn and I really enjoyed them, I laughed a lot and I flew through the issues. Starfire #1 has that same feel of Harley Quinn. It was really funny, it didn’t take itself serious and it was nonstop entertainment. And for $2.99 how can you not love nonstop entertainment?
One of my favorite things about this book is the entire creative team. The writers are a great married couple who are writing one of DC’s best selling books (Harley Quinn) and the art team on this book worked on one of my personal favorite New52 books, Supergirl. What’s great about Emanuela Lupacchino and Ray McCarthy along with Hi-Fi coloring is the moment you pick up the book and flip through it, you know it’s their work. It’s bright, it’s bold, and it pops off the page. Their art style is very much like something you could see on Nickelodeon cartoon, and I mean that as the biggest complement!
With the writers of this book, they really know what they are doing and the tone of the book is perfect. It’s comedy, it’s serious and it’s not complicated. You can have no clue who Starfire is, and pick up this book and love it. The book does a great job of filling the readers in on who Koriand’r (Kori) AKA Starfire is and what she comes from, we get a solid recap of her planet being destroyed by Citadel (Not the Mad Max: Fury Road Colony), how she is a princess and dives a little deeper into her histroy, but it’s all done very quickly within the first two pages. Seeing Starfire interact with the people of Earth might actually be my favorite thing about this issue, at one point she sells some diamonds for “Three Big Ones” and she thinks that means “three elephants,” I have no clue why she assumed that, but I laughed pretty hard at that, and how she would fit them in her pockets.
In the end, this is a great start to a new series. After the mess that was Convergence, this is a breath of fresh air in the DC Universe. This book is full of laughs and great art, it’s good to see a creative team that can work so well together. The art style matches the vibe of the book perfectly and it’s going to be a great series that I’m looking forward to adding to my pull-list.
Music Pairing:
I have been on a major The Wonder Years kick lately, not the TV show but rather the pop punk band. This issue came out swinging, and for that I have to recommend TWY’s song “Come Out Swinging”. I think the lyrics match the tone of the book pretty well; vocalist Soupy sings about moving to a new area and not really understanding anything that’s going on in his life at the moment, and I think Kori could really relate with this song.
https://youtu.be/iChf9Trnl2E