STARLORD: Holocaust

[SmallBlueThing]

Taking advantage of a slow afternoon at work, I've just read through the entirety of Alan Hebden and Lalia's 'Holocaust', which ran in the second half of Starlord's life, and which I remember skipping at the time due to the presence of stereotypical "ufos" and a lack of mutant bountyhunters, robots and monsters, etc.

I'd been meaning to give this a go for a number of years, and thought I may as well read it before maryanddavid produces a lavish, coffeetable edition that I then have to buy to satisfy my damned compulsion.

So, um, yes, was it worth the wait? Well, yes, in a way. The fairly standard (pre-X-files, pre-independence day remember) plot involves a hard bitten private eye, Carl Hunter, who used to work for the cia, investigating a man's disappearance out in the desert near one of them pesky secret American bases. Ufos appear, followed by aliens who are crippling earth's food production in an attempt to take over. Helicopters, the president, tractor beams, disintegration rays, a friendly alien telepath and a late plot twist all follow, with some predictability, and it all wraps up suspiciously quickly in time for Starlord's merger into 2000AD.

Carl Hunter is an odd one. He punches out cops before he has an inkling of any conspiracy, threatens them with their guns, nicks their squad car... And then immediately checks into a hotel using his own name. If it hadn't all been aliens, what did he think would happen next? Also he mentions early on that he's half native American, but this has absolutely no impact on the story, and informs neither his actions nor the plot. And I was hoping for some exciting redskin hunting action.

Amusingly, my phone had that as "exciting redskin twerking action", which sounds like huge fun and I want some right now.

Other plot elements fall out of sight too, including the poor woman with the missing husband who started Hunter on his adventure. Were this a John Carpenter film, she'd have tagged along and fallen into bed with him once her hubby's corpse had been discovered. And as I say, it all wraps up too quickly in Siberia, with a silly ending involving comedy rats.

The tone is uneven throughout- it should have been a paranoid thriller, of the kind that later would become so popular o tv, but in 1978 could only be alluded to through the motifs of 'close encounters'- but instead it reads like a bog standard action story that every so often tries to be funny, but isn't.

The art, by Lalia, is solid but uninspiring. And part nine looks to me drawn by someone else entirely, but I've no idea who. On the whole, not a wasted hour and an interesting curiosity. But it seriously needed a second pass on the script, and perhaps an Ortiz on art, who may have given it that askew- aesthetic it so desperately cries out for, but which it fails to capture.

SBT