Starbolts #761: New Year, New Starbolts

 Hail!

     Another year has come and gone and now it's time to wrap up the events of the comic in the past year. As you can see it's heavily focused on Tanis and Heidi. They pretty much had the spotlight in 2025 and it looks like it may continue for a while in 2026. It just depends on how long it takes to find his people and what will happen once he finds them. 

    At least we have some non Tanis related things in the works for 2026. We have Carter talking about the Redemption Project. The Redemption Project will involve former members of Terra Nova's Legion. Several members are on the road to redemption. Will they become good guys or will they be like Marvel's "Thunderbolts"?  I'm gonna go with the latter. The team consists of some heavy hitters. We have Granite, Valentine, Spectra Syntax and Punchline on the team. They have an opportunity to do some good in the world.

    Don't worry, though! Not ALL of the baddies can be redeemed or will want to redeem themselves. I just picked the ones who I think can be redeemed and be useful allies to the Starbolts. Will they be invited to company softball games? That's a different story. I think they'll be just fine. I will be introducing new baddies of course. What good are heroes if there aren't supervillains to battle? There'll be baddies lurking in the darkness. Just not associated with Terra  Nova. That's the whole reason why Carter and Valentine are involved. More on that at a later date.

   We still have Tanis's people to find. That should be a fun arc and I hope everyone enjoys it! See ya in 2026! 

Starbolts #760: Christmas at the Vault

 Hail!

   Happy holidays from the Starbolts! This year, I thought I'd do things a little differently and have the spotlight be on the villains at the Vault. As you can tell it is an unusual prison. For starters both men and women are inmates at the same facility. They're also free to move about a heavily guarded living area. A prison for metahumans is bound to be different from a normal prison. The use of their powers is extremely limited as well since Jack Lantern, a plant controlling metahuman, could only generate a small Christmas tree. It's not that impressive.

    I turned the spotlight on Spectra since we don't really know much about her other than the fact that she was transformed into a light being by her father, Dreadwing. He was also responsible for transforming Granite over and over again until he was freed a while ago. 

    I was originally going to take this comic down a different path and have her be with Tom. I decided not to since Tom appeared sympathetic in the early draft of the comic and I didn't want that. Tom is beyond redemption and help at this point. He is likely never going to be freed given what he and the others have done.

    Spectra on the other hand is on her way to freedom. Using what she knows, she could add onto her father's sentence. Tom could have stopped her from talking. However, I think he was still perplexed by the idea of Spectra and Granite being together since Granite is a rock monster. 

    I like to think it was Carter's idea to help free Spectra and Valentina supported her efforts. They were both controlled by Terra Nova at one point and now the two are working to help free former members of the Legion who deserve to have their freedom. So far they've freed Simon, Syntax and Granite. Spectra is now the fifth member of that team to potentially be free.

    Will it happen? Will Spectra be free? It's a possibility. This week's comic sets up an arc I want to do down the road once I finish with Tanis's arc. Several former villains are getting their redemption arcs. It's not an unheard of thing in comics. However, I am going to have to make new villains since several of them are turning over a new leaf. I highly doubt any more members of the Legion will be freed. I'm just freeing the ones who deserve it the most and Spectra has been an unwilling participant in many of their misdeeds.

    Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a fantastic new year! We'll be sure to visit Spectra again very soon. Like...perhaps in the New Year's comic? That is the comic where I recap stuff that happened in the last year and introduce new arcs. 

I do think it's funny that I have three holidays represented this week. A ghost normally seen in Halloween comics, Santa and a woman who calls herself Valentine. Crazy. Hmm...would Jack Lantern count as an Arbor Day reference? Hmmm....

 See ya next time!  

Starbolts #759: The Rise of the Aquito

 Hail!

    Back in Starbolts #197 , the Aquito was unceremoniously destroyed when Tanis initiated an overload of the ship's engines. The Starbolts never blamed him for his misdeeds. He had just turned into "The Superior Dragonfly" and was under his father's control. M'anta had to use his enhanced telepathic abilities to snap him out of it once he confronted his former teammate. He swore to Jenna that he'd never use his powers like that. He unfortunately had to made an exception in this case since Tanis wasn't listening to reason.

    Now, it looks like the Aquito is back and our heroes can consider this an early Christmas present. This isn't this year's Christmas comic, by the way. That will be next week's comic! This week saw the return of a very old friend. 

    When we come back from the Christmas and New Years' comics we'll see what changes have been made. I last made backgrounds for the Aquito in 2013. Things have definitely changed art-wise since then. The halls and stuff will look more modern in terms of style. Even the bridge may be different now. The outside is the same. However, she may be a completely new ship on the inside.

    In other news, it looks like Crystal and Marcus's honeymoon was cut short. Carter offered to be Lady Liberty. I'm sure that'll go well with the public! For this adventure, I think Heidi will be the voice of the audience. There's gonna be some crazy stuff going on in the Delta quadrant. Will Tanis and co find the Faeori? I hope so! 

    At least the Aquito is back and now the Starbolts have another ship in their fleet. It'll just take some time to get them back home from there. I'm sure they'll manage somehow!

See ya next time! 

Starbolts #758: The Next Adventure

 Hail!

    This week we're starting off a new adventure for our heroes! In the process of working on the comic, I've revealed some pretty important facts about Demonsk. For a long time the Starbolts were operating under the assumption that Demonstorm's home planet was in another dimension. Makes sense, right? Demonsk has red skies and seemingly no sun. That's pretty big news for our heroes since they've visited that world many times and now they know it's actually a rogue planet currently drifting around the Delta quadrant. That's pretty wild.

    I wonder if the same could be said for the Outlands. That remains to be seen. That could also be a distant planet. The Starbolts have a stargate which allows them to travel to both worlds. For all we know the Outlands could also be another strange new world in another part of the galaxy. Spoilers. It probably is. We'll have to revisit the Outlands another time. For now let's focus on Demonsk.

    Many questions have been answered and many more will be answered next week when our heroes go to Demonsk. From there they'll be looking for the Faeori. The question is who will be joining those three on their quest?     

    I think it's safe to say Heidi will be joining Tanis and co on this adventure. Who else will be joining them? Time will tell. I was debating having Lucy join and have her get superpowers along the way but nah. She's fine as an audience surrogate and as a normal human. Not everyone in the cast needs superpowers. 

    Here's hoping they find the Faeori. The question is what kind of state will they be in. Tanis's adventure starts now. This is sure to be a wild ride!

Stay tuned!