Starbolts #795: Home Again

 Hail!

    Wow. I'll say this. There's never a dull moment for this crew. Just when they thought they could relax for a while another adventure begins! I think at this point the Starbolts just call it "Tuesday". At least an alternate version of Manta shouldn't be too much of a problem, right? Right? I mean he doesn't seem to have a goatee or anything. That's usually a bad sign when you're dealing with an alternate reality version of someone.

    This technically isn't the first time the Starbolts had to deal with an alternate reality. Back n Starbolts #167-200 the team had to survive a universe full of dark versions of themselves. The jury's still out on whether or not that was a proper alternate reality because it was created by Demonstorm. Demonstorm wanted to make a reality where he was the hero and the Starbolts were the villains.The villain is also a great magician so he could have easily cast an illusion and made it seem like everyone was in an alternate reality when they were really just on Demonsk.

    Here we have a proper alternate reality version of M'anta. Where does he come from? Well, I'll tell you. Not only is the Starbolts' landmark 800th comic coming soon. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Starbolts in general! I've been writing the series since 1996 and the story was in prose from until 2008 when I started the webcomic. M'anta here is from the prose version of my story as we'll see next comic. The prose version of the Starbolts is vastly different from the one in the comic today. Case in point. M'anta recognizes Carter but calls her "Sara" and wonders why her hair is black. There are small changes like that from the original story and bigger changes too.

    The Starbolts have been through a lot of changes in thirty years. I'll have to look at the old stories to see just how M'anta would react to all the changes I made since then and wow there are a lot. Let's hope he reacts to everything in a good way. But chances are he'd freak out a little. This version of M'anta is still a teenager. He might be taken aback by all the changes.

    Elsewhere in the comic we have an important daddy/daughter talk between Crystal and her father. Crystal is finally becoming the woman she was meant to be. I do hope she runs into alternate M'anta because prose Crystal was a completely different person. She never had any abuse and was not a Whitefox. She was also a bit umm....promiscuous.  When I introduced her into the comic, my friend and beta reader Mark wisely told me to tone down her promiscuous behavior. She was also an Arronfeld by blood, too. Comic Crystal, as you know, would not like that. There are other changes here and there that made things different from the comic and we'll be exploring them as the story celebrates its thirtieth year and as we march on toward Starbolts #800.

    As for Tanis and his girlfriends? I think that scene speaks for itself. Heidi reunited with Lucy and she told him about the bonding and now Lucy wants the same thing. Makes sense. She doesn't want to feel left out of the bonding. It should be noted, again, that you don't have to bond via sex as Whitefox explained in the comic this week. There are other ways to do it. Sex just hurries it along, I suppose. At least the three of them are happy! Will Tanis run into the alternate version of M'anta? Maybe. There was never a prose Tanis. So that would be an interesting encounter. Very interesting, indeed.

See ya next time!