Dreadstar, Volume 1: Metamorphosis Odyssey

Rating:
Summary: Needs Color!!
Review: First, I would like to remind (for emphasis) this is a black-and-white reissue of the original series that was truly magnificent in color. The black-and-white pages do dampen (for me anyway) a great deal of the exuberant and dramatic quality of the graphics.

Remember the scene in which the aristocratic elite (looking like a cross between medieval nobility and a future techno ruling class) abandon their world and their people to their fates? They file resplendant in their finery into the starships that will carry them to safety while the masses must merely await the inevitable destruction. What a dramatic and interesting portrait. In black-and-white, it is far less compelling.

Metamorphosis Odyssey needed a full-color reprint. More expensive? So be it. A graphic novel by definition depends on the quality of both its graphics and its story. A black-and-white reissue is better than nothing but if saving money was the intent, why bother with the graphics at all?

The story, as a previous reviewer noted, is somewhat disjointed and episodic - which is in keeping with its original serialization within the now defunct Epic magazine. What was interesting for me was not the plot of the story itself so much -a group of survivors of destroyed civilizations band together to resist a tyrannical galactic empire - but Starlin's dramatic and self-consciously epic intent: Akhnaton's sometimes poetic recollection of his people's doomed struggle with the enemy ("the initial encounter lasted 500 years...") contrasts with the more blunt determination of his "disciples" to seek immediate vengeance.

The style of Metamorphosis Odyssey is bleaker, darker, and less humorous than most (but not all) of the series. One reviewer noted that it "had nothing to do with what follows" and is not as good as comic series that followed. I think he's right and wrong. I agree that after Metamorphosis Odyssey (with notable exceptions) the series adopted a different style and tone. It became more of generic comic book both in terms of graphics and storyline.

However, I think that Metamorphosis Odyssey is superior to its successors. Whereas the comic series (was it Marvel that published them?)reminds me more of a television series in which every week something dramatic happens but you know there's always a new crisis next week equally big (like, for example, X-Files or Buffy), MO gave the feeling that this was it, this was THE story and it begins and ends here.

It's similar to the difference between the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and a Saturday morning Tolkien cartoon series where the ring has been destroyed and now the threat this week is...

Summary: A black-and-white reissue that only whets the appetite. Fans of the comic might not enjoy Dreadstar as much or at all. I enjoy both as much as I did when I was thirteen.

Rating:
Summary: An ambitious, but weak, effort.....
Review: I'm a big fan of Jim Starlin, and I have fond memories of reading the Dreadstar series when I was a young teen. So it was with great anticipation that I read (for the first time) Dreadstar Volume One: The Metamorphosis Odyssey.

Boy was I let down....This is a preachy mess that has NOTHING to do with the series that followed it. We follow a group of characters that are nothing more than empty shells, as they fight a race of bad guys that are never given any substance either.

Vanth Dreadstar himself is an obnoxious creep, so there is NO ONE to feel for in this book.....all you can do is be dragged along for a quest that takes Millions of years to complete, and then is rendered completely moot at the end. The saving grace is that the last few pages manage to tie this mess up, and set up the better stories that followed.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, not the best
Review: I'm a long-time graphic novel fan, appreciate the work that goes into the drawing of a story and, certainly, Jim Starlin's black and white renderings are nicely drawn and detailed (although I found the overall darkness rather tedious). It's in the story telling itself that I have problems. I have all three books in the series and they're all the same- the story is very choppy in it's continuity. I don't mind characters being introduced suddenly and then explained in flashback format, that's cool; but there are leaps in plot development that make the action seem very stilted and I never get the feeling that any of the characters have any depth to them. The angst of the protagonists remains superficial and the supporting characters never seem to do anything more than fill in plot movement. That said, the books are still enjoyable for the art work and I look forward to seeing what Mr. Starlin comes up with in the future.