Huh. What to say. It’s very hard to say anything about this issue of Starborn because Roberson’s script is so padded, he only has about six pages of story here. There are maybe three double-page spreads (so twenty-seven percent of the issue) and then it ends on a full-page spread. The pacing is awful.

Maybe Roberson just doesn’t know where to go, because–reading it–it seems like Starborn‘s jumped the tracks. When the protagonist talks about the reality of the universe (with all these aliens out to get him–he’s Neo, by the way) and how a sci-fi author wrote about it, it’s interesting. When it’s the aliens, not so much.

With better action scenes, it might work. But Roberson writes anti-climatic action scenes; the good guys either retreat or there’s a deus ex machina. It’s hard to care about them.

Or the series.

There are countless issues with Starborn. I mean, the thing opens in an alien council—it looks like a mix of Star Wars and fantasy (some big minotaur looking thing)—but my major problem is buying into the story requires the reader to buy into the protagonist’s stupid sci-fi enthusiasm.

The gimmick (the protagonist’s dumb sci-fi novels are really his memories of intergalactic adventures—isn’t that Cyclops, by the way?) is fine. But the reader is supposed to think the idiotic alien universe Roberson comes up with is cool. It’s infantile. The secret sect of scantily clad warrior women? Wow, how awesome! Given Randolph’s art, which sells the cartoonish aspect of the story, one would think Roberson would have tongue firmly in cheek.

Instead, he plays it straight.

This issue loses the charm the first one eventually engendered. It also has a lame resolution to the previous’s cliffhanger.

Starborn is an adolescent male’s fantasy world come to life (well, an adolescent male “grown up”). The protagonist is in his twenties, writes sci-fi books no one will publish and has a crush on his childhood next door neighbor.

Of course, it turns out his sci-fi books are true and his next door neighbor is grown-up too and she’s going to be his bodyguard.

The covers to this book do a terrible job advertising it–though I think one should never judge a comic with an Humberto Ramos cover by that cover, just gag at the sight and maybe tear it off and read the comic.

Khary Randolph’s style is sort of a Space Ace retro homage, full of energy; it’s pleasant and appealing and also able to convey the action.

Roberson’s first person narration is solid too.

It’s like a genial Matrix. It’s a good start.