By Dustin Cabeal

There’s an adage, “Name your wrestlers like you’d name your children.” The thought process behind this is that you don’t name someone something that can be easily turned cruel. Of course, most people think of cruel rhymes first, but easy targets like “Stellar” which have more than one meaning, are also easy targets. I’m not saying this to be cruel; I’m just pointing out how easy it's going to be for this title.

Its fair to say that I wouldn’t be pointing out the title if the story inside had captivated me and burrowed its way into my brain, so I’d never forget it, but it did not. The first issue is a giant exposition dump from beginning to end. At no point does the dialogue feel natural and every chance there is to make it feel natural is dumped on… with more exposition.

The gist is that the title character is on a dying planet. Ravaged by war the people on all sides have been left with next to nothing. There are bounties for criminals, which seems to be the entire planet. There’s an attempt to make this a western in space, but it’s a bit of a stretch outside of the post-civil war bounty hunting outline to the story. The title character Stellar is also the reason the world is super shitty. She’s a super-powered bean that was sent to destroy everything and had a change of heart… but still kind of destroyed everything battling against her former squad. We learn this over and over in the first issue while she attempts to bring in a bounty on a guy that looks way too similar to Star Wars or Men in Black. One of the two, I was too lazy to look it up and ultimately didn’t care. Aliens are hard. Even reading the word “alien” makes you think of a particular alien that resonates in your mind.

I’m not going to talk about the writing much. As I said, it’s attempting a Western redemption story in space, but going about it awkwardly; mostly because it's showing us the present and the past off and on in the first issue which breaks away from whatever development was happening. There’s another Image title releasing around the time of Stellar, and it handles a similar theme in a completely different way. Granted, that’s the fun thing about comics, the way writers and storytellers approach things are always going to be different, but the answer is rarely an exposition dump from beginning to end. The cliffhanger was out of place and did little to entice me either. It was like, didn’t I just read something similar to this a few pages ago?

The artwork is good. It’s very detailed. The backgrounds are full of set pieces and characters. There’s a sense that there isn’t much life left on this planet, which comes through in the art. The only problem is that all of the facial expressions feel stiff and the action is even stiffer. There is no sense of movement during battles, but instead choppy panels placed side by side. It looks good and is colored wonderfully, but the stiffness of the characters paired with the exposition makes for a slow read.

With so much sci-fi out there, it’s hard to set yourself apart. While the idea of western in space isn’t new, there’s always room for it to work again and find a different story route. Unfortunately, this first issue of Stellar doesn’t seem to present much that hasn’t been done before. Now, that’ll depend on how much you read or view things, but there’s enough not working together in this story that it’s likely to turn more than a few people off. If you dig it though, keep on digging it. And if you don’t, well then don’t go for the low hanging fruit and attack the name.

Score: 2/5

Stellar #1
Image Comics