Valor #5

Valor #5 (March 1993)
title: "Go Directly To Jail"
writer: Robert Loren Fleming
artists: Jeffrey Moore & Trevor Scott
inker: Brad Vancata  (pp 17-22)
letterer: Bob Pinaha
colorist: Eric Kachelhofer
associate editor: Eddie Berganza
editor: KC Carlson
cover: Jeffrey Moore (?)

reviewers: Russell "Bilingual Boy" Burbage and Jason "Anachronistic Kid" Knol

Guest-Star(s):
The Blasters

Opponent(s):
Kanjar Ru, Vril Dox

Summary:
Valor is shanghaied by Vril Dox's pre-programmed warp drive system, which sends him to the Starlag II in its red sun solar system. Depowered and confused, Valor is thrown in jail with the only change of freedom being a group of inter-stellar roustabouts called the Blasters.

Valor's ship warps by itself, per the system pre-arranged by Vril Dox. He suddenly arrives at the prison colony Starlag II, which is in a red-sun system. Per Vril Dox's plan, Lar's powers are gone and the ship shuts down. Babbage also shuts down, just as he suggest that Valor sends out a distress signal.

The penal colony tractor beams him in, and he is reactive and feeling sorry for himself as he gets tangled up in his cape as he drops into transport tube. Valor manages to fight through by the initial guard robots, but is soon caught.

In his cell he is held by living gelatin as the warden, Kanjar Ru, explains that Dox has paid her to lock him up. She tosses him back into his cell, and Valor finds that it is already occupied by a former Green Lantern. He tells Valor about the Unimaginable, who is also imprisoned on Starlag II.

Elsewhere, the Blasters are discussing whether or not to disband when they receive Lar's distress call. Unbeknownst to Valor, the distress call is more for rescuing the space ship than for rescuing Valor. Babbage's message makes it clear that there is a reward for the return of the space ship, so the Blasters head off to Starlag II.

Back at Starlag II, Babbage gets back on-line and finds a blueprint of the facility. It finds "the Unimaginable" in the center of the complex. As one of his main directives is to find and study unknown life forms, he heads toward the Unimaginable which is again making noise that is keeping Lar and the former Green Lantern awake.

Russell's comments: 

I feel like I'm playing a broken record, but, my goodness, this series is not good!

Here we have our protagonist flying into a trap, a victim of his former team-mate whose motivation for setting Valor up are never made clear. 

Then we have our protagonist basically give himself up as a victim of his circumstances. Can you imagine if this story was about Batman or Superman? Neither of them would EVER be shown as pathetically as Valor is presented here. 

This also parenthetically includes a Green Lantern, who.....has been imprisoned for several years?! That doesn't even make any sense! I'm pretty sure the Guardians look after their people, and if this guy suddenly went missing he and/or his ring would have been tracked down. This is, for the fifth issue in a row, bad editing. Also, per the page reprinted above, bad writing! 

So while we have our lead being treated as if he were a supporting character, we get five pages of some group called the Blasters. You can joke about how obvious some old Silver and Bronze Age stories are, but you can't argue with the fact that every time a new character or group was introduced into a story, you would learn who they were! Here we get the Blasters shoe-horned into this story without ANY introduction of who they are or what they are supposed to be. I take it "Snapper" is our old JLA buddy, Snapper Carr? And thanks to one editors' note, "See recent Invasion mini-series" I know they have something to do with that. As a new reader, I am totally confused. And worse, I don't care.

As for the art.....ugh. Jeffrey Moore seems to know what he's doing, as his layouts seem clear and some of his figures are drawn well. However, whether it's his pencils or the feathery inking he has to endure, the overall look and feel of the book is not good. Check out this page, for instance: 

I'm sure this was supposed to be some KAPOW scene where we are supposed to understand the scale of the size of Starlag II. I ask you, do you get that from this? Their is no depth to any of the prison cells, there's no clarity as to what those things in the foreground are supposed to be, and the walking figure of Kanjar Ru is just clunky and unnatural. Unfortunately, most of issue looks like this. 

We can hope for an improvement next issue, but when the title is called, "Blasters to the Rescue!" I'm not feeling a lot of optimism. 

J's comments:

Let me lead with the few positives from this issue. For one, splash pages were actually used for proper effect. The size and scope of Starlag II are portrayed with great effect, as they should be. The other really fantastic idea that I loved in this issue was a living gelatinous creature that acts as a doorway for a jail cell. I momentarily marveled at the beautiful Silver Age imagination of such an idea, but that enthusiasm was immediately deflated when they revealed the creature's name as "D'jeladin™". It was such a lame joke, and then they doubled down by putting the trademark symbol on it?? Gross.

I feel like I have more of an understanding of who the Blasters are after five pages of story than I do of Valor, our titular character, after five issues of story. Floating in space, a good-hearted Benedict Arnold as one of their own. They've got a snotty kid who likes to beat up bad guys and a real live German, complete vith accent.

And now we have Kanjar Ru, who is almost a villain I know, which will keep me mildly interested in the story. As Russell pointed out, the seemingly discarded Green Lantern really makes no sense because that's not what the Green Lantern Corps would allow to happen to one of their own. Alas, this is what the book is, so we'll just go along with it. I'm already struck by the irony of knowing that we'll see The Unimaginable in a future issue, but let's just save that for next time...

Status: 

This series has never been reprinted.