Forty years ago, Air Force test pilot Duke McQueen saved the universe. Then he came home from a splendorous alien world, married his best girl, settled down, had two sons, and grew old. His stories of his journey across galaxies became the subject of whispered ridicule. But in STARLIGHT, the Image Comics graphic novel by superstar comics writer Mark Millar (JUPITER’S LEGACY, Kick-Ass) and artist Goran Parlov, Duke — alone after his sons leave home and his wife dies — gets a message from space: the Universe needs a hero again.
A sweeping science fiction epic, STARLIGHT features Millar’s most heartfelt storytelling to date, while Parlov depicts with equal skill a dazzling alien planet and and old man’s loneliness with his gorgeous, Moebius-esque art. Duke is returning to Tantalus a legendary hero, but is he still the man he was forty years ago?
“The whole character just seemed to pour out the moment I started writing him,” said Millar of Duke in an interview on Image Comics’ website, “and I found myself really caring about him. His life is like any of our father’s or grandfather’s, except for this one amazing thing that happened forty years ago, and so as the first issue closes and he gets a chance to go back we’re really with him on that journey.”
A must-read for anyone who wants their sci-fi to have a sense of wonder, STARLIGHT will be in comic book stores on February 11. It is available for pre-order now. It is currently in development at Fox as a feature film.
Starlight
Image Comics
Written by: Mark Millar
Art by: Goran Parlov, Duke
Release date: 2/11/2015