This Comic From Babylon 5 Legend J. Michael Straczynski Rivals Watchmen (But Everyone Forgot About It)

J. Michael Straczynski has become one of the most beloved comic writers of the 21st century. Straczynski started his career writing plays and radio shows before sending in a spec script for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This was the beginning of his career in TV and would lead to the mid ’90s sci-fi classic Babylon 5. Babylon 5 didn’t have the appeal of Star Trek shows, but it was beloved by sci-fi fans, and Straczynski wrote nearly every episode of the show (92 out of 110), having planned the whole thing meticulously. Straczynski had serious geek cred in the ’90s, and had grown up loving comic books, which led him to the comic industry, where he’s been working while still writing TV and movies since 1999.

Straczynski is most well-known for writing The Amazing Spider-Man, but his first major work in the comic industry came at Image Comics. Image puts out some of the greatest comics nowadays, but back then, it was putting out pretty standard superhero comics more known for their art than their writing. Straczynski joined Marc Silvestri’s Top Cow Studios and gave fans a book that has been all but forgotten for a variety of reasons — Rising Stars. Rising Stars is an amazing comic, one that should have been talked about in the same breath as Watchmen. It’s a forgotten classic, a lesser-known classic of the medium that needs to be rediscovered.

Rising Stars Is a Classic Superhero Story in the Best Possible Way

Rising Stars is the story of the Specials, a group of superpowered humans who change the world, as revealed in the first issue, which begins at the end of their story. The Specials became special on a day in Pederson, Illinois, when an object fell from space and exploded over the town. The town’s 113 children gained superpowers and they were taken in by the government, who raised them all together, seeing what powers they had. Some of them, like Flagg (who would later become Patriot because of Howard Shaykin’s American Flagg), Ravenshadow, Matthew Bright, and Pyre became superheroes — Patriot working working for the government, Bright becoming a superpowered cop, Ravenshadow playing Batman, and Pyre becoming something of a superpowered mercenary. There was Chandra, a woman who everyone perceived as the most beautiful they’d ever seen, Sanctuary, a closeted gay man forced to be use his powers by his religious father, and Poet, the most powerful one of them all. When Specials start getting murdered, Poet starts to investigate the deaths, leading him into a conspiracy that involves the most powerful Specials. After every Special dies, their power is absorbed into the rest of them, which makes everyone think it’s someone trying to get more powerful. It all leads to a stand off between the Specials and the government, where even more die and everyone gets more powerful, leading to a ten year time jump. Critical Maas has taken over Chicago, and the world is on edge because of the Specials, which leads into the final arc, where we discover the truth behind the Flash and the purpose of the Specials.

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Rising Stars was amazing right from the beginning. The series ran for 24 issues, each eight issues representing a story arc, each one pushing the story forward. Starczynski was joined by Keu Cha, Ken Lashley, Christian Zanier, and Brent Anderson on art, and gave readers an amazing superhero epic that was different from anything else out there. In 1999, when the series started, Image wasn’t known for books like this; Straczynski’s writing was head and shoulders above nearly every Image book up to that point. Straczynski was known for writing amazing characters, and Rising Stars was able to hook readers immediately on the strength of those characters. Each character had their own arcs throughout the book; they all felt real, and we got some amazing action scenes. The ideas behind it all were sound as well; the way the Specials worked was unique, and Straczynski took some superpowers that we had seen a million times and tweaked them (the story of Peter Dawson will make you look at invulnerability differently). 1999 wasn’t exactly a golden age of comics, but Rising Stars was one of the most acclaimed books of the day. There were spin-off miniseries during the book’s run as well, starring different Specials. Rising Stars‘ popularity petered off because of delays, as Straczynski worked on multiple projects that took up his time and some clashes with Top Cow, but it was a highlight of comics of the ’90s and the ’00s.

Rising Stars Is Straczynski’s Best Work

Rising Stars was special from the jump. It was an exciting book, and it scratched an itch for high concept superhero comics that you didn’t get as much in the late ’90s and early ’00s. It’s a masterful work. Unfortunately, it’s one that isn’t really talked about much anymore and it’s a little hard to find. The book is, sadly, no longer in print, which makes it a little difficult to acquire.

This has robbed generations of readers of Rising Stars. One of the reasons something like Watchmen or Kingdom Come has stayed vital to readers new and old is because they are constantly in print. Rising Stars isn’t, so people can’t experience it like they should be able to. It is a seriously great book, though, and it’s more than worth hunting down. Find it and spread its legend.

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