DC Universe Presents #18: Starfire

The use of "UNLEASHED!" for the cover copy usually annoys me since nobody is actually ever leashed. But Starfire most definitely was throughout her youth. So I'll give it a pass this month. But no more characters UNLEASHED! from here on out.

Starfire's story begins with her killing a bunch of alien gorilla men. Some pen on paper journal entry narrator claims she came in promising liberation but bringing devastation. Well what do you want, slave? A whip across your back but relative peace or freedom and war? Make your cho--oh wait. Starfire just made the choice for you.

If I ever again find myself in a position where I know I'm going to die and somebody asks me this question, that's the answer I'm giving next time! "To give you hours of oral pleasure" may save your life until help arrives but it's not a story I'm particularly ready to tell my grandchildren! Although if my captor looks like Starfire next time, I think I'll definitely go with my original answer.

The Gorilla Aliens Kori kills are guards on a gigantic space ship filled to bursting with slaves from all over. The interior is not just composed of prison cells though. The guards she just killed kept watch over a small village of slaves with huge red beauty marks on their foreheads. I think it was a slave ship like this one that crashed in Roswell in 1947 causing Lobo to be imprisoned on Earth for many, many years. Kori was a slave to these aliens as a child but she escaped. This time it seems she allowed herself to be captured so that she could ruin the slavers day.

"Grow a backbone, you coward! Unless your race doesn't have backbones! I didn't mean any offense! Unless you take offense at me thinking you're a coward. Then I meant offense!"

So this guy confronts Starfire thinking she'll leave. But she doesn't. Instead, she cuts off both of his hands and tells him to shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. I'm pretty sure he's going to betray his own people simply to get back at Starfire for humiliating him. Oh, and maiming him.

What I meant to say was that the reader will suspect that he'll betray Starfire but it will really be Starfire's little pal! So totally obvious. You really thought I thought that other thing for real? Ha! No way!

The village kicks Kori out now that she has a scout ship and can leave the vessel. They'd rather be alive and slaves than dead and dead. I guess the saying would typically go something like "free and dead" but if you're dead who the fuck cares about anything else? Slave and dead, or free and dead. It's all fucking the same thing! So Kori gets away and then the person that wanted to purchase her as a slave is revealed!

It's Fin Fang Foom! From the Speedy Issue!

DC Universe Presents #18: Starfire Rating: No change. What the fuck is wrong with you, Fin Fang Foom?! You know what it's like to be a slave and now you're dealing with slavers? Asshole. The timing on this thing is weird but I guess I can sort of make it work. Maybe. While Speedy was freeing Fin Fang Foom, Jason Todd and Kori were putting Nuts and Bolt in jail. But immediately after that, I guess Kori was captured by the slavers. Then she spent about an hour putting the lives of the red spotted people in danger before she was kicked out and escaped. It couldn't have been too long since Fin Fang Foom wanted her captured and he could have only given the order while free of his hypno-neck leash. And since Fin Fang Foom's previous master still has a black eye from his fight with Speedy and Fin Fang Foom, I think all of this Kori stuff happened in the space of a day or two. That works!

This comic book wasn't bad which is why I didn't lower the ranking. But it's the kind of comic book you forget about immediately after bagging it and putting it away. Just not much going on in it. Unless you like stories that teach Kori that not everybody wants what she has to give. Then you might cherish this as the best story ever told!