Broken Frontier

Forget everything you know about Starship Troopers. Forget Paul Verhoeven’s media savvy propaganda piece. Forget Casper Van Dien, forget Denise Richards and (if possible) forget Dina Meyer. Markosia’s Starship Troopers is 100 percent old school and 100 percent Heinlein.

The last webcomic listed in Markosia’s section is Starship Troopers: Blaze of Glory by Tony Lee, Sam Hart, Rod Reis and Keiran Oates. The work feels more like a print comic posted on the Internet, but regardless of its origins, it’s doubtlessly effective. The story ties into both Markosia’s ongoing Starship Troopers line and Robert A. Heinlein’s seminal science fiction book.

There’s an objectivity to all of Markosia’s Starship Troopers which remains certainly in effect in Blaze of Glory. Verhoeven’s cult classic ended up lampooning Heinlein’s proposed meritocracy with sinister underlying themes of media control and fascism. Blaze of Glory and the rest of Markosia’s books depict Heinlein’s mobile infantry with more affinity to the books than the movies (though the design for the man-eating Bugs remains recognizably the same.) From grueling one-on-one combat training to the high-tech mobile suits the troopers fight in, much of Heinlein’s original vision is maintained in Blaze of Glory as well as elsewhere in Markosia’s Starship Troopers line.

On the other end, neither the writer Tony Lee nor Markosia give Heinlein a free ride. There are several inherent flaws to the meritocratic society Heinlein envisions, chiefly if citizenry is reserved for those who serve, what happens to those who do not (or cannot) serve? Though this question is largely dealt with in other books in the Markosia line outside of Blaze of Glory, it’s good to see Robert Heinlein’s material handled thoughtfully instead bombastically.

The only problem, of course, is this isn’t really a continuing webcomic – and it’s probably the only webcomic Markosia really needs. The other webcomics posted on the site have yet to really define Markosia – but Starship Troopers does. Obviously, Blaze of Glory is professional comic book art at its finest – the kind which would be hard to reproduce on a daily or even weekly basis. Some alteration would have been made to the daily art output in order for the webcomic to thrive. But given the amount of ground Markosia is covering with Starship Troopers, there should be plenty of room left in the universe for a weekly or bi-weekly webcomic at the very least.

Overall, Markosia’s webcomic line has a way to go before it reaches the acclaim of Zuda and other major brand webcomics, but the British publisher has done well for itself even with the small smattering of webcomics it’s posted so far. Markosia has the right idea – if it just sticks to a steady updating schedule and posts so more Starship Troopers action, it could make a huge splash in the webcomic-verse.