In the early 1980s, after having spent a couple of years working outside of the field in animation, Jack Kirby was making a bit of a comeback. Pacific Comics, one of the new independent publishers that had begun releasing titles into the emerging Direct sales market of comic book specialty stories had agreed to publish Kirby’s work while allowing him to keep the rights to it–something that no prior publisher had done. This relationship was a two-way street, good for Kirby but also good for establishing the bona-fides of Pacific comics as a legitimate publisher. Kirby’s first series, CAPTAIN VICTORY AND THE GALACTIC RANGERS had been running for a bit when a second Kirby title suddenly appeared: SILVER STAR.
SILVER STAR had started out as a treatment for a proposed feature film put together in the mid-1970s by Kirby and his assistant of the time, Steve Sherman. It was a bit of a wrinkle on the concept behind X-Men, that of a new breed of human being born into the world with superhuman powers as a result of an altered genome. In SILVER STAR, Kirby gave such beings the label Homo Geneticus, which resonated with his labeling of the X-Men as Homo Superior. But if you were going to riff on something in the 1980s, X-MEN was a fairly safe target. SILVER STAR lasted for six issues and adapted in modified form the screenplay treatment that Kirby and Sherman had worked up.
SILVER STAR was also something of a family affair for Jack. Tracy Coleman, the young friend of series star Morgan Miller, is based on Jack’s own granddaughter Tracy, and the song she sings telepathically to Morgan across the opening pages of the story was written by Jack’s daughter Susan, who had a career as a professional musician. By this point in his own career, though, Jack’s eyesight was beginning to weaken. Somewhere around this time, he suffered a stroke that was covered up by the family who feared Jack losing his job and its health benefits. The after-effects of the stroke affected Jack’s depth perception, causing his drawings to begin to distort in odd ways. The impact isn’t too great in this first issue, but it grows steadily more pronounced across the run. Mike Royer’s inking similarly feels a bit heavy and clunky for reasons that I can’t explain.
As mentioned earlier, the story introduces us to Morgan Miller, a soldier who has been stationed in Vietnam during the conflict. Under fire, Miller’s powers are triggered, granting him the strength and durability to demolish the enemy forces, including picking up and tank and hurling it into a gun emplacement. In order to contain the power that Miller is radiating, the Army surgeons wrap him in a suit of metallic silver, which is meant to help control his internal reactions like the control rods in a nuclear reactor. But Miller’s body isn’t confined to his physical form any longer, and while the doctors work on him, his essence is frolicking across the mental planes with that of his young friend Tracy.
In the aftermath of Miller’s actions, the government has sent agent Floyd Custer to get to the bottom of what is going on. Custer interfaces with Miller’s doctor, colonel Walter Hammer, and learns that Miller is the son of “Cowboy” Bradford Miller, a scientist who had cutting edge theories on the eventual evolution of humanity. In an attempt to prove his theories, the elder Miller performed a series of pre-natal injections on a number of pregnant women, including his won wife. Morgan was the result, a being possessed of the ability to manipulate molecular structures for a variety of effects. Custer is awed and terrified by the potential of what Hammer tells him of Morgan’s potential.
But Morgan isn’t the only example of Homo Geneticus active in the world, and his display of power has drawn another one to him. This is Darius Drumm, a sinister figure bent on destruction. After Morgan sends Tracy back to her body, Drumm decides to test Miller, sending a colossal metallic figure against him in the mindscape. As Morgan increases his own size to take on the enemy on an even level, back in the hospital his physical self also expands, shocking the medical staff. Drumm, Kirby’s narration tells us, is determined to become “King of the Hill”, and so that means putting down any others like him that might stand in his way. Morgan, though, is a fighter, and he’s able to triumph over Drumm’s metallic apparition.
Drumm chooses to make his escape at this point, turning his attention to other, weaker prey, and so Miller returns to his physical form, startling his physicians by suddenly sitting up. Hammer nicknames Miller Silver Star given his silvery outfit and the fact that the soldier had earned that medal for his bravery in combat. And as this issue wraps up. Custer begins to grow concerned about any other Homo Geneticus who may be out there, and the threat they pose to regular people. And that’s where the issue wraps up. There was also an installment of Mike Thibodeaux’s Last of the Viking Heroes filling out the back pages of the book. On the surface, this appeared as though it was going to be a more regulation-issue super hero saga than CAPTAIN VICTORY had turned out to be, but between the oddities in the artwork and the manner in which Kirby’s dialogue was growing even more baroque and abstract, it didn’t hook me in all that much. I preferred CAPTAIN VICTORY–though I was still enough of a Kirby fan to read SILVER STAR all the way to the end of the run.
