STARHENGE BOOK ONE: THE DRAGON AND THE BOAR #4: Time Time Time…See What’s Become of Me

How do you make a near flawless comic even better? It’s an almost impossible question to answer, except if you are Liam Sharp apparently. So let’s talk about exactly how he does this…

Sharp pulls no punches as we plunge straight into the action with Amber Weaver and Darryl facing a horrifying killer AI robot from the future. Right there on the first page, Sharp drops the first story bombshell (I didn’t even consider Darryl could be anything other than just a guy who liked Amber for a second) and as if that isn’t enough Sharp then drops an art bombshell hitting you with a one-two combo in the first two pages! In the most wonderfully meta way, all of a sudden, it’s an old school comic slugfest in Sharp’s glorious black and white line art colored in the most retro colors like it’s a DEATHS HEAD comic from back in the day right down to a title page with credits and the aged border white space!  Let’s be honest the MOR-DREADNAUGHT is a dead ringer for Death’s Head himself which makes the whole sequence even more meta! I think it’s worth mentioning Death’s Head is 30 years old this year and this feels like an excellent meta tribute from Sharp, who is known for the work he did drawing the character, on top of everything else in the issue. Sharp then incorporates more folklore by having the ur-queen appear to Amber as a wood Dryad and then bam Sharp bridges the present and the past with a mixed media page that brings his Black and White Line art and his painted style together and throws us into the past.

The rest of the issue is in that painted style as Sharp does an incredible job of taking standard Arthurian legend, mixing it with his story elements and spinning out a yarn about the story of Uther and Igraine (Igerna) and the conception of Arthur Pendragon that is both familiar but also new as he adds his own sci-fi elements to it. It’s a clever, original take on the whole legend that ultimately takes us to the birth of Arthur. Things aren’t all plain sailing and we learn the horrible fate of Uther and that our time spanning Merlin didn’t always get things perfect. Sharp then drops us back with Amber Weaver and Darryl aka the Shape Carked Kushim Sal and well its fair to say that they are NOT in Kansas anymore and by that, I mean Amber’s “magic” to trap the mor-dreadnaught in a bubble of time has unlocked her ability to time travel and her and Darryl find themselves somewhere or rather someWHEN else that definitely isn’t 2022…

Through Amber, Sharp keeps the story contemporary and always accessible even as it spans thousands of years, science magic, time travel, killer AIs, and a Dragon in the sky over Stonehenge. The more technical elements of Sharps’ story are always tempered by the deeply human, emotive, and relatable nature of Amber’s voice narration. It’s marvelous to see that sharp has the writing muscles to match his art ones and the result is nothing less than superb.