davidcmatthews

Starburst - peril in space

Added 2021-09-15 23:20:25 +0000 UTC

Starburst is one of the most powerful beings in the Universe - so it's hard to imagine the sheer power of the mysterious being or beings who could subdue her and restrain her to this asteroid!

Her struggles to break her shackles have been fruitless so far, since her shackles can sense the strength she's exerting against them, and feed enough energy to overcome her efforts. Rocket engines fire at random moments to randomize the trajectory of the asteroid so that its movements can't be tracked. And if a spacecraft comes close enough to attempt a rescue - although if Starburst can't free herself, what chance would anyone else have? - a teleportation device instantly transports her to a different location (once again, at random... she could wind up a few meters away, or a hundred parsecs distant).

And in fact, that's what happened: a peace patrol ship discovered her, tried to approach to attempt a retrieval - only to watch helplessly as the asteroid winked out of existence. And by the merest stroke of extremely bad luck, she rematerialized on the edge of the gravity well of a black hole! Starburst now has mere seconds to free herself before she's sucked in...

I was inspired to draw this by this cover for the January 1958 issue of Imaginative Tales. The idea of someone chained to an asteroid floating through space intrigued me, so I imagined Starburst in that plight. I figured, though, that mere chains couldn't hold her, so I cobbled together the machinery built into the asteroid to keep her prisoner. And then, just to make things more "interesting", I placed it on the edge of a black hole that's sucking everything else in its vicinity into itself.