Review by Frank Plowright
Planet Terry is the star turn from Marvel’s brief 1980s attempt to enter the young reader market, Star Comics. The science-fiction adventure is anchored by a strong premise, populated with a strong supporting cast, characterised by constantly strong scripts and drawn by the exceptional Warren Kremer, an artist with decades of experience.
It’s possible that Kremer is undervalued despite either co-creating or drawing the likes of Richie Rich and Caspar the Friendly Ghost for years. He’s an impeccable storyteller and able to give his characters an emotional depth often absent in cartooning, and essential to Terry’s plight of searching for his lost parents. Kremer’s also great at designing goofy and not too threatening aliens and their technology, and the effort put into the bar scene on the sample art characterises his admirable approach.
Unusually for comics of the era aimed at younger children, there’s a continuity applied to Terry’s quest, with a hint or recommendation closing one funny adventuire leading into the next. Lenny Herman writes the first half of the collection starting with Terry picking up allies in adaptable robot helper Roberta and the more physical Omnus. Herman’s the best pure gag writer, his jokes having an unpredictable quality still likely to wrong-foot adults all these years later. In the opening story aliens worry about the arrival of the most feared creature on their planet, but he’s not a monster, just a teller of groan-inducing jokes.
Herman’s followed by Stan Kay with a noir detective pastiche introducing Sam Space, while the remainder is written by Dave Manak, also providing engaging plots. There is a slight weakness with the repetition of Terry believing he’s found his parents only to learn that’s not the case, but that wouldn’t have been so obvious to children following the series month by month back in the 1980s. These remain fun, well crafted adventures, and the suspicion is they’re produced to a standard strong enough to engage youngsters all these years later.
