Starslayer: The Log of the Jolly Roger was an American comic book series created by Mike Grell. It was published first as a six issue limited series by Pacific Comics, and then as an ongoing series by First Comics; running for 34 issues in total. In 1995, Grell released an expanded version of the original limited series through Acclaim Comics. The expanded version, titled Starslayer: The Director's Cut, ran for eight issues.
The first six issue limited series introduces the main character Torin Mac Quillon, a Celtic warrior from the time of the Roman Empire. Just before he is killed while fighting a group of Roman soldiers, he is pulled into the distant future by Tamara, a descendant of his wife after she remarried. Torin is asked to join the crew of the spaceship Jolly Roger in their fight against the oppressive regime that is ruling the Earth. Torin agrees, and he and his new shipmates successfully save the Earth's dying sun by the end of the first series.
When First Comics restarted the series, Torin and his crewmates travel throughout the galaxy and end up in Cynosure, the nexus of all realities for First Comics, and gain a crew of pirates. At some point Torin travels back to the solar system with a device that can cause a star to implode into a black hole. He uses this weapon on the sun in the course of battle to destroy his enemies. Just at the point of implosion Torin speaks the name of the Celtic goddess of death, Morrigan, effectively sacrificing the star to her, which brings her back into existence. She proclaims Torin to be her avatar and orders him to go into the galaxy and kill in her name. Torin rebels, which is the basis of the remainder of the title's run.
Groo the Wanderer started as a back-up feature in Starslayer.
Starslayer contains examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Artificial Intelligences ran the gamut, from complete benign, all the way to the evil Kalibos.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Regularly occurring, especially in Cynosure, most exemplified by Aristo.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The device for imploding a sun into a black hole.
- Eyepatch of Power: Torin. Made even more so in that it included a link to the Robot Buddy, SAM.
- The Leader: GrimJack describes Torin as a classic Type IV.
- Robot Buddy: SAM, a small golden monkey who acted as Torin's companion, and functioned to help him adjust and function in the future he arrived in. Torin's eventual development where he didn't need to be constantly linked with SAM was a bit of an issue for the little droid.
- Space Pirates
- Spinoff: Grimjack started as a backup feature, and eventual crossover before getting its own book. Several characters migrated there after Starslayer ended its run.
- Star Killing: Torin uses the Starslayer Missile to collapse Sol into a black hole.
- Stripperiffic: in the original Grell issues, Tamara was usually running around in an outfit best described as 3 large black diamonds linked by string (see the page image). During the Ostrander/Truman era, she started wearing mildly more modest space pirate garb.
- Time Travel Escape: How Torin ends up in the future.
- Title Drop: The weapon used to collapse Sol into a black hole was a 'Starslayer Missile'. At the end of the arc, refugees from the Sol system have dubbed Torin himself as 'The Starslayer', though he was never directly addressed as that in the comic.
- Translator Microbes: The headband/eyepatch Torin wore also functioned as a mental link to SAM, who acted as a realtime translator for Torin, who arrived only understanding old Celtic.
- Tuckerization: After Ostrander took over the series, a number of the newer characters (for example, Chris Heyman) were named for people he knew. This would be more prevalent in the Grimjack spinoff.
- Weapon Title: The weapon Torin used to collapse Sol into a black hole was a 'Starslayer Missile'. Refugees from this cataclysm later started referring to Torin himself as 'Starslayer'.
