Starboys is a hypothetical webcomic by APieceofToast.
A teen superhero story set 20 Minutes into the Future, Starboys starts with an boy named Murphy getting adopted by Dr. Amy Allison, a Mad Scientist who promptly turns him into a Ridiculously Human Robot.
Now with a set of formidable robot powers, Murphy wants to use them to protect humanity from various robotic threats. Unfortunately, since most of the country fears and hates robots, Murphy has to keep his nature secret.
This plan is quickly blown out of the water by Murphy’s classmates: Rebecca, an enterprising Teen Genius jealous of Amy’s work, Jacob, who was just kicked off the football team and is seeking vengeance, and Bee, who happened to be his lab partner. All three find out about his robot superhero secret… and subsequently want in.
This page is under construction.
This series provides examples of:
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: A lot of episodes.
- Action Girl: Near-everyone except Amy, and even then she’s got the boys backing her up.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Amy Allison.
- Laina Lowes.
- Aerith and Bob: Names range from perfectly normal (Amy, Rebecca, Jacob) to somewhat odd (Murphy, Bee, Laina) to Flompson. (Though to be fair, that’s actually his last name.)
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A fear common in the setting, and the reason why there are such strict laws regarding robots. Deconstructed when this inevitably happens for real with the fast-foodbots at Kurger Bing, who point out that they wouldn’t have rebelled if people just treated them nicer.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Pepper found Jacob more attractive after he got kicked off the football team and subsequently got grumpier.
- Alpha Bitch: Pepper Shaker, serial man-eater and captain of the cheer squad.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Amy, to an extent. Murphy doesn’t consider her his mother, but she goes to parent-teacher nights and tries to fix his hair in front of everybody.
- Ambiguous Disorder: Has this in spades, due to Dysfunction Junction:
- Murphy is prone to stimming behaviors like bouncing and gesturing, and likes escalating situations for his own amusement.
- Rebecca is a hyperactive young girl with extreme impulse problems and incredible competence with machines.
- Jacob is erratic, quick to anger, and has an extreme phobia of getting in other people’s cars. It later turns out his sister was blown up by a car bomb. His ex-girlfriend, Pepper, even calls him "a sorry sack of PTSD."
- Bee is overly flirtatious, mildly sociopathic, and is nearly oblivious to the feelings of others. Though the first two could maybe be attributed to the cheerleaders’ bad influence.
- Amy has Stepford Smiler tendencies along with typical Mad Scientist fare, and appears to be hiding something about her past. She also has Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises that a flashback shows weren’t there before.
- Ambiguously Bi: Murphy. He swoons over Laina, but is also very close to Jacob. Murphy even calls him Jake, which gets some interesting commentary:
- Less ambiguous later on.
- Badass Family: The Allisons. Even excluding Murphy, Amy and Iris are capable of making killer machines, and their younger brother lives in the desert and murders monsters on a regular basis.
- Bedsheet Ghost: Pepper goes to a Halloween party as a variation of this with fishnet tights.
- Camp Straight: Murphy likes floral shirts and baking. He's also attracted to Laina.
- Subverted when he's bisexual.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Rebecca has shades of this, but it's most evident with Electra.
- Color-Coded Characters: Blue for Murphy, purple for Rebecca, red for Jacob, and green for Bee.
- Played interestingly with Amy and Iris, because they apply their colors to everything they invent. Amy's inventions have pink details with straight lines and square angles. Iris's inventions (and by extension, L&L's) have red details and rounded shapes.
- Notably, if you follow this pattern, you might notice that there are technologies (usually older ones) that don't match, and they're almost always purple.
