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Cody Starbuck
In this one-shot by comics legend Howard Chaykin, an amnesiac castaway, stranded on a frozen backwater planet for ten long years, is finally returned to civilization, but it is a universe far different than the one he left, despite its haunting familiarity. Where the castaway remembers a dying Church finally succumbing to its aggressors, he now finds a galaxy-spanning empire, ruthlessly ruled by a brutal and perverted Emperor-Pope. But the rescued knight is not all he appears, and a chance encounter with a long-forgotten former comrade strips away a decade’s worth of false memories, and the Empire’s single greatest enemy stands revealed!
Paperback
Published January 1, 1978
About the author
Howard Chaykin
1,066 books118 followersHoward Victor Chaykin is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 18, 2026
Howard Chaykin has always had a type, but Cody Starbuck might be the purest, most undiluted expression of it. If Ironwolf was Chaykin testing the waters, Cody is him diving in headfirst — and the result is a swaggering, sweaty, gorgeously illustrated mess of a space pirate epic that I couldn't put down.
What makes Cody work isn't the plotting (which is gleefully secondary to everything else going on) but the attitude. This is a hero who's barely a hero at all — venal, treacherous, mercenary to his bones, the kind of guy who'll help you out of a jam purely because there's a payday in it. Calling him an X-rated Han Solo undersells how far Chaykin is willing to push the "bad" half of that good/bad guy equation. There's none of the boy-scout sentimentality that softens most pulp adventurers. Cody does the right thing maybe twice by accident.
And of course, the whole thing is dripping in that signature Chaykin decadence — baroque, sexually frank, visually dense in a way that still feels distinctive decades on. The art is doing as much storytelling as the script, full of swagger and texture, and Cody himself (looking suspiciously like his creator) struts through every panel like he owns the place, which, frankly, he sort of does.
This isn't subtle work, and it's not trying to be. It's pulp turned up to eleven, unapologetically horny and amoral and fun. If you want your space opera heroes scrubbed clean and likable, look elsewhere. If you want the genre's id let loose with genuine artistic flair behind it, Cody Starbuck delivers completely.
What makes Cody work isn't the plotting (which is gleefully secondary to everything else going on) but the attitude. This is a hero who's barely a hero at all — venal, treacherous, mercenary to his bones, the kind of guy who'll help you out of a jam purely because there's a payday in it. Calling him an X-rated Han Solo undersells how far Chaykin is willing to push the "bad" half of that good/bad guy equation. There's none of the boy-scout sentimentality that softens most pulp adventurers. Cody does the right thing maybe twice by accident.
And of course, the whole thing is dripping in that signature Chaykin decadence — baroque, sexually frank, visually dense in a way that still feels distinctive decades on. The art is doing as much storytelling as the script, full of swagger and texture, and Cody himself (looking suspiciously like his creator) struts through every panel like he owns the place, which, frankly, he sort of does.
This isn't subtle work, and it's not trying to be. It's pulp turned up to eleven, unapologetically horny and amoral and fun. If you want your space opera heroes scrubbed clean and likable, look elsewhere. If you want the genre's id let loose with genuine artistic flair behind it, Cody Starbuck delivers completely.
Displaying 1 of 1 review