Best of the Past Part III

Dreadstar

Dreadstar was the first comic series published by Epic Comics, in 1982. It was centered on Vanth Dreadstar, sole survivor of the entire Milky Way galaxy, and an ensemble cast of crewmates, including cyborg sorcerer Syzygy Darklock, and their struggle to end an ancient war between two powerful, evil empires: The Church of The Instrumentality run by the Lord Papal and the Monarchy, administered by a puppet king.

The comic, created by Jim Starlin, was bimonthly during most of its run, lasting 26 episodes under Epic, was then published by First Comics, who carried it for 38 more issues, for a total of 64 issues. More recently a mini-series was done by Malibu/Bravura. Dreadstar has also been the subject of several graphic novels and reprints.

The series centered on the exploits of Vanth Dreadstar and his crew--powerful mystic Syzygy Darklock, the cybernetic telepath Willow, cat-like humanoid Oedi, and freebooter Skeevo. Vanth, newly arrived in the Empirical Galaxy after the events of Metamorphosis Odyssey, tries to live a pastoral existence on Oedi's planet of peaceful cat-people, but his peace is disturbed by the arrival of Darklock, who wants him to get involved in the conflict between the two major forces in the galaxy, the Monarchy and the theocratical Instrumentality. Vanth refuses until the war comes to his planet, wiping out most of the population. Oedi survives and joins them; Willow and Skeevo join later, though the team is in place for the first issue.

Dreadstar takes the side of the Monarchy against the evil Lord High Papal of the Instrumentality, but his team end up becoming fugitives when the Monarchy falls, and go to great lengths to try to uncover a traitor in their midst. The transition to First Comics happened just when the traitor was about to be revealed, and the first issue (#27) contained this revelation.


http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/09/22/comics-you-should-own-dreadstar-1-40/

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/10/22/comics-you-should-own-dreadstar-41-64/