Warning: Taarna is a MATURE comic
Cosmic adventures in psychedelic settings are no rarity in the pages of Heavy Metal, and, launching in a few short weeks, they’re bringing back one of their most iconic characters: Taarna, the Last Taarakian. The heavenly heroine from the 1981 animated feature Heavy Metal will breathe life anew in a new comic book series written by Stephanie Phillips (Superman) and illustrated by Patrick Zircher (Savage Avengers). A philosophical meditation on the nature of saviors and divine justice in general, Phillip’s new iteration of the character sees this guardian of the galaxy as a universe incarnate, a being whose consciousness transcends space and time, manifested in the form of a statuesque beauty with a sword riding a pterodactyl, destroying dark gods and saving planets-full of innocents at a time with her strength and willpower alone.
Taarna originally appeared in the final segment of the Heavy Metal film as an avenging angel of justice summoned to destroy the corrupting power of the Loc-Nar, a demonic extra-dimensional force of concentrated evil, as it ravaged and murdered its way across an alien world. A somewhat controversial figure for her choice of wardrobe, which left little to the imagination, the character was nevertheless a stoic adventurer, brave warrior, and dutiful guardian to the last, sacrificing herself to put an end to the evil Loc-Nar, only to be reincarnated as another young girl far across the universe. Speaking to Screen Rant, Phillips said that she was heavily influenced by the film, and wanted to “lean into the cosmic side of things” in exploring the character while also keeping the more familiar elements of the “bad-ass chick with a sword” present.
This new miniseries will be the second take on the character following an unrelated series published in 2019. That series, written by Alex De Campi and illustrated by Isaac and Esau Escorza, was more of a sci-fi military thriller, while this newest entry feels more like a return to the more fundamental aspects of the heroine. In this new wild adventure, Taarna, now revealed as a god-like protector, will do battle with Kako, the embodiment of chaos across multiple planes of existence in an effort to save the universe.
Under the pen of Phillips, this new series depicts the wondrous warrior as being a cosmic being of supreme consciousness, both sublimely empathetic, keyed into all the people in the universe crying out for her help, as well as impenetrably stoic, a selfless warrior through-and-through. Taking the form of a beautiful guardian of light and order, Phillips weaves her inner conflict as a goddess who, despite her superhuman abilities and divine consciousness that allow her to be a savior to those under attack by the forces of chaos, she is so far removed from those whom she seeks to help that she is essentially deaf to their pleas and everyday struggles. What ensues right off the bat in the first issue, is an unexpectedly tempestuous portrait of a woman who, despite exhibiting godlike powers in restoring the sun of a world on the brink of death, simply has no ability to communicate meaningfully with the innocent people whose existence she has saved.
Phillips explained this dreamlike aspect of the character through the inspiration of another great Heavy Metal creator, Jean Giraud, Moebius. “She can have multitudes. She can be all of these things at once,” she said, adding:
...There are times where I think, especially channeling Moebius like [in] some of his work on something like Silver Surfer, where you kind of have to consider ‘how does a cosmic being interact with a universe that thinks 30 million different things about her?’ I think Moebius clearly played with this idea quite a bit in his work, and I think that’s a really cool it approach, which is one of the reasons I wanted to open with a planet seeing her come to the surface and they’re like ‘finally, god is here! We were right all along, there’s divine beings, there’s divine intervention.’
“But it’s not quite what they want,” she said, noting her immediate departure from this beleaguered world she has brought back from the brink. “It’s not because she doesn’t have empathy, but she’s not that. She’s not this god that you pray to every day. She's going to save the universe or destroy it, but she’s something different,” she said. “She isn’t what we think of her all the time.”
The character of Taarna is a complex one, said Phillips, a woman of unimaginable power who exists to subdue the forces of evil and chaos. One aspect of the character Phillips wanted to emphasize was that, despite her life of battle and conflict with monsters and malevolent deities, she is a character for whom killing and bloodshed is not easy, as due to her cosmic consciousness, she can feel every single ounce of pain she inflicts. An immense burden for her, Phillips described one of the main conflicts of the series will see her gradually lower the self-constructed emotional barrier she has placed to protect herself from that pain. Of her approach, she said:
Whenever I get handed a character that seems to have unlimited power, my instinct seems to be how can they fail? What can we do to test that? What can we do to see something that makes them more relatable?’ because I don’t think it’s this immunity or extreme strength that makes the character interesting.
“Life is not easy for her,” said Phillips. “She’s literally carrying the weight of an entire universe.” Phillips added that despite the somewhat risqué wardrobe Taarna is known for, she imagined her as a feminist icon of stoic sensibility and fortitude, rebuffing criticism of the character’s famously revealing attire as reminiscent of the Toronto Police Officer Michael Sanguinetti, who, in 2011 when asked on how to prevent sexual assaults, advised women to “avoid dressing like sluts.” This, she noted, gave rise to the “SlutWalk” a transnational movement known for their rallies in which young women dress in revealing clothing to protest victim-blaming.
It basically negated this really negative terminology that was given to victims, which I think is definitely more impactful than Taarna, but it’s something I really wanted to think about in terms of ‘ok, so basically a lot of the things I read online were people like ‘how can this character be feminist or how can she be agentive if she’s wearing very little clothing’? And I feel like ‘that’s not fair’. There’s a wide span of people that are feminist or have agency and it doesn’t matter what they’re wearing. So we’re still really having a negative conversation if we’re saying she can’t have agency naked.
High-minded concepts and visceral-bloody action are on the horizon. Far-flung fantasy has a new home, and it is once again Heavy Metal. Taarna #1, written by Stephanie Phillips, illustrated by Patrick Zircher with colors by Jessica Kholine goes on sale December 16, wherever comic books are sold. Check out this exclusive preview art.
