This article is about the comic series. For other meanings, see Space Ace.
Space Ace is a comic book series adapting the video game franchise of the same name, also including elements from the corresponding TV series. Written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Paulo Borges, the issues were colored digitally and credited to Pat Duke and Grafik Sismik. Much like Dragon's Lair's own comics adaptation, it was begun by CrossGen Entertainment in 2003 but left unfinished after three issues, then continued years later by Arcana Studio in 2009. Arcana began by reprinting the original issues with some altered coloring before picking up where the series had left off, this time following the same numbering. Arcana released a digital collection of the series on Amazon Kindle in 2010.[1]
Plot[]
Chapter 1[]
Following the events chronicled in the Space Ace arcade game, Ace receives a medical evaluation by an alien doctor regarding his continuing transformations. It was a result of being hit by the Infanto Ray back in the Quad Sector outpost in his previous adventure, where they managed to turn Commander Borf into a baby. With the doctor unable to remedy Ace’s problem (and Ace becoming Dexter again), Kimberly requests the doctor evaluate the health of Baby Borf, whom she and Ace intend to adopt.
The checkup is interrupted by three space pirates who are looking for Ace; Dexter pretends that he left, when he regains his true form. After a lightfight, he manages to thwart the pirates by blocking their superweapon. When Ace and Kimberly take Baby Borf back to their Intergalactic Alliance base on Earth, a menacing figure hits the doctor and demands Ace's whereabouts.
Meanwhile Ace is promptly relieved from duty by his commanding officer as a safety precaution. Ace attempts to object right when he turns back to Dexter. As he walks away frustrated, the officer commends a visibly saddened Kimberly for briefing him as to her partner’s compromised condition.
Ace practices in a combat training with battle robots, and Kimberly interrupts him, to tell her theory that a concentrated dose of hormones may stabilize Ace’s random transformations. But the experiment results in rapidly aging Ace, giving him a long grey beard. Suddenly, Commander Gorf (the twin brother of Borf) blasts into the facility demanding the return of his brother.
Chapter 2[]
Gorf shoots his blaster at Ace, causing him to drop his blaster while dodging. Still protectively holding Baby Borf, Kimberly returns fire in order to save the aged Ace. As Ace begins to best Gorf in physical combat, he suddenly transforms back into Dexter, allowing Gorf to seize him. Gorf tosses Dexter into Kimberly, providing the villain time to pick up his blaster and shoot Dexter with deadly intent, who unexpectedly ages into an elderly version of himself on account of residual effects of the Infanto Ray. The heroes escape on a ship with Baby Borf, but their ship is damaged by Gorf’s blasters due to a restored Ace wrestling the controls away from Kimberly, forcing an emergency landing on the Junk Planet. Kimberly is knocked unconscious by the crash, and Ace carries her and Baby Borf into a hiding place as Gorf lands and pursues them.
Elsewhere, a old man on the planet of Zandoria introduces his son to a newly completed weapon, the Synchonously Dividing Matter Divider, which he promises will bring a swift end to the planet’s civil war.
Gorf manages to restore Borf to his proper age, who quickly regains his memories and evil machinations. The brothers capture Ace and Kimberly, chain the unconscious pair up to a large piece of scrap, and activate a conveyor belt to slowly incinerate them. Borf desires to witness their demise, but Gorf implores him to hurry away in order to further their larger mission.
Chapter 3[]
Ace transforms into Dexter, allowing him to slide out of the chains, but lacks the physical strength to free Kimberly. He attempts to jam the gears temporarily, then tries to turn off the belt. As the scrap begins to topple off the conveyor belt, Ace transforms into his strongest form and manages to pull the lever, right when Kimberly is ready to fall. Then he uses a chain as a lifeline to pull Kimberly back up.
Meanwhile in space, Gorf informs a disgruntled Borf of his plan to rule the universe by stealing the Geovite-developed Matter Divider by manipulating the warring factions of Zandoria of the Trogdor Sector.
On the Junk Planet, Ace comforts Kimberly, still sorrowful over the loss of Baby Borf. The pair is ambushed by a group of raiders who threaten to sell them into slavery on Marzipan One. The duo manage to defeat the raiders with only marginal injury, despite Ace suddenly aging rapidly and falling on top of a diminutive raider. Kimberly demands the raider’s space ship as compensating for sparring his life.
Gorf and Borf dock their ship at the an outpost station to refuel and acquire supplies, but they incite a massive brawl against a crew of space pirates who had also received information regarding the Zandorian weapon. He is soon overwhelmed by a crowd of thugs when Borf joins him.
Using the raider’s ship, Kimberly tracks the thruster residue from Gorf’s ship as Ace de-ages into Dexter. They end up to the space station, now in ruins.
Having survived their incident at the outpost station, Gorf and Borf have wrecked the place in order to eliminate everyone who knew about the superweapon. They prepare to enter Zandoria’s atmosphere.
Chapter 4[]
Arriving at the now devastated outpost station, Dexter and Kimberly attempt to aid a survivor (now aged) buried in debris who informs them about the blue guys. Two thugs, of those who fought Gorf, overhear them and emerge to eliminate the heroes, not wanting further competition for the Zandorian weapon. Dexter again ages into a seemingly helpless elderly form, and one of the pirates holds his blaster on Kimberly until a foggy Dexter manages to knock him out with a metal pipe.
On Zandoria, Gorf and Borf rendezvous with Zord, who was waiting for his Commander, and had made all preparations.
Kimberly ties up a pirate and interrogates him as to his knowledge of the Zandorian weapon. The pirate explains the the weapon’s schematic was the latest manifestation of The Entity, a legendary “God-Thing from one of the forgotten worlds of long ago” which plants an evil idea into a mortal mind once every 500 years that will result in chaos for mortals and the Entity’s amusement. Although the chosen Zandorian scientist built the Matter Divider in order to end his planet’s civil war, he failed to comprehend the weapon’s near infinite potential. Ace and Kimberly quickly evacuate the outpost with their rescued aged survivor as the pirate activates his ship’s self-destruct device to avenge his brother who died in the fight.
Zord gets them to see a Geovite officer, and Zord presents them as combat specialists that he had asked for. In order to see they are worthy to see the General, he puts them prove their combat expertise by fighting a large robot. Gorf instructs Borf to use their belts and trip the robot's leg, defeating it.
Kimberly uses the ship’s charts to navigate a course to Zandoria. Upon approach to the planet, Kimberly runs a sensor sweep to locate Gorf’s ship.
The official leads the brothers to an audience with the Geovite General Zang who had heard of them. Right then they are alerted about a Neovite raiding party storming the gates. Then Gorf proceeds to snap Zang’s neck, revealing their true colors. Right when the Geovite guards are ready to execute the spies, the raiding party immediately blasts through the wall and captured the base.
Chapter 5[]
A couple hours after starting a planetary scan for Gorf’s ship, Kimberly pinpoints its energy signature and lands on Zandoria’s surface, in the middle of a chaotic military presence. Ace and Kimberly follows the military vehicle convos to Borf’s location, after watching a news report showing their command of the Neovite assault. Ace reverts to Dexter, and he and Kimberly maneuver around the military troops to meet with Geovite General Xarorn. Citing her status with the Intergalactic Alliance, Kimberly requests Xarorn to pull his army off the battle field to save their lives. Dexter attempts to impress Xarorn by invoking his reputation as the Space Ace, but the General dismisses him as an imposter and Dexter suddenly ages into his elderly form.
Meanwhile at a research facility, Gorf commands the Neovite troops in the next phase of their assault, using the occasion to boast to Borf of his superior tactical knowledge compared to his brother’s preference for hand-to-hand physical combat. The brothers arrange to steal the Matter Divider with a Neovite Armada-class Starship Carrier. Neovite General Narn is called away from his perimeter patrol of the facility to meet with Xarorn, Kimberly, and Dexter under an official banner of truce. Kimberly explains Borf and Gorf’s deceitful plan, which convinces the warring generals to cooperate. After Narn details Gorf’s request for their Starship Carrier, Kimberly concludes the evil brothers plan to transport the Matter Divider to the Intergalactic Alliance Headquarters. The Zandorians pledge their full support as Dexter transforms back into Ace. Ace formulates a plan to thwart Borf and Gorf’s theft of the Matter Divider by faking a military skirmish between Geovites and Neovites. Borf is able to see through the ruse on account of observing an obvious lack of dead and wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Borf and Gorf board the carrier ship with the Matter Divider and eliminate its crew.
Using a landspeeder, Ace and Kimberly evade the ship’s radar and leap aboard the carrier, setting up a final confrontation with Borf and Gorf.
Chapter 6[]
Ace and Kimberly engage in a shootout with Borf and Gorf on the deck of the Neovite Starship Cruiser, which floats about the research facility in preparation for interstellar liftoff. Ace transforms into Dexter, tripping Kimberly in the process. Before Gorf can execute the duo, Zandorian fighter planes blast the cruiser's engines, forcing the ship to crash onto the planet's surface. Borf recommends strategic withdrawal, but Gorf begins to arm the Matter Divider with the intention to kill the Zandorian armies.
Dexter discovers Kimberly injured and unconscious from the crash landing, briefing cycling through his various age transformations and declaring his love to her before charging toward the villains. The Matter Divider shoots Ace directly, with the side effect of destroying the machine and creating a blast radius which disables the fighter planes and all the military vehicles on the surface. As Borf and Gorf compose themselves and attempt to evacuate in the aftermath, they are confronted by three distinct forms of Dexter, reflecting his current, young, and elderly age transformations seen throughout the series. With all electronics and laser blasters disabled due to the effects of the Matter Divider's explosion, the five combatants engage in physical combat. Dexter's young and Old Man variants subdue Borf, but Gorf gains the upper hand on Ace and pummels him while taunting. When the other two Dexter forms arrive, the three heroes collectively uppercut Gorf, knocking him out of commission.
After the evil brothers are apprehended by the Zandorians, the reconciled generals Narn and Xarorn invite Ace and Kimberly to a celebration of the planet's new peace agreement, but Kimberly insists the heroes return back to Earth on account of a very important date. In a chapel on Earth, the "date" is revealed to be the wedding ceremony of Ace and Kimberly. The wedding is attended by several adoring guests, including Dexter's other two forms (now apparently distinct persons), the commander of the Intergalactic Alliance, the alien doctor, Dirk the Daring, Princess Daphne, and Orko (from the Masters of the Universe franchise). After the newly wedded couple kisses, they board a small space ship to begin their honeymoon.
Trivia[]
- When first introduced in chapter 2, the Matter Divider is named with an unusual spelling of "Synchonously Deviding Matter Devider," that is inconsistent with later chapters. Later references corrected "Dividing"and "Divider", and chapter 5 corrected "Synchronously".
- In the second chapter, the Zandorians introduced next to the Matter Divider are drawn and colored to resemble Caucasian humans. In chapters 4-6, the entire race appears slightly more alien and all have blue-tinted skin tones, similar to Borf and Gorf. This discrepancy may owe to the substantial hiatus between the publication of the original issues 1-3 under the MVCreations label and the later issues published by Arcana.
- The minister who pronounces the marriage of Ace and Kimberly is likely modeled upon the physical likeness of Don Bluth but also resembles American comic book creator Stan Lee.
- CrossGen/MVCreations had concurrently published comic books based on the Dragon's Lair and Masters of the Universe franchises, explaining the presence of Dirk, Daphne, and Orko at the wedding ceremony.
Gallery[]
