Stargate: Insurrection #5 – PizzaRat dot Net

The cover for the fifth issue of my toy comic series, “Stargate: Insurrection,” showing six Stargate rings independently floating in space, with the silhouettes of various characters (some of whom only get introduced in this issue!) visible within them. The text, “A toy comic by Phil Wrede,” is visible in the bottom-right corner of the image.

A page devoted to summarizing the events of the last four issues (this will get more difficult as the series continues, I fear). The text reads, “Stargate Command has been taken over by the federal government’s questionably legal ‘shutdown team,’ led by… tech billionaire Alexander Weir! The last operational SG team is stranded on a mystery planet, its location unknown. While escaping the monstrous inhabitants, the team befriends… Anthony Cage, who reluctantly tells the story of his world. Dominated by Eldritch gods, for all time. Jack O’Neal & Mr. Woolsey are in the story, too!”

On the surface of the alien planet, near one of the Stargates that enable fast travel across the world, Cage stands with his hand above the DHD, confirming with the team (Dr. Randall Stryker, Col. William Stryker, and Maj. Ellen Cooper) that they do actually want to return to the village from which they only barely escaped. The team says yes, they do.

Cage activates the gate, and we cut back to Earth - Colorado Springs, specifically, where Stargate Command is located. In the server room in the basement, a soldier looks over Richard Woolsey (“played” here by an action figure of Robert Picardo)’s shoulder, telling him to work faster at repairing the damaged servers. Woolsey reminds the soldier that he does not have any experience doing this kind of work.

As the soldier threatens Woolsey with violence, we cut to the gate control room, where Alexander Weir (“played” by an action figure of Walton Goggins) mocks Sgt. Louis Jones for not being able to solve the problem that Weir’s own untrained, impulsive men caused (breaking the Stargate).

Weir radios the team working in the Embarkation Room, where the Stargate is actually located; another soldier oversees General Jack O’Neal (“played” by an action figure of Pedro Pascal). Stryker’s SG team emerges from the gate on the alien world, looking around the village, which now seems to be abandoned.

Cage casts a spell to surround the team in light. They spot Lt. Matt Wright’s corpse, but they do not see the M.E.L.P. they were forced to abandon when they retreated from the village.

Randall spots tread tracks leading away from the village, but before the team is able to examine them, they’re confronted by the reanimated corpse of Wright, who’s beginning to transform into some sort of Eldritch himself!

As the soldier overseeing Woolsey starts to run out of patience, his threats are interrupted by the sound of loud footsteps at the dark end of the nearby hallway.

The soldier is knocked off his feet by some sort of energy blast. Woolsey climbs to his feet to face whoever is approaching him. On the alien planet, Cooper regards Wright’s reanimated corpse with sadness.

Cage casts another spell and traps the Eldritch Wright in midair, unable to move. Cooper asks if Cage can do anything for him, but to no avail.

Apologizing to Cage, Cooper turns his back on him, and Cage uses his magical abilities to expunge Wright from existence completely. The team decides to follow the treads out of the village.

The signal on Weir’s walkie talkie fizzles out, and as he and Jones start to bicker, they’re interrupted by a figure wielding a pistol.

The two mysterious figures are revealed to be General Samantha Carter, and Ronan Dex (“played” by an action figure of Jason Momoa)!

The SG team followed the treads nearly to the ocean coastline, and as the sun starts to rise above them, they find the M.E.L.P., along with some mysterious technological equipment, and what looks like a space ship!

Colonel Stryker steps forward to see if there’s anybody near this camp site, and a strange woman we’ve never met before (and whose name we don’t know) steps from behind the ship.

Stryker tries to step closer, and the woman draws a pair of large pistols that she points at the team.

Randall tries to bargain for the M.E.L.P., while back on Earth, Ronan and General Carter address both Woolsey and Weir.

I attempt to pay tribute to the classic, “Colonel… Colonel… Colonel…” exchange from the S4E11 episode of Stargate: Atlantis (‘Be All My Sins Remember’d’), as Carter and Ronan declare their explicit intention to stop Weir’s takeover of the SGC.

Randall continues to beg for the release of the M.E.L.P., but the mystery woman is far more interested in Cage than in anything he has to say.

She explains that the M.E.L.P. contains technology she needs to repair her ship, so she can finally escape the planet. Cage slowly walks toward her, and encourages her to take Randall’s offer seriously.

She shoots Cage in the chest, and tells the SG team that if they help her repair her ship, she won’t kill them before she departs.

The credits for the comic, citing the Unsplash users whose photographs were the background art (as well as the U.S. National Archives), the use of fonts by Blambot, the creators of the Stargate film, and the SG-1/Atlantis TV series, the ownership of the Stargate IP by Amazon Studios, the use of stock visual effects by Action VFX, and that the figure (and certain background) photography/script/lettering were by me, Phil Wrede.

Hopefully, you’re as excited after reading this issue as I was as I was putting it together, and when I was writing the alt-text for the images, and even now that I’m writing the blog post for it! This might not be the most visually interesting toy comic I’ve ever made (that honor probably still goes to my first Daredevil issue), but this issue really felt like Stargate to me. The stakes are clear, the characters are well-defined, and it makes the time to be appropriately funny. My overriding goal here at Pizzarat.net is to tell stories that I’d enjoy reading, and the best way I can think to do that is to respect the style and the tone of the series I’m pretending to contribute to!

It wasn’t until I was putting the finishing touches on the Samantha Carter/Ronon Dex reveal page that it occurred to me I’ve been doing my own little riff on the Force Awakens/Picard Season 3* tune, without ever realizing it. I envisioned Insurrection’s legacy character appearances as brief little introductory cameos, much like the premiere of Atlantis, but then I wound up enjoying the story I was telling back on Earth, and then I realized there were more opportunities for bringing in yet more classic Stargate characters (even if only in passing mention), and well… here we are. It’s not really Stargate without Sam Carter, is it?

We’re five issues deep into Stargate: Insurrection, and while I don’t think the story’s all that difficult to follow, if you liked this issue, I bet you’d like the others, so… why not catch up on your reading?

*Speaking of The Captain Picard Show, if you’re a Star Trek fan, and you haven’t had a chance to look at my Trek toy comics… now’s as good a time as any to pop on over! I will make more, one day, I promise!

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