The Red Star

The Red Star is a comic book series by American artist Christian Gossett. Published by Image Comics, it is set in a sci-fi/fantasy world described by Gossett as "Mythic [Soviet] Russia". The "Lands of The Red Star" were inspired by both Russian folklore and military history. The series is thus heavily reminiscent of a post-World War II Soviet Russia mixing technology and sorcery.

The 'United Republics of the Red Star', often simply called the 'State' in the comic, are shown to be coterminous with the historical Soviet Union in a map at the beginning of the first issue. The main enemy of the first novels, Al'Istaan, is a stand-in for historical Afghanistan and occupies a similar area of the map.

The first four issues of The Red Star tell the story of the war of the state and the Red Fleet / Army against Al'Istaan, told in a retrospective by Maya Antares, who remembers her husband's death in that war. Having penetrated deeply into Al'Nistaani, the fleet of Red Star skyfurnaces, gigantic flying warships up to three kilometres long, seem to destroy their enemies when the volcanic fury of their engines is directed on the massed enemies below.

However, the ancient protector of the Nistaani, Kar Dathra the Immortal, appears, and powered by the mystical energies of his thousands of dying followers – manages to destroy almost the whole of the Red Fleet.

The further three of the first four issues deal mainly with the panicked attempt of Maya to reach her husband, fighting a grim and hopeless infantry battle on the ground where suddenly, the might of the Red Fleet crashes down and burns, turning certain victory into history-changing defeat. The deaths and the spiritual energies released by the dying soldiers waken other mystical beings, whose goals and allegiances are still not fully known in the first issues. Their apparent warring over the dead souls, especially that of Marcus Antares, become a major plot of the later issues.

Marcus himself is saved by the appearance of a mysterious ghost known only as the Red Woman. She saves his soul from becoming a captive of the evil sorcerer Troika – servant of the evil Imbohl. Defeating Troika in a duel, the Red Woman spirits Marcus away into the Spiritrealm, informing him that "It was not our people who were defeated here, but our past-- and the path to our future begins with you."

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Wikipedia