Next Up: The Other Half of the Equation
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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Next Up: The Other Half of the Equation
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
WWW.SPACETHECOMIC.COM
Follow Space: The Comic on TWITTER and FACEBOOK .
I’m, again, feeling pretty terrible that I haven’t been keeping up with other comics that I read, especially those created by readers of this comic. I’m having such difficulty managing time lately. I have nights where I’m able to churn our a bunch of photos, then I edit together pages (which I really enjoy) and set them weeks in advance to post on autopilot. Feels like the most I can manage, and even that’s a challenge at times. It frustrates me, because being part of the webcomics community is important to me. You let these things go too long, then they become a monumental task to catch up with. Describes a lot of issues I’m experiencing, be it organizing the house or other creative writing or whatnot. Rather than move forward, I tend to shut down and avoid.
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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There’s a lot to unpack here, and I’ll leave it to longtime readers to connect the dots.
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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It’s all for you, Damien!
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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For more on Schwartz’s “Pizza First” campaign, visit the “House Call” storyline.
THAT DARNED COMMANDER BLACK
Ever since this comic launched, I’ve been touting that it was “a story for LEGO Space since LEGO never gave it one.” I never thought that was a bad thing, as The LEGO Group left the narrative open, only providing the broadest strokes that allowed kids like me to fill in the details with our imaginations.
Well, it turns out I’m a big, fat liar. And in the worst way, because I’ve learned that LEGOLAND DID create a series of Space and Futuron advertisements in 1985 and 1986 that starred none other than a black-suited Classic Space astronaut named Commander BLACK, Jens Black, who flew around space in the Gamma-V Lasercraft!
According to Brickipedia, Commander Black embarked on such adventures as responding to an SOS from the Alpha 1 space station, helping them fix a stabilizer that prevented the base’s destruction. In another mission, Commander Black noticed that Roger Robot had created a cooling system error on the Cosmic Fleet Voyager by going into its computer, and the stalwart commander threatened to “scrap” Roger if it happened again!! Roger did indeed screw up again, sending the Cosmic Fleet Voyager spiraling toward a mysterious planet. Commander Black relented on the severity of his punishment, however, ordering the robot to clean the new station they built on the planet. Commander Black and his fellow astronauts found little of interest on this new world until Roger redeemed himself by discovering it was hollow and inhabited. Commander Black and Roger Robot went on further adventures, entering a “time tunnel” that deposited them at the Futuron Monorail Transport System. There, they encountered an astronaut named Major White and took a ride on the Stardefender 200, which Roger accidentally split into its three components by pressing the wrong button. Oh, Roger…
Granted, Commander Black had combed brown hair while Commander Schwartz has spiked black hair. “Schwarz” means “black” in German, so LEGO and I were clearly operating on the same level of cleverness in our astronaut naming. And Commander Black is quite stern and accomplished, which Commander Schwartz most certainly is not. But Jesus, have I been creating Commander Black fan fiction all these years????
According to Brickipedia, Commander Black, aka Spaceman Jens, was likely named after the late Jens Nygaard Knudsen, creator of the Classic Space theme and minifigures. The black spaceman figure (the rarest in the series) was supposed to represent spies, per Knudsen.
Spaceman Jens has been brought back in some recent LEGO video games. How should I feel about this? It’s not like I think that LEGO is ever going to see and proclaim this comic and Commander Schwartz canon! Yet he’s real to me, and after writing this comic for so long, complicated feelings of jealousy arise whenever LEGO does revisit its Classic Space theme, such as in The LEGO Movies. I certainly don’t own LEGO Space; I’ve just been playing in its world for a long time. But seriously, LEGO picks the very same ship and astronaut to star in the little bit of official Space fiction it does produce?! I guess we both know cool when we see it!
Read the Brickipedia article and see links to the Commander Black comics here: https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Spaceman_Jens
Here are some of the Commander Black comics, sourced from Brickipedia:
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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My favorite episode of the 1980’s “Twilight Zone” is “A Message from Charity,” in which two American teens living nearly three centuries apart become able to communicate and fall in love with each other across the gulf of time. This is only a little bit like that and a lot less wholesome.
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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Now you see why I switched to the “Teen” rating…
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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In case anybody thinks about these things, the “actors” referred to as being involved in the ambush of Schwartz and Valkyrie in Scotland were most likely any of the bounty hunters who were not at The Commodore’s original meeting. Maybe.
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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Bada-bum-bum-bum, Another One Bites the Dust…
So, maybe these bounty hunters do have analogs to other bounty hunters in a certain famous movie…
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
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This has not been a good day for bounty hunters.
— This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Recommended for older kids and adults.
WWW.SPACETHECOMIC.COM
Follow Space: The Comic on TWITTER and FACEBOOK .