Last month Battle Lines, the second volume of the Stingray Comic Anthology was releases by Anderson Entertainment, following along from 2024’s Tales from the Depths collection, gathering more of the original comic strips based on Stingray, the classic 1960s undersea adventure series.
Released as part of Stingray’s 60th anniversary, the two comics collections also feature several brand new stories that form part of Stingray: Deadly Uprising (a multimedia event that includes new novels, non-fiction books and Stingray mini-episodes).
For Volume 1, I wrote a six-page story titled “The Undefeated” (click the link for more about that strip) and in Volume 2, I’ve followed it up with “Triple Cross”, with artwork by Connor Flanagan, who has worked on such other Anderson comics as New Captain Scarlet and Space Precinct.
Today I’m posting an “author commentary” piece here to highlight and annotate some of the concepts that appear in this story.
Spoiler Warning! These notes give away story points from “Triple Cross” and other stories in the Stingray: Deadly Uprising series event!
“Triple Cross” is a sequel to my earlier story “The Undefeated”, which itself is a follow-up to the events of the Stingray TV episode “The Big Gun” – in the TV show, the undersea Solarstar people deploy their Missile Ejector craft and super-destructive missiles against the surface world, but they don’t reckon with the crew of Stingray; following their defeat, they fall into a dangerous alliance with the duplicitous King Titan, which comes to a head in this story.
The Solarstar Mighty Leader, his lackey Korda and Battle Commander Abura (introduced in “The Undefeated”) return in this story – There’s a tradition of Stingray characters having names related to the seas or nearby locations – so Abura’s name (spell it backwards!) comes from an island country in the Caribbean.
The Solarstar characters are joined by King Titan and his unctuous ‘surface agent’ X-20, along with a rogue’s gallery of other baddies – Ilium, the Atlantean from “The Invaders”, the alien Maran from “Hostages of the Deep”, Harmonius from the “Deadly Concerto” stage play, and the fearsome Gamarus from the comic “Voyage to Danger”.
Connor’s excellent artwork gives the story an epic quality, especially in the underwater battle sequence toward the end!
The World Aquanaut Security Patrol submarine Orca (introduced in the novel Project Orca) appears here, captured and subverted by Titan and his evil alliance.
As the title suggests, this story details the sudden-but-inevitable betrayal of the Mighty Leader and the explosive collapse of the Solarstar-Titanica alliance – and it sets up the end of the Deadly Uprising storyline as all of W.A.S.P.’s enemies gather their forces to strike at Marineville!
This Stingray “Marine Minute” short follows on directly from the action in “Triple Cross” – check it out below…
For more details about Stingray: Deadly Uprising, visit the official Anderson website at this link – and to order your copy of Stingray Comic Anthology Volume 2: Battle Lines, click here!
