Canon Vs Canon: A Review and Analysis of the Farscape: Scorpius Comics

Let's start with the non-spoilers. In case everyone in my physical and digital vicinity hasn't noticed yet, I'm a BIG fan of Farscape's Scorpius. To me, his very presence in a story automatically makes it better, and I'm always happy to see more of him.

That being the case, the idea of an entire canonical comic book series centered on him, with inner dialogue, details about his past, and abundant Scorpius screen time, seemed like a dream come true.

And the comics themselves nearly WERE a dream come true. Sure, the art in the first four was crap, with the facial expressions often indistinguishable amid the slipshod mess of shades and planes that was the art style, but the subsequent ones captured the characters beautifully. Also, this picture exists:

Speaking of facial expressions, there appears to be steam rising off my computer screen.

The battle of wits between Scorpius and his new mental sparring partners was fascinating to watch. His devious side is in fine form, executing off-the-cuff bluffs and political maneuvers with the agility of an Olympic gymnast.

But he's finally met his match in the calculating, technologically advanced Kkore, and before he knows it, he's in WAY over his head - as Farscape characters usually are.

His daring nature, resilience, and ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat even when he's alone and without resources, are as impressive as always. And I loved the relationship between him and his new pet.

All in all, the comics would have been perfect if it weren't for one little thing... or should I say, one big, huge, HORRIFYING problem that completely ruined the entire series for me.

And that problem was... Scorpius wasn't Scorpius.

His abilities and skill set were there, but his core motivations and personality weren't. It was like half his soul had disappeared, and the resulting empty space had been possessed by the combined spirits of Starscream and Light Yagami.

OK, so I know the comics are canon. The writers can make the characters be whatever they want them to be, and I can't do anything about it.

But I just can't see comic-book Scorpius as the 'real' Scorpius because...

...in my not so humble opinion, NO story that involves the phrase "Scorpius assists in a genocide against the Sebacean race" has any place in Farscape's canon.

Now, maybe you're going to say that looking out for himself at the expense of everyone else is Scorpius' M.O., and that he was only ever using the Sebaceans to get his revenge.

To explore that, I'm going to refer to Incubator, the episode in which Scorpius' backstory and motives are first explored.

In Incubator, as in the comics, we see a young Scorpius being horribly abused by his violent caretaker, Tauza. What he goes through is enough to leave anyone vengeful and messed up in the head, but it's his conversation with Captain Molayne that casts doubt on the comics' portrayal of him.

When the captain finds out about Scorpius' quest for the truth about his parents, he asks if the intention behind his search is "so you can find out who you are?"

To which Scorpius replies, "To find out... who I should be."

Which is to say, he didn't already know.

Not genocidal. Not yet.

His motivations were not yet set, whereas in the comics, they showed his vengeful streak as having been established before he ever escaped from the Scarrans.

When Tauza recaptured him, and asked him why he'd rejected the Scarrans, his answer wasn't "because you tortured me and did your best to convince me that I was weak and inferior". It was "you lied about my parents" - a motivation entirely ignored by the comics.

And when she tortured him for information, he laughed at her for her failure. But when she showed him the video of Rylani being raped, THAT was what left him weeping on the floor. When she told him that the Scarrans intended to wipe out the Sebacean race because they were useless as "breeding stock", he struggled to breathe.

He laughed in the midst of his own suffering, but was devastated by the suffering of people he'd never even met, and the prospect of the further destruction that could await them in the future.

That isn't the only time when he showed that he cared about Sebacean lives. In Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, when the Command Carrier was imploding around him, he didn't pull a Javio and try to evacuate right away.

Instead, he fought his way through the flaming wreckage to find a working comms station, so he could sound the evacuation (just in case the PKs hadn't already figured out that it was time to leave), and then hauled Braca's apparently evacuation-incapable ass out of the room.

He performed a similar act of Braca-saving when his favorite lieutenant got shot during the Peacekeeper Wars, despite the fact that the rescue required him to walk out of cover and into the line of fire, where he could have been shot in his unarmored face.

When Drillic sent a pilot into a wormhole prematurely, and the pilot died, he was punished for wasting a Sebacean life carelessly.

And in Season of Death, Scorpius could have allowed Kobrin, who was chomping at the bit to challenge Crais to a space race, to do so right away, thus diverting Talyn's search for them and decreasing the likelihood that they'd be found and killed. Instead, he kept the Moyans at bay until evading detection became impossible, and only then did he send the pilot out, when the Carrier was close enough to give him a fighting chance.

Long explanation short, while his own suffering may have contributed to his desire for revenge against the Scarrans, he seemed much more upset about the suffering and death of Sebaceans.

So when the comics portrayed his desire for revenge as springing purely from his own childhood abuse, and Scorpius himself as not caring about Sebaceans to the point where he'd assist in their destruction in order to increase his political power and save his own skin, it rang completely false.

What's that you say? He loves his mother more than himself, and his wish to eradicate the Scarrans came from an understandable desire to prevent them from wiping out whole species? Naw. Let's make him a self-centered, petty jackass who thinks genocide is an appropriate response to childhood abuse instead.

Now, speaking of political power, that was also problematic. In the comics, he was obsessed with power and control. He couldn't cope with being an underling; he wanted to be on top of the food chain. Not as a means to the end of stopping the genocidal Scarrans, but as an end in and of themselves.

In fact, he wanted it so badly that he assisted a violent race in their quest to take over the galaxy... which is exactly what he spent the entire on-screen series trying to prevent!

So much for "I don't want power, I want revenge". Which is weird, because they actually showed the exact scene where he said that as a flashback in the comics... and then proceeded to ignore it by making Scorpius fixate on his own autonomy and political power above all loyalty, morality and self-preservation, and even above his cherished revenge.

I mean, sure, he got his revenge to a certain degree - by securing the Scarrans' surrender - but when the Kkore decided to go easier on the Scarrans than on the Sebaeans, Scorpius was OK with that.

What the actual frell?

It was like they decided to keep all the stuff that made him a badass antagonist, but completely get rid of everything that justified his ruthless use of his formidable skills.

But do you know what the worst part is?

It would have been easy... SO FRELLING EASY... to keep him in-character.

The fascinating battle of wits could have stayed intact. The displays of badass bravery didn't have to be rewritten. They would barely have even had to change the plot.

ALL they would have had to do was to have his ascent through the Kkore's ranks be motivated primarily by a desire to discover their weakness and destroy them, instead of being motivated by a desire for power, self-preservation and an utterly un-Scorpius-like admiration for a genocidal race.

Sure, the Kkore are "elegant, powerful and rational", as he put it - but the Scarrans could also be elegant, they were more powerful than the Sebaceans with whom Scorpius once sided, and they were sometimes more rational than High Command.

But he didn't side with the Scarrans, even when his deception of Staleek gave him the opportunity to do so. Instead, he joined the losing side in order to resist them.

Not because they abused him as a kid, but because they lied about his parents, let his mom and the other test subjects die, and threatened his mother's species.

All in all, while the character in the comics was a fascinating villain protagonist, he just wasn't Scorpius.

He was the boldness, intelligence, vengefulness and resilience of Scorpius, the self-centered arrogance of Light Yagami, and the power-hungry case of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder that was Starscream, all rolled into a single psychological mutant.

One that, compared to the selfless anti-genocide crusader I came to know and love in the on-screen series, could pretty much be summed up by a Jack Sparrow quote:

Yes, I just called a version of Scorpius an abomination. And also, Hell froze over.

So, bottom line: are the comics worth reading?

If you're the type who sees Scorpius as an evil, self-centered villain, and you prefer him that way, go ahead. You'll LOVE these comics.

But if you, like me, find his selfless love for the Sebacean race to be one of the most endearing aspects of him, and you were impressed by the way he could go through hezmana and come out of it still capable of caring about people who would never care about him in return, then watching his body walk around with half of his soul missing will probably be about as enjoyable as receiving half a kitten for Christmas.

As for me, the day when I consider this portrayal of him to be canon will be the day when John uses a wormhole to blow up Earth, and everyone thinks it's normal.

Which is a real pity, because some of his maneuvers were truly brilliant, the hints at the coming plotline were tantalizing, and the relationship between Scorpius and his pet lizard John was absolutely made of cute.

Now it's your turn. Did you read the Scorpius comics?

Did you think they were in-character, or did they bother you, too?

I look forward to reading your comments.