American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

The evening glow, like a blood-red mist, hung high in the sky.

A cruel and merciless slaughter was taking place beneath the setting sun.

Blood pooled into streams, staining the ground crimson. A boot stepped onto the viscous blood, before him stood a group of terrified, trembling women and children.

The woman at the front, clutching a girl, held the child with all her might.

“Clean them up.” The owner of the boot turned away dismissively, and the soldiers beside him used their weapons without hesitation. Screams abruptly ceased, and the world returned to a deathly silence.

The girl and the woman lay on the blood-soaked ground, their lifeless eyes staring blankly at the beautiful evening glow in the sky.

…

“No!”

As the girl's unclosed eyes appeared in his dream once more, a robust and tall man with dark red skin covered in mysterious patterns roared and jolted awake from his bed.

He gasped for breath, his massive chest heaving like a bellows. His face contorted in pain, he covered it with his hands, he had the nightmare again. The nightmare that had cost him two of his beloved.

“What the hell are you doing?” An annoyed voice sounded from above the man. A man with multicolored hair and clown-like features poked his head out from the bunk above, his single eye in the center of his forehead glaring at the man awakened from the nightmare.

“Ugh, having another nightmare, Drax? Dreaming again about your wife and daughter being killed by the Kree?” On the other side, a man with half his body replaced by machinery and dark gray skin also sat up in his bed, looking at Drax, whose face still held traces of pain.

A piercing alarm suddenly blared.

A rough male voice boomed through the cabin's speakers.

“Get up, you scum! We've got a job! A transport ship just appeared at the Srikan jump point! Let's see, judging by the exterior, it's standard Xandarian! We need to hurry.”

“Looks like we're about to make some money.” The one-eyed clown above Drax leaped down like a bouncy ball, bouncing high off the ground as he quickly armed himself.

“Let's go. It's not a Kree transport this time, but who cares.” The dark gray, half-mechanical man examined his mechanical body, bright energy flickering in his palm before he looked up at Drax, who had just placed his large feet on the ground. “Let's go.”

Drax silently stuffed two short swords and their sheaths into his pockets, then pulled a box out from under the bed. He opened it and effortlessly hoisted a massive metal cannon, almost two-thirds his size, onto his shoulder. Yet, strangely, it seemed light in his hands.

“That's a great weapon.” The dark gray, half-mechanical man glanced enviously at Drax's weapon and hurried out with him.

They were a band of space pirates, or rather, interstellar criminals who lived by raiding. They robbed, killed, and accepted mercenary work. Their members came from all corners of the universe, with no allegiance to any particular faction. Most of them had at least several warrants out for their arrest from various civilizations. If they were unlucky enough to be caught, they could spend a lifetime in prison.

Space pirates generally fell into two categories: those who operated in a specific area with fixed territories and hunting grounds. These groups usually had a certain number of personnel and ships, capable of fighting and competing with the combat ships of some civilizations. Some of the stronger ones could even win.

The other type was nomadic space pirates without fixed territories, wandering from place to place. These were mostly lone wolves with small ships. They were few in number, and their ship technology might not be that great. Most of them would join a larger pirate group if they couldn't make it on their own.

Due to the prevalence of space pirates, there was also a profession dedicated to combating and capturing them: star hunters. These interstellar hunters, formed by various civilizations through contributions of manpower or funding, would pursue the pirates like hyenas and hand them over to the civilizations behind them in exchange for bounties.

Drax hadn't been a pirate earlier in life, but a resident of a certain planet. He had a loving wife and a lovely daughter. He earned a living doing something akin to interstellar guard work. With his combat prowess and physical talents, he had no trouble finding someone to recruit him and give him a well-paid job. He was happy with this simple life.

But the Kree had destroyed his life!

Ronan the Accuser, a war maniac of the Kree Empire, had been waging a decades-long expedition against Xandar. During this time, the Kree had destroyed countless planets belonging to the Xandarian civilization. The planet where Drax's wife and daughter lived was just one of them.

He hated Ronan, hated the Kree Empire. His chest burned with emotions called anger and hatred. Every day and night, he would wake up from this nightmare, seeing those two pairs of unclosed, dull eyes that had once been so beautiful, making his heart flutter and willing to give everything to protect them.

Drax became a taciturn and silent man. He joined the space pirates because they were the most likely to find traces of the Kree and dared to attack their ships.

Finding the Kree, finding Ronan the Accuser to exact revenge, was now Drax's only obsession. For this, he was willing to risk everything.

A rain of light splashed across the dark universe. Caught by surprise, Drax's pirate crew quickly approached the transport ship. After a standard boarding procedure, the pirates quickly took control of the transport ship after suffering some casualties.

Then came erasing their traces. According to experience, they removed most of the suspicious instruments from the transport ship, discarded them, and then made several consecutive space jumps.

After completing this deal, this pirate crew would lie low for a while, both to get a sense of the direction of the wind and news, and to secretly sell the transport goods on the transport ship, or the entire transport ship, or its parts, to familiar black market buyers.

In any case, for the time being, they would find a remote planet away from the shipping lanes and important space jump points to rest and hide, and then come out to do business again after a period of time.

The pirates would also have regular gatherings, but these were usually organized and had thresholds. Small-time operators like them had no way of knowing the fixed planets where the pirates gathered.

For example, right now, Drax and his crew had come to a very primitive planet with dense vegetation and life, but without civilization.

In the dark night.

Drax moved away from his companions, sitting alone on the edge of a mountain peak, looking at the bright and beautiful, unpolluted starlight in the sky, his heart filled with anger. A voice with a strange accent suddenly sounded in his ear.

“Ah, a target that looks very promising!”

“Who's there?” Drax looked around, lifting his knife.

“Who? Ugh, just a pitiful worker who has undergone arduous training, has his head filled with a bunch of incomprehensible financial knowledge, and is looking for performance throughout the galaxy. I sensed the intense anger and hatred in your heart, so I came.” A withered face gradually materialized from the air, revealing itself to Drax.

“Do you need the power of revenge?” A demon in a black uniform asked Drax seductively.

“Can you give me the power of revenge?” Drax strangely didn't attack the demon. Although he didn't know who the visitor was or what their purpose was, none of that mattered to Drax. What mattered was that the other party said they could give him the power of revenge!

“Of course, as long as you sign a contract, you can obtain powerful strength, enough to let you slay gods!” The demon habitually pulled out a piece of parchment.

“I don't need to slay gods, I just need to kill Ronan the Accuser.”

Drax's words stunned the demon who was handing out the parchment. Under Drax's gaze, the demon pulled out a ring and put it on his hand. After the ring lit up, he angrily said to the other side.

“Damn it! Can't you be a little more accurate? Another wrong target! He doesn't want to slay gods at all! I don't even have a single successful deal yet!”

“……”

After arguing back and forth with the other side, the demon threw a heavy mask that looked like it was made of wood at Drax: “Listen, this mask has the power to give you revenge. You can take it to get revenge, but the price is that you must kill at least two gods for me! I don't care what kind of gods!”

“This mask, can it give me the power of revenge?” Drax ignored the demon's words. All he heard was the other party saying that this mask had the power to give him revenge.

“Of course, it's Rage!”

“The stronger your anger, the greater the power it can give you! This power is enough for you to complete your revenge. If your anger and hatred are strong enough, you can even summon the mask's true form, a powerful artifact!” The demon introduced.

“How do I use it?” Drax asked.

“First, you sign a contract to get a license to use the mask! Yes, that's right, put a fingerprint on it, or willingly drop a drop of blood. Ten years, in ten years, you must kill two gods. If you don't, then this mask will devour your power and soul. That's the price you have to pay to use this mask.” The demon watched Drax press his fingerprint on the parchment, watching the contract paper return to the hell dimension under the burning of hellfire, a satisfied look on his face.