Robotech Comics Blog

Robotech: Academy Blues (Academy Comics Ltd.)

Ongoing series / May 1995 - February 1996, Dec. 1996
Story by Robert W. Gibson

Most academies have long histories and traditions. Ours is less than three years old. Most schools are built around famous historical sites and landmarks. Ours is built around something that dropped out of the sky. But the most important, most meaningful difference is that wheras most other military academies were formed between boundaries, ours was formed beyond boundaries. There are no countries here, no nationalities ... no borders. Just people.

THE LOWDOWN

A spin-off of the ongoing Return to Macross title, Academy Blues follows the adventures of Lisa Hayes, Kim Young, Vanessa Leeds, Rolf Emerson, and other future war heroes in their days as cadets in the Robotech Academy, dealing with experimental futuristic machinery as well as everyday problems.

Not that there is such a thing as an everyday problem on Macross Island ...

BACKGROUND INFO

Much like Warriors before it, Academy Blues was a logical extension of the idea behind Return to Macross -- the tales of the Macross Saga cast before the First Robotech War. Where Warriors showed us Breetai and Exedore scouring the galaxy for the SDF-1 and Return to Macross covered Gloval, Fokker, and Dr. Lang fighting the forces that would destroy the Robotech project, Academy Blues turned its attention on Lisa Hayes and the rest of the SDF-1's bridge crew, along with future Army of the Southern Cross chief of staff Rolf Emerson, learning the ropes at the Robotech Academy. Consequently, this series held little room for high adventure, focusing more on the characters and their relationships.

While the six-issue series, written by former Eternity Comics Captain Harlock writer Robert W. Gibson, got a few minor points wrong (par for the course in the Eternity/Academy pre-Macross material), for the most part it maintained the feeling of the good ol' Macross Saga days, even more so than the series it was spun off from. This probably has a lot to do with the characters involved and artist Sean Bishop's early involvement in the series -- of any ROBOTECH comic artist, Bishop managed best to match the style of the original animation.

Unfortunately, as the series wore on the stories grew less and less about Lisa and company and more about side issues tying into Return to Macross, drifting the series away from its original remit. While that gives the appearance of cancellation due to low sales, ultimately it's unclear why Academy Blues folded so early. It is worth noting that Robert Gibson become the bimonthly writer on Return to Macross soon after Academy Blues ended, and the book's cast was integrated into the parent title for what would be its final story arc.

In the last month of Academy's ROBOTECH titles, a one-shot called Breaking Point ultimately tied up the loose ends of Academy Blues and the Robotech Academy storylines in Return to Macross, although it did this in a rather vague way due to poor lettering and rushed, unclear artwork by final Return to Macross artist Dusty Griffin.

ACADEMY BLUES

• Issue 0 - Academy Blues
• Issue 1 - Tests
• Issue 2 - Roles
• Issue 3 - Tremors
• Issue 4 - The Calm Before ...
• Issue 5 - The Wind and the Wave


• Breaking Point: Cadet Lisa Hayes Special #1

posted by Captain JLS @ 12:39 AM

Super Dimension Fortress Macross #1

"Booby Trap"

Editing & Script - Carl Macek
Pencils - Svea Stauch
Inks, Colors, and Production - Phil Lasorda, Gerry Giovinco, with much help from Vince Argondezzi and Dotty Linberg
Letters - Carrie Spiegle
Production Assistant - Aaron Keaton

Published by Comico The Comic Company.

Release date - Approx. January 3, 1985
Cover date - 1984

THE STORY

"The alien invasion began almost coincidentally. A mammoth interstellar fortress ripped through the fabric of hyperspace on a collision course with the Earth. Whether by chance or some obscure twist of fate, this alien vessel was drawn toward the unsuspecting planet. The ship appeared over the South Pacific as a destructive fireball racing across the nighttime sky. Most people interpreted the incident as though the Earth had been struck by a giant meteor. Most people had other things on their minds ... like trying to survive World War III. An uneasy peace eventually came to his global conflict. The peace was the result of a group of people who knew that what hit the Earth was not a meteor ... but a machine of destruction--the product of an alien technology lightyears ahead of that of the Earth's. A United Earth Government was formed. Its sole purpose was to create a global defense system utilizing the reconditioned space fortress as an offensive weapon."

Ten years pass. On the day of the maiden voyage of the rebuilt alien space fortress, now christened the Macross, citizens of the metropolis that grew around it worry that without the ship their home will become a ghost town. They watch as a limousine carrying Captain Gloval and Senator Russo passes by, and two citizens comment that without those men the ship would never have been repaired or funded.

Inside the limo, Russo tells Gloval to cheer up. "In less than half an hour, the Macross will be in your command. The least you could do is act like you're having a good time." Gloval remarks that he had his good time last night and worries that they might not be doing the right thing with the Macross.

On the bridge of the space fortress, Lisa Hayase arrives to tell the rest of the crew to look sharp, because Gloval's limo has arrived. "I don't know what's gotten into the captain ... coming aboard so late. He practically missed the entire ceremony." Claudia tells her that he probably got the most out of his "shore leave."

"Well, Claudia ... some of us consider duty before pleasure," Lisa quips.

Claudia asks if she's referring to her seeing Lt. Commander Fokker the night before, and states that what she does on her own time has no effect on her performance as an officer. Lisa asks about Roy, and Claudia points out that during the war Roy shot down five enemy planes with a hangover. Before she can add anything, Lisa suddenly notices something on her radar screen. It's a tiny plane piloted by one Rick Yamata, invitation #1021. Lisa confirms that as an invitation from Lt. Commander Fokker and gives him a heading for landing.

Below, Roy Fokker narrates the actions of the newly-designed Valkyrie Fighters overhead. Suddenly a little air racer appears among them and a loudmouthed pilot addresses Fokker.

"It's been a long time Captain! You sent me this invitation -- now tell me where to land."

Fokker tells his old friend that this is no playground, but Rick counters that he's not here to play -- he's here to show Fokker how a real pilot can fly a plane! He nearly takes off Fokker's head with a low dive, then fires his boosters and joins the Valkyries in a burst formation. Rick lands his racer and Roy takes off after him, demanding an explanation. As Rick climbs out of his plane, he reminds Roy that he was the one who taught him the booster climb. Roy comments that he heard he won the amateur pilot competition last month and asks about Rick's family. "You promised my father that when the war was over you'd come back to the air team," Rick reminds him. Roy apologizes, then notes how he shot down 180 planes during the war. "So, you're proud of being a killer?" Rick asks. Roy says it's kind of hard to explain. "When you start flying those fighter planes .. well, something happens inside of you ... and nothing seems the same." Rick figures he could be right. "But for now," he says, "why don't you start by giving me the grand tour?"

On the far side of the moon, a fleet of Zentraedis warships materializes from hyperspace. Aboard the flagship, Commander Breetai asks his aide Exedore if this was the quadrant he traced the transmission to, and also asks if he checked to see if the ship executed a refold. Exedore states that the computer indicates that there was no second jump, and that the ship must be on this planet. "Perhaps their damages have forced them to retreat to this zone," Breetai suggests. "There is a good possibility that we can end this war within the hour." He orders a recon vessel to go down and investigate.

Back on Earth, Rick admires one of the new Valkyrie fighters. He tells Roy that while it looks impressive, he wonders how it handles. Roy suggests climbing aboard and finding out for himself. As Rick climbs on-board, Roy asks if Rick has the guts to fly one of these things. "Just as long as I'm at the controls," Rick quips.

Elsewhere on the island, Russo is making a speech about how what an asset Macross has been to the community and is introducing Gloval when an officer arrives to tell Gloval that sensors have detected unusual activity near the moon and he's needed on the bridge. Just as Russo prepares to turn the microphone over to Gloval, he takes off for the bridge.

On the bridge, Claudia remarks that every system on-board is starting up on its own. The booms that make up the front third of the ship begin to separate and energy begins to crackle around them. Gloval makes it to the bridge and, as his head slams against the too-low doorway, he tells the crew to shut down all the systems. As energy surges between the Macross's twin booms, Claudia attempts to shut off the ship's power, but to no avail. The guns, as Claudia notes forebodingly, are going to fire. Lisa asks what they're going to do, but Gloval has no answer.

Suddenly, the pent-up energy between the booms discharges, blazing forth over the rooftops of the city, through the island's terrain, and into space, obliterating the Zentraedis scout vessels.

Watching the carnage, Breetai notes that this attack confirms Macross's presence on that planet. He orders all ships to advance in full balance formation immediately.

Claudia reports that the computer is responding to their programs again, and Lisa asks Gloval if he's all right.

On the ground, Rick is stunned by the display. "What are they trying to do, blow the island apart?" Roy leaps out of the Valkyrie's back seat to find out what's going on.

Lisa receives the space monitor report, which states that what they were attacking appears to be two large objects out in lunar orbit, probably spaceships. Gloval concludes that this was a booby trap. "The aliens who abandoned Macross must have armed it with an automatic defense system designed to detect and destroy their enemies. The system's activation means that an unfriendly force has approached close enough to be a threat to the Macross." Out of nervous habit, Gloval pulls out his pipe. Just then, Sammy pipes up, telling him that there's no smoking on the bridge. "I wasn't going to light it! I was just holding it," he comments, putting his tobacco back in his uniform jacket. He asks Claudia for a report on all systems and orders Lisa to scramble all fighters and prepare for combat.

Below, Roy orders the runway cleared and the Valkyries armed.

In space, Armour 1-A base responds to the Zentraedis' approach. Lancer space fighters are launched and attack upon visual contact; at the same time the space platform begins bombarding the Zentraedis craft with missiles. Their attack has little effect. Breetai orders a standard laser bombardment, and when the space platform breaks out its nuclear weapons, he finds this simply amazing. "Primitive nuclear weapons," he muses with a quizzical grin, "and it appears that they have not raised their particle beam shields." Exedore wonders if it's a trick of some sort to lull them into a false sense of confidence, and also wonders why they haven't broken out their reflex weaponry. "These soldiers act as if they've never engaged in real space combat before," Breetai notes with a sinister smile. "Press the attack."

In moments, the Zentraedis' intense laser barrage rips Armour 2 to pieces and Armour 1-A makes a hasty retreat before it shares Armour 2's fate.
Word soon reaches Captain Gloval. He muses how the aliens have shattered his hopes of world without war, and orders Lisa to prepare the Macross for combat. She orders the Valkyries to take off.

Back on the Zentraedis flagship, Breetai spots the Macross among what he refers to as "the most disorderly display of primitive military organization that I have ever seen." Exedore points out that while it does resemble Macross, it looks strangely different. Breetai assures him it is no trick, and that the initial reflex weapon attack was a clear invitation for battle. Still, he advises all ships to proceed with caution.

Zentraedis fighters break through the atmosphere. The Earth forces fire a barrage of missiles to counterattack.

On the exhibition ground, Rick is awakened from his slumber in the Valkyrie cockpit by an order from Lisa to take off. He tries to tell her that he's not a combat pilot, but his words are met on deaf ears. He tells her that the runway is demolished, but she tells him that runway 2 is clear, and that he's holding up the rest of the squadron. Thus, the brash young amateur is thrust into the thick of battle.

Rick takes off to the skies and is met by the sight of hundreds of dazzling explosions. In the air, he is reunited with Roy and asks his former mentor what the hell is going on. "Rick ... so you decided to try your hand at being a fighter pilot after all," Roy comments with a smile. Rick insists that it wasn't his idea, and Roy tells him that while combat can be scary, it's really not too much different from the good ol' days at the flying circus. While Rick talks big about not leaving his old friend behind, he finds himself blasted out of the sky within moments. Stunned, Roy tells Rick to climb and bank, but Rick can't get control of his craft.

As Rick's Valkyrie dives towards the Macross, Lisa radios Rick and tells him to switch to Battloid mode. Rick has no clue what she's talking about, but she tells him to pull down the control marked "B" on the left side of his console. He pulls the one marked "G" instead, and gears and hydraulics within the craft begin to turn and hiss, changing the fighter into a squat, avian robot resembling a bird of prey. It continues to fall, finally crashing into a mess of buildings as Rick realizes he's pulled the wrong lever. He pulls the one marked "B", and soon the Valkyrie Fighter shifts again into a more humanoid configuration. As it rises to its feet, Rick wonders how he can get out of this "flying nightmare."

NOTES

TIMELINE - This is a mostly faithful adaptation of Harmony Gold's English language version of the first episode of the Japanese television series Super Dimension Fortress Macross, "Boobytrap," which was soon after adapted into the first episode of the ROBOTECH TV series. As such, with a few character name swaps and some minor rewrites here and there, it can fill the shoes of "Boobytrap" in any version of the ROBOTECH timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Tommy Luan (last seen in Return to Macross #37)
• Henry J. Gloval (last seen in Civil War Stories #1)
• Senator Russo (last seen in Return to Macross #24)
• Lisa Hayase [Lisa Hayes] (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #11 "Prototype 001: Variants Part 4")
• Claudia Grant (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #11 "Prototype 001: Variants Part 4")
• Vanessa Leeds (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #8 "Prototype 001: Variants Part 1")
• Kim Young (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #8 "Prototype 001: Variants Part 1")
• Sammy [Sammie Porter] (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #8 "Prototype 001: Variants Part 1")
• Roy Fokker (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #11 "Prototype 001: Variants Part 4")
• Rick Yamata [Rick Hunter] (last seen in Robotech: The Graphic Novel)
• Lynn Minmei (last seen in Robotech (WildStorm) #4)
• Lynn Jason (first appearance)
• Breetai (last seen in Metalswarm #1)
• Exedore (last seen in Metalswarm #1)

This is a ROBOTECH comic only on a technicality.

This is the first issue of what would, a few months later, be called Robotech: The Macross Saga. However, it was published before the names and plot elements unique to the ROBOTECH version of Macross were created. As such, there are no references to "Zor's battlefortress," or Robotechnology, or even Rick Hunter -- he's got a different name, though oddly enough, it's not Hikaru Ichijyo. This comic was created to tie into Harmony Gold's VHS release of the first three episodes of Macross, advertised in the back of this very comic book. (Those curious can watch the first half hour of that release on Elements of Robotechnology V, the extras disc released with the Robotech Legacy Collection 5 DVD box, also available with the Protoculture Edition complete remastered series DVD box set.)

The character names are an interesting mixed bag of ROBOTECH names, original Japanese Macross names, and names that seem to have been changed almost at random. The worst offender is the name of our brash young amateur pilot hero; originally named "Hikaru Ichijyo" in the original Japanese program, here he becomes "Rick Yamata," which is almost "Rick Hunter" but is still kind of Japanese. Similarly, "Misa Hayase" becomes "Lisa Hayase," which is almost "Lisa Hayes," but again is still Japanese, though more faithfully in that case.

Otherwise we're in ROBOTECH territory, complete with "Henry Gloval" and "Roy Fokker" instead of "Bruno Gloval" and "Roy Focker." The technology retains its original flavor, with Valkyries instead of Veritechs and the Macross" rather than the nameless SDF-1. And oddly enough, as you may have noticed, the word "Zentraedi" is permanently plural for some bizarre reason. It wasn't so in the Space Fortress Macross pilot episode produced by Harmony Gold that ties into this comic book, so I don't know what the deal with that is.

I believe it is as a consequence of this book's non-ROBOTECHness that "Boobytrap" was adapted twice more into comic book form -- first as Comico's one and only 3-D ROBOTECH comic special, with a strikingly unique scripting job by The Macross Saga and The New Generation dialogue wizard Markalan Joplin and art by The Macross Saga mainstay Mike Leeke, and then in the mid-1990's Return to Macross and Academy Blues artist Sean Bishop would do a staggeringly faithful black & white adaptation of ROBOTECH's first episode. Both are a cut above this adaptation, but neither are in full color like this one.

Despite some stilted dialogue here and there, Macek does a pretty solid job of adapting the first episode of Macross into comic book form, complete with lines that are remarkably faithful to the Japanese version (Claudia talking to Lisa about Roy's service record while hung over) and to the ROBOTECH version that eventually aired on American television (Gloval's explanation of the "booby trap" is almost word for word from the TV series, minus the references to the Macross). Some scenes are needlessly overexplained, such as Rick's VF-1D's transformation -- Macek added the accidental switch to GERWALK when its pass through that mode was considered a legitimate transition to Battloid in the actual episode -- and he uses a few cliches like they're going out of style, such as two instances of "duty before pleasure" and the bit where Rick awkwardly spits out, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing," at the end, but the trims and the pacing of the adaptation work nicely. I especially like what Roy says to Rick about flying fighter planes: "When you start flying those fighter planes ... well something happens inside of you ... and nothing seems the same." Vague and kind of awkward, but certainly a much more substantial statement than that horribly overquoted line that replaced it in ROBOTECH -- you know the one:

"This Robotech thing is just so exciting I just couldn't give it up! It just gets in your blood or something, I don't know."

There's a weird bit of mistranslation during the attack on the space platforms. Breetai refers to the humans' "primitive nuclear weapons," then Exedore asks why they didn't destroy the Zentraedis with their "reflex weaponry." I'm not clear on how this got bungled between the Japanese script, the English language series script, and Macek's comic script, but what they call "reflex weaponry" is more commonly translated into English as "reaction weaponry," which in fact is a different way of saying "nuclear weaponry." It was only in ROBOTECH that the term "reflex" somehow came to mean Protoculture-based -- at this point "Protoculture" hadn't even been redefined yet, after all. The point being, though, that I have NO idea what, in this version of Macross, Exedore would be referring to when he mentions "reflex weaponry."

As far as the artwork goes: at first glance, the painted art in this book is kind of stunning, in a good way. As ROBOTECH series producer -- and this issue's script writer -- Carl Macek helpfully points out, all the character and mechanical art was done on animation cel-like overlays, while the backgrounds were painted on separate layers. The effect is quite nice. It's a shame the character and mecha art on the whole isn't very good, and to be honest, I'm not sure who to blame. The attention to detail is there, but the raw talent doesn't seem to be present. I think it might be fair to split the blame between penciler Svea Stauch and the inking staff. After all, there seem to be some decent shots ruined by sloppy inks, but there are some shots which have odd, awkward poses.

Most of the more well-staged shots are directly adapted from the show, which means that for serious fans of the show reading the comic gives the weird sense of looking at it through a fun house mirror. To put a finer point on it, it's immediately recognizable as something familiar, but somehow not as good -- kind of like watching the dumb, poorly-written and cheaply animated cartoons you loved as a child years later with all your adult sensibilities, only without the weird sense of guilt.

As an aside, notice how the cover depicts the Macross in its humanoid "attack" mode, while the ship doesn't enter that configuration (and in fact cannot enter that mode, since the fold drives are still intact) until episode/issue #5.

Also, that VF-1J on the cover is a bit huge, isn't it?

This issue was, almost two decades later, reprinted in the Robotech: The Macross Saga Vol. 1 trade paperback, published by WildStorm/DC Comics (January 2003). However, a few changes were made. The text of all six issues reprinted in the volume was relettered by computer. In some cases, especially in this issue, that involved changing the content of the text as well. That version of this issue features ALL of the proper ROBOTECH terminology (although some references to the ship as "Macross" remain) and also features a number of additional changes, including spelling and punctuation changes and the addition of certain bits of dialogue which brings it closer to the first episode of the ROBOTECH TV series. For instance:

Page One
Original: "The alien invasion began almost coincidentally. A mammoth interstellar fortress ripped through the fabric of hyperspace on a collision course with the Earth."

Revised: "In 1999, a giant alien battlefortress ripped through the fabric of hyperspace on a collision course with the Earth."

Page Two
Original: "Most people interpreted the incident as though the Earth had been struck with a giant meteor. Most people had other things on their minds ... like trying to survive World War III."

Revised: "The general public interpreted the incident as though the Earth had been struck by a giant meteor. The rest of the world was preoccupied ... in the clutches of a global war."

Page Eight
Original: "When you start flying those fighter planes ... well something happens inside of you ... and nothing seems the same."

Revised: "When you start flying those fighter planes ... well, something happens inside of you ... it just gets in your blood."

(That seems a fair compromise, to be honest.)

Page Seventeen
Original: "Amazing Exedore. Primitive nuclear weapons. And it appears that they have not raised their partical beam shields."

Revised: "Very heavy resistance. But why are they using such primitive weapons? Our scout ships are breaking through."

(Note that this fixes one of my concerns above.)

Page Eighteen
Original: "With what? We have fired all missiles, sir. And the aliens are beyond the range of our lasers."

Revised: "Mayday! Mayday! This is Armor-2 space cruiser calling SDF-1. Come in, SDF-1."

This is merely a sampling of the changes made, though I'm pretty sure this covers all of the major rewrites for this issue. Just be aware that the version of Macross #1 that appears in The Macross Saga Vol. 1 is not an entirely faithful representation of the comic book published back in the 1980's.

Next issue

Labels: Macross

posted by Captain JLS @ 12:19 AM

Robotech: Covert Ops #1 (of 2)

"Covert Operations"

Art & Story - Gregory Lane
Edits, Typesetting, & Proofing - Doug Dlin
Cover Colors - Nathan Lumm

Published by Antarctic Press.

Release date - August 19, 1998
Cover date - August 1998

Estimated sales - 5,000 copies

THE STORY

Above the fourth moon of Saturn, Pandora, a VF-1E reconnaissance Veritech makes sure the coast is clear in advance of the SDF-1. Everything seems secure, until the sensor operator notices a large stationary structure of definite Zentraedi origin on the moon's surface. As the operator sends the data back to the SDF-1, two Zentraedi Powered Armors rise from the installation to attack. As the crewmen try to escape, the pilot radios the SDF-1 to call for backup, but by then the Zentraedi are already upon them.

Meanwhile, inside the SDF-1, crews begin to work on repairing the damage made during Roy Fokker and Max Sterling's battle with the Zentraedi warlord Kohrah. "Well, Little Brother, looks like you moved into the barracks just in time," Roy tells Rick Hunter as the younger pilot stares up at one of the ruined buildings.

"Yeah, I've got some luck with buildings," he tells Roy. "If I'm not crashing into them, mine gets blown up."


They start towards Claudia's place for dinner, and Roy asks Rick how it's going with Minmei. "I don't know," Rick says. "I can't seem to get any time to talk to her. There's always a crowd around her." Roy tells him just to do what he always did -- dinner, flowers, and a ride in the sky. Rick says it's just not his style.

Just then, Sammie radios Roy from the bridge. Captain Gloval and Commander Hayes need him immediately. As he starts away, Roy tells Rick to try and explain to Claudia. "Don't worry," he tells Rick, "I doubt she'll kill the messenger."

A few minutes later, in Gloval's office, the captain informs Roy of an alarming transmission from a long-range scout "It appears the Zentraedi have established an outpost on Saturn's fourth lunar satellite, directly along our return heading to Earth." He shows Fokker some photos they've received, and tells him that the photos were followed by a mayday call and then silence. The scout is assumed destroyed, and the enemy probably knows the SDF-1 is in the vicinity. Roy notes that the base looks small enough that he could just take the Skull Squadron in and flush the Zentraedi out.

"We can't risk a frontal assault, Roy," Lisa tells him. "We're still down three anti-gravity units from our last encounter, not to mention the civilian casualties." Roy asks what the alternative is -- after all, a change in course would add months to the trip home. Lisa has another idea. "To avoid risking the entire ship, I propose we send in a small assault team to remove the base surgically. I've already got tactical working on the base layouts to determine where to plant explosive charges that will destroy the complex." Roy thinks it sounds dangerous, so naturally he volunteers. He is ordered to assemble his team and prepare to move out in two days.

At that moment, Rick rings Claudia's doorbell. "I hope you boys are hungry!" she says as she opens the door. "I've been cooking all--" She observes Roy's absence. Rick starts to explain, but she's tired of excuses and tells him to come on in.

Two hours later, Rick finds Roy in the hangar, working on Skull One, and tells him Claudia seemed really hurt. Roy assures him the call was important. "I'll patch things up tomorrow after she cools down. Right now, I need your help." He hands Rick a list and tells him to contact these pilots and have them meet the two of them in briefing room four at 0700 hours tomorrow.

At the Zentraedi base on Pandora, Lord Buran orders his men to make their report. One of his patrol groups has captured the crew of a Micronian scout ship alive. "The nearest Micronian base is on the fourth planet, which they call Mars," Buran notes, "and it fell easily. A Micronian presence here must mean the SDF-1 is near." He orders his men to bring the captives to him, so that he might interrogate the Micronians personally. "And request an audience with Supreme Commander Dolza. These Micronians are our opportunity to escape this desolate rock and return to glorious battle."

The following morning, in briefing room four, Roy explains the mission to the gathered personnel. "Before I go into mission specs," he tells them, "I want to make it clear that chances are good some or all of us won't be coming back from this mission, so if anyone wants out, speak up now. We won't think any less of you."

Max, sitting in the front row, asks Roy if he's kidding. "This is what I've been waiting for," he says. Roy mentions that he didn't think there'd be any takers, but he prefers to ask. He explains that they've determined that the Zentraedi base is in a mountainous region on Pandora's surface.

"The mission is simple. Our strike force comes in low, using the terrain for cover. Zentraedi are accustomed to all-out warfare, not stealth attacks. Two fighters stage a bombing run for diversion while a second team infiltrates the target and plants explosive charges to take it out. The tech boys have already pinpointed the locations of the power generators from the surveillance photos. Everything goes according to plan, we're in and out and back in time for cocktails in the officers' lounge -- on me." Max worries that two fighters might not present much of a problem for the Zentraedi and asks if they'll have enough firepower. Roy tells him they've got it covered -- all the Veritechs will be equipped with the new VF-1X armor they've been testing. "The extra missile packs they carry should be plenty. Plus we'll need the extra fuel and booster packs to reach the target." Fokker then explains the breakdown of the teams -- he and Max will pilot the fighters and provide the diversion, while Rick and Hansen will pilot retrofitted trainers and assist in planting the explosives. The back seats of the trainers will be used by Jones and Lambert, the demolition specialists. "We leave at 06:00 tomorrow. I want all gear checked and ready by 05:45," Roy tells them. He informs them that they'll be off duty until then, and should go spend the rest of the day with their loved ones, though the mission information is classified as they don't want a panic among the civilian population. The personnel are dismissed.

Rick comes up to him after the meeting, feeling unsure that he's qualified for this mission since he's had no experience in combat yet. "Are you kidding?" Roy asks. "Rick, you're one of the best pilots on the ship. I handpicked each member of this team for his distinctive skills. Relax and enjoy the day. You'll be fine." Rick tells Roy he's got a lunch date with Minmei, which reminds Roy that he's got to do some "damage control" with Claudia.

A few hours later, with five minutes remaining until the shift change on the SDF-1's bridge, Lisa calls Claudia out into the hallway for a quick chat. The other bridge girls are certain there'll be some sort serious friction.

In the hall, Lisa tells Claudia that she doesn't see why she's to blame for Roy volunteering to lead the mission on Pandora. "Oh, come on," Claudia says, "you and Gloval knew he would jump in as soon as you told him." Lisa reminds Claudia that Roy is the senior combat officer, and HAD to be told about the mission. "Just because you lost your man doesn't mean I want to!" Claudia snipes. As the words leave her mouth, Claudia starts to backtrack, telling Lisa that she's sure Karl made it out of Sara Base and is waiting on Earth right now. Lisa returns to the bridge, and Claudia begins to worry how the rest of the day is going to turn out. She pushes the button for the elevator, and as the door opens she finds herself face to face with Roy with a picnic basket under his arm. He invites her for lunch.

Back on Pandora, the elder member of the VF-1E crew tells the younger to give up trying to escape. The younger man asks why they haven't been killed, and the older one says the Zentraedi probably want information. "My guess is we can expect a very unpleasant interrogation. I've been in this spot before back during the war in South America. I wouldn't talk then, either." The younger crewman insists he won't talk either as the Zentraedi commander Buran enters. Buran introduces himself and demands the location of the SDF-1. "You and the rest of your Jolly Greens can all go straight to hell!" the older crewman tells Buran. "You're not getting anything out of us!" Buran orders one of his men to remove the shield from their prison. It is done, and Buran picks up the younger crewman. "We have observed the strange concern Micronians bear for each other's lives. Provide the coordinates of the SDF-1 or this one will be terminated," Buran tells the older crewman. The young guy tells his fellow crewman to tell Buran the coordinates, but he refuses. "Very well," Buran says as he crushes the younger man.

Back in Macross City, Rick enters the Chinese restaurant in search of Minmei. She seems happy to see him, and tells him she'll just be a couple of minutes while she changes her clothes. In the meantime Uncle Max asks Rick if he's seen any combat yet. "Just in the simulator," Rick says, "but it won't be long."

As she returns, Minmei grabs Rick by the hand and tells Max she'll be back in an hour. "Don't be late this time," he warns her.

In the park, Roy and Claudia relax over lunch. She tells him that she has to admit he did well. "This was a beautiful picnic. You'd better lay off the wine, though. You've got an early mission tomorrow." Roy reminds her he does some of his best flying tanked. Claudia asks to what she owes the pleasant afternoon. Roy admits, "I figured I owed you some quality time." She tells him she was pretty steamed and took some of it out on poor Rick. "I hear you took a run at Lisa, too," Roy says. Claudia says she blamed Lisa for him going on the mission, but realizes she was just feeling too hurt to consider that Lisa was just doing her job. Roy doesn't get why Claudia's so steamed about this particular mission -- after all, it's no more dangerous than some of the others he's been in. Claudia realizes this, but has an unnerving feeling that something terrible is going to happen. "I don't want to lose you," she tells him. Roy assures her that she won't, and the two embrace.

Elsewhere in the park, Minmei tells Rick she always enjoys coming here because it reminds her so much of Earth. She takes him down to the stream to feed the ducks, and adds that she sometimes even forgets that they're out in space. As Rick looks up at the high metal ceiling above he remarks that there's always something there to bring reality crashing in. "I'm glad I got to see you today," he tells her. "I've been wanting to spend some private time with you for a while, and this might be my last chance." He tells her that he's going on a mission tomorrow and might not come back. At that, Minmei shoves him over, and tells him to stop being so gloomy. "You should be like me," Minmei tells him, "and make the best of the situation. Think about happy things -- like my birthday, for example." She tells Rick that her uncle's planning a sweet sixteen party, and she was going to invite him, but now she doesn't know. "On the other hand," she says, "if you cheer up a bit, you might get a special invitation." Suddenly she realizes she's running late and, as she bolts off, wishes him good luck on the mission.

Moments later, Lisa is standing on a bridge overlooking the park. "The end of another shift and no one to go home to," she thinks. "Claudia didn't mean it, but she was right -- I've forgotten what it's like to have someone in my life." She wishes that Karl hadn't volunteered to go to Sara Base, but remembers how he always put his pacifistic ways above his personal life. At the same time, Rick passes by, worried that Minmei seems more concerned about her birthday party than his mission. He absent-mindedly runs into Lisa, and they both apologize. Realizing who he's face-to-face with, Rick quickly salutes, but Lisa reminds him that they're off duty. She asks if he's taking a walk, and tells him that she often comes by here to think before a big operation. Rick tells her he was just on his way home, and finds her behavior odd -- usually by now she'd be at his throat. Lisa asks if that was Minmei he was talking to, and asks if they're dating. He says he's not sure yet, and tells her he's got to go over the mission specs, so he has to get going. As he races away, Lisa notes that while he acts so odd sometimes, he is kind of cute ...

Back on Pandora, Lord Dolza appears on Buran's monitor and asks what he has to report. Buran informs him that while he has not located the SDF-1, he has captured the Micronians who were scouting his secto and he believes they are from the ship. However, he is having trouble extracting its coordinates. Dolza tells him to continue his efforts. Meanwhile, the Robotech Masters have a new Protoculture weapon to be used against the Micronians, and Dolza informs Buran that he is sending the Boturu fleet under Lord Khyron to Pandora to test it. Buran finds this unnecessary, but Dolza will not be questioned. "Upon successful completion of the tests, your squadrons will accompany his fleet to Earth for final victory," Dolza orders. "You will provide whatever assistance he requires. Am I understood?" Buran acknowledges, and Dolza signs off. The minute his image has faded, Buran smashes the monitor with a shout of, "HAJOCA!" He knows of Khyron; the Backstabber will probably test the weapon on Buran's own battalion. He orders the prisoners to be prepared for further interrogation.

The next morning, aboard the Prometheus, Roy arrives to find his team assembled, with all their gear checked and ready. He tells them to mount up, and asks Rick how he's feeling.

"Armed and dangerous," Rick says.

When each crewman is on-board his craft, the flight crews engage the grapple cranes for the fighters and open the bay doors. Skull Group launches from the SDF-1 and proceeds to Pandora ...

NOTES

TIMELINE - While this story is set during The Macross Saga with no overt references to any dates or concepts native to the McKinney novels (i.e. Thinking Caps), it relies on the previous Antarctic Press story Megastorm for certain plot points. It also directly contradicts the original TV series (specifically episode #6, "Blitzkrieg") and features iconography native to the Macross movie, Do You Remember Love. As a result, it doesn't work in ANY ROBOTECH timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Roy Fokker (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #3 "Megastorm Part 3")
  
• Rick Hunter (last seen in The Macross Saga #5)
• Henry J. Gloval (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #3 "Megastorm Part 3")
• Lisa Hayes (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #3 "Megastorm Part 3")
• Claudia Grant (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #3 "Megastorm Part 3")
• Max Sterling (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #3 "Megastorm Part 3")
• Sammie Porter (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #2 "Megastorm Part 2")>
• Kim Young (last seen in Robotech (Antarctic) #2 "Megastorm Part 2," next in The Macross Saga #7)
• Lynn Minmei (last seen in The Macross Saga #5, next in The Macross Saga #7)
• Uncle Max (last seen in The Macross Saga #5, next in The Macross Saga #16)
• Hansen (first appearance)
• Jones (first appearance)
• Lambert (first appearance)
• Buran (first appearance)
• Dolza (last in Return to Macross #4, next in The Macross Saga #11)

Let me lay this key continuity problem out a little more clearly ...

At the end of Megastorm, the SDF-1's overdrive maneuver sends it from Jupiter to the asteroid belt, from which it should proceed to Mars, returning us to the TV series narrative. In Megastorm, three of the SDF-1's anti-gravity modules are destroyed, which is cited as one of the reasons the SDF-1 doesn't just charge into battle over Pandora; this directly ties the two stories together. Yet, for some reason the SDF-1 has doubled-back towards Saturn, given the need for a VF-1E to scout ahead to its moon Pandora. Roy suggests that going around Pandora will cause them to add months to their voyage -- but it looks like they've already covered that one.

Making matters worse ... Max Sterling is removed from active duty to cover up the testing of the VF-1X Super Veritech equipment at the end of Megastorm, yet is hand-picked by Fokker (and gung-ho to go) in Covert Ops, totally at odds with his nervous, never-flown-in-space portrayal in episode #8, "Sweet Sixteen." Rick looks at him like he's crazy -- maybe when he sees Sterling later he doesn't put two and two together? Certainly the nervous, sickly-looking young guy he meets in "Sweet Sixteen" is totally at odds with the confident, eager young pilot he meets here.

Even more problematic ... Rick tells Uncle Max that he's never flown a mission before, and makes sure to remind Fokker of the same after the mission briefing. Megastorm works best between episodes #6 & 7. Episode #6, "Blitzkrieg," is Rick Hunter's first action, at the Battle of Saturn's Rings. Roy's internal narration in "Blitzkrieg" notes it, Minmei mentions it enthusiastically when she and Rick meet at the park where she's wearing the dress they picked "together," and while this has all the feel of a "top secret" mission squeezed between episodes, Rick tells Minmei it's happening. How can he tell his not-quite-girlfriend that he's going on his first mission twice?

What's clear is that as far as Rick's story goes, this is supposed to either fall before "Blitzkrieg" or maybe instead of it. Lane spends a lot of time making references to events that will occur in the near future: "Bye Bye Mars" is set up extensively, with references to Sara Base, Karl Rieber, and Khyron. "Sweet Sixteen" is set up in the scene with Minmei, where she talks up her birthday party. The only piece of the puzzle reflected here that's missing if "Blitzkrieg" happens after this story (or not at all) is Rick and Lisa's antagonistic relationship -- Lisa recognizes him and knows he's a pilot, which she didn't until Fokker properly introduced them the day before Rick's first action -- you know, the scene where Sammie calls Rick "Mister Lingerie."

The other major continuity problem with the book is that nearly every single design in the book is taken from the Macross movie Do You Remember Love, starting on page 1 with the VF-1E recon variant Veritech Fighter. The RDF was still using Cat's Eye recon planes at this point (see episode #7, "Bye Bye Mars," and episode #10, "Blind Game"), if they ever did wind up with the -1E variant in the ROBOTECH universe (hey, it's always possible). The Zentraedi Powered Armors that attack and capture the fighter's crew are the Do You Remember Love variants, though in the next issue the different mecha and combat armor designs are explained away as a sort of tribal difference.

Almost all of the RDF uniforms and weapon systems feature Do You Remember Love designs and detailing -- the little buttons on the collars, the multiple rank stripes, the pilot jumpsuits, the slightly different VF-1A head -- heck, even the Coca Cola machine Roy passes by as he runs away on page three is a Do You Remember Love design. And yet there are occasional reminders that we're in the ROBOTECH universe -- the demolitions experts are wearing TV series uniforms, a character on a video billboard at the top of page three is wearing a TV series-style intra-atmospheric flight helmet (no visor and chin), and most importantly, the SDF-1 still has the Daedalus and Prometheus attached and NOT two ARMD space platforms. (Which makes the crane launch on the last page really strange -- when would they have had time to add that functionality to the Prometheus? And better, WHY?)

Despite the Do You Remember Love styling of all the Zentraedi equipment, our heroes are still facing TV series-style Zentraedi -- they still have hair and round ears. (Do You Remember Love's Zentraedi are all bald and pointy-eared.) I am struck by the fact that on page six the Zentraedi seem to be equipped with helmets and shields far more reminiscent of the Masters' Bioroid Terminators' equipment -- unless that's Do You Remember Love equipment I'm not familiar with, which is highly unlikely.

Aside from very rough inks, the art throughout is beautifully detailed and solid -- Lane clearly knows these characters and designs backwards and forwards, inside and out. His Minmei looks a bit old for her age (sweet sixteen coming up), but that's probably just because he's using the movie character design. Buran strikes an imposing figure -- no wonder Lane wanted to use the Do You Remember Love uniforms, he wouldn't look quite as impressive in anything else -- and doesn't look out of place next to more familiar faces.

Especially sharp-looking are the last three pages, where Lane cracks out the gray tone patterns, giving those pages a very manga-flavored feel. Those pages feel a lot sharper, a lot less inky.

Question: As our story opens, Roy tells Rick that he "moved into the barracks just in time." Is this a sarcastic remark, with the building they're standing in front of being the barracks Rick just moved into, or is Lane suggesting that Rick was living in this building before he enlisted? Because right before he enlisted, Rick was temporarily living above Minmei's aunt & uncle's Chinese restaurant (see episode #5, "Transformation").

Until the publication of "Mars Base One," the backup strip that ran in WildStorm's Robotech: Invasion series, it was considered a misconception that the Zentraedi destroyed Mars Base Sara -- after all, in "Bye Bye Mars," Exedore says it was destroyed "in a battle with their allied forces," meaning other humans. The story now is that Sara was wiped out by Zentraedi long-range scouts, though it was hushed up, and the scouts never made it back to Dolza with a report, meaning the Zentraedi shouldn't know it was taken down by their fellows. Buran says it went down "easily" -- and according to "Mars Base One," that wasn't the case. But of course, "Mars Base One" was published six years later ... and until that point, Exedore's statement in "Bye Bye Mars" should still have stood as what really went down.

The Super Veritech equipment, as in Megastorm, shouldn't be in use yet, though at least this time there's a story-related reason for using it. The very same month as this was published, the first issue of Lee Duhig's two-issue mini-series Wings of Gibraltar has the Super Veritech equipment just under development much farther along in the timeline, post-"Paradise Lost" (episode #20). Where in the blue blazes was the editorial oversight? (Answer: nowhere. Why do you think Antarctic Press lost the ROBOTECH license?)

Fun fact: outside of Robotech The Sentinels: Rubicon, this is the only time Minmei appears in an Antarctic Press ROBOTECH comic book story. Also, the way that she and Uncle Max's remarks toy with Rick's emotions is quite reminiscent of the way Minmei's words played with his feelings in "Transformation." Lane has some trouble with the words, but boy does he have the melody down ...

I was positively ecstatic when I saw Lane using the Zentraedi term "hajoca," one of the words created by long-time ROBOTECH comics writer Bill Spangler way back in Eternity's The Malcontent Uprisings. While that's a rather strong term to be throwing at the Supreme Commander of all Zentraedi forces, it was still a pleasant sight to see in an Antarctic Press publication.

Also, kudos to him for writing Buran as an honest-to-goodness character rather than a monster-of-the-week like Megastorm's Kohrah or Wings of Gibraltar's Calen. The mega-weapon that Dolza describes doesn't even arrive in this story -- Buran doesn't get a gimmick to fight his foes with, like a fancy kewl new mecha or cloaking shields. He has to get by with traditional Zentraedi tools -- albeit Do You Remember Love-styled Zentraedi tools.

Next issue

Labels: Covert Ops, Macross

posted by Captain JLS @ 9:58 PM

Robotech: Covert Ops (Antarctic Press)

Mini-series / August - September 1998 / Story & Art by Gregory Lane

Everything goes according to plan, we're in and out and back in time for cocktails in the officers' lounge -- on me.

THE LOWDOWN

In the aftermath of Kohrah's devastating attack, the crew of the SDF-1 is faced with an enemy force located on the fourth moon of Saturn, Pandora. When a VF-1E recon plane goes missing, Robotech Defense Force intelligence discovers the culprits hiding out on Pandora and, taking a suggestion from Commander Hayes, devises a strategy to destroy the base with a small team of specially equipped Veritech Fighters. Roy Fokker, Rick Hunter, and Max Sterling lead a demolitions team to the target, but find themselves confronted with a desperate foe hungry for glory.

BACKGROUND INFO

Out of all the people who worked on ROBOTECH comics for Antarctic Press, Greg Lane probably had the second most experience with the property after Megastorm writer and Rolling Thunder writer/artist Fred Perry, who inked and toned the first issue of Cyberpirates and several issues of Invid War back in the day. Lane had penciled a few issues of The Malcontent Uprisings in the early 1990's for Eternity, and since then had done a number of anime-style comics for smaller publishers, including Mecharider and Danger Girls (not to be confused with J. Scott Campbell's more well-known Danger Girl).

Despite his qualifications, however, Lane's first two issues of ROBOTECH material for Antarctic, a side-story set during the SDF-1's long trek back to Earth, crossed a very vexing line. As if it wasn't enough of a black mark that he was writing and drawing a sequel to Antarctic Press's incompetently-produced debut outing Megastorm, almost all of the character and mechanical designs Lane used in Covert Ops were from the 1984 motion picture Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love (DYRL for short) -- from the bridge uniforms, to the flightsuits, to the SDF-1's bridge layout, to the Zentraedi base and armor design, right down to the Coca Cola machine on page 3 of the first issue. I understand that it was his preference to do so, as he's more partial to those versions of the Macross character and mecha designs -- buuuuuuuuuut ...

The problem is that DYRL is not a part of ROBOTECH. DYRL is a fancy, redesigned retelling of the original Japanese Macross television series, but it was never adapted into ROBOTECH. Consequently, at no point should Rick Hunter be wearing a DYRL flight suit, nor should the ROBOTECH version of the SDF-1 be launching Veritechs via crane-arm. Moreover, at the time, Harmony Gold didn't even possess the rights to the DYRL designs -- I'm pretty sure they do now, thanks to a licensing agreement with Tatsunoko Productions earlier in the 2000's, but in 1998, this was not the case.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Lane does not use DYRL designs all the time in this series -- indeed, on page 7 of the first issue, you get an eyeful of the contrast that appears throughout Covert Ops. The SDF-1 body we see is based off of the DYRL ship design, while the Daedalus and Prometheus are straight out of the TV series. Hence, the SDF-1 gets the intricate detail treatment, while the deck of the Prometheus gets TV animation-level detail work. The Zentraedi soldiers at the base on Pandora are all dressed in DYRL Zentraedi gear, but when Dolza appears on Buran's video monitor, it's the TV series bald-guy-in-a-robe that appears, not the movie's weird piecemeal floating torso jacked into a plant-like fortress. That dichotomy is rather pervasive throughout -- Covert Ops is a story which in so many ways tries to be true to the TV series, despite the fact that the author insists on using much of the movie's eye candy.

If Covert Ops weren't tied into Megastorm, and didn't have the non-canonical art design, and as a separate issue didn't have the SDF-1 doubling back to Saturn (they passed Jupiter while heading towards Earth -- according to Megastorm itself, they should have passed through the asteroid belt by now), it would actually be an excellent side-story. To tell you the truth, as it stands it's actually a fun ride. The characterization is excellent and the artwork is very well done -- Lane does a good job emulating character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto's style to a degree (though the inking, as Lane himself admitted at the time, is not that great), and the mecha action is about as solid as you can get when gray tones are few and far between. There are only a few confusing fight panels, mostly those without a dark space background for contrast.

To sum up, it's not a terrible Macross-era mini-series -- in fact, it compares very favorably to the rest of Antarctic's Macross-era offerings due to the strong characterization both visually and verbally, some excellent scene staging, and -- best of all -- the little touches that recall the Eternity and Academy days (Zentraedi villain Buran's furious shout of "HAJOCA!"). It just doesn't work very well as either a sequel to Megastorm or even as a side-story in proper ROBOTECH TV series continuity. Well worth a read if you're in need of a quick ROBOTECH fix, but from a pedantic fanboy standpoint -- as an interlocking piece in the grand tapestry of ROBOTECH -- quite a mess. (Lane's follow-up, the New Generation one-shot Class Reunion was better on several counts.)

COVERT OPS

• Issue 1 - Covert Operations Part 1
• Issue 2 - Covert Operations Part 2

LINKS

• Greg Lane on deviantART -- Greg Lane's deviantART account, featuring new comics work, commissions, and more.
• Greg Lane on ComicSpace -- Like a MySpace page, except for people working in comics.

posted by Captain JLS @ 6:51 PM

Robotech (WildStorm) #1 (of 6)

"From The Stars"

Plot - Tommy Yune
Script - Jay Faerber
Art - Long Vo, Charles Park, & Saka of Udon
Letterer - Jenna Garcia
Asst. Editor - Kristy Quinn
Editor - Ben Abernathy
Special Thanks - Tom Bateman & Erik Ko

Published by WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics.

Release date - December 18, 2002
Cover date - February 2003

Diamond order number - OCT020801
Estimated sales - 53,023 copies

THE STORY

It is the year 1999. Somewhere in rural northern California, on the fields of Pop Hunter's Flying Circus, young Rick Hunter races excitedly towards his mailbox. Inside is a letter from his dear friend Roy Fokker, currently flying fighters for the military out in the Pacific. He rips the letter open and sits down in the grass beside the mailbox, smiling as he reads the latest from his mentor:

"Dear Rick, sorry I couldn't call you, but my latest mission requires the entire carrier group to maintain radio silence, so this letter will have to do. Has Pop let you fly in the circus yet? I know you've been dying to strap yourself in the cockpit and contribute to your family business ... but remember that flying can be dangerous. Take it from me. So stay sharp and remember everything your pop and I taught you, and I have no doubt you'll be flying rings around me in no time."

Somewhere in the South Pacific, aboard the U.S.S. Kenosha, Roy Fokker returns from his latest run untouched, a feat which doesn't go unnoticed by his fellow fighter pilots. What also doesn't go unnoticed is the fact that he's gone through four wingmen in the last three months, including the one today. "And in all that time," one of the pilots says, "he's never even taken a serious hit."

"Well, he's been flying since he was a kid, right?" a younger pilot, Steve, says. "I heard he was part of a flying circus. I guess it's in his blood."

One of the other pilots tells Steve he can ask Fokker all about it, because he's his new wingman. "Been nice knowin' ya!" he adds.

Steve shrugs it off. "Go ahead and laugh, guys. This guy managed to become a double ace faster than anyone else in Skull Squadron history. Frankly, I'm honored."

As Steve walks down to meet Fokker, Admiral Hayes looks down from the ship's bridge and asks the Kenosha's captain if he thinks this new wingman is going to make it. "I don't know, Admiral Hayes. That's a good question. Fokker sure has blown through his share of wingmen ... but this new nugget got top scores at the Academy, so let's just say I've got my fingers crossed, sir." Hayes laughs, asking if he carries a rabbit's foot as well. "I don't mind telling you, sir, considering our latest mission, it probably wouldn't hurt. Do you really think the Russians would be so careless as to sell their Oscar-class nuclear subs to a foreign power?"

Hayes is quick to respond. "Captain, considering the shape the world is in today, nothing would surprise me. Our orders are to follow the Russian sub that was spotted in these waters, and see if we can find any truth to the rumors. The Pentagon's suffered too many setbacks with all the recent hot spots around the globe. Let's see if we can carry out a mission that they can put in their "win" column."

Meanwhile, aboard the aforementioned Russian sub, the SSGN Minsk, Captain Henry J. Gloval asks his first officer Poruchik if there's any sign of the Americans yet. Poruchik says there's no sign yet, but the sonar station is on alert. "Good, good. If our information is correct, the American Navy has probably dispatched an entire carrier group to follow us by now. They must really think we're so desperate that we'd even sell our most prized vessels ... vessels which could then be used against us! I must say, it's been ages since I've heard a more ridiculous notion. It just goes to show you how strange the world has become. Our military forces are already stretched to their limits, trying to maintain a grasp on the many conflicts which have erupted all over the world. And something in my bones tells me this is going to get worse before it gets better." Just then, the sonar operator informs Gloval that an American helicopter just dropped objects into the water above them. "Sonar buoys. I should've guessed ... Admiral Hayes is a slave to traditional American tactics." He gives the order to go quiet, and Poruchik relays the order to bring the sub to a full stop.

For a moment, all is quiet except the "ping" of the sonar. Then, above the waters of the Pacific, a volley of missiles strikes and destroys the American helicopter. Gloval is immediately informed of this development. He asks if it was one of theirs that hit the chopper, but it wasn't.

Above the water, aboard the Kenosha, Hayes asks if it wasn't the Russians, who shot their helicopter down? He looks out with his binoculars, seething, when the captain tells him the Pentagon is on the line for him. "I'm just a little bit busy right now, Captain," he grumbles. The captain informs him they said it was important. He takes the call. "This is Admiral Hayes, what's -- Well, I'm in the middle of a situation, can't -- I see. Okay. Yes, sir." He hands the captain the phone and tells him he's in charge. "I'm needed back at the Pentagon, ASAP. I want you to send sub hunters after the Minsk, and scramble a fighter squadron to chase down those bogeys." The captain asks why Hayes is being called away. "I honestly don't know," Hayes says. "But what if it is, it's big."

On deck, Roy and Steve rush to their fighters. Roy asks Steve if he thinks he can keep up. "You can count on it, sir!" Steve says with a big thumbs-up. As Roy looks at a photo of himself and Rick in happier times, control tells him he's cleared for takeoff. "Skull One-Eleven here, ready when you are. Let 'er rip, tower!" He shoots off into the sky.

Elsewhere, on the shuttle back to Washington, Admiral Hayes gets a call from the Pentagon. "Admiral, this is Secretary Dellinger. I know you're probably curious about why we're calling you back." Hayes says "curious" is a good word. "Well, I didn't want to keep you in the dark for your entire trip bacl. You'll recieve a full briefing upon your arrival at the Pentagon, but in short ... we've detected a massive unidentified object that appears to be heading straight for Earth's atmosphere." As he takes the words in, Hayes's eyes widen in sheer and utter shock.

Back in the skies over the Minsk, Skull Squadron comes into the range of the fighters that shot down the American chopper. "I count fourteen bogeys, dead ahead," Skull Leader reports. "We've got our work cut out for us, Roy. Lead ahead with Steve and try to break up their formation ... and save some bogeys for us this time!" Roy tells Steve to follow him. When cannon fire begins to come their way, Skull Leader orders them to fire at will. Steve misses with one of his missiles and asks Roy if those are Russian SU-37s they're flying. "No, it's something else ... now pull ahead of me, kid. We're gonna weave a basket!" Steve is unsure -- he points out that he's got a bunch of the enemy craft on his tail. "Absolutely!" Roy responds. "This is an old trick. They're a sucker for this every time!" A short bit of quick maneuvering and gunfire later, and Steve is astonished that it worked like a charm -- the enemy's been torn to shreds. "Would I lie to you, kiddo?" Roy asks.

"Uh oh, Roy -- they got a lock on me!" Steve says, spotting a missile on his trail. Roy tells him he won't outrun it, so he has to outmaneuver it.

"Head for the deck and then pull up at the last second. The missile won't be able to duplicate that move." Steve tries, but goes too low. His nose touches the water, and the missile catches up with him, blowing the plane to scrap.

After a brief moment of shock and horror, Roy recovers and resumes his fight with renewed conviction, tempered with anger. "All right, you bastards, playtime's over," hs snaps. In a matter of moments, three enemy craft are full of holes and going down. He then spots the one that took out Steve. "I wanna see the look on his face when he realizes his ticket's about to be punched. Wait," he says, pausing to get a good look at the enemy fighter, "those aren't Russian markings. Who are these guys?" As his thumb hovers over the trigger to fire his missiles, Roy decides there's no time to worry about that now. "We can sort this out once these guys are taken out for good."

Just then, Roy spots something shining out of the corner of his eye. He looks up ...

Just as the sub hunter aircraft sent to track down the Minsk prepares to launch its torpedoes after it, a blazing light draws towards them. As it draws ever closer, the aircraft is torn apart. On the Kenosha, the captain orders all hands to brace for impact and the deck to be cleared, but it's too late. The incoming blazing object tears past them, and the shockwaves behind it knock the Kenosha on its side, spilling aircraft into the ocean; its escorts are tossed about like bath toys by the tsunami created by the unidentified incoming object's entry. Roy kicks in his afterburners, gaining altitude to avoid a burning death as the flaming object from the stars crash lands on a nearby island.

Beneath the ocean, Gloval is told there are some strange readings coming in. He takes a look at the monitor and orders the ship to dive deeper immediately.

Back in the sky, Roy tries to radio the Kenosha and Skull Squadron, but to no avail. He takes a look towards the island and wonders what the hell is going on.

The Minsk rises to periscope depth and Gloval takes a look outside. He is stunned by what he sees. "Take us to the surface, Poruchik." Poruchik tells him they could be looking at nuclear war here, but Gloval insists. The sub rises, and Captain Gloval gets a look for himself at Macross Island, smoke steadily billowing from its flaming surface, marred by the presence of a massive twin-engined monstrosity.

"This," Gloval says forebodingly, "is a whole new war."

NOTES

TIMELINE - Modern Robotech.com timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Roy Fokker
  
• Rick Hunter
• Steve (first and final appearance)
• Admiral Donald Hayes (last in flashback in Return to Macross #20, next in Invasion #1 "Mars Base One")
• Henry J. Gloval (last in flashback in Return to Macross #30, next in Robotech: The Graphic Novel)
• Poruchik (first and final appearance)
• Secretary Dellinger (first and final appearance)

Personally, I wouldn't suggest reading Admiral Hayes's and Captain Gloval's storylines in chronological order based on how things fit -- or rather, how they fail to -- in the events prior to and following this issue. The appearances that Admiral Hayes is between are two separate, distinct stories explaining how his wife died. Even better, in each story both he and his wife have different names ("Nicholas" and "Catherine" in Return to Macross, "Donald" and "Sara" in "Mars Base One"). The latter story is the one that is currently considered valid.

On top of that, Lisa is already with Karl Rieber in the Return to Macross story, while in "Mars Base One" they meet for the first time. In the Return to Macross flashbacks, the SDF-1 hasn't crashed yet, while in "Mars Base One" it's explicitly stated that it's taking place in 2001.

Gloval is in a stranger fix, temporally between events that in no way could have had any impact on his storyline according to the modern take. While the story told here appears to be very slightly derived from the old pre-Robotech.com novels and comics -- maintaining Roy Fokker's participation in the conflict raging across the Earth prior to the crash of the SDF-1 and his assignment to the carrier Kenosha -- it shakes up the old storylines quite a bit. For instance, it scales back the nature of the pre-SDF-1 conflict, turning it from one huge conflict called the "Global Civil War" into an explosion of smaller conflicts across the globe. Unlike earlier works, the lines between countries seem to be about what they were in the REAL 1999. In the Comico Graphic Novel, Fokker was a pilot for the "Western Alliance;" the novels and Bill Spangler's Return to Macross referred to him as having been a pilot for the "Internationalists"; here he seems to be flying for the U.S. Navy.

Further -- and this is what throws Gloval's story continuum out of whack -- it takes Captain Gloval and puts him on the opposite side of the conflict from Fokker and Hayes. This is a major difference from all previous pre-Macross era ROBOTECH works, which had put Gloval in command of the Kenosha with Fokker flying under him during this era of war. The only major problem with the new setup is that it has the potential side effect of effectively bolluxing the story Gloval tells Lisa Hayes in episode 15, "Homecoming". As Gloval tells her:

"When we were serving together, a problem came up once about inadequate rations for the men. When he couldn't get any action from headquarters, he ordered our entire division to raid the food supplies of the commanding general. The general thought spies had infiltrated the regiment. He kept sending down orders for us to find them."

All I can figure is that this must have happened in some joint U.N. operation of some sort in the early '90s (the Gulf War perhaps?); McKinney figured about the same, though he had the luxury of a nearly decade-long Global Civil War to explain it away and didn't have the problem of Gloval and Hayes being on opposite sides immediately prior to the crash of the SDF-1. The one thing that helps fit Gloval's story in "Homecoming" into continuity with this issue is the fact that here Gloval does know Hayes by name. The way he speaks of him it seems the two have a history, and the TV series does nothing to suggest that it was always a friendly one, especially considering the way things go in the TV episode in question.

This issue had two different covers, neither of which have much of anything to do with the contents. Cover #1 is a rather nice but fairly stock piece of The Macross Saga art conjured up by Long Vo and his pals at Udon. It's unfortunate that the ROBOTECH logo covers up the top of the image; it would have worked better on the bottom, since there's no important characters' faces there. Heck, the logo covers Gloval's face, and he's one of the few characters on the cover to appear in this issue! Otherwise, though, not bad; the VF-1J isn't even too Super Poseablish. My only other complaint would be that Fokker seems to be wearing a Macross The Movie: Do You Remember Love? pilot's jumpsuit, not a ROBOTECH uniform. Notice how he has no stripe on his shirt collar and the jacket collar is the wrong color.

Cover #2 is also nice, though it's obvious that the model for the VF-1S was the "VF-1S Roy Fokker Last Stand" action figure that was a mail-away exclusive at ToyFare magazine in the summer of 2002. Also obvious from their flatter-than-normal appearance is the fact that the Battlepods were modeled off of the video game Battlecry for the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube. While not a good representative piece of art for this series, it's a really nice piece. Why don't we have a poster of it, or maybe a wallscroll?

Unlike the Comico Graphic Novel and the flashback scenes in Return to Macross, everyone's wearing uniforms that, as far as I can tell, hew pretty close to the present day uniforms of their respective countries, though with a few liberties taken here and there (notably the RDF-style striped shirts underneath the U.S. Navy pilots' flight jackets). I also think Roy's flight helmet probably should have a visor of some sort, but anime-style creative license seems to have been taken so we can more easily identify him in the skies.

On the first page they appear, Hayes and the captain's name badges are blank; on all subsequent pages, they do appear. Hayes is identified only as "Admiral Hayes," though later issues do identify him as Donald Hayes -- as remarked above, this is the second first name the character has been given, though Hayes was only originally given a first name during the Academy run of Return to Macross, so I can very easily forgive Tommy Yune & Co. for not being aware of it. The captain serving under him's name badge appears only in one panel, in such small type that I can't read it -- it's on page 8, and it's slightly askew. Anyone out there able to read it?

The Russians' dialogue is written in a faux-Russian-looking font, which I think is a nice touch. Yes, Gloval was Russian in the ROBOTECH TV series. Yes, I know the character was originally supposed to be Italian in the Macross TV series. Quiet, you.

The fighter that shot Steve down has the same markings that T. R. Edwards's plane had in the old Comico Graphic Novel (which also happen to be the same markings seen on the fighters in the flashbacks in episode 33, "A Rainy Night"). For those of us who know our ROBOTECH, this is foreshadowing; for everyone else, the beginning of a mystery that really doesn't pay off.

When this was released, there was a discussion about the physics of the SDF-1's arrival on one of the ROBOTECH on-line forums. Ironically, it was pointed out that while the tsunami generated by the shockwaves of the SDF-1's arrival would only move the aircraft carrier group around and not utterly destroy them, it would have created enough force to crush Gloval's Minsk, especially if it dove into deeper water. I suppose that's something of a major "oops" given the outcome presented, though I doubt most readers would catch it.

Previous issue | Next issue

Labels: From the Stars, Genesis

posted by Captain JLS @ 7:05 PM

Robotech (WildStorm) #0 (of 6)

"Promise"

Story - Tommy Yune
Script - Jay Faerber
Art - Jim Lee, Ale Garza, Carlos D'Anda, Lee Bermejo, Trevor Scott, Richard Friend, and Sandra Hope
Colors - Udon Studios
Letterer - John E. Workman
Editor - Ben Abernathy

Published by WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics.

Release date - December 4, 2002
Cover date - February 2003

Diamond order number - OCT020800
Estimated sales - 47,880 copies

THE STORY

"At the dawn of the new millenium, the human race discovered they were not alone in the universe when an abandoned alien vessel crashed into the Earth. The bounty of advanced technology within would alter the course of human history. This alien technology was known as Robotech. A powerful alien race, the Zentraedi, would bring an age-old war to Earth. However, aided by the miracle of Robotechnology, the human spirit would prevail ..."

It is the year 2015. Veritech Wolf Squadron is in pursuit of a team of full-sized Zentraedi rebels who have stolen a cache of GU-11 gun pods. Wolf Leader Jack Archer radios headquarters and assures them that his team will intercept the rebels and recover the goods. As he tells his wing that they don't have authorization to use deadly force the Veritechs transform to Battloid mode and follow the rebels into what appears to be a drained resevoir. Suddenly, one of the rebels lets loose with a surprisingly loaded gun pod and the Battloids take cover. One pilot notices some approaching Monster Destroids. "Oh," he says, "looks like reinforcements. Guess base didn't think we could handle these stragglers on our--"

One of the Monsters fires -- and not at the Zentraedi. The blast takes the head off of a VF-1A Battloid. "Those are Zentraedi markings!" another pilot shouts. Indeed they are -- shoddily-painted blue Zentraedi insignias adorn the "noses" of the squat Destroid mecha. The Veritech team has been led into an ambush. The Destroids let loose on the Veritechs, firing everything they've got at the team. "Wolf Leader to base! Wolf Leader to base! We're taking heavy fire! We need back-up now! I repeat, we --"

"I heard you the first time, Wolf Leader ..."

A sleek new model of fighter plane with familiar yellow and black trim and skull & crossbone fin flash flies into the oncoming fire. "This is Skull Leader. Hold on, I'll have you out of there in no time!"

In the cockpit of his shiny new YF-4 Veritech Fighter, Rick Hunter pulls down on a familiar control lever marked "G." The jet begins to respond to the command, but it registers a malfunction. Instead of swooping down in Guardian mode, Rick is forced to lock onto the two Monsters with his missiles and knock 'em out the quick & dirty way. He fires and dives between them as the Monsters' weapons systems explode. "The Destroid Monsters have been neutralized," Rick tells Wolf Squadron. "We've deployed a full assault team to assist you in containment and clean-up." Wolf Squad thanks him as they take the full-sized Zentraedi rebels into custody.

Rick returns to Macross City with the YF-4 prototype, flying by the mounds that will stand as a monument to the fallen SDF-1 and cover over the rubble of that ship, Khyron's battlecruiser, and other remains from the Battle of New Macross City. As the Veritech touches down and screeches along the runway, Doctor Emil Lang runs up to demand a word with Hunter.

"Hello, Dr. Lang!" Rick says cheerily as he removes his flight helmet. "We're going to need a complete rundown of the YF-4's new transformation system ..." Lang demands to know what he was thinking, taking the prototype into battle.

"Had you been shot down, all of our research would have been lost ..." Lang says. Rick goes on about the transformation system, pointing out that the configuration actuators appear to seize up during a hard dive. "... and the Veritech advancement program would have suffered an enormous setback!" Lang finishes. He asks Rick to take the matter more seriously, but Rick counters that he takes this all very seriously; after all, if it hadn't been for the YF-4, some men's lives would have been lost. "Spoken like a true fighter pilot, I must say," Lang notes. "I wonder who taught you your priorities. Surely, it wasn't ..."

Rick is no longer listening; he's noticed that the VF-1S Skull One is in the hangar in Battloid mode. He asks what it's doing here. "Now that we're phasing out the first Veritech series," Lang explains, "we're preparing to disassemble Skull-One to perform a structural analysis of stress and fatigue. The data vould be invaluable since it is the oldest surviving VF-1 in our inventory." Rick says he must have missed it on the schedule. He apologizes for risking the prototype, and asks if they can continue at another time. Lang agrees, then adds that Admiral Hayes wanted him to remind Rick about his appointment tonight. Rick thanks him., then runs his hand along the mecha's canopy. "Well, old girl, Roy told me once that he thought you'd outlive him. But knowing Roy ... I thought he was just being dramatic."

Rick flashes back sixteen years ... it is the year 1999, six months prior to the arrival of the SDF-1. At a small air circus in the southwest, it's pouring rain outside, and the announcer is telling the audience that the it doesn't seem to be letting up so they're going to have to close up early. "Hey, waitasecond ..." he says as a small yellow biplane soars through the dark clouds towards a bolt of lightning, "maybe the show ain't over yet! Look, folks -- that's death-defyin' Roy Fokker up there! Looks like he's gonna make sure you get your money's worth, rain or shine!"

After the show, Fokker climbs out of his plane. Two people are waiting for him: a young boy of around nine and his father, a square-jawed old-timer in a bomber jacket. The man is one "Pop" Hunter, the owner of the air circus. As Roy boasts about his flying, Hunter chides him. "Part of being a good pilot is knowing when to take intelligently calculated risks. But flying stunts in a thunderstorm is plain stupid even for someone with your raw talent." Roy assures Pop that he can take care of himself, but Pop already knows that. "But one of these days ... you're gonna get someone else killed."


A day or so passes. Young Rick Hunter races across the field to the front office of the air circus in search of Roy. Roy and Pop are watching the news, and Rick asks Roy if he's really going to go fight in the war. "'Fraid so, little brother," Roy says. "Can't put it off any longer." He turns to Pop. "I know you're anti-war, and I"m not exactly eager to kill anyone myself, but I'm a damn good pilot, and my country needs me." Pop puts his hand on Roy's shoulder. "I can respect that," he says. "Every man's gotta make his own way in this world." Roy thanks him, then takes Rick outside to talk.

Rick asks if he can come with him, but Roy tells Rick that war's no place for little guys like him. "When I get older, then?" Rick asks. Roy assures Rick that when he's old enough to be a fighter pilot, this war is going to be a distant memory. "Then will you come back and fly for the circus again?" Rick asks. "You bet," Roy replies, "and I'll be back for good."

"You promise?"

"Yeah, I promise."

NOTES

TIMELINE - Modern Robotech.com timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

2015
• Rick Hunter (last in The Macross Saga #36, next in Robotech (WildStorm) #6)
  
• Jack Archer (first and final appearance)
• Dr. Emil Lang (last in The Macross Saga #6, next in Robotech II: The Malcontent Uprisings #7)
  

1999
• Roy Fokker (first chronological appearance)
  
• Mitchell "Pops" Hunter (first chronological appearance, next in Robotech: The Graphic Novel)
• Rick Hunter (first chronological appearance)

While "Pops" Hunter has a different first name in the old Comico Graphic Novel (one of three, collect them all) and a more feeble appearance overall, that doesn't change the fact that the scenes with Rick's dad (and Rick, for that matter) in that story don't contradict anything in this mini-series. Everyone else (the Earth-based characters, that is), on the other hand ...

This was the first all-new published story set in Harmony Gold's revised ROBOTECH timeline, which throws all of the old, previously published material out and starts fresh with the original 1985 TV series as its only basis.

I have to agree with a friend of mine when he says that the opening narration is missing a little something, namely, "In the year 1999 ..." The date does come up later, but honestly, it should have been in the narration, if only for nostalgia reasons. Besides, the "at the dawn of a new millenium" stuff (which became the standard opening for all the WildStorm ROBOTECH comic series) gives me nasty flashbacks to the Robotech 3000 trailer. *shudder*

Note the use of the ROBOTECH: Battlecry video game's VF-1R Veritech Fighter (three-lasered head) as Wolf Leader's craft. The Battlecry storyline was, at this point, the only other all-new story material in the revised ROBOTECH timeline. Wolf Leader Jack Archer's cameo here would not be the only cameo by a ROBOTECH video game character in the comics; Dr. Osmund from ROBOTECH: Invasion would appear in the last two issues of the comic series of the same name. However, Osmund gets to be referred to by name, while Archer is not.

Bear in mind, Wolf Squadron was referred to in the first episode of ROBOTECH and reappears in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, setting up its appearance in the Shadow Chronicles animation. It's been set up in the new material as the other premiere Veritech squadron, alongside the Skull.

Despite the reboot, traces from other earlier "secondary canon" works do shine through; notice that one of the primary established characters in this story is Doctor Emil Lang, who first grew to prominence in ROBOTECH II: The Sentinels and works designed to set the stage for that aborted television project (i.e. the original Comico Graphic Novel). If you'll recall, originally he only appeared in episodes 5 and 6 of the TV series. The scenes with Roy and Rick's father also seem to draw heavily from the portrayal of "Pop" Hunter in the aforementioned Graphic Novel, though "Pop," while clad in a very similar outfit, is much younger-looking here than his Graphic Novel counterpart.

Rick's craft in this issue is the YF-4/VF-X-4. He played with a model of it in the opening scenes to episode 36, "To The Stars". There was some chatter about whether or not Harmony Gold could legally use that design prior to this issue's release. Since it does appear in the show, at least in model form, I would assume they do. However, I assume that the mecha was unable to transform in this story for legal reasons; Harmony Gold does not own the rights to the design of the Guardian or Battloid modes for this mecha since it only appeared in Fighter mode in the material they have the rights to. In fact, no such forms were designed by mecha designer (and Macross co-creator) Shoji Kawamori for this particular revision of the design. A refined version of the mecha called the VF-4 Lightning was later developed for the 1987 combination music video/epilogue Flashback 2012 and further refined for the Bandai video game Macross VF-X, only the latter of which actually featured a GERWALK (Guardian) and Battroid (Battloid) mode for the craft. I suspect a Battloid and Guardian mode would have to be designed for this mecha in-house at Harmony Gold before it could be used again in ROBOTECH for any period of time.

The two-page spread on pages 7 & 8 depicts the construction of the three mounds that appear in the Masters episodes of the ROBOTECH TV series (a.k.a. SX Point 83). Easily seen behind the unfinished framework of the one in the forefront are the remains of the SDF-1; in another, Khyron's downed battlecruiser. The third one is almost complete and thus we don't get a look inside. Harmony Gold has been awfully noncommittal about what exactly is in that third mound. Series story editor & producer Carl Macek has long claimed that he intended for the SDF-2 to be standing back-to-back with the SDF-1 in the final episode of the Macross portion of ROBOTECH, "To The Stars," so that its remains could be the contents of the third mound. However, since no SDF-2 actually appears in the footage, some have argued that the references to the SDF-2 in "To The Stars" had to be referring to events at another location and thus it cannot be what is inside that third mound. Since the Daedalus arm of the SDF-1 was sheared off in Khyron's final suicide attack, I suppose that could be the contents of the third mound. (In the trade paperback collection that contains this story, From The Stars, a reference drawing of the under-construction mounds appears and does identify the third mound as the SDF-2. However, that's merely preproduction material, and the finished art remains noncommittal.)

Speaking of that location, it appears that New Macross City is relatively intact below the mounds. Since the passage of time between Rick's thoughts about that fateful day in New Macross and his final approach for landing is indeterminite, it's not clear if he's landing at New Macross or at nearby Monument City, but if he is landing at the former locale, this flatly contradicts all earlier licensed material, which swears up and down that New Macross is so terribly irradiated by the destruction of the SDF-1 and Khyron's battlecruiser (and possibly the SDF-2) that nobody should ever go there ever again ... or at least until an insubordinate Dana Sterling decides to ride out there in 2029.

I have a qualm with Lang's accented dialogue (not reproduced in the quotes above, for clarity's sake), written out like, "vhat is dis?" which strikes me as a trend that should have been given up by comics writers years ago. Nobody had ever written Lang's dialogue that way before, at least not in any published officially licensed story, despite the fact that he spoke in a German accent in the show. While I could hear Lang's voice the way I remember it from the series a shade more easily with the accented dialogue, I still think it reads like a bad stereotype in an obnoxious kind of way.

Notice that Rick is still "Captain Hunter;" he has apparently not recieved a promotion since the end of the Macross episodes of ROBOTECH, wheras Lisa is referred to as "Admiral Hayes." This is another aspect that flies in the face of previous licensed works, which brought Rick up to just under Lisa's rank after the destruction of the SDF-1 and -2 (hence references in the novels from "The Zentraedi Rebellion" onward to "the Admirals Hunter"), but makes good sense. After all, Lisa's last words to Minmei concerning Rick before she and he took off to fend off Khyron's final attack were, "He's a pilot! That's his life!" This very point is made by Rick early in "The Zentraedi Rebellion," and the fact that Yune and Faerber didn't go down that route in this story proves that they were paying better attention to that line than Lisa was in that particular story.

The appointment that Rick has with "Admiral Hayes" appears at the end of issue #6.

The twelve story pages of this issue were handled by seven different artists. It's not clear who did what, or who served in what capacity; only a person familiar with each artist's style and what each person tends to do (as in "pencils or inks?") would be able to tell, and I'm not that familiar with most of these names. Oh sure, I know Jim Lee, WildStorm's founder and Editorial Director, but the rest of the names aren't totally clicking. I think Lee did the first page or two; and even then I'm not totally sure, since it's possible that different artists may have worked on the same pages.

The mecha art appears to be strongly based on the Toynami Super-Poseable Veritech action figures. The hands on the Veritechs are more mechanical-looking than those in the show, and the neck and leg joints are more detailed and mechanical-looking as well. The large kneecaps are definitely taken from the Super-Poseable toy design; Veritechs' knees are generally NOT that pronounced. The shoulders, though, are very much those of a transforming Veritech design; they're more boxy and less pointy than those on the Toynami Super-Poseables. Very, very slight but noticeable liberties were also made with the VF-1A's head; it's not as rounded as it used to be. Despite the numerous nitpicks, though, the mecha art looks excellent -- much better than most of Antarctic Press's hand-drawn mecha art -- but it does have certain hallmarks which reek of revisionism rather than nostalgia. Then again, revisionism seemed to be quite the order of the day during the 80's nostalgia boom.

The character art is another matter. Dr. Lang is the spitting image of his anime counterpart, despite some weirdness on his lumpily-drawn jowels. Rick, on the other hand, is barely recognizable. He bears a much closer resemblence to the toned-down and kind of hideous Matchbox action figure from the 1980's than his big-haired anime counterpart. He actually somewhat resembles the early test drawings for the character done by Macross character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto during the two years of lead time prior to the beginning of production on the TV series. Between the story and the pin-up art in the back of the book, I swear that I've seen more Rick Hunters that don't actually look like Rick Hunter in this book than anywhere else ever. Usually artists at least try to replicate his big and weirdly-pointed hair; the artists on this book didn't even seem to try.

And the noses look kind of weird, too.

Somehow, though, Roy manages to look sorta like Roy. Perhaps it's that his hair is more generically anime-styled and his face shape more specific than Rick's. Looking at it now, the final shot of Roy actually bears a striking resemblence to the He-Man character design from the 2002 relaunch of that property, with a longer chin. Maybe it's just that I've seen so many weird-looking versions of Roy (due to the revolving door of artists on Return to Macross) I'm much more tolerant of weird Roys than I am with weird Ricks.

Speaking of He-Man, Rick's dad looks a lot like Man-At-Arms from the '02 relaunch as well. Same age lines, same moustache, same face shape, same predeliction for wearing protective headgear ...

In "Boobytrap," Rick says, "You promised my dad you'd return to the air circus when the war was over ..." The only person he promises here, however, is Rick. I assume Roy made that promise before he made his promise to Rick; otherwise the line from "Boobytrap" either doesn't make sense or, feasibly, you could claim Rick decided to bring up his father in "Boobytrap" just to stick a nice, sharp emotional knife in his "big brother" -- after all, it does come right after Rick calls Roy a "killer."

The pin-ups in the back are something of a mixed bag. For the record, they are:

• Rick Hunter and Lynn Minmei with a VF-1S Super Veritech behind them, by Adam Warren (Gen 13, Dirty Pair, Empowered) on character art and Joe Wight (Twilight X) on mecha. Please note that this is the most correct-looking Rick Hunter in the ENTIRE BOOK. Also note that Wight was a regular cover artist on the Antarctic Press ROBOTECH anthology title in the late '90s.
• Exedore, Breetai, and Khyron along with a small fleet of Zentraedi ships and a few Zentraedi mecha, by Troy Nixey (Grendel: Black, White, & Red, Jenny Finn) and Jeromy Cox.
• Claudia Grant, Lisa Hayes, and Lynn Minmei having a picnic with an extremely Super-Poseable Figure-looking VF-1S Skull One giving a "V" hand-sign in the background, by Randy Green (Witchblade, Tomb Raider, New X-Men: Academy X), Rick Ketcham, and Omar Dogan.
• Max and Miriya's video game battle with a CG rendered showdown between their REAL mecha in the background, by Kaare Andrews (Spider-Man: Reign) on characters and Tipatat Chennavasin on mecha renders. Scratch my comment above, the Rick Hunter in the background HERE is the most correct-looking Hunter in the whole book. Also note that Chennavasin also was responsible for at least one render that appeared in Antarctic Press's Vermilion mini-series and the cover art for the third issue of the Antarctic ROBOTECH anthology title from the late '90s.
• A "poster art" style piece with Rick Hunter, Lynn Minmei, Zentraedi Battlepods, and the VF-1S Skull One in Guardian mode, by Dustin Nguyen (Wildcats 3.0, Manifest Eternity).
• A decidedly non-anime piece featuring a horrifyingly well-endowed Rick Hunter carrying a spherical flight helmet, Lynn Minmei, and two Skull-marked and sleeker-than-usual VF-1 Veritech Fighters, by Keron Grant (Son of Vulcan), Rob Stull, and Udon.
• An all-out mecha battle with proper anime-style VF-1's (yay, no Super-Poseable knees!) of various sizes in front of the SDF-1, by Long Vo and Saka.

Moving a little away from the art to other visual elements of the book, on one of the readouts when Rick is attacking the Monster Destroids, the screen says that the glitch is with the "transportation system", not the "transformation system". Easy mistake, corrected in the trade paperback collection.

This also appears to have been otherwise hand-lettered, one of the very few hand-lettered books put out by a major publisher that I've seen in so many years. Kinda nice, though the lettering is not as clean as the lettering I recall from the days when all books were hand-lettered. Does lend it more of a nostalgic feel, though.

Next issue

Labels: From the Stars, Genesis

posted by Captain JLS @ 1:07 PM

Robotech: From The Stars (WildStorm/DC Comics)

Mini-series / December 2002 - May 2003 / Story by Tommy Yune & Jay Faerber

This is a whole new war.

THE LOWDOWN

It is the year 1999. Across the planet Earth, chaos reigns. As armed conflicts erupt between nations all over the globe, a rumor reaches the Pentagon that Russia is selling off a nuclear sub to a foreign power. The U.S. sends a carrier group into the waters of the South Pacific to investigate.

Between the arrival of a mysterious fighter group and a phenomenal event in the sky that soon alters the course of human history, only U.S. Navy pilot Roy Fokker and group commander Donald Hayes survive the encounter.

Six years later, both men find themselves thrust into the spotlight of history when they become involved in the further investigation and development of the technology that fell into the lap of humanity on that fateful day in the South Pacific.

BACKGROUND INFO

Like Bill Spangler's earlier Return to Macross, WildStorm Productions' first ROBOTECH mini-series is a look back at the dawn of planet Earth's involvement in the ROBOTECH saga. It is also designed, for the most part, so that someone without a PhD in ROBOTECH history can read it, but not in such a way that most long-time fans will be grimacing at the liberties taken -- unless, of course, they were weaned on the novels by Jack McKinney and still consider them gospel. A fan with a clear understanding and a certain level of acceptance at the way Harmony Gold is handling ROBOTECH these days should be fine throughout the bulk of From The Stars.

Harmony Gold Creative Director Tommy Yune and Noble Causes creator Jay Faerber's storyline overwrites the classic and infamous Comico Graphic Novel, "Genesis," and Return to Macross with more realistic and far less cartoonish storylines, hewing as close to the way things were in the real 1999 as possible without compromising the integrity of the ROBOTECH TV series -- which, of course, is the only backstory Harmony Gold actually cares about at this point. The inclusion of such elements as the carrier Kenosha and Sentinels villain T.R. Edwards shows that Harmony Gold isn't throwing the backlog of stories created between '86 and '98 out the window entirely, but is rather refashioning their base elements to try and create something better out of them -- or at least something less out of step with the original animation.

The frustrating thing about the resulting storyline (besides its frankly bizarre characterization of Roy Fokker as wide-eyed, clueless, and embarrassed around women) is that it sets certain precedents that the next two mini-series by WildStorm follow pretty slavishly; the framing sequence for this series is set in the post-Macross era and introduces at least one plot point that is incongruous with the tale told in flashback throughout most of the series' six and half issues. Later series spend a lot of time on framing sequences, flashbacks, and confusing epilogues that would serve only to confuse casual ROBOTECH fans; this practice was broken by Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles presumably only because it needed every page to blaze through all the story it could possibly cover.

It is important to note that despite a legacy in comics that lasted from 1984 to 1998, this ROBOTECH series was considered part of the '80s nostalgia boom that struck the American comic book industry beginning in 2001 with Devil's Due's G.I. Joe and rolled on in 2002 with Dreamwave Productions' Transformers revival. As such, it was treated with great disdain, especially in light of the fact that WildStorm's previous '80s revival book was Thundercats of all things.

This series had a Sourcebook issue covering all its major characters and mecha with pin-up pieces, some of them two-page spreads, by a virtual "who's who" of WildStorm talent and brief write-ups by Tommy Yune and Tom Bateman. This issue was released in January 2003 and was partially collected along with the series in the From The Stars trade paperback collection.

FROM THE STARS

• Issue 0 - Promise
• Issue 1 - From The Stars
• Issue 2 - Call To Duty
• Issue 3 - The Program
• Issue 4 - Conflict of Interest
• Issue 5 - The Gathering Storm
• Issue 6 - Commitment

posted by Captain JLS @ 3:04 AM

Robotech: Invid War #1 (of 18)

"No Man's Land"

Story - Bill Spangler & Tim Eldred
Pencils & Letters - Tim Eldred
Inks & Tones - Fred Perry
Cover Painting - Robert Chang
Publisher - Dave Olbrich
Editor-In-Chief - Chris Ulm
Editor - Dan Danko

Published by Eternity Comics, a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group.

Release date - April 24, 1992
Cover date - May 1992

THE STORY

It is February of 2033 C.E. Colonel Jonathan Wolff flies his Alpha Veritech down to Brazilia, into the airspace of an organization calling themselves the Stone Men. He's been invited by their commander to mediate a dispute between them and the Global Military Police. A Valkyrie escort leads him to their camp.

Wolff enters the camp and tells them he's looking for Gavin Murdock, their leader. Murdock is surprised to see that Wolff actually came. "When the G.M.P. asked if there was a negotiator I would trust, I gave them your name as a joke," Murdock says. "I didn't really believe you were back on Earth." Wolff tells him that he's been doing a lot of this sort of work ever since he's returned, and that he's here to stop the fighting between the Stone Men and the GMP, but Murdock's men don't really believe him. "What's in it for you?" one of them asks, a sign of the times. Wolff tells them they have bigger worries -- the Invid are coming, merciless and hungry for Earth's remaining Protoculture supply. He wants to unite all the remaining power blocs so humanity will be ready to fight the Invid. However, the Stone Men are skeptical. Murdock asks when the Invid are supposed to arrive. "We don't know," Wolff says. "We could have years ... or we could have days. But either way, the Invid are coming. And when they do, they're going to make the Robotech Masters look like amateurs."

"Don't give us that!" one of Murdock's men snaps. "We fought the Robotech Masters!"

Murdock gets his men to settle down. He explains that most of them are former Southern Cross personnel who fought against the Masters. When the Masters destroyed their station at Mexico City, they moved south, gathering food and Protoculture to survive. Although many of the Stone Men feel they're still a part of the Southern Cross, but as Wolff points out the GMP doesn't see it that way. Murdock thinks the GMP just doesn't want another military force so close to their borders. The Stone Men aren't going to leave Brasilia without a fight. "Maybe if had gone into space, this would look like small potatoes to me, too," Murdock says, "but this is all we have, Colonel. We're fighting for our future here!" Wolff is just about to agree with that sentiment when --

Suddenly, their lookout sounds an alarm. Mecha are approaching. Murdock throttles and decks Wolff, shouting, "YOU SET US UP!!" Assuring Murdock that Satori tricked him as well, Wolff gets up, disables a couple of the Stone Men, and escapes to his Alpha. Two GMP Gladiators and a Raidar X arrive, attacking the Stone Men's base. As Wolff's Guardian-mode Alpha launches, Murdock arrives in a Hovertank. Wolff destroys the GMP's mecha, and leaves. "He fired on his own men ... and now he's leaving!" Murdock stammers in disbelief. "What's he trying to prove?"

At the GMP base, Wolff meets with Nova Satori. Wolff isn't happy with her lies. She explains to him that one of her subordinates broke the truce between the Stone Men and the GMP, and she simply pressed the advantage. Wolff thinks she's still lying. However, the issue is settled, as the Stone Men have been dealt with, although Murdock escaped. Wolff tells her he supposes that he's not getting his payment of Protoculture, and Satori tells him to drop the issue unless he wants his superiors in the United Earth Government to find out about his private Protoculture stockpile. "I would advise you to take this setback philosophically," she suggests, "and move on to something else. Clear?"

Wolff leaves the base in his Alpha and as he's flying, there's a crash of lightning. Soon after, UEG Command loses contact with Moonbase ALuCE before losing contact with all its other stations, including Wolff's base at Vahalla. The Invid have arrived. Wolff tries to fight the airborne Shock Troopers, but after a few quick kills, he's shot down.

In the morning, a pair of foragers, Norvell and Parkes, discover Wolff's crashed Alpha. Upon noticing the intact canopy, they smash it with a crowbar and help him out, and he asks them to transport him back to Vahalla.

NOTES

TIMELINE - Jack McKinney novels timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Jonathan Wolff (last in Love & War #6/flashback in Invid War #3)
  
• Nova Satori (last in Robotech Masters #23, next in Invid War #4)
• Gavin Murdock (first appearance)
  
• Norvell (first appearance)
  
• Parkes (first appearance)

Actually, that reference to Wolff's last appearance is a tricky one ... in Love & War, it's 2031 and the Invid have already arrived, but he's seeing off Dana Sterling and the 15th Squadron as they head out into space to get help from the Expeditionary Force. Essentially the same scene under a different set of circumstances appears in flashback in Invid War #3 -- prior to the invasion, Dana steals a ship, along with most of the rest of her 15th Squadron, to return the surviving clone triumvirates to Tirol and be reunited with her parents. For those curious, Wolff's last appearance prior to those was in Robotech II: The Sentinels Book IV #13.

Brasilia, in the McKinney/Spangler continuity, is the original home of the Army of the Southern Cross prior to its recognition by the United Earth Government and was last seen in Spangler's first ROBOTECH series, The Malcontent Uprisings. That was also where Wolff first appeared on the scene in the pre-Robotech.com continuity; since then, he's been shoehorned into the Macross Saga era as a combat pilot-turned-flight instructor on-board the SDF-1 (see Love & War).

Wolff and Murdock make an explicit reference to the five missing years from the SDF-3's fold -- seriously, half the characters Wolff encounters in Invid War say something like, "Jonathan Wolff, eh? I thought you'd be older." Wolff also cites the novels' SDF-3 year of departure, 2020. Welcome to McKinneyland, folks -- strap on your Thinking Caps and watch out for the singing, chanting psychic children!

This issue does an excellent job of showcasing the fractured political landscape of the Earth prior to the Invid Invasion. Nobody trusts anyone, supplies are few and far between -- the world is in a severe state of decay. The human race has weathered two armageddons, and it shows.

I assume that the name of Wolff's headquarters, "Vahalla," is a misspelling of "Valhalla," the great hall in Norse mythology where soldiers slain gloriously in battle to to await their final test of combat in the battle to end all battles, Ragnarok.

Labels: Invid War, New Generation

posted by Captain JLS @ 10:49 PM

Robotech: Invid War #4 (of 18)

"Only Survivors"

Story - Bill Spangler & Tim Eldred
Art - Tim Eldred & Fred Perry
Cover Painting - Robert Chang
Publisher - Dave Olbrich
Editor-In-Chief - Chris Ulm
Editor - Dan Danko

Published by Eternity Comics, a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group.

Release date - August 14, 1992
Cover date - August 1992

THE STORY

It is March of 2033. Jonathan Wolff's Orpheus Flight, a mixed team of VF-1 Veritechs and Alpha Fighters piloted by the few men Wolff knows he can trust implicitly, arrive at the burning oil fields of old Texas. Parkes, a former forager, asks how long the others think the oil fires will keep going. Gavin Murdock, formerly of the Stone Men, figures about forty or fifty years. Terry Weston, an ex-TASC pilot and former drifter, points out that the burning fields are providing the Invid with plenty of cover, but Murdock tells him the cover works both ways -- the Invid won't expect them to come in from this direction. Wolff says to cut the radio chatter so as not to draw attention to themselves, though as he thinks about it he realizes that's exactly what he did back at Vahalla ...

Speaking of which, back at Vahalla, Major Carpenter has something to show Bekka Cade -- a message from Wolff. "This is a heckuva wake-up call, I know," Wolff says on the recording, "but I think this is the best way to handle things. I've decided I can't ignore Gary Hauser's theory about where the Invid are holding Catherine and Johnny. I've put together a team to attempt a rescue. By the time you see this, we'll be on our way. Murdock, Hauser, Parkes, and Weston are going with me. I told traffic control that we were a scouting mission for the attack on Reflex Point. If you're smart, you won't contradict the story. Believe it or not, Carpenter, I am sorry. Catherine, Johhny and I will probably never be a family again, even if I can find them ... but I owe them this much." He says he'll try to rejoin the main force to attack Reflex Point as soon as he can, but if his men don't return, they'll know what happened. Bekka is outraged. "That arrogant, irresponsible ... who does he think he is??" she asks.

"He knows who he is," Carpenter tells her. "He's Jonathan Wolff."

On the outskirts of Dallas, Hauser is amazed by the energy being given off by the Invid domes among the ruins of the city. As the Veritechs approach the target zone, Wolff suggests that if they come in low and fast they might surprise their foes. However, they are soon met by a squad of Invid Troopers. Parkes and Wolff nail a couple of them, but Weston is hit from behind. Realizing he's in bad shape, he decides to ditch his Alpha at one of the domes. The plane touches the ground and skids along on its tailfins before exploding at the Invid's doorstep. Horrified, Murdock takes his VF-1 down to try and rescue Weston, but as he switches to Battloid he finds himself face to face with an Invid Enforcer.

Meanwhile, the fleet from Moon Base ALuCE II descends to Earth as a convoy and is forced to confront the Invid in space. Mecha from Vahalla arrive at Reflex Point ahead of them and launch their attack. Bekka and Carpenter, flying over Reflex Point in a recon VF-1, receive a request for backup from the attacking Hovertank and Valkyrie squads below. Bekka receives word from Captain Nobutu that the moon fleet will arrive in four minutes. However, the forces from Vahalla might not last that long.

Back in Texas, Murdock quickly dispatches the Enforcer, surprisingly with minimal effort. Once-enslaved humans begin swarming out of one of the Invid domes, and Wolff takes this as a sign that he's done the right thing. Murdock and Hauser are ordered to get the humans to safety while Wolff blasts his way into the central Invid dome and destroys its power core. As it crumbles in upon itself, the survivors of Orpheus Flight worry for him, but his Alpha soon emerges and Parkes notes his satisfaction with their performance today. "Norvell thought I was crazy for agreeing to help you, but we did good today, Colonel," he radios to Wolff. "We saved a lotta lives!"

Back above Reflex Point, Bekka loses contact with Nobutu. Half of the fleet from the moon has been wiped out, and Nova Satori informs Carpenter that she's ordering her GMP forces to withdraw. Carpenter points out that they had an agreement. "I didn't agree to let my people be slaughtered," she retorts. "The Invid had us outnumbered from the beginning. Your so-called reinforcements from the moon don't have any real combat experience. We lost hundreds of soldiers today and we didn't make a dent in that blasted hive. We never had a chance against the Invid and your precious Colonel Wolff knew it. Otherwise, he'd be here! You've got to order a retreat now, while there's still people left to save." Against all those facts, Carpenter finds himself defeated and orders a retreat.

While Wolff's day has ended in victory, he is told by one of the freed slaves that his wife and son were transferred to another hive two or three days ago. The rumor was that they were sent to Reflex Point. "Oh, god ..." Wolff says upon hearing the news, "oh, god ... I'm sorry, Carpenter."

Three days pass. In Vahalla, an angry and betrayed Carpenter tells Wolff that he, Bekka, and the survivors from ALuCE II are pulling out and starting their own unit. He accuses Wolff of putting himself ahead of the mission. "Mission?" Wolff asks. "What mission? Letting the Invid use you for target practice?"

"That's not the point," Carpenter counters, "and you know it. The point is, you betrayed our trust. My trust."

Wolff tries to get Carpenter to accept that he's not the same guy he was on Tirol, and he's certainly not the guy the UEG and REF built up with those old propaganda films. "I'm old, I'm tired, and I let my family down when they really needed me." He tells Carpenter there will be no winners or losers in the war with the Invid, only survivors, and if he can't accept that, he should probably go. Carpenter says he'll be out in seventy-two hours.

Elsewhere, Louie Nichols finds that Wolff is currently unavailable. "Tell him it's a matter of life and death!" he urges the operator, but he's already been cut off. "Aaaah, skip it. Typical military mindset. He drags me halfway around the world to upgrade his communications system, and then he doesn't communicate. Well, I've got the message on tape. He'll hear it soon enough." The message is that the Mars Division of the REF fleet is en route to Earth. The Robotech Expeditionary Force is coming home to fight the Invid.

NOTES

TIMELINE - Jack McKinney novels timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Jonathan Wolff (next in Invid War #9)
  
• John Carpenter (next in Invid War #9)
• Bekka Cade (next in Firewalkers #1)
• Norvell [referred to as "Parkes"] (final appearance)
  
• Gavin Murdock (final appearance)
  
• Gary Hauser (final appearance)
• Terry Weston (final appearance)
• Nova Satori (last in Invid War #1, next in Invid War #11)
• Louie Nichols (next in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles #2)
  

According to Invid War #2, Louie Nichols remained behind on Earth when the rest of the 15th Squadron took off, and will go on to hook up the hackers from McKinney's novel The Masters' Gambit, who wind up becoming his colleagues in The End of the Circle. (He may have already, given that in issue #3 Carpenter remarks offhand that Nichols is working for the Japanese these days.) It's also a major plot point of Invid War that, going forward, nobody can actually leave Earth, so this Louie Nichols won't go on to join Dr. Cochrane's crew at Space Station Liberty in Prelude. However, that is the next place you see the character.

It's been a point of contention ever since Sentinels whether or not the Invid Regess developed the Invid Enforcer before or during its first appearance in the ROBOTECH TV series. Of course, the TV series leans towards their genesis occurring at that appearance, since the implication is that she's exploring the Invid's evolutionary development as the series progresses, but later sources, including the Sentinels comics and the RPG assert that while the Enforcer is only in the Regess's arsenal, it did appear prior to the TV series storyline. Given the Sentinels comics' track record, though, and the RPG's penchant for tossing things in for gameplay rather than veracity to the original source material, of course, I could definitely understand counting its appearance here as a flub ...

It was a little annoying that early on the only way to tell which member of Orpheus Flight was talking was by paying attention to the pilots' facial hair. Without haircuts and head shapes to tell them apart, the characters' appearances become awfully similar.

With the conclusion of this story, Wolff goes even further into the depths from which he'll never return except for that one brief, shining moment at the end of "Eulogy." I like how he addresses the propaganda films, though since Scott watched them I think they're actually Expeditionary Force-produced rather than specifically UEG produced, at least according to this McKinney-inspired course of events; the UEG and the REF didn't exactly cross paths in an organized state ever again after the SDF-3 took off -- again, according to McKinney. Of course, in the post-Robotech.com world, I think they portray Space Station Liberty (the ONLY link between the REF and Earth, according to the narrator in the early episodes of the Robotech Masters episodes) as having actually worked as a relay station on occasion, so perhaps in the TV series continuity it could be the UEG that produced those propaganda films. In either case, I'm glad Spangler left that remark in, since it provides something of a context for one of the key images of Wolff we see in the ROBOTECH TV series -- and that propaganda actually appears later on in Invid War (issue #13).

Wolff then says, "There aren't going to be any winners or losers in this war -- only survivors." This line does a good job of illustrating how Wolff's thinking is getting ever closer to his portrayal in "Eulogy." Apparently the feeling that he's lost his wife and son forever really has killed him in a sense. After all, just pages earlier, he seemed rather optimistic as he fought the Invid and helped free those slaves.

The battle against Reflex Point is portrayed later in the series as well, in issue #8. In neither instance does it seem massive enough for an attack that took this much planning on Nobutu, Wolff, and Carpenter's parts. There just aren't enough fighters, not enough chatter -- just not enough stuff to convince me that this is a major concerted effort to destroy Reflex Point. Remember what it took in the TV series, what with the hordes of Shadow Fighters with big Destabilizer cannons and the like? At first glance, you might almost wonder why Carpenter is so angry at Wolff for bailing on the attack -- did he really think that five more fighters would have made a difference?

Then again, notice the way Satori mentions Wolff's absence; she nearly suggests that if Wolff didn't even bother to show up, naturally he must've thought they didn't have a chance in hell. And after all is said and done, he realizes they didn't have a chance. But if he'd been there, perhaps the morale would have been better, or his kills might have prevented some of the casualties, and maybe the joint forces might have gotten out of there in a bit better shape. In any case, Carpenter had good reason to break away from Wolff, even if it's painfully obvious that Wolff's presence wouldn't have done too terribly much.

The next time we see Wolff, in issue #9, he's in really bad shape. Thinking about it, it's not much of a jump from saying that all anyone can do is survive to stealing Protoculture and trading lives for the stuff -- just a step, in fact, from saying to doing. But the Jonathan Wolff who saved the slaves from the Invid hive doesn't seem to be the same Jonathan Wolff who lectures Carpenter at the end of this issue, and certainly doesn't seem to be the same Wolff who, in his next appearance, sneaks into Carpenter's new base in search of Protoculture to steal. When the man fell, he fell hard, and he fell fast ...

As an aside, I wonder ... is the reason we never see either of Wolff's allies in Orpheus Flight due to Wolff selling them out to the Invid down the road? I wonder.

Labels: Invid War, New Generation

posted by Captain JLS @ 9:23 PM

Robotech (Antarctic) #4 - Rolling Thunder Part 1 (of 4)

"Rolling Thunder - Part 1"

Story & Art - Fred Perry
Coloring - ARNie & Patrick Thornton
Editor & Lettering - Doug Dlin
Publisher - Ben Dunn

Published by Antarctic Press.

Release date - October 1, 1997
Cover date - September 1997

Estimated sales - 8,900 copies

THE STORY

The Second Robotech War is at an end, but the remaining armies of the Robotech Masters fight on, attacking sites of human survivors at random. In order to deal with one such attack, Dana Sterling and her 15th Alpha Tactical Armored Corps suit up and get their Hovertanks ready for battle.

At a location designated Site 626, Bioroid forces swarm across the city, annihilating civil defense Battloids left and right. Western Command assures the soldiers there that reinforcements are on their way, but the defenders of 626 can't hold out. Their Battloids are innevitably wiped out. With the 15th Squadron en route, their command vehicle is destroyed as well. The site is a lost cause. Still, the 15th is dropped into the warzone, and Dana orders her men to spread out. As Sean and Bowie land, Dana orders them to shift to Guardian mode and lay down some artillery fire. At that moment, though, Bowie is hit by a force of Bioroids at 4 o'clock attacking from some good cover. Dana, grumbling about how she hates air drops, tells Angelo to cover Bowie and asks Sean if he's in Guardian mode yet.

"Three more Bioroids, Dana!" Angelo calls out. "10 o'clock! And they've got even better cover!"

Indeed they do, as all one can see of them is their arms poking up and firing. However, they're soon blasted by fire from above. Louie Nichols, late in dropping in, nailed 'em from the sky. Dana thanks Louie and orders him into formation. Sean and Bowie finally get into Guardian and Dana tells them to use direct fire, full power, with no missing. They nail target after target, and with some breathing room available, Dana orders her men to charge.

Just then, orders come in from Marie Crystal at Western Command to pull out. "They've gotta be kidding!" Sean comments. "We're completely engaged here!" Dana tells Marie that there has to be a heck of a good reason for this. Marie tells her that not only have they lost contact with Site 626, but their satellite has picked up one hundred and twenty-eight rogue Bioroids inside the city ready to overrun Dana's forces. Sean soon changes his tune. "That sounded like a damn good reason to me! It's bailin' time!" While Dana wants to look for survivors, Angelo disagrees. "Dana, we're good," he says, "but against one-eighty??" Command tells them they have a mercenary transport on its way, e.t.a. forty seconds. Angelo tells Dana it's her call, and she tells her men to just keep the pressure up while she thinks. Bowie informs her that their ride has arrived, along with air support. Finally, Dana caves in and orders Sean, Louie, and Bowie to get on-board. The dropship pilot tells them to hurry up, as he's starting to take fire. Sean's tank is hit. Western Command tells the 15th that twenty more Bioroids have broken through the city limits, and Angelo tells Dana they need to get a move on. However, she tells Angelo to go ahead, and she'll cover him.

Suddenly, something comes up on infrared -- a little girl has survived. Dana takes off after her, much to Angelo's irritation.

Upon observing Dana's strength in battle the commander of the Bioroids, a Master called Khane, orders the Bioroids to leave the area so that he can test her himself. "Kill the rest of them," he orders. His customized Bioroid arrives before Dana's mecha, startling her. She is informed that the Bioroids are flooding out of the city, and as she continues in pursuit of the girl, bad news about her squad floods in -- Bowie's running low on ammo and his damage is in the red, annd Sean's in equally bad shape and has no comm. She orders Angelo and the others to the dropship immediately just as her own Hovertank takes some damage. Khane finds it odd that Dana's evading him rather than fighting, and wonders why she won't focus on the fight. Bowie tells her that they're all on-board, and she should be, too.

Khane then notices the child. "Is this what you are after?" he asks. "What you want to protect? Intolerable!" He has much disdain for the notion of sacrificing strength in the name of protecting the weak, and thus blasts the child into oblivion. This boils Dana's blood, and she begins to fight him with all the strength and skill she can muster. Sean radios Dana, demanding to know where she is and telling her they have to take off immediately. She asks for a few more minutes, but the dropship pilot decides to cut his losses -- he's got heavy damage and no weapons on-line -- and take off. "Negative, command!! Negative! Major Sterling is still out there ... !" Sean shouts, but the pilot says she's just flat out of time. Sean starts to threaten the guy, but he just doesn't care.

"You fight well, Micronian," Khane admits as his Bioroid begins to take some damage. "It is with great regret that I must turn you away ... but your fighting spirit and skill stem from the desire to protect that which is weak ... unacceptable." He tells his men he is through with her; she is to be eliminated. The Bioroids regroup and swarm over Dana, blasting her from every angle.

Aboard the dropship, Louie taps into the EDF satellite feed and tells Bowie to take a look. "Can you see Dana ... ?" he asks. Indeed he can. "Dana's getting dissected out there! " Louie says. "She's got forty or fifty Bioroids on her! They're cutting her to ribbons!!" Bowie insists they have to do something, but Angelo insists they're staying. "Think about it! What good are we gonna do out there?? Against over one hundred Bioroids? Two of our mecha are down hard already!! We'd all be killed! We have no choice! We have to run for it and leave the Major behind! But I swear ... we're gonna find those creeps again ... and we're gonna make them pay for this!"

NOTES

TIMELINE - Since this story has no overt references to any dates or concepts native to the McKinney novels (i.e. Thinking Caps), it is compatible with any ROBOTECH timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Dana Sterling (last in Robotech Masters #23)
  
• Bowie Grant (last in Robotech Masters #23)
  
• Angelo Dante (last in Robotech Masters #23)
  
• Sean Phillips (last in Robotech Masters #23)
  
• Louie Nichols (last in Robotech Masters #23)
• Marie Crystal (last in Robotech Masters #23)
  
• Bill Tuscon (first appearance)
  
• Dalmeric Khane (first appearance)
  

An eye-popping actioner featuring Dana and the 15th Squadron? And it's actually pretty good? Saints be praised!

Fred Perry takes the characters and mecha of Southern Cross and makes them his own without violating any of the rules in the process. All the uniforms and mecha designs among the Army of the Southern Cross forces are spot-on to the series, but colored in drab earthy greens and grays that make a lot more tactical sense than the garish, heroic schemes of the TV series. The 15th dispense with their bulky, fancy armor in favor of down-to-earth leather jackets over their drab recolored uniforms. The characters themselves have been given an angular, expressive and cartoony overhaul that feels right for the carefree 15th.

New villain Dalmeric Khane is given a cold, imposing look -- squinty-eyed and pointy all around, including big evil eyebrows -- that matches the cold, imposing words he expresses. And Fred Perry concocts a nifty new Bioroid command model, a self-propelled monstrosity (which predates the slightly similar Bioroid Interceptor from Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles by about nine years) with pointy toes and overblown tubing that arrives in a glorious, fiery moment that makes it look like it had just arrived from the mouth of hell. As big bad Antarctic Press boss mecha go, it's pretty slick.

I do have a quibble with the recolored Bioroids and Skysleds. They're pretty blah looking, and giving the Bioroids and their sleds the same fugly aqua color scheme makes it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

An argument I recall from when this story was first published was that the 15th charges in with only five members, while in the TV series they always had a few extra. However, as the next issue makes clear, the Southern Cross is running low on both men and machines. Marie probably let the 15th stay together as a unit due to their ability to get results and also as a favor to Dana, but with Dana out of action next issue the 15th is split apart to bolster other squadrons.

Also, some of the hand-drawn lettering when characters start screaming is a shade melodramatic and over the top, and doesn't really match well with the obviously typeset and sometimes lazily laid-out lettering throughout the rest of the story.

One thing I adore about this story is that it makes the logical leap that despite the lull in the fighting at the very end of "Catastrophe," that moment when everything comes to a peaceful if foreboding end, the fighting didn't just stop then. Skirmishes would certainly continue for a while, as Bioroid teams led by high-level clones regroup and find a way to keep on fighting. And who's to say that there weren't more Masters, like Khane, among the Tirolians who made the trek to Earth? Who's to say that someone couldn't take charge of the Bioroid survivors and keep the war machine running?

Though, of course, Khane himself does open up a lot of questions. Don't get me wrong, he's probably my favorite of the Antarctic Press ROBOTECH rogues' gallery, mostly because the guy's about as cold as they come. For a moment you almost think Dana's going to rescue the kid, but when he kills her merely to refocus Dana's attention, you just know this chapter can't end well. His sick yet perfectly reasoned philosophy hearkens back to the Masters of the TV series, but his execution is far less hypocritical; the Masters in the series would speak of power, but did they ever step into battle to prove their superiority? No, they would stand around on their ship and talk about how they would become the supreme power in the universe and yet let others do their fighting for them: first the Zentraedi in the pre-TV series days, then their Bioroid clones during their campaign to capture the Protoculture Factory. But as for Khane, he will seek the strongest among his foes and prove that his is the most superior power and the most superior skill.

But the problem with the guy is that it's not explained where he came from, or what his function was in the Masters' fleet. He stands alone, not with a triumvirate. Was he running one of the other ships? Was he locked away for his denial of the Triumvirate? Is he some sort of rogue Clonemaster? I have my own ideas, but the text of the storyline never really offers any explanation.

Next issue

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

• Prototype 001 'Tigercat' Part Four

Labels: Masters, Rolling Thunder

posted by Captain JLS @ 11:07 PM

Rolling Thunder (Antarctic Press)

Four-part bimonthly storyline / 1984 - March 1998 / Story by Fred Perry

If I'm going to hell, I ain't going alone!

THE LOWDOWN

While the curtain fell on the Second Robotech War when the spores of the Flower of Life scattered to the winds and the Robotech Masters Shaizan, Dag, and Bowkaz died on their flagship, that did not mean that the Masters had been utterly defeated. Indeed, remnants of the Masters' forces continued to be a threat to the scattered and poorly-armed Army of the Southern Cross as well as the human race at large for some time after the destruction of the Masters' flagship. When Dana Sterling's 15th Alpha Tactical Armored Corps is called in to defend a surviving human settlement, she and her allies find themselves pitted against perhaps the most merciless Master of all, a creature guided so totally by the concept of "survival of the fittest" that he finds defense of the weak to be the most intolerable of all crimes. His name: Dalmeric Khane.

BACKGROUND INFO

Rolling Thunder was the second main storyline serialized in Antarctic Press's bimonthly full color ROBOTECH anthology series. Oddly -- or maybe not so much, given how little attention has been paid to the second generation of ROBOTECH -- it is the only story outside of McKinney's final Robotech novel, Before the Invid Storm, to chronicle the period after the defeat of the Robotech Masters but before the arrival of the Invid. It is also one of the only original Southern Cross tales featuring the TV series cast ever published with Harmony Gold's blessing -- in fact, setting aside the story in Antarctic's Robotech Annual, it's the ONLY wholly original comic book storyline featuring the 15th Squadron!

In some respects, it's not too different from Perry's earlier effort, the hopelessly flawed Megastorm. It's a very action-oriented tale pitting original ROBOTECH TV series heroes against a villain more powerful than any they faced in the course of the old show, featuring improbable new mecha and irritating pop culture references. Still, the unique character redesigns -- done in the same art style as writer/artist Fred Perry's Gold Digger -- matched up with the nifty new Bioroids and the less garish camouflage look given to the Hovertanks and other ASC mecha provide the series with some excellent eye candy. The returning characters are all handled pretty well, though there are a few noticably absent from the roster (Dennis Brown, Nova Satori, Musica).

The only thing is, the new villains, while excellently developed in the personality department, raise a number of questions about the Masters' culture which are never addressed in the story. Likewise, the ideas that make up the bulk of the storyline's conflict, theories regarding the relationship between the Robotech Masters and the Zentraedi, come out of the blue and aren't really backed up by anything in the previous ROBOTECH canon. While it's only really concerned with action and military adventure, the story raises a lot of interesting questions that it never gets around to answering. If there was ever a ROBOTECH comic book story yearning for its own sourcebook, it would be this one. But then, isn't that the Robotech Masters era in a nutshell -- so much interesting potential, so little explored or explained?

ROLLING THUNDER

• Issue 4 -- Rolling Thunder Part 1
  
• Issue 5 -- Rolling Thunder Part 2
  
• Issue 6 -- Rolling Thunder Part 3
  
• Issue 7 -- Rolling Thunder Part 4
  

LINKS

• GD Tangent On-Line -- Fred Perry's art blog, featuring art pieces from his current projects, flash movies, and more!
• PREVIEWS interview, July 1997 -- An archived interview (poorly proofread) talking a little about "Rolling Thunder" and other work on his plate at the time, including Gold Digger and Legacy.

SEE ALSO

Other works (currently in print) by Fred Perry:

• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 1
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 2
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 3
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 4
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 5
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 6
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 7
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 8
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 9
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 10
• Gold Digger Pocket Manga Vol. 11
• Gold Digger Max Pocket Manga Vol. 1
• Gold Digger II Pocket Manga Vol. 1
• Gold Digger II Pocket Manga Vol. 2
• Gold Digger II Pocket Manga Vol. 3
• Gold Digger II Pocket Manga Vol. 4
• Peebomanga 1.0 Pocket Manga Vol. 1

posted by Captain JLS @ 4:56 AM

Robotech: The Macross Saga #36

"To The Stars"

Adaptation - Markalan Joplin
Artwork - Mike Leeke & Mike Chen
Lettering - Bob Pinaha
Colors - Trishie Schutz
Editor - Diana Schutz

Published by Comico The Comic Company.

Release date - February 21, 1989
Cover date - February 1989

THE STORY

It has been two weeks since the Zentraedi warlord Khyron's attack of Christmas Day, two weeks since Lynn Minmei declared her love for Rick Hunter and the two began living together. However, as Rick gazes wistfully out his apartment window, he realizes that something isn't working, something just isn't right. Minmei watches him and hopes that he isn't sick of her. "I've already lost my parents and my career and Kyle," she frets. "I can't lose him, too!" I just can't!"

Minmei speaks up and tells Rick how much she appreciates him taking leave time so they could be together for the holidays. "Don't you wish it could go on forever?" she asks. "What if I could give up my career and you could quit the military, annd we could be together like this for always?"

Rick finds the notion ridiculous. "You must be joking! With Khyron on the loose and millions of people depending on the RDF for protection ... I'm supposed to just chuck away my responsibilities, so we can run away together? No -- I'm sorry, Minmei. My personal life has to come second. I can't -- I won't -- ignore my duty. And you! How could you possibly consider giving up your career? Don't you know what you mean to those people? When the SDF-1 was exiled from Earth, whose Thursday night concerts gave those hundreds of thousands of frightened people the hope they needed to face the unknown? Your voice brought Zentraedi and humans together! Your voice helped save the world from Dolza's armada! My god -- don't you realize what a gift you have?!" However, Minmei isn't joking. She tells Rick that the war could go on forever, and that they may grow old never knowing what else life has to offer. She asks Rick to marry her.

Meanwhile, on a balcony overlooking the lake surrounding the SDF-1, Lisa Hayes fears that she's lost Rick forever, and she realizes that the only person she has to blame is herself. "I should have come right out and told him, that night he came looking for me! But I just couldn't! Because ..." Lisa just can't think why. "... and anyway," she thinks, "because of my stupid hesitancy, Minmei got up the nerve to tell him first -- and who wouldn't take her up on an offer like that?" Lisa believes she can't deal with working alongside Rick every day and watching him go home to Minmei, and when Claudia comes looking for her, Lisa tells her that she's decided to resign from the service.

"Oh, grow up, Lisa," Claudia tells her. "Look at you! A military woman, born, bred, and trained, carrying on like some simpering schoolgirl!" Claudia tells her that while it's her decision to make, if she's going to throw her life and career away to run and hide, she's not the woman Claudia thought she was. As she walks away, Claudia tells Lisa that Admiral Gloval wants to see her on the bridge for a new assignment.

On the bridge, Lisa tells Gloval that in her current state she just can't take something new on, that she needs to get away. "All the more reason to accept the assignment," Gloval tells her, "since it will involve a certain amount of travel." Lisa tells him she's going to resign, but Gloval tells her that's just nonsense.

"All of us have known heartbreak in the last four years, but we can't simply abandon our duties for it -- and certainly not for some silly unrequited romance!" Gloval tells her. Lisa asks if he's known about her and Rick all along. "I have eyes, don't I? In fact, I'd say that the last person to know about it ... was you." Lisa apologizes for her foolishness. "Well," Gloval says, "let's not have any more of that, then! After all, foolishness would be an unbecoming thing for the commander of the SDF-2." Lisa is shocked, but Gloval asks who would be better equipped for the job. However, he tells her that this is a long-term commitment. She quickly accepts, and Gloval gives her the details of her mission: "Our Earth is starting to recover her former beauty -- but she couldn't possibly survive another holocaust like the last one. Too, the time has come for us to leave our cradle behind -- to go forth and claim our place in the universe. That is the purpose of the SDF-2 ... and the reason for your new assignment. You will be taking the new battle-fortress into space. Your mission: to find the home world of the Robotech Masters. Breetai and Exedore will accompany you -- although it might be easier to simply follow Khyron's lead."

Lisa is momentarily confused by Gloval's remark, but he explains that they let Khyron seize that tank of Protoculture during his Christmas raid to allow him to rejoin the Robotech Masters. "... and through him, we can contact the Masters ourselves. We must try to make peace with them -- for the sake of both our races. And if peace isn't possible -- then I intend to make certain that the next battlefield will be on their home planet." He tells her that the reflex engines from the SDF-1 will be transferred to the new ship tomorrow, and asks if she can be ready by then. Lisa salutes and tells him she simply needs to say a few good-byes.

Elsewhere, Khyron's battlecruiser lifts off. Grel asks Khyron if they should set course for Tirol, but Khyron considers the mission incomplete. "Before we leave ... we are going to destroy the SDF-1!" he assures his crew. Azonia asks if he's serious. "And what are we to do, then -- let the micronians have Zor's Protoculture Factory? Let them have the power they need to the Robotech Masters? No -- if we can't have the SDF-1, then nobody will!" At Khyron's command, Grel lays in a course for New Macross City.

Back at Rick's apartment, he plays with a model of the prototype next generation Veritech Fighter and mulls over his future. He can't see giving up flying and all his responsibilities for Minmei, even if she would make such a wonderful wife. He realizes that he just can't think of settling down now, with so many people relying on the RDF for protection from the Zentraedi renegades, and the one person he knows would understand is Lisa. Just then, his doorbell rings. Minmei, busy cleaning the dishes, tells Rick to get the door. Who else could it be but Lisa, come to say her farewells?

"New orders have been handed down -- I'll be going back into deep space soon." Rick is shocked and begins to stammer a response. "It's true -- I can scarcely believe it myself," Lisa says, "but Admiral Gloval has given me command of the SDF-2! Isn't that wonderful? Aren't you happy for me, Rick?" Rick simply asks when she's leaving. "As soon as the reflex engines have been transferred from the SDF-1 ... probably in a day or so." She explains the mission to Rick, and he remarks that it could easily take years. That very fact begins to hit Lisa as she begins to cry and struggles to get the words she so wanted to say out: "Rick Hunter -- I love you! I always have -- and I always will!" She turns to Minmei, now standing at Rick's side. "Oh, please forgive me, Minmei. I know it's too late for me -- I know I waited too long ... but I may never see him againn -- and I had to tell him!" Lisa turns and runs away, telling them that her crew is waiting, but Rick finds himself running after her, telling her that it's not too late. Minmei follows behind, screaming, "Come back, Rick! What about me?!"

Just then, an explosion hits the city, knocking all three down. That explosion is the result of fire rained down by Khyron's ship. Aboard that vessel, Khyron gleefully notes how unprepared the micronians are. "The SDF-1 will be a smoking ruin before they even know what hit them! Fire another volley!" Azonia tells him that the SDF-1 will be in firing range in a few minutes.

Rick finds Lisa laying on the ground, motionless. He rushes to her side, picks her up, and prays she isn't dead. "I d-didn't know -- I didn't know until now .. but I swear I'll make it up to you! I'll make you happy -- I'll take care of you ... I love you ... please, Lisa ... I love you ..." Rick tells her. At that moment, she begins to regain consciousness, and as she sees his face, she asks if she's dreaming. She tells Rick that she just got the wind knocked out of her and asks what happened. "It's a Zentraedi battle cruiser -- probably Khyron's!" Rick says.

"The usual perfect timing," Lisa says. "Seems our relationship has always been interrupted by Zentraedi attacks. Either that," she says, seeing a figure approaching in the distance, "or Minmei would show up ..." Minmei urges Rick to join her in the shelter, but Lisa tells her that she and Rick are soldiers, and they have their duty to perform.

"Listen to me, Minmei!" Rick says. "If you love me, let me do what I have to do! I'm a pilot -- a soldier! This is my life!" Minmei is shocked that he'd even call this a life, this constant string of battles until everything is destroyed. As another explosion rocks the city in the distance, Lisa tells Rick that she has to get to the SDF-2, and he tells her that he'll be there, too. Minmei is still trying to prevent him from going, asking him if he still loves her, but Rick tells her that he can't just think of himself, not when the stakes are so high. "If you still can't understand that, after all that's been said," he says, pulling away from her, "then there's no chance that you ever will!" As Rick leaves her behind, Minmei swears that she'll never understand.

Lisa arrives on the bridge of the SDF-2 just as Khyron's ship comes into range. Vanessa tells Lisa that the enemy ship is twenty-seven miles out and closing fast. The booms of the Zentraedi vessel open like a great maw as Veritech Fighters close in on it. Kim reports high-level radiation readings, and as Sammie tells Lisa that the enemy ship is firing, the blast strikes the SDF-2 dead-center.

Rick's Veritech Fighter flies by the listing SDF-2 as he tries to radio the ship. There is no response. He swears vengeance and tears into the oncoming waves of Battlepods with his fighter's autocannon.

However, all hands are still alive on the bridge of the SDF-2. Despite this, when Lisa asks if anything's still functional, Kim and Vanessa report that the computer's down and power is out. Lisa asks herself what Admiral Gloval would do, and suddenly realizes exactly where they need to be. Lisa tells the trio to follow her, and leads them down a service corridor that takes them directly to the bridge of the SDF-1.

"Welcome aboard, ladies," Claudia greets them. "What took you so long?"

The four women return to their familiar stations. Lisa asks if it'll fly. "Well, now," Gloval says, "there's only one way to find out, eh?" Vanessa reports power levels at maximum, and Claudia reports that the drive is operational and ready for liftoff. "All right, then ... take her up!" The SDF-1 lifts off from the lake, leaving its crippled newborn sister ship behind. The citizens of Macross leave their shelters, aghast at the sight of their city, their world's defender, risen again.

In the air, Max radios Rick to ask if he's seeing things. Rick radios the bridge and asks the SDF-1 what they're doing. "Well," Lisa replies, "we're preparing to fire the main gun ... so I strongly suggest you get your afterburners out of there!" Rick is happy to hear her voice, and calls the Skull Squadron away from Khyron's battlecruiser.

Back on the bridge, Claudia reports the main gun locked on target and Lisa reports only enough power for one shot. Gloval gives the order to fire. The blast from the SDF-1's booms cripples Khyron's ship, but doesn't kill it.

Aboard the dying vessel, Khyron is surprised to still be alive. Azonia tells him that all systems are dead except for navigation. However, the SDF-1 is dead as well. "They're powerless!" Khyron is pleased by the news -- with no power, they can't raise a barrier. "Yes! They're helpless!" Azonia says. "Let's get them!"

"We both will, my love -- but it will require a sacrifice. Will you face it with me?" Khyron asks.

"Yes, Khyron -- yes. It will be glorious."

As Khyron's ship bears down on the helpless SDF-1, Sammie reports not enough power to fire the main gun. Vanessa reports no helm control. Claudia tells them there's no reserve power. Gloval orders the ejection modules readied, but Sammie grimly reports that only one still works. "Only one of us can escape," she says.

"Only one of us," Claudia says, "the one who has the most to live for." She approaches Lisa. Lisa tells her she can't be serious, but Gloval approaches her as well ...

"What is he doing?!" Rick screams from his Veritech as he watches the enemy ship closing in on the SDF-1. "Stop him! Somebody stop him!" Khyron's ship falls dead center between the SDF-1's crippled booms as Rick screams his beloved's name. As the remaining members of the SDF-1's bridge crew huddle together, a family 'til the end ... and as Khyron and Azonia hold each other tight in a passionate embrace, the Zentraedi cruiser crashes through the head of the SDF-1, taking off the bridge and main gun, and comes to a violent rest as a javelin through the heart of the SDF-2. The explosion wipes out the surrounding cityscape.


Max begins the rescue operation for the survivors of thrice built Macross, allowing Rick some time to say good-bye. His Guardian-mode Veritech sits on the edge of the irradiated lake as he thinks the words he would say to Lisa were she still there.

Only, she is right there. "Say, soldier-boy ... give a girl a lift?" she says. Rick leaps down from his cockpit and runs into her arms.

"I--I thought I had lost you ..." he says, grinning. Lisa tells him that Admiral Gloval and Claudia shoved her into the only remaining ejection module.

"They wanted me to live -- now that I have something to live for," she tells him.

"You do, Lisa -- we both do now. And I swear, nothing's ever gonna keep us apart again."

Right on cue, however, a voice calls out from afar. "Rick! Thank heaven you're all right!" Minmei calls out. Rick tells Lisa that he'll handle this, and as he begins to tell her, Minmei interrupts. She knows that he's really in love with Lisa, and he asks her to forgive him. "If you can forgive me for trying to force you into being something you're not," Minmei says. "I ... guess I do understand, after all. My music means as much to me as flying does to you. Kyle's gone. My career is probably in ruins -- but I can't give up my music." Lisa invites Minmei to come with them, to use her talent to help them bring peace between the humans and the Robotech Masters, but Minmei tells her she'll have to think about it. "Right now, though, I want to try and find Aunt Lena and Uncle Max -- and see if there's anything of my past left." She says good-bye to Rick and asks him to say he'll never forget her.

"I could never forget you, Minmei."


Some time later, the Robotech Defense Force regroups and Lisa addresses the remaining personnel. She tells them the mission laid before them by Admiral Gloval -- peace between Earth and the Robotech Masters. "We've lost the SDF-1 and SDF-2 -- but we still have the Robotech Factory Satellite and the remaining ships in Breetai's fleet. With them, we can build the SDF-3, and make good on the admiral's assignment. There's no guarantee whenn -- or if -- we'll return to Earth, so anyone who undertakes this mission must do so voluntarily. Although there are a few people we'd specifically like to request come along." She turns to Max and Miriya. Max agrees, but tells Lisa that Dana won't be coming with them.

"I know how important having a human-Zentraedi child would be to your mission ... but we might not ever come back -- and I want Dana to grow to adulthood and live a long, happy life. If we fail -- if we're killed by the Robotech Masters or even those Invid that Exedore talked about ... I want to die knowing that my daughter lives on." Rico tells Max that he, Konda, and Bron will gladly take care of Dana. Miriya tells him to accept -- that while she'll be raised human, she'll know her Zentraedi heritage as well. Max tells Lisa that they're in. From the crowd behind them, others agree to come along.

"Then, together, we'll realize Admiral Gloval's dream!" Lisa says. "Together we'll go ... to the stars!"

NOTES

TIMELINE - Jack McKinney novels timeline.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

• Rick Hunter (next in Robotech (WildStorm) #0)
  
• Lisa Hayes (next in Robotech (WildStorm) #6)
  
• Lynn Minmei (next in Robotech II: The Sentinels #3)
  
• Henry J. Gloval (final appearance)
  
• Claudia Grant (final appearance)
  
• Vanessa Leeds (final appearance)
  
• Kim Young (final appearance)
  
• Sammie Porter (final appearance)
  
• Max Sterling (next in Robotech II: The Sentinels - The Malcontent Uprisings #1)
  
• Miriya Parina (next in Robotech II: The Sentinels - The Malcontent Uprisings #1)
  
• Khyron (final appearance)
  
• Azonia (final appearance)
• Grel (final appearance)
  
• Rico, Konda, and Bron (final appearance)
  

This is one of the few issues of the Comico adaptations of the original TV series episodes to be written in full script format ahead of the artist going to work. Most of the adaptations were done with the artist setting the pacing, laying out each page while reviewing a videotape of the TV episode, and the writer coming in later and adding the captions and dialogue. No, in order to properly capture the apocalyptic finale of The Macross Saga, Markalan Joplin took the story as presented in the TV series -- and more importantly, in Jack McKinney's novel Doomsday -- and laid everything out for Leeke and Chen. The resulting issue feels a lot more open than the typical Comico adaptation, and hits all the highs and lows far more sensibly and spectacularly than, say, the somewhat off-kilter adaptation of episode #27, "Force of Arms."

In the first shot in the issue, there's clearly a bottle of Petite Cola on Rick's desk. I didn't even know it came in bottles ...

And of course, that model Rick's playing with is a YF-4. He later test pilots a real one in Robotech (WildStorm) #0; his Japanese series counterpart Hikaru Ichijyo goes on to lead a squadron piloting the production model, the VF-4, aboard the SDF-2 Megaroad.

The angle that Gloval really just let Khyron get the Protoculture during the Christmas raid so that he could lead the way to Tirol comes straight from the novels.

Speaking of the novels, they also provide the idea that the SDF-2 requires the reflex furnaces from the SDF-1 before it can lift off "to the stars." Throughout this issue the two ships actually appear back-to-back, as described in the novels and producer Carl Macek's own remarks when asked where the SDF-2 is in the final battle.

Khyron's remark about letting the humans have Zor's Protoculture Factory is more than a little odd -- how would Khyron know about the Protoculture Matrix being aboard the ship? He was a mere battalion commander during his service with the Zentraedi. Wouldn't that be privileged information?

A lot of the dialogue throughout the issue is very strangely different from the TV series and even the novelization. For instance, it's Rick who tells Minmei that he's a pilot, and this is his life, when in the TV series and novels it's Lisa who delivers the line. There are also a lot of additional lines added throughout, clarifying actions and feelings where there might have been some ambiguity in the TV series or where something might have been covered in the narrative of the novelization.

On the rare occasion when all the details of the SDF-2 can be seen, it can be seen to have two ARMD carriers for arms and actually has details inspired by the unused SDF-2 Megaroad design originally drawn up by Kazutaka Miyatake for the Macross TV series. However, to my knowledge there is no art of the Megaroad in a humanoid configuration.

Unlike the scene in the TV animation, the SDF-1's booms don't disintegrate after firing their last shot. However, it does clearly lose its head (and those booms with it) to Khyron's ship instead of its arm, explaining how the crew of the SDF-1 is killed.

It's not just me -- the dialogue during the scene after the SDF-1's destruction is awfully glib considering these people just lost friends as close as family, right?

Rick and Lisa appear in the final scene in command uniforms -- Rick in the same high-collared coat that Gloval once wore, and Lisa in the captain's uniform that was designed by the staff of the original Macross animation for when she was to take command of the SDF-2. So Rick has already gotten his promotion by this point? The two wear the same uniforms in issue #6 of Robotech (WildStorm) and in the framing sequence of "Mars Base One," the backup strip in the Invasion mini-series, so I guess Harmony Gold has decided that this is the correct depiction of post-Macross Saga and pre-Sentinels Rick & Lisa.

In The Malcontent Uprisings and the novel derived from that work, The Zentraedi Rebellion, Max and Miriya only decide to join the SDF-3 mission after a number of trials and tribulations in South America fighting against Zentraedi terrorist cells. But that would really put a damper on this optimistic epilogue here, wouldn't it?

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Labels: Macross

posted by Captain JLS @ 1:34 AM