Robotech: Clone (Academy Comics)

Regular series / December 1994 - August 1995, February 1996
Created by Rikki Simons & Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons

The Mordecai shall become the great father, forever seeding the universe with the souls of colossal laborers of art, mind and invention. And we shall unite to be known as the Empire of the Eye.

THE LOWDOWN

It began as the dream of one man, the wealthy Dr. Gilles Vaudell. In the early 21st century, as the Robotech Defense Force toiled to understand the secrets of the Super Dimension Fortress One, Vaudell and his wife, Demont, along with a cadre of well-trained and well-paid operatives, did the same from their base of operations on the Isle of the IHE (Immuno Heredity Enigma).

Forty years and three Robotech Wars later, Vaudell's dream became a reality. He had for himself a ship, the Super Dimensional Fortress Mordecai, and a crew of loyalists and clones. He had a plan, the "First Manifesto," to populate the Andromeda Galaxy with colonies of clones raised by Mordecai citizens. And he had immortality--a method he discovered called the Xalon Process provided him and his people with the opportunity to watch their plans unfold over the next several generations.

However, once Vaudell's ship folded for Andromeda, he soon discovered what the rest of the Earth already knew--that wherever Robotechnology goes, war soon follows. As the flames of battle began to scorch his mighty fortress, the question struck him:

"Does being immortal mean only this: that the only death I should fear is a violent death?"

BACKGROUND INFO

Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons' Clone was the first Harmony Gold-authorized attempt made to create a new generation of characters in an all-new series of adventures beyond the end of the original ROBOTECH TV series. Of course, Harmony Gold had absolutely nothing to do with it short of signing off on it; it spun out of Simons and Wolfgarth-Simons' three-issue stint on Aftermath, in which they introduced ROBOTECH fans to Gilles, Demont, and the Isle of the IHE. In a way, it is the antithesis of subsequent licensee Antarctic Press's take on ROBOTECH; Clone concerns the continuing adventures of an all-new cast of characters in an unfamiliar place fighting with and being manipulated by all-new alien races.

Despite an extremely labored premise, Clone comes off as one of Academy's more professional efforts, with fantastic, distinctive character designs by Wolfgarth-Simons, striking mechanical stylings by Simons and John Scharmen, interesting twists that seek to explain and explore aspects of the nature of Protoculture, and a fascinating cast of diverse characters. The surface of most of these characters had barely been scratched, however, when Clone started to peter out at issue #5 with a well illustrated but lackluster prose wrap-up of sorts following a fantastic character-driven side story. Despite the questionable quality of its text, though, Clone was headed in a very epic direction at its end. This direction would have remained in the Andromeda Galaxy had Clone's forebearer, Aftermath, not ended prematurely. However, with Bruce Lewis's rushed conclusion to his own take on the ROBOTECH universe in the years following the TV series, Simons retroactively removed Lewis's Aftermath from the Clone timeline, turning it into a fictional storyline written by The New Generation's Rand, and then set forth plans to bring the SDF-M back to its homeworld in an illustrated prose sequel entitled Mordecai. It is ironic that after being stripped of Lewis's poorly concluded storylines, Simons' work would not even be graced with an ending, rushed or otherwise; a second issue of Mordecai was in the works, but was delayed and then cancelled when Academy Comics lost the ROBOTECH comic book license at the end of 1996.

CLONE

  • Issue 0 -- The Dialect of Duality Part 1
  • Issue 1 -- The Dialect of Duality Part 2
  • Issue 2 -- The Dialect of Duality Part 3
  • Issue 3 -- The Dialect of Duality Part 4
  • Issue 4 -- The Dialect of Duality Part 5

  • Special 1 -- Youth Inertia

  • Issue 5 -- Cradlesong

MORDECAI

  • Issue 1

LINKS

  • Studio Tavicat - Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons's studio, featuring her and Rikki's latest creations, links to their on-line journals, and tons of fabulous art.

SEE ALSO

Other works by Studio Tavicat:

posted by Captain JLS @ 1:14 AM