#lynn minmei

After taking a direct hit from the SDF-1′s main gun, Khyron’s cruiser has just enough power to keep on flying. He and Azonia agree to send it on a collision course with Earth’s similarly drained space battle fortress. Sammie reports that only one escape pod is operational. Despite Lisa’s protests, the rest of the bridge crew agrees on who is most deserving to take that spot.

With the destruction of the SDF-1, Robotech: The Macross Saga comes to a close at issue #36 (Comico, February 1989), by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

Oh no, it’s the story that, if Macross were a bad Saturday morning cartoon, we would be seeing every week instead of just the once. If you ask me, though, once was too many, though the episode does have its joys. For instance, we get to delight to the sight of Azonia torturingLynn Kyle.Khyron proving himself immune to Minmei’s song is also an interesting moment, though we’d seen him placidly listening to her before back in “Force of Arms.” (Not pictured: the bit where a loyalist Zentraedi produces a giant cigarette and asks a Veritech Battloid to use its gun pod to give him a light, which I think we can all agree is the best scene in the episode.)

Anyway, yes, here’s some of the less objectionable bits of “Khyron’s Revenge,” from the pages of Robotech: The Macross Saga #32 (Comico, October 1988). Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke do what they can, but, y’know, there’s only so much you can do with “Khyron kidnaps Minmei and demands that Admiral Gloval give him the SDF-1.”

Thanks to Lynn Kyle’s, *ahem*, crowd management skills,Rick Hunter andSkull Squadron have been driven out of New Detroit. In their absence, the piece of Robotechnology they were trying to keep secure, a rare Zentraedi resizing chamber, becomes easy prey for the renegades led by Khyron. This latest case of Kyle’s hatred for the military overriding common sense appears from the pages of Robotech: The Macross Saga #31 (Comico, September 1988) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

Minmei’s hopes for everything to settle into a fantasy version of the past are shattered by the sight of Rick&Lisa chatting. When Rick runs after her, he instead stumbles into a brawl between Zentraedi who stand divided on the issue of a life without war. This display of both humans and Zentraedi being unable to move on with their lives appears in Robotech: The Macross Saga #29 (Comico, July 1988) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

And thus ends the First Robotech War.

This depiction of the rescue of Lisa Hayes fromAlaska Base and the destruction of Dolza’s flagship from the pages of Robotech: The Macross Saga #27 (Comico, May 1988) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

ComicBook.com revealed yesterday thatJason & John Waltrip (the twin artists who together drew the entirety of Robotech II: The Sentinels’s 75-issue run at Eternity &Academy Comics from 1988 to 1996, in addition to the six-issue Legend of Zor mini-series and a wide variety of Sentinels-adjacent one-shots) have done a new cover for Titan Comics’s upcoming Robotech comic book series launching in the spring of 2017. This follows a series of four other cover pieces by artists I’m less familiar with that were attached to an article at Comics Alliance published during San Diego Comic-Con this past July, which can be seen here.

Not a great composition, to be honest – it looks like the result of an attempt to fit a certain number of Macross Colorforms into a comic book-sized-and-shaped space – and it’s come to my attention that most of the elements are redressed bits of copied/traced Macross lineart. All the elements have been added to or otherwise altered to some degree (Minmei was in a completely different outfit in the original Macross model sheet, while Rick & Lisa are cribbed from head shots so what you can see of them from their necks down is mostly new art), and it’s not like this is the first time the Waltrips have ever used animation model sheets from the Japanese shows that comprise Robotech as slightly-too-literal reference (for instance, see Breetai on the cover of Sentinels Book IV #2 from January 1996; the Waltrips also tended to copy from model sheets when dealing with mecha that didn’t appear quite often enough to remember throughout the Sentinelsrun), but it still registers a sour note when I wish I could just be happy to see those familiar signatures gracing the cover of a Robotech comic for the first time in over two decades.

(That said, this is probably still the cover I’m going to request when the book is solicited in the spring, assuming this appears on issue #1.)

During a lull in the Zentraedi attack on Macross City, Rick Hunter spiesLynn Kyle kissingLynn Minmei. He vents his frustrations on a nearby squad of enemy Battlepods. Nearby, several micronized Zentraedi disembark from their Battlepods, eager to start new lives among their former foes, but fully aware that their chances of survival would drop to nil if the humans knew who they were. This display of frustrated efforts comes to us from Robotech: The Macross Saga #23 (Comico, November 1987) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

Two additional notes:

In the TV episode, Lisa demands to know how Kyle is as Rick signs off. As Lisa’s fixation on Kyle is one of the worst subplots in all of The Macross Saga, the change here is welcome.

Not sure if this is the first time it’s appeared, but on the last page we see the Comico-specific Zentraedi exclamation “Macek’s eyes!” a cute reference to series producer & story editor Carl Macek.

Dolza has decided that the SDF-1 has become too dangerous. His point is proven by the behavior of the troops under Breetai’s command, who have fallen under the sway of the humans’ consumer culture. Meanwhileaboard the SDF-1, Rick Hunter considers the distinct possibility of his own death. These scenes from an escalating war come to us from Robotech: The Macross Saga #22 (Comico, October 1987) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

Having both walked out of “Little White Dragon” during a particular moment both of them found hard to watch, Rick Hunter andLisa Hayes find themselves trapped in a cut off section of the SDF-1 during a full ship transformation. This scene of a slowly thawing relationship comes to us from Robotech: The Macross Saga #21 (Comico, August 1987) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

BreetaiandExedore don’t understand special effects. “Little White Dragon” reaches its conclusion in the pages of Robotech: Love & War #6 (DC/Wildstorm, November 2003) courtesy of Ken Siu-Chong,Tommy Yune, & Jo Chen.

It’s the moment where Rick Hunter decided he couldn’t watch another moment of “Little White Dragon,” reproduced in the pages of Robotech: Love & War #5 (DC/Wildstorm, October 2003) by Ken Siu-Chong,Tommy Yune, & Jo Chen.

I would remind everyone that as a general rule Zentraedi don’t have the know-how to make any sort of repairs, but then this strip shares space with a story that featured Azonia andReno just wandering around a Zentraedi cloning facility together like it ain’t no thing, and this alleged Zentraedi also has period dress and earrings, so clearly canon and common sense have both left the building together, probably to elope somewhere far less ridiculous than the pages of Robotech: Love & War #4 (DC/Wildstorm, September 2003). Ken Siu-Chong,Tommy Yune, & Jo Chen are the responsible parties.

Rico,Konda, and Bron kept a lot of neat stuff. This relatively innocent first step towards the fall of the Zentraedi war machine comes to us from Robotech: The Macross Saga #20 (Comico, June 1987) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

evancass:

Reconstruction blues. Robotech/The Killers “A Dustland Fairytale” AMV.

My second anime music video. The ecological & emotional upheavals of Macross’s Reconstruction era — and my appreciation for Minmei & Lisa’s characters — fit well with this ‘killer’ song, my favorite from the Day & Age album.

I think they’re out of my system now. For awhile at least. I’ll do a Southern Cross AMV someday for sure. Anyway – considering this one & the last, I think I’m pretty good at pairing songs & vids for emotional thrust. Hey, if I give myselfgoosebumps…