#robotech

Another 4x6” watercolor drawing for a Patreon backer: #RoyFokker’s #SkullLeader #Veritech (#Robotech/#Macross)

Having recovered from his injuries, Max Sterling leads his Skull Squadron toCavern City, home to the legendary Wolfe Pack, to assist in a mission to take on Zentraedi rebels who have attacked a flight carrying a food shipment. This guided tour and meeting of two of the greatest Robotech aces ever to have lived comes to us from Robotech II: The Sentinels - The Malcontent Uprisings #2 (Malibu/Eternity, September 1989) by Bill Spangler &Michael Ling.

Having found himself a prisoner of Zentraedi renegades in the radioactive wastelands of the Congo, Max Sterling works to out-think and out-fight his captors in an effort to stay alive long enough to be rescued – unless, of course, radiation poisoning gets him first. This cheery sequence comes to us from Robotech II: The Sentinels - The Malcontent Uprisings #1 (Malibu/Eternity, August 1989) by Bill Spangler &Michael Ling.

Consider that one year earlier Comico’s Robotech: The Macross Saga #30 was on stands and this issue is the one where Max beats a Zentraedi soldier to death with a rock and then stares at all the blood on his hands. Crazy times.

Rick Hunter andLisa Hayes order the Zentraedifleet to bombard and bury the mounds housing the remains of the space battle fortresses SDF-1 andSDF-2 as well as the flagship of the renegade Khyron. This slightly gratuitous end to the “Mars Base One” serial’s framing sequence comes courtesy of Tommy Yune,Simon Yeung, and Omar Dogan, from the pages of Robotech Invasion #5 (DC/Wildstorm, May 2004).

Lisa Hayes flips through a photo album and remembers her last conversation with Admiral Gloval in this opening framing scene from “Mars Base One Part One,” by Tommy Yune,Omar Dogan, and Simon Yeung, published in the back of Robotech Invasion #1 (DC/Wildstorm, January 2004)

One year after the destruction of the SDF-1 andSDF-2,Rick Hunter takes the prototype YF-4 out for a spin to take out some well-armed Zentraedi agitators. This little skirmish and lot of gabbing comes from the pages of Robotech #0 (DC/Wildstorm, December 2002), written by Tommy Yune andJay Faerber with art by Jim Lee,Ale Garza,Carlos D’Anda,Lee Bermejo,Trevor Scott,Richard Friend, and Sandra Hope.

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.

TheZentraedi renegadeKhyron completes his Christmas Day attack, fleeing as his operative on the streets of New Macross City sets off explosives throughout the twice-reborn metropolis. Rick Hunter andMax &Miriya Sterling cease their pursuit to help out with emergency relief, putting out fires and reuniting families. Some reunions that evening, sadly, are not so warm. We bask in the warm glow of lights aboard Earth’s two battle fortresses in this excerpt from Robotech: The Macross Saga #35 (Comico, January 1989) by Markalan Joplin,Diana Schutz, and Mike Leeke.

While references to the SDF-2 had cropped up in earlier issues, this was the first issue where Mike Leeke drew it into a scene, portraying it back-to-back with the SDF-1 inLake Gloval per descriptions in the Jack McKinney novels and remarks by Robotech TV series producer Carl Macek.

Your obligatory action sequence, breaking up another series of bad decisions on the part of one Richard A. Hunter, from the pages of Robotech: The Macross Saga #34 (Comico, December 1988) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

Rick Hunter, still brimming with resentment after Lisa Hayes interrupted his reunion with Lynn Minmei following the operation to rescue her from Khyronand worn down from hours of searching for the escaped renegade Zentraedi, makes a complete ass out of himself. It’s the lousy day that precedes “A Rainy Night,” from early in Robotech: The Macross Saga #33 (Comico, November 1988) 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.

As members of a joint human-Zentraedi attack on Reno’s Robotech Factory Satellite,Lisa Hayes andRick Hunter come to find out that they’re playing a bit more of a starring role in the operation than they realized when they signed on in this sequence from Robotech: The Macross Saga #30 (Comico, August 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.

Two years have passed since the near-destruction of the Earth and the obliteration of Dolza’s Zentraedi fleet. Rick Hunter swings off course when he catches a glimpse of life returning to once-barren ground. These pages of hope blotted out by grim musing come from Robotech: The Macross Saga #28 (Comico, June 1988) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

Rick’s line of thinking is very much of the time when this was written, very late Cold War in the same way that Robotech’s classic conception of the Global Civil War was. (Hey guys, remember the Palladium RPG’s thrown-together Soviet bad guys E.B.S.I.S.? Soviet villains were still such a thing in the late 1980s that Palladium shoehorned them into the very setting we’re looking at here!) In the context of a real world that still feared nuclear annihilation, Rick’s stray, wandering remarks about man’s capacity to do just what the Zentraedi did make more sense than they might unmoored from the pages of a periodical published in the summer of ‘88.

Even outside of that context, though, Rick’s grim mood follows well from every other time we’ve seen him alone with his thoughts since his friends started dying all around him. Standing before signs of hope, Rick’s mind quickly returns to dark places. Sure, a really obvious reminder is sitting there in front of him in the foreground, but given the stark reminder that is literally all around him I don’t think he needed the prompt.

While I remain surprised that the two year gap between the destruction of Dolza’s fleet and the reconstruction episodes remains completely unexplored by the comics – not even by a shoddy Academy Comics or Antarctic Press one-shot – Rick’s sense of directionlessness a few pages later suggests that, at least as far as he’s concerned, nothing’s really been happening. Still, I’m sure there are The Macross Saga characters that have been dealing with crises of one sort or another. If I were doing a 30th anniversary comic series, this is one of the two gaps in the chronology I’d be looking to explore.

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.

During the final battle of the First Robotech War, a Super Veritech pilot watches his friend exercise poor judgment while taking out a Glaug Eldare as all descend towards the surface of the ruined Earth. These grim, unfinished pages from Robotech: Final Fire #1 (Antarctic Press, January 1999) by Lee Duhig.

Exedore arrives on-board the SDF-1 on a diplomatic mission to discover the source of the Zentraedi’s foes’ powers. Instead he discovers things like handshakes, sexy advertising, and the joy of a cool, refreshing beverage. This sequence of educational moments comes to us from Robotech: The Macross Saga #26 (Comico, March 1988), by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

(As an aside, the Zentraedi’s request for peanut butter was part of a running gag that started right after Joplin started handling the dialogue.)

First date turns into knife fight. Knife fight turns into marriage proposal. The preface to one of the most beloved shotgun weddings in animation history, far more lovingly rendered than it was on television, from the pages of Robotech: The Macross Saga #25 (Comico, February 1988 – oh, cute, right around Valentine’s Day) by Markalan Joplin &Mike Leeke.

AsLisa Hayes travels back to Earth to try and talk to her father about a possible diplomatic end to the Robotech War, a force of Zentraedi Battlepods gets in her way. Rick Hunter is sent out in the brand new Super Veritech to clear a path for Lisa’s plane and its escorts – but a mix-up by Sammie Porter almost derails his mission before its begun! This scene of snappy dialog and sorry Battloids comes to us from Robotech: The Macross Saga #24 (Comico, December 1987) by Markalan Joplin and fill-in artist Howard Bender, whose characters are serviceable but whose mecha are … err … less-so.