Guest Review: Battle of the Planets - Manga Issue #1
The Stealth Comic that Slipped In Unseen

Compared to the deluge of advertising Top Cow spent on the Alex Ross/Wilson Tortosa/Munier Sharrieff Battle of the Planets comic, BotP: Manga #1 hit the shelves last Wednesday with barely a ripple. What happened-- did Top Cow blow their entire marketing budget on the previous comic, or are they so shell- shocked over the catastrophic sales failure it was that they're afraid to commit more than a few lines of text to the Manga? Oh, there was some mention of its impending arrival in trade magazine Wizard (one paragraph in issue #145 was all I saw) and I'm sure one or two pages was used in Diamond Comics' Previews, but nothing more than that. This, over a new release written by the popular Witchblade scribe David Wohl, and with art by the new but very capable artist Edwin David. I wonder if it's because Top Cow is feeling so burned over the performance of the previous comic that they didn't want to commit to a more extensive ad campaign, or if deep down, they were too embarrassed to admit they had another BotP comic project in the pipeline. Whatever the reason, it's a damn shame. Compared to its predecessor, which had exceptional art by Alex Ross and newcomer Wilson Tortosa but was bogged down by a storyline filled with stupid cliches, bad stereotypes, and more plot holes than the ass end of a shotgunned duck, BotP: Manga is a big improvement and it deserves far more exposure than it's getting.

First off, Battle of the Planets fans can rejoice because 99% of the panel space in this book is used for the team, only the team, and no one else but the team. There are brief appearances by their mentor, Center Neptune Security Chief Anderson, and a handful of wary Spectran goons, but the story itself belongs entirely to G-Force. Second, the art is a feast for the eyes. I wonder how many cases of rapidograph art pens Edwin David used just to do one page. From Security Chief Anderson's reflection on the ocean-front glass wall of his office to the team's explosion into action, not a single panel lacks for detail. There's so much going on that you could read the comic again and again and see something new you'd missed before each time. Pay special attention to the action broadcast by video monitors in the background of some of the panes: Edwin David must've had to use a 100-power magnifying glass to do some of the fine-line work in those tiny spaces. Who needs color comics when the art is this good?

G-Force's current mission is at a newly built amusement park, an olympian monstrosity of a place with the mall-arcade mini-golf name of "Fun World". The team is mixing it up while snooping for bad guys by playing a variety of virtual-reality simulation games, and riding one of the most insanely whack rollercoasters ever seen in print. Do they give out Dramamine to the riders before they get on that thing? You can tell it's whack because Tiny, the pilot of the fastest and baddest warship in the world, looks like he's about to have a heart attack in the front row.

Princess in full leathers on a superbike! Adrenaline-jumping scripting and art that just tears off the page, and just when you thought that was really her ride and you're wondering what kind of sled David Wohl has written the gunner into, it turns out she's only playing a simulation game. What a letdown! I am actually disappointed at that! But it's all good at the end-- Mark watches her break the game's record even though he's unwilling to depart from duty and have a little fun himself, showing a glimpse of the commander who's strictly business before pleasure. All fine and well, but if that park had a flight simulator, you bet your bootleg Gatchaman DVDs he'd be in that thing. Meanwhile, back at the gun range--err, simulator...

A big, hairy commando thug has just taken a woman hostage during a party in a mansion or something, and predictably holds his machine pistol to her head. You already know G-Force's second in command is going to figure prominently in this scene, because the little caption at the top of the page says so. So much for building suspense! Why not just draw a target on the commando's forehead? Gunner enters, stage right! Actually, it's stage up. Jason crashes down through a glass ceiling with more hardware than Home Depot and more bad lines than a Sylvester Stallone movie. Look, ma-- no cuts, lacerations, or imbedded glass fragments! Speaking of Rambo, is that a rag headband he's wearing? Why are his sleeves rolled up? Is he hiding more ammo in there? The whole sequence would seem pathetically Walter Mitty-ish if it weren't for common knowledge that he can do that sort of thing in the normal course of duty. The dialogue is such a mixed bag here that I nearly got a nosebleed from the degree of difference in the space of one page-- Jason's cold "kill you, I imagine" at the commando's challenge is enough to put you on edge, but then it's ruined by an Arnold Schwarzenegger reference that could be considered so-bad-it's-good if it wasn't so abysmally lame. But that's okay-- I can forgive it this time because the writing redeems itself at the end of the page when the "victim" player professes her love to Jason. Naturally!

The next sequence focuses on Keyop, the youngest on the team. It's a nice little bit of exposition, more character delivered in a few frames than the preceding comic had shown, retracted, and rewrote in the space of several issues. If this is David Wohl's idea of retroactive continuity writing, or just his own apologetic take on this much-maligned character, then he can bang away at it as much as he wants. This, and his display of the team dynamic (with a little alpha-male hierarchy battle between Mark and Jason on the side) in the pages after, is about as good as it gets.

Keyop's diverted himself into a ride called "Dante's Kiddie Treat" (must be this high or shorter!) What kind of parent lets Junior toddle off alone into a ride that features boiling lakes of fire and giant brimstone-breathing snake- demons? Hey, funhouse mirrors! What's a ride featuring sulfur-smeared monsters without a few funhouse mirrors? Wait, those aren't mirrors at all! They're really Starfleet replicators stolen from the Paramount Studios lot! Evil kiddie clones pop out! Keyop and the real kids fall down another darkened shaft! Guess where the Keyop clone is going next!

Meanwhile, Mark and Company are getting annoyed-- Keyop is late and efforts to contact him are failing. What is the range of those communicators, ten feet? Maybe they should switch to Nextel! They're so annoyed, they don't notice that they're being spied upon by a park employee dressed as an alien, which is funny considering the bad guys really are aliens from the planet Spectra, and here's one playing it to the hilt by wearing a costume that only a Roswell UFO Festival groupie could appreciate. This alien-dressed-as-an-alien is relaying his observations to a Spectran command and control center. There, a more appropriately dressed Spectran officer stands watch and asks some interesting questions about the team, bringing up issues that were never really explained in the series beyond the subjective sense. Why does G-Force have numbers on their t-shirts? And who is Keyop, really? These Spectrans are apparently smart and self-sufficient, preferring to wait and see what the team does instead of dishing themselves up as the cannon fodder du jour. This is another instance of efficient writing-- the Spectran leader Zoltar does not appear but is mentioned, and in a manner that makes the reader believe he's a very nasty villain indeed. They hold the real Keyop in captivity, while Evil Keyop (or is that Kloned Keyop?) catches up with the team.

When he does, Tiny and Princess accept him with open arms. Reunited, and it feels so good! Mark is still too annoyed to notice anything odd about the junior member (like his lack of eyes), but Jason does. Does he do something about it? Nah, that would spoil the cliffhanger at the end! And it's a goodie-- Kloned Keyop leads the team to a warehouse, and again Jason's radar is up, noticing scraps of weaponry lying around, which is a good thing because Kloned Keyop has led them into a trap.

You can tell the Battle of the Planets franchise is finally in the hands of people who care, because everything here is mostly done right, from the tight writing that gives us all the information we need to know in a few lines instead of a dozen issues, to the amazing artwork that stays with Tatsunoko Productions' original character style. There are instances of clunky lines and bad typos, which an editor should have caught, but overall the dialogue seems natural and well timed. The pacing of the comic is strongly reminiscent of an actual episode of the series, and all this strongly suggests only one thing: Wohl and David must have researched all the episodes before they started. Hallelujah!

Now someone needs to call Top Cow's marketing department and tell them to start pushing this thing. As it is now, it'll probably end up languishing in the low sixties on the sales chart anyway-- not because of poor writing, but because no one knows it's on the shelves.

Katharine Foust-Martin
Disturbed in NorCal
tkmartin@comcast.net

Home of the White Shadow