ROBOTECH: PRELUDE TO THE SHADOW CHRONICLES

"THE ENEMY WITHIN" | "RETRIBUTION | "NECESSARY EVIL"
"GHOSTS OF THE PAST" | "THE CHILDREN OF THE SHADOWS"
Story: Tommy Yune | Script: Jason Waltrip and John Waltrip
Art: Omar Dogan @UDON Studios | Art Assist: Jason & John Waltrip (#4-5)
Letterer: Travis Lanham | Color Assists: Ali Tavaholy (#4) & Miguel Troncoso (#5)
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Editor: Ben Abernathy

Back when it originally aired, ROBOTECH proved so popular that Harmony Gold began production of a 65-episode sequel series, ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS. This would have followed Admirals Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes as they embarked on an exploratory mission to Tirol, the Robotech Masters' homeworld, to pursue peace. A few episodes of THE SENTINELS were fully animated, then the series lost its main advertiser and the production was canceled. But THE SENTINELS lived on through licensed media -- a series of five novels told the story according to producer Carl Macek's original plans, and an ongoing comic book series adapted the story as well -- however the comic eventually met the same fate as the TV show, ceasing publication mid-storyline in 1996.

Ten years later, Harmony Gold released ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, a direct-to-DVD sequel movie to the original ROBOTECH animation. As a lead-in to the film, Wildstorm published PRELUDE THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, a 5-issue miniseries scripted by the original SENTINELS comic writer-artists, Jason and John Waltrip, from a story by Tommy Yune.

ROBOTECH: INVASION

Story: Tommy Yune | Script: Jay Faerber
Art: Takeshi Miyazawa & Omar Dogan w/Alan Tam (#5)
Letterers: Phil Balsman (#1-3) & Rob Leigh (#4-5)
Colorists: Studio XD (#1-2), Long Vo (#3-5) w/Charles Park & Saka (#4-5)
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Editors: Ben Abernathy & Alex Sinclair
Special Thanks to: Erik Ko & Tom Bateman

Wildstorm's ROBOTECH line continued in 2004 with INVASION, though in retrospect one wonders if the various mini-series were perhaps selling less than originally anticipated. FROM THE STARS debuted in 2002 with a #0 issue followed by a six-issue series, every one of which (except #0) featuring two covers, standard and variant. 2003 saw the release of LOVE AND WAR, six issues also with variants for every one. Now we reach 2004 and INVASION, which is a five-issue mini-series featuring a variant for only the first installment. By the time we get to 2005 and Wildstorm's final ROBOTECH mini-series, PRELUDE TO THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, we'll encounter a five-parter with no variants.

So, over the course of four years Wildstorm would produce a whopping four ROBOTECH mini-series, with the number of variant covers and the number of issues per series decreasing over time. And I should note that it's not the number of mini-series I find odd; Harmony Gold was carefully rebooting their "expanded universe" at the time and all the various tie-ins were masterminded by Tommy Yune, who was also producing the then-upcoming ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES direct-to-video animation. Yune was certainly busy, and one series a year was probably all he and the company were willing to handle. It's more the decline in series length and variant covers that stands out to me.

At any rate -- ROBOTECH INVASION is set in the "New Generation"/Invid invasion era of the original series, though properly speaking, its placement in the timeline puts it between the "Robotech Masters" saga and "New Generation". It follows Lt. Lance Belmont of Mars Base 10, a fighter pilot in an attempt by the Robotech Expeditionary Force's first attempt to retake Earth from the alien Invid.

ROBOTECH: MARS BASE ONE

Story: Tommy Yune | Art: Omar Dogan with Simon Yeung
Letterers: Phil Balsman (#1-2), Rob Leigh (#3), Pat Brosseau (#4) & Jared Fletcher (#5)
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Editors: Ben Abernathy & Alex Sinclair

ROBOTECH: INVASION, which we'll discuss next time, features a human fleet returning to Earth from colonized Mars in the year 2039. As a thematic tie-in to that tale, INVASION's backup serial chronicles the origin of Earth's first Martian base, appropriately titled "Mars Base One".

We begin our story in 2006 with some familiar faces seen previously in FROM THE STARS and LOVE AND WAR; namely Admiral Hayes and Doctor Lang. Lang's assistant, Karl Riber, begins dating Hayes's daughter, Lisa. Meanwhile, Hayes's wife is killed in a bombing by the Anti-Unification league, but this doesn't deter him from his duty to keep Earth safe from alien invasion. While Lisa leaves for the Robotech academy on Macross Island, Karl heads to Mars, where Hayes has commissioned a base devoted to reverse-engineering Robotechnology found aboard the SDF-1.

But the Zentraedi, searching the galaxy for SDF-1, arrive at Mars Base a few years later and attack. Nearly all crew are killed, save Karl and his commanding officer, Colonel Rodriguez. Rodriguez gives his life to fire off a blast from the base's cannon, destroying the Zentraedi ship above, while Karl sends a message to Admiral Hayes informing him of the attack and bidding farewell to Lisa, as he will surely die long before help could arrive from Earth. As the story ends, Hayes realizes the countdown to alien invasion has just been vastly accelerated.

ROBOTECH: LITTLE WHITE DRAGON

Words: Ken Siu-Chong with Tommy Yune | Pencils: Jo Chen
Inks: Alan Tamm | Colors: UDON | Letters: Jenna Garcia (#1), Doctor Layman (#2-3),
Jared Fletcher (#4), Nick J. Napolitano (#5-6) | Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn
Edits: Ben Abernathy | Special Thanks to: Erik Ko & Tom Bateman

Within the world of ROBOTECH, as the SDF-1 journeyed through the solar system on a two-year trek from Pluto back to Earth, the citizens of Macross City, trapped aboard ship, did their best to adapt and continue with their normal lives. One such diversion was the production of a motion picture, LITTLE WHITE DRAGON, aboard ship. This backup serial (originally printed alongside LOVE AND WAR), reveals the plot of LITTLE WHITE DRAGON for the first time, while interspersing movie scenes with "real world" moments aboard ship.

The film follows a young Shao Long martial artist named Kai-Fun, whose master and fellow monks are all killed when a meteorite falls from the sky in the year 999. Some time later, Kai-Fun returns to the his home island to investigate recent fishing boat raids and travels back to the temple with a guide named Wai-Lin. There they find a Zentraedi battlepod and warrior, which Kai-Fun duels.

In the real world, Wai-Lin is portrayed by Lynn Minmei, Rick Hunter's girlfriend, while the part of Kai-Fun is performed by her cousin, Lynn Kyle. The very brief out-of-movie scenes are both original and adaptations of moments from ROBOTECH, and depict Rick's and Minmei's relationship slowly deteriorating. At the story's conclusion, the Zentraedi watch a pirated broadcast of the film and take it as a historical document, which leads them to believe humans may be stronger than they have previously let on.

ROBOTECH: LOVE AND WAR

Script: Jay Faerber with Tommy Yune | Art: Long Vo, Charles Park & Saka of UDON
Letterers: Jenna Garcia (#1), John Layman (#2-3), Rob Leigh (#4) & Nick Napolitano (#5-6)
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Editor: Ben Abernathy
Special Thanks to: Erik Ko & Tom Bateman

Wildstorm's second ROBOTECH miniseries begins in the year 2031, at the dawn of the Third Robotech War, with a framing sequence as Dana Sterling, formerly of Earth's Army of the Southern Cross, tells her friend Bowie Grant the story of how her parents met. We then jump back to 2009 and follow young Max Sterling and his best friend, Ben Dixon, as they're caught up in the SDF-1's jump to outer space and battle with the alien Zentraedi.

Along the way we see several familiar faces from the "Macross Saga", including Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, Lisa Hayes, Claudia, Grant, and Captain Gloval. Roy dies battling the Zentraedi and Ben soon follows, and eventually a Zentraedi warrior named Mirya Parina infiltrates the SDF-1 as a spy, meets Max, falls in love with him, and renounces her people to fight alongside the humans.

In 2031 once more, Dana and Bowie board a ship under the command of Colonel Jonathan Wolfe and leave Earth to join Admiral Rick Hunter and his Robotech Expeditionary Force in deep space.

If you're a ROBOTECH fan, most of this may sound familiar to you, and not without cause. For some inexplicable reason, Tommy Yune and Jay Faerber (now credited as co-writers rather than "plot" and "script" as on the previous mini-series) have chosen to retell several scenes from the TV show, usually adapting dialogue verbatim, while interspersing those scenes with bits of their own devising.

ROBOTECH: FROM THE STARS

Though originally published under the simple title of ROBOTECH, this mini-series was retroactively named FROM THE STARS with the release of the trade paperback edition.

"PROMISE" | "FROM THE STARS" | "CALL TO DUTY" | "THE PROGRAM"
"CONFLICT OF INTEREST" | "THE GATHERING STORM" | "COMMITMENT"
Story: Tommy Yune | Script: Jay Faerber
Art: Long Vo, Charles Park & Saka of UDON* | Letterer: Jenna Garcia
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Editor: Ben Abernathy
Special Thanks to: Tom Bateman, Erik Ko, and Sandra Hofman

Wildstorm's inaugural ROBOTECH mini-series, masterminded by the franchise's creative director, Tommy Yune of Harmony Gold, functions as a prequel to the 1985 animated series, filling in a great deal of backstory for one of the show's major characters and his world.

The story begins in the year 2015, not long after the conclusion of ROBOTECH's first segment, "The Macross Saga". Captain Rick Hunter, Veritech fighter squadron leader, takes some time to reminisce about his late friend, mentor, and surrogate "big brother", Roy Fokker. We then jump back in time to the year 1999 as Roy leaves the flying circus run by Rick's father to enlist in the armed forces as a pilot in the ongoing global war. Six months later, Roy witnesses the arrival of a UFO on Earth in the South Pacific.

There's another time jump and six years later, in 2005, Roy returns to the circus but is quickly convinced by his former commanding officer, Admiral Hayes, to come back to the service as a test pilot. Roy arrives on Macross Island, where the UFO crashed, to find the new United Earth Government developing all manner of hi-tech vehicles and equipment. Under the command of a former mercenary named T.R. Edwards, Roy becomes the lead test pilot for Project: Valkyrie.

THE SUMMER OF ROBOTECH

Once upon a time, I was a ROBOTECH fanatic -- though not so long ago as you might think. Even though I was a child of the eighties, I missed ROBOTECH the first time around, when it debuted in 1985. It wasn't until thirteen years later, in 1998, that I tried the show out when it joined the Toonami lineup on Cartoon Network. I fell for it hard, and within a year or two I'd picked up and read all the novels and many of the comic books, which stretched back to the mid-eighties across multiple licensees.

Mostly, this ROBOTECH "expanded universe" was consistent across all platforms, notwithstanding some awful deviations by Antarctic Press's comics in 1998 or so. But when Wildstorm acquired the license in 2002, it was decided by ROBOTECH licensor Harmony Gold to reboot the franchise, and the company's creative director, Tommy Yune, took on this duty.

In 2002, I was a bit miffed to learn that all the stuff I'd just finished reading "didn't count" anymore, but it didn't take too long to buy into Yune's new vision for ROBOTECH. In truth, he kept a lot of what had come before while dumping some of the more questionable aspects presented by previous writers. I eventually came to really enjoy Wildstorm's ROBOTECH comics, and was disappointed when the license lapsed into inactivity only a couple years after the relaunch.

DANGER GIRL: BODY SHOTS

Story: Andy Hartnell
Pencils: Nick Bradshaw w/Jonboy Meyers & Billy Dallas Patton
Digital Inks & Colors: Jim Charalampiois | Letters: Comicraft
Assistant Edits: Kristy Quinn | Edits: Scott Dunbier
Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

Well, I'm not sure why the series is called BODY SHOTS. No one suffered a blow to the stomach or chest, and nobody drank liquor off of another person. But, misleading name aside, this is another fun outing from the same creative team that brought us BACK IN BLACK. The story is perhaps a bit overly complex and twisty, but the characterizations are fine, the action is exciting, and the artwork is excellent.

The premise this time is that a terrorist named Arthur Franco has acquired a gizmo called the Master Key, which will allow him to detonate any nuclear device on Earth from anyplace he happens to be. He demonstrates this ability to the world by setting off two such explosions. Franco's deranged end goal is to destroy all the world's nuclear weapons, ultimately making it a safer place (the environmental fallout from a planetful of nukes exploding is never mentioned by any character in the story). Abbey and Sydney, with aid from Agent Zero and support from Deuce and Valerie, must track Franco down before he can do any further damage.

Following a teaser sequence set in Japan, the action follows the girls briefly to Australia, where Sydney is buying a house, and then to Madagascar, Italy, and a nondescript location "somewhere in Africa", with the adventure culminating in the United States. Franco's scheme is revealed as a scam, though it turns out he was unaware. He believes the Master Key works, but in reality it's a non-functioning dummy device, while suicide bombers have detonated the missiles for him at the precise moments he has used the Key, as part of a manipulative plot by a corrupt U.S. General. Like I said -- a bit overly complex.

DANGER GIRL: BACK IN BLACK

Story: Andy Hartnell | Pencils: Nick Bradshaw
Digital Inks & Colors: Jim Charalampiois | Letters: Comicraft
Assistant Edits: Kristy Quinn | Edits: Scott Dunbier
Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

Following a seven-issue series, a one-shot, a two-issue series, and three more one-shots (including the BATMAN/DANGER GIRL installment which I'm not covering in this project), all published roughly annually between the late nineties and 2004, DANGER GIRL returns in 2006, settling into the format which will become the standard for its continuing adventures: the four-issue limited series. This is also the first DANGER GIRL story in my review series (again excluding BATMAN) written by Andy Hartnell alone, with no credited plot input from series co-creator J. Scott Campbell. And Hartnell accomplishes himself nicely without the aid of his co-plotter.

The story finds Abbey and Sydney dispatched by Deuce to track down the Roadkillers, a motorcycle gang in South Dakota, to recover a stolen Sioux indian artifact called the Black Seed -- a skull dating back to the battle of Wounded Knee, believed to hold the power to resurrect the dead. The girls go undercover as motorcycle enthusiasts, befriending a "biker chick" named Ruby and enlisting the aid of her own gang, the Black Widows, in their mission. The girls learn that the Roadkillers have been hired by a mysterious cabal led by an elderly fellow calling himself "the Gentleman", who is also assisted by former Hammer Empire agents Kid Dynamo and Mr. Giggles. The quest eventually concludes in Boston, where the Black Seed is destroyed, but the Gentleman escapes.

DANGER GIRL: VIVA LAS DANGER

Story: J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell | Script: Andy Hartnell
Art & Color: Phil Noto | Lettering & Design: Richard Starking's & Comicraft's John Roshell
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Editor: Scott Dunbier
Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

The second Campbell/Hartnell/Noto collaboration is a much better read than the previous one, HAWAIIAN PUNCH. VIVA LAS DANGER begins with a teaser featuring Abbey undercover in South Africa, involved in a high stakes poker game in order to acquire a one-of-a-kind gem. She wins by cheating and escapes her angry fellow gamers with assistance from Johnny.

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but one of my favorite things about the DANGER GIRL comics is that they mostly all begin with such quick teasers, sometimes related to the main story's action and sometimes not, evoking memories of the great Connery and Moore Bond films I grew up on. The teasers are then always followed by a double-page title/credits sequence, usually in the form of a montage featuring the girls in varying states of undress in the background. It's another nice, Bondian touch which helps to sell the stories as action movies in comic book form.

Though I have to say that, while Campbell usually provides variant covers for the DANGER GIRL mini-series, I wouldn't mind seeing him devote that energy to these pages instead. I suppose putting his artwork on the cover is a bigger draw for readers, but the montage Campbell drew for the original series was outstanding, and I think he could have a lot more fun with the various mini-series' character designs drawing them into such pages rather than cramming them onto covers which need room for logos, trade dress, UPC barcodes, and more.

DANGER GIRL: HAWAIIAN PUNCH

Story: J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell | Script: Andy Hartnell
Art: Phil Noto | Lettering: John 'JG' Roshell & Comicraft's Wes Abbott
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn | Big Kahuna: Scott Dunbier
Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

Following Tommy Yune's KAMIKAZE! is a Danger Girl one-shot plotted by series creators J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell, with script once again by Hartnell. The story begins with a brief teaser set in snow-blanketed Italy, where Abbey, Sydney, and Johnny Barracuda recover a McGuffin from a group of nondescript terrorists. Following the borderline successful completion of their mission, Johnny suggests a well-deserved vacation in Hawaii. The story proper then picks up with our heroes enjoying their downtime in the islands, little aware that they're about to fall into a devious new plot.

It seems Don Ka Nui, a Hawaiian theme park magnate, is running out of money and believes that the only way to get people into his park and get his revenue back up is to destroy the world's other popular parks. To that end he uses several genetically crafted mind-control leis to turn Johnny and a group of U.S. naval submarine officers to his side. The subs depart Hawaii and launch missiles at two theme parks in California and one in Hawaii. But the Danger Girls become aware of the plan and foil it, with some timely aid from Valerie, along for the ride in Hawaii, and Deuce, who is vacationing in Florida.

The story is silly, but Ka Nui works in a "Roger Moore Bond Villain" sort of way. He has a right-hand hula girl named Lae'ula and several trained fighters at his command, and his penchant for chess results in Johnny tied to a giant white bishop, which is kind of a funny image. There is a story angle missed, however, considering that Ka Nui has a half-completed theme park on of the islands, which could have made a great spot for a final showdown, but which is barely acknowledged as existing after its introduction.

DANGER GIRL: KAMIKAZE!

Story & Art: Tommy Yune | Inks: Vince Russell
Colors: Guy Majors | Letters: Richard Starkinks & Comicraft
Assistant Editor: John Layman | Editor: Scott Dunbier
With Special Thanks to Wai Lin Liao for Chinese dialogue
Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

KAMIKAZE! is the rare (perhaps only?) Danger Girl story not plotted and/or scripted by the series creators, J. Scott Campbell and/or Andy Hartnell. Instead we have Tommy Yune serving as both writer and artist on this two-part mini-series, and doing an admirable job of it.

Yune's plot springs out of the original DANGER GIRL series, featuring a Japanese terrorist organization called the Kama (translated to English as "the Sickle"). The Kama's logo matches that of the Hammer Empire, and it is stated in the story that the Kama was going to team up with the Hammer to form a new "Axis of Terror" before the Hammer's unexpected end at the hands of the Danger Girl team. The Kama was founded by a rogue Japanese general in the aftermath of World War II, and is led in the present day by the mysterious Empress Doken and her right hand man, Shogunner -- a huge black-armored samurai reminiscent of the Hammer Empire's own hulking Major Maxim.

The story follows the Danger Girl team, consisting here of Abbey, Sydney, Valerie, and Deuce, along with Hong Kong police agent Mei Yaoh, as they pursue the Kama around Asia while the terrorist group searches for a long-lost anti-matter bomb developed by the Axis powers in the latter days of the War. The chase takes our heroines from Hong Kong to Cambodia to the South China Sea, where the final showdown occurs. The day is saved thanks to Valerie defusing the bomb, but Empress Doken and Shogunner -- revealed as the artificially preserved Kama founder, General Akuhido, escape.

THE SUMMER OF DANGER GIRL

In my DANGER GIRL/G.I. JOE review last year, I said:

"Danger Girl has been a bit of a guilty pleasure for me since it first appeared, back when I was in college. It was the only series from the Cliffhanger imprint that I picked up, and I guess I made the right choice because I seem to recall it was the only Cliffhanger series to reach its conclusion (even if it did take something like two years to get those seven issues). The series is not high art, though it has never pretended to be. It's simply the comic book equivalent of a big, dumb summer popcorn blockbuster, which is something you just want to read once in a while."

Now I'm about to put this assessment to the test. I'm going to spend ten consecutive Fridays looking at ten DANGER GIRL mini-series and one-shots, to decide if they're actually big and dumb, or if perhaps there's more there. The series I'll be reviewing are:

• DANGER GIRL (1998)
• DANGER GIRL SPECIAL (2000)
• DANGER GIRL: KAMIKAZE! (2001)
• DANGER GIRL: HAWAIIAN PUNCH (2003)
• DANGER GIRL: VIVA LAS DANGER (2004)
• DANGER GIRL: BACK IN BLACK (2006)
• DANGER GIRL: BODY SHOTS (2007)
• DANGER GIRL: REVOLVER (2012)
• DANGER GIRL: TRINITY (2013)
• DANGER GIRL: THE CHASE (2013)