BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK VOL. 4

Well, it's an even-numbered year, which apparently means it's time for a new BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES soundtrack album from La La Land Records.* (Though if I had my druthers, we'd be getting one of these sets every year rather than every other!)

After 2012's volume 2 and 2014's volume 3, this past week brings us the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Original Television Soundtrack, volume 4. Like volume 2, this album had pre-release availability at Comic-Con, but as I've noted here in recent weeks, I was unable to attend this year due to the birth of my son. So I pre-ordered the album straightaway when it went up on La La Land's site Tuesday at noon, and it arrived (autographed by composers Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis and Carlos Rodriguez) in the mail Friday.

Naturally, given the hectic nature of my life at the moment, I haven't had time to give this set a real in-depth listen, but I have given it one cursory run-through while the baby was sleeping (I think he liked the music!) and I wanted to jump on a post while the iron was hot -- so I found a bit of time to cobble this piece together during a subsequent naptime. Speaking of which -- note also that La La Land released a 4-disc soundtrack album for JUSTICE LEAGUE this past week, and I'll try to write something about that as things settle down within the next month or two. But for now, I really couldn't wait to cover BATMAN.

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.

FANTASTIC FOUR #274

"MONSTER MASH"
Penciling & Scripting: John Byrne | Inking: Al Gordon
Coloring: Glynis Wein | Lettering: Diana Albers
Editing: Michael Carlin | Editing-in-Chiefing: Jim Shooter

The Plot: While the Fantastic Four attend to their personal lives on Earth, the Thing is still trapped on the Beyonder’s Battleworld. There, he meets the Frankenstein monster and both are captured by a masked man named Kemp, in the employ of Doctor Julius Akerman, the Monster Master. The Thing and the monster are placed in Akerman’s wagon with Gregor Lupus, a werewolf, but the Thing gets free by changing to Ben Grimm.

A fight breaks out between Ben and Kemp, which is joined by the werewolf at Akerman’s command. Ben becomes the Thing once more to fight the werewolf, while the monster exits the wagon and kills Akerman. Free of his spell, the monster and the werewolf depart, while Ben continues his trek across Battleworld.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: This tale is continued from THE THING #19. That issue is reprinted in the FANTASTIC FOUR BY JOHN BYRNE OMNIBUS volume 2, but I have elected to skip it as its story is sufficiently recapped in this issue.

And the recap is simply: Ben Grimm, traveling across Battleworld in search of a woman named Tari, has run into a number of creatures he recalls from the monster movies he watched as a child. He knows these are figments of his imagination, as Battleworld has brought several of his thoughts to life over the time he’s spent there, but they’re real enough to cause him trouble.

THE UNBOXING - JULY 2016

It's a double dose of Marvel's THUNDERBOLTS this month, with both THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC Volume 2 and HAWKEYE AND THE THUNDERBOLTS Volume 2! As I noted a few months back, once Marvel issues their rerelease of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volume 3 in the near future, I'll have what I consider to be the definitive THUNDERBOLTS run -- Busiek, Nicieza and Bagley through issue 50 -- collected in five nifty trades on my bookcase. I'm very happy about this development.

Another Marvel book which pleases me is INFINITY WATCH Volume 2. Thanks to this volume, the entirety of the nineties' WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH series has been reprinted, including the full run by Jim Starlin. Some may recall that I never "unboxed" Volume 1, and that's true; the reason is that all of its contents, INFINITY WATCH 1 - 22, have been reprinted over the past decade or so in the INFINITY GAUNTLET AFTERMATH, INFINITY WAR, INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH, INFINITY CRUSADE vol. 1, and INFINITY CRUSADE vol. 2 collections, while issues 23 - 25 can be found in the THOR: BLOOD AND THUNDER trade paperback. And since most all those issues are parts of large crossovers, I'm perfectly content to own them as components of those larger collections rather than on their own, keeping those books alongside this collection (containing INFINITY WATCH 26 - 42) to complete the set. (Note that the two INFINITY CRUSADE books are currently out of print and ridiculously expensive these days, but the rest are all available at reasonable prices.)

Finally, from DC, we have SUPERMAN: PANIC IN THE SKY. DC has been doing a decent job of collecting various events from the post-CRISIS, post John Byrne era in the Superman titles, and this is another in that trend. It's a story I've heard about for years (its name was used for a classic JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED episode), but I've never read it. For now it goes on the shelf with my other post-CRISIS Superman books, ready to read when the time is right.

Of course, all the above pales in comparison with the other package I received this month; a BABY BOY! (Sorry, no Amazon link for that one.) He was born just a week or so back and currently all my time and energy is devoted to him. As noted last week, I have posts scheduled to keep going up like clockwork as usual, so you shouldn't notice I'm preoccupied, but there may be delays in responding to comments as I adjust to this new addition to the family.

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.

FANTASTIC FOUR #273

"FATHERS AND OTHERS"
Words & Pictures: John Byrne | Coloring: Glynis Wein
Editing: Michael Carlin | Other: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Fantastic Four approach the Warlord’s citadel with their new cowboy ally, Colby, and his right-hand man. They defeat another tripod robot, but are then confronted by a group of women riding flying mechanical steeds. The women describe the history of their world and confirm what Reed fears: his father, Nathaniel, is the Warlord.

Reed moves on alone to the citadel to seek audience with his father, but the Warlord’s holographic visage denies him and sets his defenses against him. The Fantastic Four, Colby, and the futuristic Valkyries battle the Warlord’s robots until Wyatt sneaks away and spots the Warlord himself prepping an anti-matter cannon. Wyatt disables the device, killing the Warlord.

Later, Wyatt comes around and learns that Reed’s father had been duped by his wife. She was the Warlord, using Nathaniel’s scientific expertise for her own greedy ends, conquering the surrounding world. With his adopted home in ruin, Nathaniel chooses to remain there and work to repair it once more.

COMIC-CON 2016

For the first time since 2006 and only the second time since 1999, I won't be attending the San Diego Comic-Con this year! No, I wasn't unable to secure a badge; in fact my friends were very lucky with the online lottery this year and we could've grabbed tickets for all of us with no hassle for a nice change of pace. But I'm voluntarily skipping this one due to the birth of my son. If all goes according to plan, by the time this post goes up, he's on his way into the world, if not here already. So no reminiscences this year about SDCCs past, and no recaps a week after I return. I'll be way too busy!

But, that said, I planned for this. Just last night I finished John Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR and wrote the last post in that series, and I'm a few months ahead of schedule on Friday posts as well, while my monthly X-Men Collected Edition reviews are written and ready to go up through the end of the year -- so Blogger will continue publishing 'em even as I'm far too busy to keep writing 'em (though I may not have much time to respond to comments the next week or two).

Next year I hope to be back at Comic-Con with the bundle of joy along for the ride (not at the con, but on the trip at least), but for 2016, I'm sitting it out.