Battle of the Planets #5
Story:
Art:

Written by Munier Sharrieff
Pencils by Wilson Tortosa
Colors by Shane Law
Cover and Art Direction by Alex Ross

Published by Image/Top Cow.
Price: $2.99
My verdict: Existing fans will dig it.

Having split up to track down pieces of a complex puzzle, just about everybody finds themselves up to their eyeballs in green-clad agents of Spectra. In fact, when we last left Mark, he had just gotten blown up while inside a building--so you know it's not going to be a good day.

I've come to the conclusion that Battle of the Planets was one of those cartoons that looks better when seen through the eye of memory than it actually would on the television screen. Hell, we were young: we didn't know any better. Give us some people in flashy costumes, adequate but cool-seeming weapons, garishly-dressed villains, and some wicked (for a ten-year-old) looking vehicles--and sold. But as anybody who's tried to go back and watch those things will attest: they sucked. Only the original Gatchaman series (complete with people getting shot!!) is even worth watching these days, if for no other reason than to marvel at how butchered the Americanized versions were.

The good news is that the comic is actually worthy--which makes sense when you consider that Alex Ross (one of the two driving forces behind Kingdom Come whose good sense was further in evidence when he was AWOL for the weak-ass sequel for that book) is the man who wanted this sucker to come to fruition anyway. Part of the wave of nostalgia titles that's currently kicking Marvel's ass in the sales reports, this iteration of Battle manages to take all the stuff that you would normally be afraid of (those gaudy T-shirts and bell bottoms, to name one of many), keep them, and take away the stuff that not even the hardcore fans want: like, for example, really terrible dialogue and contrived battle situations. Here you get some more "modern" elements of comic book action and attitude to make everything else more palatable.

The art is rather nice too. It looks, at least to this senile bastage, like it stepped right out of the original series. And not in an annoying way. Case in point: ever see any of the Comico Robotech covers? They tried to be dead-on imitations of the animation style, but they hurt, didn't they?

We're pleased--now the question is twofold: how long can the creative team keep it up and how long will the nostalgia reign hold that allows for such good focus on the title?

QUOTE: MARK: "That was one helluva shot, Jase--what, so you sleep with that gun?"

JASON: "I would, if I slept."