Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness (Continued) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Berserker" Conclusion

..the "ragtag fleet" of human survivors find a planet rich in Tylium, which they can refine and convert to fuel!
But they encounter a Cylon spy satellite in orbit that starts broadcasting their position back to the Empire!
Jamming the signal, they discover the satellite is booby-trapped so that any attempt to destroy it will trigger explosives within the planet's core, which in itself will alert the Cylons to investigate!
Commander Adama sends a bomb squad to disarm and deactivate the device, but an unknown ship launches from the planet and attacks the squad's shuttle and the accompanying Vipers, out-flying the Colonial pilots...
Neither this Mark Three "Imperator" Cylon nor any of its' "brothers" were ever seen again!
Marvel's Battlestar Galactica was cancelled seven issues later.
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(Original art for the cover of the issue)
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Monday, January 19, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Berserker" Part 1

After Adapting the Pilot Movie and the First Two-Part Episode...
...Marvel's Battlestar Galactica comic began doing original stories with a hot new talent illustrating them, including this one about a Cylon cyberseries never seen on TV!

To Be Continued, Tomorrow!
And, since you haven't seen the Cylon itself yet, here's the cover featuring it, which will be the header pic on tomorrow's post!
Written by Roger McKenzie and penciled/inked/colored by Walt Simonson, Marvel's Battlestar Galactica #16 (1980), is the only time a Cylon not seen in the TV show appears in the comic...the reason for which the robot itself explains in the conclusion!
Note that, continuing in the TV series' format of utilizing names from ancient mythology and the Judeo/Christian Bible, McKenzie & Simonson introduced several new ongoing characters including the Galactica's Chief Engineer, Master-Tech Shadrack, named after the Biblical figure Shadrach!
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The Original Series
Galactica: 1980
Original Feature Film
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Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness (Continued) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Saga of a Star World" Conclusion

Art by Bob Larkin
There are those who believe...that life here began out there, far across the Universe...with tribes of humans...who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians...or the Toltecs...or the Mayans...that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids...or the lost civilizations of Lemuria...or Atlantis.
Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man...who even now fight to survive--far, far away amongst the stars...
Betrayed by one of their own to the robotic alien Cylons*, the Twelve Colonies of Man are wiped out in a sneak attack.
The survivors hastily assemble a fleet of ships under the protection of the only remaining Battlestar, and head away from their now-devastated worlds....
This second half of the movie version of Battlestar Galactica was presented by writer Roger McKenzie and artist/colorist/painter Ernie Colon.
Because it was based on an early draft of the script, names (Serina is called Lyra) are different, and some characters who live in both the movie and tv series (including Cassiopeiadie!
(Baltar dies in the feature film, but survives in the TV series.)

This first version of Marvel Super Special #8 (1978) was a full-process color, slick-stock magazine.
However, because the editor didn't get approval from Universal Studios on the final art before it went to press, the vast majority of the copies were ordered pulped!
(This story has been confirmed by both then-Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and the book's artist Ernie Colon.)
Changes in both script and art were made, and the book was reissued as a tabloid-sized Treasury edition, with standard comic book "flat" coloring and a new pen-and-ink cover by Rick Bryant based on the Bob Larkin cover painting!
The story was modified again when it was expanded to fill the first three issues of the ongoing Battlestar Galactica comic book...including keeping both Baltar and Cassiopeia alive!
(Cassie would later die in the comic adaptation of the two-part episode "Lost Planet of the Gods", where she's killed by Cylons.)
*Though the Cylons' Imperious Leader appears reptilian, it is as much a robot as the others, though based on the image of the humanoid lizards who created the robots!

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Battlestar Galactica: the Definitive Collection
The Original Series
Galactica: 1980
Original Feature Film

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Monday, January 12, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Saga of a Star World" Part 1

Besides Robots and Androids Created by Humans...
...we also present ones created by aliens, such as the Cylons...as seen in the extremely-limited/never-reprinted version of the feature film-length pilot, from the magazine-sized Marvel Super-Special #8 (1978).
...and thus we pause to catch our breath...until tomorrow...and the cataclysmic conclusion.
The Cylons were conceived and built by a long-dead alien race..also called Cylons.
It's unknown whether the robots killed their masters or the aliens went extinct due to a plague or other natural disaster.
The Imperious Leader, a robot itself, was built in the image of those reptilian aliens.
It's implied that Count Iblis and some of his near-godlike fellow aliens manipulated the Cylons and human Colonials into the Thousand-Year War.
(Actor Patrick Macnee played Iblis and provided the voice of the Imperious Leader robot, leading human traitor Baltar, the only human who ever met the Imperious Leader and lived, to piece the puzzle together!)
Note: the juvenile spin-off series Galactica: 1980, introduced Cylons indistinguishable from human beings in the episode "Night the Cylons Landed".
This first half of the movie version of Battlestar Galactica was presented by writer Roger McKenzie and artist/colorist/painter Ernie Colon.
We'll have the story behind the change from magazine to tabloid format next time...
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Battlestar Galactica: the Definitive Collection
The Original Series
Galactica: 1980
Original Feature Film

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