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...

When Last We Left the Human Race...

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 Cassiopeia) die!
(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!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...

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

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...

Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...

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

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder MEDUSA CHAIN Conclusion

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. and Part 5.

Then ask yourself...

I'd like to be able to say "The Medusa Chain will continue...", but it didn't.

Unfortunately, the book (and most of the DC Graphic Novel series) sold poorly, and the project ended after only six issues.

(The exception was Jack Kirby's The Hunger Dogs.)

It was revived a year later as DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel, using adaptations of already-published  prose novels by big genre names like Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury adapted by comics pros like Doug Moench, Keith Giffen and Klaus Janson, but fared equally-poorly, ending after seven issues.

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder MEDUSA CHAIN Part 5

If you want to know what happened before one of the koolest space battles ever seen in comics begins...

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Then continue, with the codicil that it gets extremely gory and may be NSFW...

Why do the Earthians want radioactive material?
Find out next Wednesday, in the surprising climax!

There's no explanation in the story as to what the "Fibonacci Sequence" is.

Named after the Middle Ages mathematician Leonardo of Pisa aka Fibonacci (although it was known in Indian science and arts at least a century earlier), the sequence begins with 1 and 1, or 0 and 1, depending on the starting point, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.

For sci-fi fans, the concept is also the basis for the famous "computing number of tribbles" scene in classic Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Plus, Fibonacci is also the person responsible for instituting Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) as the standard in our mathematics, replacing the Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV, V, etc) used until then.