“Yesterday’s” Comic> Battle of the Planets #4

I think someone was watching a different Japanese import.

Battle of the Planets #4

Whitman/Western Publishing Company (December, 1979)

This isn’t the Top Cow comic I’m always raving about. This comic was put out around the time of the TV series, as dubbed and edited by Sandy Frank. 7-Zark-7 and 1-Rover-1 put in an appearance but don’t really do a lot in the stories.

In “The Creeping Forest”, G-Force investigates when an island cuts off communications. There they find the trees are now Spectra robots and Zoltar is trying to steal their diamonds. Frankly, that doesn’t sound like Zoltar, who is usually just trying to conquer the Earth. The coloring is also off at times, like you see on the cover. There are also these two kids who can’t decide if they want to speak in broken English or not. Since it’s a short story, the giant Moth robot gets taken down way too easy. Overall, kind of a weak story.

A little better is the second story, “The Earthquake Menace”. After an earthquake hits California, Zoltar breaks into Zark’s communication frequency to warn the people of Earth that he caused it and the world must surrender. G-Force finds his underground base (a bit too easily, but again short story) and puts a stop to his plans. The writing is a bit better and the coloring doesn’t mess up. The art is as good as you can get for the time and small-press company but the capes are rather short on G-Force’s costumes.

Not a bad comic, really. It’s a victim of the times in some ways and people who hate the US version of Gatchaman are probably not going to like it, but for nostalgia’s sake it’s worth a look.