I don’t know if you can tell but you can see there’s somebody in there as if the robot’s head was translucent. That seems like a bad design choice going a robot made of lions.
Voltron #3
FINAL ISSUE
Modern Publishing (1985)
“Deception Of Doom!” WRITER: Mark Lerer ARTIST: Dick Ayers COLORIST: Rich Ayers again, no letterer listed EDITOR: Gary Brodsky
A visiting dignitary turns out to be Lotor in disguise, who manages to kidnap Allura and steal the keys to the Lions. Then he launches an attack on Arus, forcing the Voltron Force to fight in less than optimum spacefighters. Only Hunk manages to get past them and break onto Lotor’s ship, rescuing the Princess and recovering the keys. Lotor has one more trick up his sleeve, and transforms his ship into a RoBeast but now with Voltron back it takes taken out rather easily.
What they got right: Even if the show has done this plot in bits before (including Keith and Lance fighting injured and the Force having to go out without the missing Pidge, all in separate TV adventures as well as Lotor, the fake visitor–more than once–and Allura being tricked into letting bad guys into the Castle Of Lions–also more than once; actually, she’s quite gullible now that I think about it), it’s not a bad combination. The action holds up well and the robot, while not great, isn’t too bad. We also finally get to see Zarkon in this comic.
What they got wrong: Sadly way too many things, from minor fan nitpicks (like referring to each other as “warriors” instead of “team” like they usually do) to larger issues. For example, Allura does something really stupid and leaves the keys out to show off to the dignitary (after some exposition that would have been better placed in the first issue instead of the final issue for readers who haven’t seen the show) and then going solo to visit a planet with a dignitary who says custom only allows one visitor on his ship. Later the bad guys do something stupid and follow Hunk’s bad impersonation of Lotor without the password and only when they hit outer space do they think to check the voice print. Smart people do a lot of stupid things in this comic.
Recommendation: I can see why this is the only comic Modern released. It’s not very good. Of the three issues only the second one seems to have been written by someone who has actually seen the show and even that seems to have been toned down even more than World Events did when translating GoLion. None of these are really any good, though, so unless you’re just really curious about a Voltron comic that came out when the show was still on the air, just avoid this series. They’re good plots with questionable execution and little understanding of the source material
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