Robotech: Return To Macross #37
FINAL ISSUE
Academy Comics, Ltd (October, 1996)
“Never Can Say Goodbye”
WRITER: Bill Spangler
ARTIST: Dusty Griffin
With the Achilles under control all that’s left is Virgil. Roy manages to shoot his shuttle down, and the two have a talk. However, Roy starts to realize something is wrong and pulls away just before the self-destruct would have kept both of them away from Claudia. Bennington takes over the Federalist investigation and claims that Gloval has been reassigned to hunt down Federalist enclaves while his attempted meeting with his old friend turned Federalist supporters has surely gone awry. Roy chases off an overzealous security agent giving Claudia and Lisa’s apartment a going over and getting in Claudia’s business. She and Roy decide to try to reconcile their relationship.
What they got right: Most of the plot threads are wrapped up in this story and Roy and Claudia seem to be ending up back together. Lisa even speaks to her father (off-panel). Anything remaining in her story will hopefully be addressed in the special comic I’ll be looking at unless I have its timeline placement wrong.
What they got wrong: There’s so much still left unresolved. Unless Spangler wasn’t told this was the last issue. he should have had Gloval return and admit his failure since he needs to be here for the first episode of the show. There’s still the fate of the Lemurians that hasn’t been addressed. There are also a few spelling and word balloon errors (like Virgil thinking a line of dialog he should be saying). They also tried this 3D effect for the closing title that looks like something done on a computer from 1996 and it just looks weird.
Recommendation: While art isn’t the best and the whole series and its spin-offs are ultimately non-canon (and occasionally goes against canon established even at the time) the stories are rather interesting and are worth giving a look.