This will be the last comic review before my surgery. I hope to return sometime next week but that depends on how I feel. At least I’m not leaving you on a cliffhanger before the final issue (though I am missing an issue between last week’s review and this one). The feature articles will continue through Saturday since I was able to schedule them all. I also managed to find someone’s upload of the remastered version of this episode so I could compare the two as this is rather important to the saga.
“This isn’t what I meant by playing in the flowers.”
Robotech Masters #23
FINAL ISSUE
Comico The Comic Company (April, 1988)
“Catastrophe!”
WRITER: Mike Baron
PENCILER: Harrison Fong
INKER: Bill Anderson
COLORIST: Tom Vincent
LETTERER: Bob Pinaha
EDITOR: Maggie Brenner
Joined by Nova and Lt. Brown, the 15th attempt to rescue the civilian Tirolians from the Robotech Masters’ ship. (For the record I will be using stuff added from later stories to connect this with the Graphic Novel and The Sentinels.) However, Zor has gone off on his own to hunt down the Masters’ before they can further abuse the protoculture. Dana joins him and accidentally makes contact with the Flower Of Life, receiving an image of her parents and sister warning her about the Invid. The invading forces manage to destroy the Southern Cross headquarters, also killing Leonard in the process, and access the Protoculture Matrix at the ruins. As Zor kills off the Masters the ship head for a collision course with Monument City, while Musica’s sister Octavia is killed in the escape. Zor sacrifices himself attempting to destroy the spores, but the plan ultimately backfires as the spores of the Flower Of Life are spread out instead, detected by the Invid Sensor Nebula. Our heroes survived the second Robotech war but now rebuild in the shadow of a third one.
What they got right: Using the spreading pedals, a bittersweet victory in Super Dimension Calvary Southern Cross, instead turns into the second act tragedy of the spores getting released anyway, triggering the third act and The New Generation. That’s a good merging of events. The comic does a good job adapting the events of the episode, with only minor dialog and who said it changes.
What they got wrong: I don’t really have any complaints. As an adaptation it works well and the episode itself was also really good.
Recommendation: A good finale to this series and lead-in to the final Comico series, that at the time was released alongside it. (When I get back there are a few more stories set during the second war from other publishers I have to properly sort into the story so there are more to come before we get to the third war.) Worth checking out.
