“Yesterday’s” Comic> Robotech #8 (Antarctic Press)

A rare moment of Claudia not being angry at Roy for something.

Robotech #8

Antarctic Press (May, 1998)

Prototype 001: “Variants’ part 1

WRITER/ARTIST: Ted Nomura

COLORISTS: Pat Kelley, Pat Thorton, & Katie Gillette

LETTERER: Ben Dunn

The back-up story for the first two story arcs finally takes center stage. Focke blames Roy for the death of his daughter, a fan of his who joined the third world war and was killed on her first flight. He wants Lisa to get out of the fighter and make this battle between the two of them but she insists on remaining at her post. Focke uses a maneuver that knocks out Lisa…who awakens on the floor of the SDF-1 under the command of Admiral Fokker!

What they got right: Well, at least this isn’t the back-up story anymore. An alternate future version of what could happen in the first Robotech war may prove an interesting story. And the bridge girls are here, including personal favorite Sammie. I usually like seeing them.

What they got wrong: Except this isn’t the story we’ve been building up to. Did Nomura just need extra time to figure out where the main story was headed and gave us this alternate future/history instead?

And for some reason they need a back-up story they still don’t have room to really give time to. No credits are given for “Introduction”, which shows a patrol featuring a human named John and I think one of the Masters’ civilians from the second war keeping a count of the spores from the Invid Flower Of Life when the Invid arrive. The Tirolian (I think her name is Henna) notices something on the Invid ship and cuts power to their ship. The art is not that good and again there is no room to really fill out a story here, so why do they keep doing this?

What I think overall: The previous back-up story is being supplanted while the current back-up story suffers the same problem: a good plot idea that won’t have time to really show its stuff. It’s too bad the main title keeps doing this, but the previous arc won me over by the last two issues so there’s still hope.