Turns out you really do turn blue if you stay in the water too long.
Robotech: Aftermath #12
Academy Comics, Ltd (March, 1995)
Megaroad: “Ghost Machine”
WRITER/ARTIST/SERIES CREATOR: Bruce Lewis
INKER: Robert Perchaluk
Megaroad arrives at a base near the former site of Reflex Point, Scott having heard about a cache of pre-protoculture tech stored there. While this causes friction with one of men serving under him as part of a power struggle between the two, a Zentraedi woman arrives, claiming to be from the Moon, where humans and Zentraedi get along, here to join Megaroad and stop the prototype mecha from the first Robotech war responsible for wiping out the base. While Scott doesn’t believe her at first, the destruction of one of the rovers by the mecha convinces him to trust her and she uses her powerful swords to take the mecha and it’s barely still human pilot down. The woman, Sarya Min-Qadderaq, joins the team. Meanwhile, Spex is revealed to the readers as part of some mysterious organization.
What they got right: I have some nitpicks but half of them are tied to continuity, which I’ll get to later. The premise however is quite solid. A machine controlled by what’s left of a man who just wants to go home. The addition of this “organization” could have been interesting if the series had more time to explore it, and the same for the Zentraedi woman and this group on the moon. (No, I’m not using this third party name for women Zentraedi they swiped from Macross.)
What they got wrong: There are times I wonder if Lewis even knew what series he was writing for, and this issue doesn’t tell me he does. The mecha looks more advanced than anything in the first Robotech War, never mind the third. He was also comatose a long time after the Zentraedi attack on Earth during the first War, so how did he live? He’s a torso and head mentally connected to a mecha without any signs of nutrition. This is well after the third War. And if this was “home” for him why did he leave after killing the previous personnel and still talk about going home when he attacked Megaroad? How did she defeat a prototype Veritech fighter in Battloid mode with just swords? That’s not how Zentraedi fight.
What I think overall: I think Lewis should have saved these ideas for an original story, because as part of the Robotech saga it raises a lot of questions in my mind.
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