“Yesterday’s” “Comic”> Robotech: Clone #5

I think you hired the wrong decorator for the baby’s room.

Robotech: Clone #5

FINAL ISSUE

Academy Comics, Ltd. (August, 1995)

“Cradlesong”

WRITER: Rosearik Rikki

ARTIST: Tavisha Wolfgarth

Bibi finally returns to the Mordecai only to find she’s been replaced by a clone. Since she’s been gone they have started their colonization and maintaining a zero population growth aboard the ship, so she and the baby are put into suspended animation until there are open slots for them. During that time the IHE has been at war with the Monte Yarrow. The story then shifts to Bibi’s clone, Ava 239, as she takes down the last Monte Yarrow in their area but at the cost of her own life. However, her Iconoclast is a new model with an almost human AI and he tries to find a way to resurrect her. Back on the Super Dimensional Fortress the crew learns that the Monte Yarrow have a series of ships that happen to wake up when they get near. They don’t know how to fight them, but that’s when a certain spider speaks up.

I like the artwork and while the story STILL doesn’t feel like Robotech it would have made for a great series as it’s own property. However, there is a reason “comic” was in quotes in the article title. This is an illustrated booklet, and I’m not against that necessarily. Moonstone put out some good ones like Return Of The Originals: Battle For LA in this form. The same format will be used next issue, when they attempted to relaunch the story as Robotech: Mordecai, and while it allows for more story than the comic format they were using it just further separates it from the rest of the Robotech titles in the Academy Comics period.

Another problem is all the time skipping. I can’t really keep up sometimes. Bibi and the Zentraedi baby have become an afterthought shoved into the icebox while her clone does stuff and the technological leap in Iconocast fighters to where they’re now sentient and in the middle of a decades-long war (while Una apparently took forever to speak up, and even then it’s only a laugh. It all makes it hard to keep up and to even care about these characters. The only one with any real personality is now taking a long nap with a baby.

I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes with this book outside of little tidbits Rikki added in previous issues but apparently it didn’t do this series any favors. It’s a great idea that should have been its own series but as a Robotech I can’t really recommend it. I’m assuming the creative team got better as the years rolled on but they’re really struggling on this one and taken altogether it shows.