By Liefeld, Napton, Altstaetter, Gomez & Micheletti (Maximum Press)
ISBN: 1-888610-01-8
I have perhaps an odd policy regarding reviews of comics and graphic novels. I really try to say positive things in an informative manner about the fruits of the medium I love. Simply put, I can’t understand why publishers don’t realise that they shouldn’t be enemies. I consider TV, Movies, Books, Games and everything else that keeps disposable income away from comics sales to be The Adversary, and want to do my bit to keep every benighted soul out of their clutches – and yes, I know many comics spring directly from those sources: but they’re judged as comics when I get hold of them here.
With such an ethos working I, frankly, don’t want to review anything that is absolutely, irredeemably awful. I want people to buy graphic narratives.
But I fully acknowledge that since there are many reasons a person might want a graphic novel, they might not be reasons or tastes I share. It’s all about the comics, OK?
So I’m reviewing this book reluctantly, and only due to continued requests from a friend or two.
In the mid-1990s Rob Liefeld had a very public split from the other Founding Fathers of Image Comics and went his own way with Maximum Press and later Awesome Entertainment. A high profile name, he secured the comicbook rights to the classic TV series Battlestar Galactica (this is the original iteration, not the 21st century reworking).
Whatever else you want to say about Mister Liefeld, he certainly loves his childhood influences. Collected in this volume are the first four issues of the comic he “produced†through the talents of co-writer and scripter Robert Napton, designer Karl Altstaetter, and art team Hector Gomez & Rene Micheletti, wherein the Rag-Tag fleet of human survivors finally find the lost planet Earth that they’ve been seeking for over twenty years.
The events and sub-plots are heavily dependent on a thorough working knowledge of the TV episodes, so if you know who The Seraphs, Lucifer VI, Baltar, Count Iblis and Commander Cain are you can just concentrate on the sheer daftness of the story and the annoying overuse of scratchy lines, odd poses, extreme Cropped Close-ups and superfluous, lazy single eyeball shots in lieu of the odd mid-shot or background.
When the heroes reach Earth, it’s the age of the dinosaurs, but a hidden pyramid/ship/tomb reveals two hibernating survivors of the mythic Thirteenth Colony of Man that the refugees have been hunting all these years. The ship is Eden and the hibernauts are named Adam and Eve. Then the Cylons show up and there’s loads of shooting and explosions.
Please don’t mistake me; I’ve seen – and defended – product just as weak as this on many occasions. But they at least were honest attempts that knew no better. This is glossy, slick, expensive, cynical rubbish that assumes consumers will settle for any old tat as long as the right names are on it.
I don’t suppose there’s ever much chance of even finding this book, but if you do, don’t buy it. Even if you possess the variant gene that craves and revels in the paradox of “So Bad it’s Good†or subscribe to the Razzies(â„¢) and all those other sentiments that applaud and garner amusement from the worst that Entertainment can offer, save your money for something good – or at least honest.
Satisfied now Mr S and Miss C?
Battlestar Galactica ™ & © 1995 Universal City Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.