Battlestar Galactica #1 - Marvel Comics

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA No. 1, March 1979

Based upon “the first episode of the television series”, Roger McKenzie’s script for this comic book adaption’s opening instalment somewhat wisely limits itself to simply focusing upon the destruction of both Humanity’s formidably-sized Colonial Fleet and its defenceless home planets by the merciless Cylons, rather than trying to stretch itself too thin by concerning itself with either the crossing of the Nova of Madagon, or the Ovion’s subsequent carnivorous machinations on Carillon. Indeed, despite the “monthly” arguably suffering with a tremendously text-heavy final few panels, Issue One of “Battlestar Galactica” ends on a natural high-point as Commander Adama initiates a mass exodus of his race in search of a mysterious "planet called Earth!” 

Furthermore, whether because of some last minute changes to Glen Larson’s storyline or not, the American author even goes so far as to deprive this eighteen-page periodical’s audience of Zac’s dialogue-driven opening exchange with Lieutenant Starbuck on board the Galactica, and instead immediately throws the inexperienced pilot straight into his fatal patrol with the youngster’s older brother, Captain Apollo. Such a decision really helps transport the reader straight into the cataclysmic action by demonstrating, within the space of just a handful of sketches, that this publication’s hapless peace envoy is clearly facing a ton of pain by pitting just two military-class space superiority fighters against “thousands” of Cylon warships, and enough combined firepower to annihilate all but one of Mankind’s capital ships.

Similarly as enthralling is the writer’s ability to demonstrate the extremity of Count Baltar’s treachery and just how close the former Colonial military officer comes to bringing the Thousand Yahren War to a calamitous conclusion. Admittedly, a lot of the mass carnage is actually explained through word balloons and text bubbles as opposed to graphic depictions of the slaughter, yet it still helps to ‘sell’ Adama’s eventual decision to bravely mass evacuate his people from the Twelve Colonies following their devastating destruction at the hands of the robots; “If we stay in this star system, the alliance will eventually hunt us down and destroy us!”

Disappointingly however, this comic is debatably badly let down by some decidedly uninspiring pencilling by Ernie Colon, which whilst prodigious when it comes to depicting the narrative’s impressive-looking spaceships, seems to somewhat lack much in the way of detailed dynamism for its quite considerable cast of characters. Indeed, the “stateside Puerto Rican” artist rarely seems to provide many of his drawings with any sort of background whatsoever, and when he does, they disconcertingly consist of simple, rudimentary line-art.

Script: Roger McKenzie, Art: Ernie Colon, and Coloring: George Roussos