Battlestar Galactica #3 - Marvel Comics

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA No. 3, May 1979

Grabbing its audience by the throat and arguably dragging them through two-thirds of the theatrically released “Saga of a Star World” within the space of just seventeen-pages, Roger McKenzie’s script for Issue Three of “Battlestar Galactica” probably made little sense to anyone unlucky enough not to have seen Glen A. Larson’s $8 million pilot on the big screen. Indeed, this comic book adaption’s ending is so rushed that exploits such as Apollo and Starbuck momentous battle against a Cylon Baseship orbiting Carillon is relegated to just three hastily compressed panels crowbarred in at the end of the edition, whilst the likes of Cassiopeia and Sire Uri are absent from this particular periodical entirely.

Such major truncations and omissions genuinely damage this storyline’s pacing, and begs the question as to whether the American author was anticipating having another issue (or two) with which to work with. Certainly everything seems to be going smoothly with the writing up until Boomer discovers the Ovion’s mesmerising casino in the middle of nowhere, and then suddenly the entire subplot concerning Uri awarding the Gold Cluster to the three pilots who successfully navigated the desperate fleet through the Nova of Magadon is skipped. Admittedly, this exclusion does add an extra element of mystery to Starbuck spotting several Colonial warriors from his own squadron who he’s never seen before. But such an enigma doesn’t last long as within a handful of millicentons the Lieutenant is suddenly up to his armpits in Cylon warriors and human-eating Ovion hatchlings; “A-Apollo… I think I’m gonna be s-sick…”

Perhaps however, the biggest disappointment to the curtailing of the movie’s climax is that it robs Ernie Colon of the opportunity to pencil more great pictures of the “race of robots at war with the Twelve Colonies of humanity.” The Puerto Rican artist does a stellar job depicting the Imperious Leader’s hulking minions during their discussion with Carillon’s resident insectoid creatures as to how the Galactica’s population will ultimately be destroyed. So it’s a real shame that the illustrator isn’t then later given more room with which to sketch the silver-chromed soldiers being blasted to pieces by the likes of Apollo, Starbuck and Boomer deep inside the planet’s claustrophobic catacombs.

Script: Roger McKenzie, Art: Ernie Colon, and Colors: Marie Severin