RavenHawk

I think it all depends on Tommy Yune's whim at any given moment...

To be honest, he starts off a bit whiny in the comics in Book 1 while he is showing he isn't happy being a general/admiral, but then we start seeing more of the old Rick Hunter come through, though obviously aged and more mature. I think the novels did a better job of handling him well, or at least with a personality that I appreciated, but the Sentinels comics do a good job. At least in the Sentinels comics you feel like you are reading further, older adventures of the characters you knew and loved. Prelude to Shadow Chronicles, and then the Shadow Chronicles movie just felt like totally different characters only sharing the same name.

Anything from MOSPEADA would be good, but as anyone who knows me won't be surprised to hear, it has to be a variable bike. MOSPEADA Blowsperior or any other MOSPEADA. Otherwise, Motoslave (Hurricane or Typhoon) from Bubblegum Crisis. If not those, then a Garland from Megazone 23. Love the idea of a mecha I can ride around on a daily basis, as opposed to needing a field to land in.

I noticed the "Jack Archer Lives" graffiti as I was replaying Invasion a week or two back. I honestly don't even remember the storyline from Battlecry. I played it and beat it once, unlocked everything, and then the real fun began playing multiplayer with my son.

Robotech II: The Sentinels: Book Four (Robotech II: The Sentinels: Book Four #1-13, Robotech II: The Sentinels: Halloween Special #1, Robotech II: The Sentinels: Book Four #0): First of all, issue #0 came out before #1, which makes sense. What doesn't make sense, however, is that it is a complete Robotech timeline, starting with Zor's birth and going through the event that lead to Robotech: The Odyssey, which was to being after all of the books (presumably 5) of Robotech II: The Sentinels. As such, issue #0 reveals events of this book and after, so I chose to read it last. I will also review it last. Issues #1-13 continue what we saw in Book Three. Solid writing, solid consistent art, but it continues feeling a little bit rushed, which is something we have seen consistently since the book moved over to Academy. There's nothing bad at all, but we're really just not getting the level of detail and quality of dialogue that we had become spoiled by before. Here, the liberation moves to Haydon, characters are introduced then glossed over rather quickly, Praxa reveals who she is... and no one reading the book really cares. It is clear that her moment with Wolff is meant to be forgotten. Haydon is liberated quickly, despite a lot of actual elements being involved in this liberation. I have to this that, under the previous authors, this liberation would've taken a good dozen to dozen and a half issues, as opposed to the half dozen it gets here. Keep in mind, all of these events are interspersed with event on Tirol as well, where things are supposedly heating up, but you just don't get the feeling of any tension. Kyle is there, though his actions seem poorly thought out, mostly involving sitting around, on the off chance that someone comes along to help. Enter Nicks, who still doesn't fit in, yet is somehow amazingly still being forced into the story. Then she helps Kyle... sort of. After the liberation of Haydon IV, some Sentinels return to Tirol, while others move on to Spheris... and spend a lot of time sitting around. For a book where the new writing style is supposed to move things along very quickly, we seem to get several issues of filler. Meanwhile, back on Tirol, Edwards is dealt with by the council FAR to quickly. He revolts, fighting breaks out, and... That's it. That's the end of Academy's run of Robotech. For the most part, nothing is resolved further, though Wildstorm's Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles picks up on Tirol EXACTLY where this story leaves off... but then everything else, especially the Sentinels and their campaign, is completely different. In general, I would sum up this book by saying that it is fine, definitely worth reading if you've read the previous books, which I highly recommend, but the quality definitely drops as more and more divergences from the novels appear. The Halloween Special has nothing to do with Halloween, and isn't really special. It is a filler issue, taking place between Book Four: #11 and #12. The Sentinels breath in some gas from an asteroid orbiting Spheris... the women start acting strangely... the asteroid downloads all of the SDF-7's data... and then the asteroid flies off. Nothing more is ever heard of this, as Academy's license of Robotech ends shortly thereafter, and this was not anything from the novels. The issue it self if fine, art and writing are fine, you just kind of finish it and realize that that's it, nothing more, and feel very unsatisfied by your read. Issue #0, as mentioned above, sums up ALL OF ROBOTECH on a timeline, but was published before Book IV. It's a nice little timeline, but it really doesn't serve any purpose for setting up book 4, and in fact gives away most of the new elements of book 4. The sad part it, that the timeline is incorrect, as within a handful of issues of book 4 itself, it is invalidated, at least in the order in which things occur, which is sort of the point of a timeline. This really would've made much more sense to be published concurrently with issue #13, when Academy found out they had lost the license to Robotech, just to tell the fans what was SUPPOSED to happen. To sum up, I will repeat what I wrote above: In general, I would sum up this book by saying that it is fine, definitely worth reading if you've read the previous books, which I highly recommend, but the quality definitely drops as more and more divergences from the novels appear. Now, on to Worlds of Robotech, which I believe is concurrent with Book 4, and the Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, just to get a more complete picture.

All the CMs ones do.

I like the look of this things, but overall really prefer the Toynami fighter sculpt to the CMs. Too bad, Toynami will never make one.

Is that CMs?

Ok, watched it. Not what I was expecting at all. *** SPOILERS *** Nice to see references to the collateral damage that they're doing, but I didn't realize just how MERCENARY this private army was. Each rider is out for themselves? Seems like we have a ton of very selfish characters. Not sure what to think yet. I assume that as time goes on they become more of a cohesive team, and maybe friends.

Watched the episode 4 RAW, but not subbed yet.

If Harmony Gold hadn't gotten the rights to Macross, I don't think I ever would've been introduced to mature anime, at least not at an appropriately impressionable age. Despite people's dislike of Harmony Gold (and I am definitely one of them), a lot of us owe a good bit of thanks to Carl Macek, I think. How about you go back in time and renegotiate the terms of the purchase to the rights of Macross, so that they would've reverted away from Harmony Gold as soon as Robotech stopped being on regular televised rotation in the USA?

Downloaded it last night. Going to watch it tonight after my gf goes to sleep, and then I'll let you know.

Yeah, I know, but thought it would be a fun one. Depite all of his Xbox 360 games and everything else, my son and I still break out the old PS2 to play Robotech: Battlecry. We have a lot of fun with that one. Too bad Invasion was only multiplayer is you went online.

LOL Thanks for the input.

Thanks for the insight everyone. So would you say to avoid it, or it's ok, for the right price?

I think so, but I guess I'm asking for two reasons: 1) I've only bought New Gen/MOSPEADA Robotech tems, not Macross, so I know about the quality of the New Gen ones, but not how bad (or good?) the Macross ones might be. 2) Yamata has a history (at least with their Megazone stuff) of improving as they go. Meaning, there were a few problems with the original Garland. They received complaints, manufactured a new swap-in part that could be used by the consumer to fix their existing ones, and then on the later Proto-Garland included improvements for those problems, and for additional items that could be improved but weren't necessary major. My Proto-Garland is MUCH better than my Factory Color Garland. I don't know if Toynami did the same thing and, by the time they did the Jack Archer, had fixed problems that were in the earlier ones (whatever those may have been). I doubt they did, based on their recent statement of not being aware of problems with the Alphas befor the Maia Stirling, but may have.

Is that from personal experience, or from what you've heard from others? Just curious. Thanks for the reply, btw.

I know there were various issue with the Robotech Masterpiece editions (all of them, from what I hear). Does anyone have any experience with the Jack Archer one? Since it was the last of the Macross ones, were any prior issues resolved/fixed/improved? Thanks for any advice you have to offer.

Really? FINALLY!!! Now to try to find it. Where did you find the torrent?

Gibson (the author of numerous books, like Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive, as opposed to Gibson, the author of a number of disappointing Robotech comics) introduced a lot of new concepts which are now considered commonplace.

Sorry to nitpick, but it really bugs me when people talk about the show blatantly contradicting it like that. To me, and I know this is a minor detail, MACROSS blatantly contradicts it. However, ROBOTECH being its own entity, I prefer to think of it as ROBOTECH being whatever Macek intended it to be (in this case, including the thinking caps), but the animation just not allowing to present it. I know, this seems like a silly little detail, but that's just how I personally prefer to look at it.

The thinking caps were original. Macek and the "McKinney" authors came up with the idea, since Macek hated the idea of simple hand controls being able to control a robot mecha, but the original animation which he used for Robotech didn't allow for a better explanation until the novels came along. I saw the Silverback in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, and it's in the Shadown Chronicles RPG book. Kind of cool. I first thought maybe it was an unused design from MOSPEADA, but I think it must be original. It looks directly based on the MOSPEADAs/Cyclones, whereas most MOSPEADA mecha were more... original, I guess I would say.

Very true, especially with the stuff from the comics. Some of the new mecha (like the Praxiam horse) that were in Sentinels were, I THINK, actually unused Southern Cross designs.

You know, I was originally under the impression that they were basing it on continuing New Gen too, and ignoring Sentinels. I had mixed feelings about this, since I LOVED New Gen, but have very warm memories of Sentinels as well, based on the novels. On the other hand, I've been reading the Sentinels comics this week, and realize they have been taking ideas from it a lot more than they seem willing to admit. Unfortunately, I think they also screwed up a lot of those ideas (like everything to do with the Haydonites).

Thanks, I appreciate it. I also want to echo the thanks to everyone participating in this thread. It's kind of fun for me.