Robotech and REMIX by Titan Comics

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Dynaman said:

Wait?  Ending already.  Has there been any of the interpersonal relationships Macross was famous for in the comic?  If so it must have been one or two panels between toothy grins.

Actual character development and story progression in an "original" Robotech work?

Jeez, look who wants the moon.  

[GabrielV]

12 hours ago, Knight26 said:

This preview page about says it all.

I think that foreground valk is straight off of an old Hasegawa box.  And Iknow we've seen that Super Valk in a million other places.

Wait... Didn't this comic redesign all the mecha?  Why do they look....  Oh, nevermind.

That image is jarring.  Not only have they traced or lightboxed or "interpreted" or whatever they want to call it, they've not only imported the basic shapes, but also the styles of the original images.  And everything is a different style.

So you have the Pod and Super Valk which seem to be copied from lineart.  Then you have the foreground Valk which is copied from a painting.  Then you have the SDF-1 which is copied from a high detail source, a painting by a different artist or a model.  Then you have the Invid which are copied from lineart by a different designer.

And unsurprisingly, it looks like a collage.  It looks like someone cut out pictures and pasted them together.  I'm not entirely convinced that isn't exactly what they did.

 

[Mazinger]

1 hour ago, GabrielV said:

And unsurprisingly, it looks like a collage.  It looks like someone cut out pictures and pasted them together.  I'm not entirely convinced that isn't exactly what they did.

Yeah if comics were Reddit, I'd call that panel and entire comic a low-effort post.

There's like literally no value being added, unless you count the off-scale inbit's dropping in.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, GabrielV said:

Wait... Didn't this comic redesign all the mecha?  Why do they look....  Oh, nevermind.

The redesign went over exactly as well as you'd think given the Robotech fandom's aversion to change and attachment to the original show.

 

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The redesign went over exactly as well as you'd think given the Robotech fandom's aversion to change and attachment to the original show.

Which, they still seem to forget every other issue, because they keep flip flopping on designs.  

[Einherjar]

No one’s concerned about whatever dumb plan this guy is working on?

[Seto Kaiba]

25 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Which, they still seem to forget every other issue, because they keep flip flopping on designs.  

The artists must take it in turns to get blackout drunk while working on this comic.

I know I would.

[blackconvoy_D01]

I thought the redesign was in anticipation of them losing their license.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 minutes ago, blackconvoy_D01 said:

I thought the redesign was in anticipation of them losing their license.

Wouldn't have helped... the redesign was visibly and obviously derivative of Macross designs, and its "creator" explicitly acknowledged it was based on Macross IP.

[pengbuzz]

33 minutes ago, blackconvoy_D01 said:

I thought the redesign was in anticipation of them losing their license.

No, it was the result of losing their minds many moons ago...

[JB0]

9 hours ago, GabrielV said:

That image is jarring.  Not only have they traced or lightboxed or "interpreted" or whatever they want to call it, they've not only imported the basic shapes, but also the styles of the original images.  And everything is a different style.

It isn't all even consistently lit. Which, okay, deep space surrounded by explosions, sure, maybe everything SHOULD be lit from a diffrent angle. But it looks really bad, and appealing takes precedenoe over realism.

[Old_Nash]

On 8/15/2019 at 3:59 PM, Einherjar said:

No one’s concerned about whatever dumb plan this guy is working on?

He's dead.

A Clone Fokker shot in his head.

[Einherjar]

3 hours ago, Old_Nash said:

He's dead.

A Clone Fokker shot in his head.

Huh, what a waste for the guy who derailed everything (as usual).  Who the heck thought it was a good idea to reboot one of the worst Robotech original characters ever just for that?

(Just to verify, he and maybe that other Robotech original character scientist who doesn’t matter assassinated Captain Global for whatever Orguss related scheme the Titian Comics staff made up, and inadvertently sabotaged the Rick/Lisa/Minmay triangle and character development each of them had in the show that made viewers actually care about any of them?  And the damage he caused was for nothing?)

Edited August 17, 2019 by Einherjar

[Brofessor]

Spoiler Alert for Issue 20 May 2019

Spoiler

1. At the back of this issue it is revealed there was a countdown from Issue 17 in March 2019 to Free Comic Book day on 5/4/2019. Some cover variants from Issue 17 to Issue 20 counted down from -4 to -1 and Robotech’s Free Comic Book Day Issue is Chapter Zero of a 5 part story arc titled Event Horizon. Chapter Zero begins after Issue 20.

2. Minmei, Kyle, and the three spies are brought to Lisa’s ready room where they explain Minmei’s new power to command people.

3. Some of the Zentreadi fleet are refusing to follow Dolza’s orders. This is not so much because of the effect of micronian culture but more of a coup by Azonia spurred on by Khyron. Khyron had previously made vague negative references to the “impotent ruling elite” of the Zentreadi. Kazianna has already convinced Breetai, Exedore, Kurita, and Miriya to defect to the SDF-1 to join the Earth’s forces in defeating the Invid.

4. Dolza decides to destroy the SDF-1 instead of capture it intact.

5. Dr. Lang deploys the omni-directional shield which absorbs Dolza’s main particle weapon. Dr. Lazlo Zand is pleased because unbeknownst to Dr. Lang, the omni-directional barrier is transporting the absorbed energy of Dolza’s weapon destructively upon Optera through some kind of wormhole. The omni-directional shield does not overload or explode in this timeline. It works perfectly.

6. Dr. Zand re-captures the original Roy but the clone of Captain Gloval remains in hiding.

7. Rick arrives in Lisa’s ready room and supports Lisa’s plan for Minmei to command Dolza’s forces to simply leave. Breetai, Exedore, Kazianna, Miriya, and Kurita give Lisa the radio frequencies for Minmei to broadcast to the Zentreadi fleet.

8. Dolza and the Zentreadi begin to leave as Minmei commanded, but the SDF-1 fires the main gun and destroys Dolza’s command center which is now illustrated as the asteroid-type version from the original Macross or Robotech. In Issue 18 it had been illustrated as the Robotech Factory Satellite.

9. Lisa kisses Rick in front of Minmei.

10. Karl Riber onboard the SDF-1 senses the coming of the Invid Regis spelled Regess in the comic.

 

[Brofessor]

Spoiler Alert for Event Horizon Chapter Zero Robotech Free Comic Book Day or Issue 20.5 May 2019

Spoiler

1. It seems to be a major time skip into the future. Rick’s character design is much more mature. The opening scene states Rick is commanding Zor’s battlefortress and is at a black hole or worm hole but then dialogue states it is the SDF-3. Perhaps in this timeline the SDF-1 is never destroyed and this really is Zor’s battlefortess now designated as the SDF-3 (???). It is likely a vocabulary error by the narrator. Canon states the REF had planned on sending the SDF-3 to Tirol and the McKinney novels took the SDF-3 to the events of The End of the Circle.

2. Rick has scars on his face similar to his character design in Shadow Chronicles. Lisa seems unconscious and Colonel Wolfe is on the bridge with Lisa and Rick.

3. Rick mentions a life raft which could be the Ark Angel or the Deukalion. Rick sends his ship, the SDF-3, and Dana Sterling into the worm hole.

4. The majority of this issue is comprised of panels and dialogue from the past 20 issues. This montage is framed as the Invid Regis somehow telepathically learning about all the events of Earth history and the last 20 issues.

5. Four months after the destruction of Dolza’s armada in Issue 20, there is a ceremony in New Macross City honoring all the dead and the living heroes of Earth forces including the micronized Zentreadi on Earth.

6. Admiral Hayes is still alive and takes Lisa to Alaska Base to see a frozen Dana Sterling who had arrived 10 years prior with the crash of Zor’s battlefortress but kept in stasis.

7. Lazlo Zand is still inside his extra dimensional hiding place onboard the SDF-1 which is in space dock on Moon Base Aluce. The original Roy is still his captive and the clone of Captain Gloval is still hiding there as well.

8. The Regis references how Optera has been destroyed twice. Once by the Robotech Masters and once by the humans omni-directional shield. She is unable to access the surface of Earth but she can access the SDF-1. She sends inorganics through a worm hole at the original location of the missing fold system.

9. The Regis’ ability to enter the SDF-1 shocks Lazlo Zand and his extra dimensional hiding place becomes visible to the dimension inhabited by the characters of this comic book

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Brofessor
sdf-3 error

[Brofessor]

Spoiler Alert for Curtain Call Part 1 of 5 appearing as a backup in Event Horizon Chapter Zero Robotech Free Comic Book Day or Issue 20.5 May 2019

Spoiler

1. A character named Aahna introduces Jan Morris likely to sing a song at a concert in New Macross City. Lynn Minmay seems to be presumed dead and Jan Morris has portrayed Minmay in a film.

2. Minmay appears in an homage to her green and yellow outfit from the original timeline’s Episode 27 which did not take place in the timeline of the current Titan Comic.

3. Max and Miriya are in the audience.

4. The humor is in Minmay upstaging Jan Morris yet again. However, the canon events of the Miss Macross contest were not shown in this comic. Minmei does win the Macross Has Talent Concert in this comic.

5. The title of this backup is Curtain Call which is the title of Episode 65 of Robotech.

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Brofessor
spelling timeline/miss macross change

[Chronocidal]

I have to ask why you're "spoiling" things that were discussed here literally months ago.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I have to ask why you're "spoiling" things that were discussed here literally months ago.

Presumably out of courtesy for any silent psychopaths on these boards that might actually want to read the comics?

[technoblue]

1 minute ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Presumably out of courtesy for any silent psychopaths on these boards that might actually want to read the comics?

Yeah, I feel that the spoiler summaries from Mr 1.21 Gigawatts are lacking the usual jovial sarcasm that adorns this thread by default.

[Seto Kaiba]

29 minutes ago, technoblue said:

Yeah, I feel that the spoiler summaries from Mr 1.21 Gigawatts are lacking the usual jovial sarcasm that adorns this thread by default.

While there are undeniably less elaborate ways to engage in self-harm, who are we to kink-shame him?

[Knight26]

50 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I have to ask why you're "spoiling" things that were discussed here literally months ago.

He's a poster over on Robotech.com forums who is the only person there posting in the thread for the comic, and all he does is these spoiler posts.

[technoblue]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

While there are undeniably less elaborate ways to engage in self-harm, who are we to kink-shame him?

I was hoping the guy using Dr. Emmett Brown as his avatar would ham up the spoilers for us here in Macross land.

But good puns are sometimes a fun concession prize. 

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by technoblue

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Knight26 said:

He's a poster over on Robotech.com forums who is the only person there posting in the thread for the comic, and all he does is these spoiler posts.

Wait, you mean to say there are actual human beings posting there?  I thought it was just spambots spamming spambots.

 

1 hour ago, technoblue said:

I was hoping the guy using Dr. Emmett Brown as his avatar would ham up the spoilers for us here in Macross land.

But good puns are sometimes a fun concession prize. 

Maybe Pinhead from Hellraiser would be more appropriate, since he seems to think that this comic is a sight he has to show others.

[Einherjar]

Oh, it’s Lazlo Zand who is doing the scheming this time around...  Sorry, I still don’t know who that guy really is historically in the franchise or care at this point.  Just another original character with a dumb name.

[Seto Kaiba]

38 minutes ago, Einherjar said:

Oh, it’s Lazlo Zand who is doing the scheming this time around...  Sorry, I still don’t know who that guy really is historically in the franchise or care at this point.  Just another original character with a dumb name.

Oh, he's one of those carbon copy characters that was made for Robotech II: the Sentinels back in the 80's.  He was the amoral mad scientist counterpart to good superscientist Dr. Lang (the character Macross fans know as the nameless chief engineer).  He wasn't important except in the godawful novels, and his only real appearance of note since the reboot in '01 was getting arrested for high treason.

Not a particularly interesting character, he was just your standard amoral mad scientist character.

[Einherjar]

Knight26, from what you read, are the stakes really high going into the possible finale of the series?  Like the multiverse is in danger kind of stakes or a robot crab swarm will kill humanity deal?  Is a Japanese idol somehow part of the solution to all of this madness?  Hell, was all of this building up to a fixfic quality story addressing everything that happened with the franchise for the last 20 or so years?

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Wait, you mean to say there are actual human beings posting there?  I thought it was just spambots spamming spambots.

 

Maybe Pinhead from Hellraiser would be more appropriate, since he seems to think that this comic is a sight he has to show others.

Maybe Frank Agrama got bored and decided to try to spam us here? O.o

2 hours ago, Einherjar said:

Knight26, from what you read, are the stakes really high going into the possible finale of the series?  Like the multiverse is in danger kind of stakes or a robot crab swarm will kill humanity deal?  Is a Japanese idol somehow part of the solution to all of this madness?  Hell, was all of this building up to a fixfic quality story addressing everything that happened with the franchise for the last 20 or so years?

You mean...*gasp*...crab battle?

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by pengbuzz

[Keith]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Maybe Frank Agrama got bored and decided to try to spam us here? O.o

You mean...*gasp*...crab battle?

 

CRAB BATTLE! CRAB BATTLE!

[Knight26]

8 hours ago, Einherjar said:

Knight26, from what you read, are the stakes really high going into the possible finale of the series?  Like the multiverse is in danger kind of stakes or a robot crab swarm will kill humanity deal?  Is a Japanese idol somehow part of the solution to all of this madness?  Hell, was all of this building up to a fixfic quality story addressing everything that happened with the franchise for the last 20 or so years?

Basically at this point, they are getting ready to break the circle, or time loop they created back when the coke was flowing in the Sentinels writing room.  Whether that is a good thing or not, who can say.  I will admit to reading the McKinney books back in the day, early-mid 90s when I had only an inkling of the truth about RT, and getting righteously pissed off.  In those pre-internet days the only way to express ones rage was to write a letter to the publisher and author.  Which I did.  The whole timeloop thing they created in those books was beyond drivel and drove me to write even more.

So, yes I think they are getting ready to break the time loop, and in doing so attempt to erase the mistakes of RT past, and collapsing all the alternate realities where things like Sentinels, RT3K, Shadow Chronicles, Antarctic Press, etc... exist.  This "Restoration" of the timeline will still be a righteous mess however based on the previews of their next planned series, which at least appears to have better art, that, from the looks of it, will steal heavily from Mac+ and Mac7.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Basically at this point, they are getting ready to break the circle, or time loop they created back when the coke was flowing in the Sentinels writing room.

No way that lot could afford coke. That clueless lot were probably smoking oregano their dealer told them was weed.

 

15 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Whether that is a good thing or not, who can say.  I will admit to reading the McKinney books back in the day, early-mid 90s when I had only an inkling of the truth about RT, and getting righteously pissed off.  In those pre-internet days the only way to express ones rage was to write a letter to the publisher and author.  Which I did.  The whole timeloop thing they created in those books was beyond drivel and drove me to write even more.

Well, that's what happens when your author C.S. Goto's you (before C.S. Goto was even a thing)... you get a shitty plot that was originally written for a completely different story, that often isn't even in the same genre.  To this day I'd swear half those Robotech novels started out as rejected drafts for Star Wars books.  It'd certainly explain why the books introduced something that was basically the Force and why all the VFs have energy shields.

 

15 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

So, yes I think they are getting ready to break the time loop, and in doing so attempt to erase the mistakes of RT past, and collapsing all the alternate realities where things like Sentinels, RT3K, Shadow Chronicles, Antarctic Press, etc... exist.  This "Restoration" of the timeline will still be a righteous mess however based on the previews of their next planned series, which at least appears to have better art, that, from the looks of it, will steal heavily from Mac+ and Mac7.

I'll laugh long and hard if that's how this mess ends... "by the way, you Robotech fans wasted the last 30 years of your lives.  We're writing this garbage out once and for all."

[Knight26]

40 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, that's what happens when your author C.S. Goto's you (before C.S. Goto was even a thing)... you get a shitty plot that was originally written for a completely different story, that often isn't even in the same genre.  To this day I'd swear half those Robotech novels started out as rejected drafts for Star Wars books.  It'd certainly explain why the books introduced something that was basically the Force and why all the VFs have energy shields.

I had forgotten that.  But they started writing those before the Star Wars EU became a thing.  Still, the whole notion that the SDF-3, which was built from parts of the destroyed SDF-1 and 2, plus extra parts, was sent back in time to become Zor's Battlefortress, which was then rebuilt into the SDF-1 creates a bootstrap paradox of such massive proportions it would take all 13 iterations of the Doctor, plus Doc Brown, the Enterprises, the USS Nimitz, Time Rider, Jean Claude Van Damme and every other time traveler ever to rectify it.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

I had forgotten that.  But they started writing those before the Star Wars EU became a thing.

Brian Daley, one half of the "Jack McKinney" duo, was writing Star Wars novels almost a full decade before he teamed with James Luceno to write Robotech's novelizations.

He did a trilogy called The Han Solo Adventures, the first of which was published in September 1979.

 

4 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Still, the whole notion that the SDF-3, which was built from parts of the destroyed SDF-1 and 2, plus extra parts, was sent back in time to become Zor's Battlefortress, which was then rebuilt into the SDF-1 creates a bootstrap paradox of such massive proportions it would take all 13 iterations of the Doctor, plus Doc Brown, the Enterprises, the USS Nimitz, Time Rider, Jean Claude Van Damme and every other time traveler ever to rectify it.

Yeah, it was a mess... End of the Circle is rightly considered an atrocity even by most Robotech fans.

[Knight26]

Good point, I was thinking the EU when it restarted under Tim Zahn.  I had also forgotten that Daley was involved.

[Chronocidal]

See, the insane troll logic engine in my head is just throwing out the thought that they're purposefully trashing the entirety of the Robotech continuity with a hard Time Crash that will erase everything back to the original SDF-1 crash and collapse into...

wait for it...

.. an official adaptation of the entire proper Macross universe.

I honestly don't see any real reason why HG would actually want this... but could they have been writing in a continuity failsafe that would default to official Macross content in case the licensing ran out?  Or would they actually be crazy enough to hope that they'll have access to more official Macross content in the future, and leave an off-ramp on Macek's Wild Ride to allow a canon transition?

From a storyline point of view, I admit, it kind of cleans up the situation nicely... since you would be erasing the convoluted mess that Robotech has become over the years, while simultaneously declaring it to be the canon un-written history of the Macross universe.  

Would they actually be crazy enough to try and sell Robotech to the Macross fanbase as a time-erased prequel?

And yes, I'm aware, that doesn't fix any of the other massive story discrepancies (ie the Protoculture, Zentraedi, the Masters, etc), but nothing about this idea is really coherent anyway.  

Edited August 22, 2019 by Chronocidal

[Knight26]

30 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Would they actually be crazy enough to try and sell Robotech to the Macross fanbase as a time-erased prequel?

And yes, I'm aware, that doesn't fix any of the other massive story discrepancies (ie the Protoculture, Zentraedi, the Masters, etc), but nothing about this idea is really coherent anyway.  

Crazy enough, sure, head trauma seems to be a job requirement there.  Stupid enough to think that Big West would allow/play that game, no.

But you're right, the way they handled even the notion of protoculture would ruin that possibility.  You could, possibly, rewrite the Masters as an offshoot of the OG Protoculture, but their whole insistence that Protoculture was a fuel source, nope that really doesn't sell, given that Macross has always said that the ships were powered by fusion reactors.