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Battlestar Galactica #9
Book Released: 16 May 2007
Posted 30 May 2007
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Nigel Raynor
Letters: Simon Bowland
Colors: Inlight Studio
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
4.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by J. W. DeBolt Jr.
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This is the new Battlestar Galactica, following the
characters of the current television program on the SciFi Channel. In
this comicbook series, a group of presumed-dead colonial citizens
arrive in seeming accordance with prophecy. The fleet warily takes
them in, but a retrovirus infects the crew after the returnees make
physical contact with them. Thus Commander Adama quickly quarantines
the returnees.
“Writer Greg Pak is working on The
Incredible Hulk, but he’s fortunate in this series to be
able to write existential action and angst to balance writing about a
character who is going to beat up Earth because it rejected
him.”
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During a memorial service for returnees dying of the virus, heavily
armed colonial soldiers launch tear gas (or something equivalent) into
the chapel and storm in. The religious leader, Sister Iris Palania, is
arrested and hauled off. It seems to be the action of an intolerant,
militant fleet commander who just hates Cylons and who is angry at
losing a son a second time (or at the hope-enshrouded deceit of the
returnees). Adama’s seeming heartlessness at breaking up a
memorial service, however, should be mitigated by the circumstances.
Adama is trying to quell the spread of a highly contagious disease
that threatens what may be the remainder of the human race!
Palania broke that quarantine, endangering everyone, and it
hadn’t been determined that she wasn’t doing it
maliciously.
Sharon Valerii has learned she is a Cylon, yet sides with the
humans, taking a group of the returnees to the heart of the Cylon
fleet to try to infect all Cylons. With the identity-seeking Cylons
such as Sharon, the issue comes down to the question of humanity.
Sharon “prime,” as I’ll call her, chooses to keep
her implanted memories and live as if they were real. And why not?
At this moment, think about all your memories. Would it make a
difference if you discovered you were actually born last year and
every event previous had been loaded into your memory banks? We
are a product of our experiences and these are stored as memory.
Therefore, in that sense, we are what we remember. So her reaction is
logical. Her capacity for independent thought, along with her memory,
makes her human, despite her biomechanicity.
Battlestar Galactica is Dynamite’s only space-based
story (along with the spin-off books), and, to me, the best of
their current line. If you read BG back in the 1970s, it was
about as unappealing as the original show was. But the new series is
arguably the best one on TV, so this book has some meat to work with
along with the creative challenge of dodging continuity problems while
still developing characters. Writer Greg Pak is working on The
Incredible Hulk, but he’s fortunate in this series to be
able to write existential action and angst to balance writing about a
character who is going to beat up Earth because it rejected him. Pak
has captured the BG characters dead on. While their appearance
on the page is questionable (see next paragraph), the script shows
that he has a detailed understanding of his source material.
I really don’t like Nigel Raynor’s art. It’s
probably just me, but I have to concentrate on each panel to determine
what I’m looking at. Is that a retro Cylon? Is that Dualla or
Sharon? The twist ending, while literally powerful was optically
anticlimatic; the last page could have been constructed better to let
us all share in the surprise the character feels.
I have nothing personal against the cover artists, either, but
while I’m on a roll, instead of incentivizing with six different
covers for each issue, I think we would all be happier with just using
a photo cover with one or more of the babes from the TV series (and an
occasional Apollo or Baltar for the gals). Thus your reviewer falls
from the philosophic heights of existentialism. C’est la vie;
C’est la bataille.
—CCdC—
Cover image used with permission of the publisher.Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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