Thursday, January 30, 2014

New Battlestar Galactica #0 Review

Alright, today I begin a project which I've been planning for a few months. I'm going to be reviewing the Battlestar Galactica comics for the website Galactica.com. I intended to start with the Marvel Comics run and move forward up until present day, but I am missing an issue or two from that run, so I decided to start on Dynamite Entertainment's run.

The intention is to eventually build a website archive, or just have a page archive on Galactica.com itself, but that will be coming later. The reviews will be archived here in the meantime.

So, today, we begin with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #0! Please be aware, spoilers are ahead if you haven't read the series and plan to. I plan to keep all spoilers within the ISSUE RECAP section, or at least I plan to try.


ISSUE RECAP: The setting of this story takes place in the middle of a ship graveyard from a 60 year old battle between Caprica and Sagittarius, known as the Third Colonial Conflict. There is a fire on an old medivac ship in the wreckage, which Apollo spots. Galactica receives a distress call from that same ship, with claims they are under attack by Cylons. Not trusting the distress call, Commander Adama decides to send Starbuck and a Marine squad to the ship. They quickly discover that the ship is indeed under attack, but by older generation Cylons.

The Galactica crew has passengers of the Medivac ship identify themselves, and Billy quickly discovers that the people aboard the ship have previously died. Commander Adama orders Starbuck and the Marines to evacuate the ship, believing it to be a Cylon trap. As Starbuck receives the order, she discovers Zak Adama, the Commander's dead son.


REVIEW: I originally read the first few issues as they came out, but I don't remember much about them at all. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing at this point, but we'll discover which it is as time goes on. Back when BSG was on, I consumed EVERYTHING that was available in regards to the show for a short time period (before money became an issue for me).

When #0 was released, it had 2 different covers and had a cover price of a quarter. I ended up buying both covers. Reading the issue now, it feels very average. It's not an overly terrible issue, but the issue suffers the same problem most new titles do, it lacks a direction and is confused. I knew going into reading the series that it takes place entirely between two episodes of the tv series (207: "Home, Part 2" & 211: "Resurrection Ship, Part 1") and that kinda ties things down for me with how amazing things can be and NOT referenced in the tv show. But, given the non-canon status of most tie-in's, I shouldn't be surprised.

Some of the artwork just bugged me and the writing was kind of choppy towards the beginning when setting up the entire story. References to various points to the show were brought up, but I feel as though I should watch the show up to the point these take place to fully appreciate the references. Other than that, the characterization of Adama and Starbuck were pretty spot on, including internal dialogue being what I'd expect of the characters.
The artwork bugged me a little bit, especially emotions that are conveyed. Roslin, in one scene, is smiling during a serious situation. Some of the characters didn't look like you'd expect them  to either. I'm not sure I can place blame on the artist for the last bit as Dynamite has previously been forced to change covers because particular characters looked too much like the actors portraying them and they were forced to change it.

RATING: 5/10