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The last time Fokker had seen the artifact that dominated this South Pacific island, it was not surrounded by civilization ... it was cradled by dirt and smoke, a visitor from deep space carrying a world-shattering message.

Mankind was not alone.

Return to Macross

Regular series / March 1993 - October 1996 / Story by Bill Spangler and Robert W. Gibson

THE LOWDOWN

In the year 1999, high above Macross Island in the South Pacific, a phenominal event occured in the skies that altered the course of human history ...

Five years later, fighter pilot and war hero Roy Fokker returns to Macross Island to lend his aid in the development of the fruits of that event--the crash of the alien Super Dimensional Fortress One into the Earth--including the transformable Veritech Fighter. However, Fokker soon finds himself thrown into in a world of shadows, lies, buried secrets, and political intrigue in a world fearful of the ramifications of the SDF-1's arrival.

Meanwhile, far from planet Earth, Zentraedi Commander Breetai Tul has been sent to find the lost battle fortress SDF-1 by his commander, Lord Dolza. As he traverses the cosmos on his quest, he encounters alien foes of every shape and size while being forced to ally himself with Boturu Battalion commander Khyron Kravshera, known among the Zentraedi military forces as the "backstabber".

BACKGROUND INFO

Return to Macross was designed to be sold to people who didn't know much about Robotech. This much writer Bill Spangler admitted in a Manga Newswatch article in 1993. Considering the setting of this series, I could easily agree, as the series is set as early as possible in the Robotech timeline as one can get without going back to the first Robotech Master, Zor. However, after the first issue, I was firmly convinced that not seeing Robotech before reading this might have been intended as a prerequisite--this series severely damages whatever integrity the Robotech timeline had left. Go ahead, scroll down and click on the name of the first issue just to read how much Spangler screwed with the storyline, how often he contradicted preexisting source material in the course of just one issue.

The funny thing is, as continuity-slaughtering as the first issue was, the actual storylines of the series do end up getting really good, while the artwork remains trapped in mediocrity. A few issues, drawn by Sean Bishop, were excellently done, but overall the series is merely all right in the art department. Decent artists the series courted include Mujib Rahiman (the first artist, on for a very short stint), Tim Eldred, Wes Abbot (a really good artist with a very simplistic, striking style), and the amazingly, dazzlingly mediocre Dusty Griffin, who lent the series' mecha a bizarre squatness and shininess and the characters a great many odd poses and a lot of kinetic energy.

As the complimentary flagship title of the Robotech line, alongside the even longer-running Robotech II: The Sentinels, Return to Macross did a good job serving its purpose, presenting a new look at the not-too-distant future world of The Macross Saga before the Zentraedi first attacked the Earth. This makes it all the more a shame that it ended up going through so many mediocre artists and kept on screwing with the continuity for the sake of drama. Spangler could certainly craft a good story--if only he could have crafted good stories in this case that followed series continuity.

Return to Macross #3

RETURN TO MACROSS

Return to Macross #25

INTERVIEWS

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