Still looking for Superman, I found another colouring book, this time in my wife's stuff.Battle of the Planets was an americanization of a the Japanese series "Gatchaman" removing a lot of the violence and adding an R2-D2 clone to give the show a Star Wars feel. The original series didn't involve space travel at all, so it's funny how many space references they make.
The book is by Whitman and the art looks exactly like the Gold Key comic released around the same time. The show had a wonderful anime style and Gold Key didn't really do a good job of translating it, it's often more simplified but not terrible.
The story seems to be a rendition of the pilot episode, "Attack of the Space Terrapin"
Ahh, meet the G Force Team, Eagle Ken Owashi became Mark, the leader of the team with Cerabonic Powers. Mark adorned all the merchandise but we all loved Jason better, he was the dreamy hot head....
G Force's main nemesis was She Male bad guy Zoltar from the planet Spectra. His origin is a little strange, as I recall the imperious leader took a small girl and tranformed her into Zoltar. This was all in Japan of course, all we got in the US was a glimpse of Zoltar's long blonde hair.
Spectra had no end of giant Mecha to attack earth, enter the Space Terrapin. I should mention that on the series, the Terrapin was pretty sleek looking, here it looks more like a disgruntled parade float.
G Force enters and encounters the Specta Goons, which are disturbingly off model. Normally these guys all had mullets and bad teenage moustaches.
G Force has a lot great move of spinning around causing a whirl wind, in the colouring book they call it rotor force, I don't think it was on the series.
The Terrapin then lamely crashes into the ocean without the requisite explosion, which would have been fun to colour. Zoltar gets written up by his boss and we're treated to more shots of the Phoenix, the teams cool space ship.
Got a colouring book you'd like to guest review? Drop me a line!
Previous Colouring Book Theatre Entries can be found here.
Coming Next Week: Not Superman
2 comments:
iiiich, that's a subpar Whitman book. The art is pretty meh (of course, to a 5-year-old, it doesn't seem so)...
This was all in Japan of course, all we got in the US was a glimpse of Zoltar's long blonde hair.
Don't forget Zoltar's full, red lips. That was creepy.
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