Rolling Thunder Part 1

SYNOPSIS

One by one, the Terran mecha are felled as Command tries to locate reinforcements. The Second Robotech War has officially ended, but the war still rages on as the remaining armies of the Robotech Masters wreak havoc on Earth's survivors.

A small city designated Site 626 desperately calls to Western Command for reinforcements. Dozens of Bioroids swarm to the city, battling it's garrison of destroids. One by one, the Terran mecha are felled as Command tries to locate reinforcements. At last, the defenders of Site 626 receive word that the 15th Squadron from Southern Command will arrive in 20 seconds. Unfortunately, that isn't enough time for the soldiers in the command APC as they, as well as the last destroid, are claimed by the Bioroid onslaught. The leader of the enemy force, Master Khane, orders that the city be leveled and cleansed. Moments later, a Bioroid A low level transport flies overhead and drops the Battloid hovertanks of the 15th squadron into the combat zone. detects approaching enemies from the South. Khane hopes that they are strong, to offer him the challenge he seeks.

A low level transport flies overhead and drops the Battloid hovertanks of the 15th squadron into the combat zone. Dana, a Major, in Red-1 is the first to touch down, followed by Dante in Red-5. Sean and Bowie are the next to reach the ground in Reds 3 and 4 respectively. Dana immediately orders Sean and Bowie to reconfigure to Guardian to offer artillery support when Bowie is hit. The situation looks grim as the four tanks of the 15th are pinned down and under heavy fire from a row of dug in Bioroids. Suddenly, the row of Bioroids expands into a firestorm as Louie in Red-2, cradling his smoking cannon, triumphantly touches down. Bowie manages to cope with the damage and he and Sean complete the transformation into Guardian mode. They begin to methodically snipe the Bioroids one by one, giving the besieged team some breathing room. Dana decides to take advantage of it and orders her five tank squad to charge.

Suddenly, Western Command radios Dana and orders her to pull out immediately. Having lost contact with the command units of Site 626, and have declared them dead. The rescue mission the 15th was dispatched on has now been canceled . Brashly, Dana cuts off Command and reports theyll look for survivors when she receives a satellite uplink showing one hundred eighty Bioroids converging on their location. Command manages to secure a mercenary transport to extract them, which should arrive in 40 seconds. Moments later, the dropship arrives and puts down under heavy fire to pick up the tankers. Dana, struggling to make command decisions regarding the search for survivors and the evacuation of her team orders Sean, Louie, and Bowie to get onboard. Sean's mecha takes a hit as he boards the dropship, which is taking damage.

Dana and Dante prepare to make their withdrawal when Dana's infrared scope picks up a signal which she identifies as a survivor. She enhances the image and sees a small girl, huddled in the rubble hugging her teddy bear for dear life. Without hesitation, she throws her tank forwards and orders him to cover her. Dante loyally stays at his post and covers her adva Khane finds this evading maneuver odd and is disappointed that she is only half-heartedly into their engagement. nce. She throws herself recklessly at a horde of Bioroids, blasting the whole lot of them, focused on nothing but the child.

Khane, who has been watching events unfold, deems Dana to be the strongest warrior of them all. He orders his Bioroids to leave her to him, as he wants to test her himself. In his souped up Bioroid, he swoops down on her, and scores a hit on her mecha's back throwing it down to one knee. She struggles to reach the child and retreat to the extraction point, while suppressing the urge to go head to head with the leader. Khane finds this evading maneuver odd and is disappointed that she is only half-heartedly into their engagement. He scans to find the source of her distraction, and locates the small child. In a single shot, he erases to child and shuns his opponent for risking strength to protect the weak.

Dana now becomes enraged and throws herself into the battle whole-heartedly much to the enjoyment of Khane. Sean radios to her calling for her to The child is erased... retreat to the extraction point before the dropship takes off. Just as he completes the message, the transport takes off, it's damage well into the red and trailing sickly black smoke. Sean makes an attempt to force it's pilot to return, but realizes the desperateness of the situation.

Back on Site 626, Khane realizes that her fighting skill and spirit, although worthy, stems from a desire to protect the weak. He finds this unacceptable and withdrawals from the engagement, ordering his Bioroids to destroy her. Back on the dropship, Louie taps in to the satellite network and watches as Dana is pounced on by forty Bioroids. Despite only have two operational tanks, the team desperately want to return for her, but Dante vetoes the motion as he convinces the others that resistance against such odds would be a futile gesture. While the dropship makes for it's escape, Dante vows to avenge Dana.

REVIEW

The opening sequence of Dana creating the backdrop for the story is extraordinarily well done. But shadows of doubt are cast on the plot as one questions how soldiers of the Robotech Masters survived in such force? This obviously conflicts with the novels, which describe the mass desertion of much of the Southern Cross Army and the recession of Earth into a barbarous city-state society. Dana also reportedly has the rank of Major now, once again conflicting with the novels which in the wake of her desertion, remains at Lieutenant. The anime of course does not cover this portion of its timeline, and thus allows the story to be somewhere validated.

The new style of the hovertanks is worlds better then the obnoxious blue/white/red combination of the anime. The mecha are painted in a much more realistic camouflage dark olive green and gray scheme which does wonders for it's image. Another blessing is the addition of an armored canopy that encloses the operator in all modes. This finally makes the hovertank an all weather mecha, a role the original animators apparently forgot to account for as a rainy day could shut them down. Unfortunately, the soldiers of the 15th fail to wear their helmets into battle. This however is intentional, as lesser characters like the destroid operators of Site 626 have them on . The reason for this is that the helmet style of the second generation, unlike it's first generation predecessors, cover the entire face and shrouds the identity of the wearer. In the anime, this can be over come by dialogue, which can be used to identify the wearers. The novels also overcome this because it can afford lavish explanations and descriptions to offer the reader the wearer's identity. The comics however, have neither of these luxuries, and instead had to draw the stars of the show helmet-less for the readers benefit.

The artists took other liberties as well, having unfamiliar destroids, escort fighters, and dropships appear. They do however make up for it a bit by having the same transports that drop the 15th on the hull of a Masters' ship in the anime. But one can easily overlook such details as the anime nor the novels offer a complete breakdown of the vehicles of the Army of the Southern Cross. The ASC itself, in the wake of the death of its military and political leaders, seems to have reorganized itself into sector commands. Western Command, who tries to help organized reinforcements, reports that the 15th from Southern is en route. Although the command structure is divided differently, is apparently rebuilt itself coherently as the ETA for the squad is 20 seconds. In a page turn, Command goes from working on finding reinforcements, to having them arrive in 20 seconds. A little hokey, but in it's defense, perhaps the 15th, a transport, and it's escorting fighters just happened to be flying around in the area within miles of the city on the off chance that someone might try to attack it. You never know, it could happen.

The battle for the Site before the arrival of the 15th is done very well and shows large amounts of casualties on each side, adding to the realism. The air drop done by the 15th is a very nice touch and is done well, except for the fact that the mecha's thrusters aren't shown firing to slow it's decent, at all. In fact, there's a great frame of Dante's mecha twenty feet off the ground in which there are still no jets firing at all. A multi-ton mecha falling from a low flyin A main character, Bowie, takes a hit. Sean does later on as well... this goes far into dispelling the invincibility of the "main characters". g aircraft and high speed landing on two feet without heavy assistance from it's thrusters? Perhaps they just forgot to draw them in as the thrusters are prominently shown later in the story. After four tanks of the team are down for nearly a minute, Louie comes diving in from no where expertly blasting a column of soldiers. As he is shown landing, thrusters still are not shown. It's a curiosity how he magically was able to re main airborne all of this time as no thrusters are shown in use.

The reduced number of the squad is a bit disturbing. The 15th always had at least 10-12 tanks when it went in to battle. The novels speak of hordes of expendable extras which fill it's actively depleting ranks, yet the coimcs show the 15th comprised of five, yes only five, tanks. On a side note, these five tanks are able to hold their own despite dropping into the middle of a hostile landing zone. It was very nice to see the invulnerability of the star characters challenged as both Bowie and Sean take damaging hits. Specifically, Bowie receives hi Dana's inexperiences is well revealed in this scene. s the opening seconds of the battle. This also shows the survivability of the mecha off, something the anime and novels tend to overlook.

In the middle of the story, an additional 180 Bioroids are detected via satellite converging on Dana's position. The need for 180 Bioroids to attack five hovertanks seems a bit extreme and unrealistic, unless they just happened to be passing by and thought they'd lend a hand. Hey, it could happen.

Dana, although much more aggressive, still reveals her lack of command ability during key points in the battle. She initially defies Command's withdrawal orders, and by doing so unnecessarily endangers the lives of the squad. One the dropship arrives, she struggles to decide bet This is one of the best scenes I've seen in all the Robotech AP comics! Thumbs up! ween evacuating her team and looking for survivors, once again endangering her squad, the dropship team, and the escorting fighters. When an order is given, you follow it. In that respect, the character of Dana is presented accurately.

The scene with the child is done extraordinarily well. Most readers would think that Dana would heroically rescue the child and get out with the rest of her team. After all, what writer and artist would be sadistic enough not to let a cute little girl in pony tails hugging a teddy bear survive? Instead, quite the opposite happens giving the reader a new unpredictable outlook on the story as the girl is killed in superb artistic fashion by Khane.

The dropship is a curiosity in itself. What in the world would a mercenary be doing with a military dropship anyway? This isn't like Star Wars where the galaxy is vast and full of a plethora of places, things, people and events. There, smugglers and mercs are a dime a dozen and each one has a different story. In Robotech, Earth after the Second Robotech War is a very small place, and you just can't simply acquire military dropship! That aside, how does Command acquire it and get it there in three minutes? Unless the dropship just happened to be just flying by the city on the off chance that someone might attack it, and then someone else might air drop in to counter strike, and then the attackers might get reinforcements, and then the counter strikers would need an evacuation that the military for some reason couldn't supply. Hey, it could happen.

It was good to see Dante make the call not to go back for Dana. At least this shows that someone in the 15th is a true leader and can make unselfish decisions to protect his troops. It's hard to imagine how Dante is still serving under her, someone with his attitude and record of the excellence with the 15th during the war should have no trouble getting offered a CO spot in a squad of their own.

All and all, the story is impressive, very impressive. The artwork is the best in the Robotech series yet, and the plot is shaping up to be unpredictable and unique. Even though it conflicts with the Robotech sources somewhat, particularly the novels, it looks to be a good buy.
-Macross