Prototype-001 Part 1

SYNOPSIS

The Tigercat Prototype. Roy Fokker lands his VF-001 Skull in Guardian mode on a remote airfield where he's meeting Lisa Hayes. The date is sometime before the completion of the SDF-1. Upon landing, Lisa informs him that she is preparing the YVF-14A 'Tigercat' for it's flight to a museum. After disembarking, Roy walks over to her, throws his arm around her shoulders, gives her a wink, and then proceeds to ask how Claudia is. Lisa, reminding him that they are professionals shoves off his hand and tells him that Claudia is fine. She then apologizes for being so harsh, and then communicates that she's in a remorseful mood as she reminisces about the YVF-14A .

A flashback begins and the date is February 1, 2007. A much younger Roy comes up behin A flashback begins and the date is February 1, 2007. d a much younger Lisa and performs the same arm around the shoulders routine. Lisa replies in the aforementioned fashion and then refocuses Roy on the business at hand by telling him that she is there to familiarize him with the brand new Veritech fighter. But before she can do that, she needs to bring him up to speed by qualifying him on the YVF-14A, the pro Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle-east, a target explodes as an Su-27 'Flanker' with reverse articulated legs lands. totype predecessor to the new fighter. Standing in an open hangar door, Roy catches a glimpse of the fighter as an ARMD cruiser can be see in the background. A blueprint picture reveals the 'Tigercat' to be a modified F-14 'Tomcat' who's engines reverse articulate to create an arm-less Valkyrie Guardian. Lisa informs Roy that this prototype was created to test a new configuration that had been accidentally discovered during the system check of the VF-X, the YVF-14A's predecessor.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle-east, a target explodes as an Su-27 'Flanker' with reverse articulated legs lands. The blue ship has a white iron cross emblem on it, and it's un-named pilot, who after removing his helmet revealing a large vertical facial scar over his left eye, refers to it as the 'Blue Max'.

REVIEW

A much younger Roy comes up behind a much younger Lisa and performs the same arm around the shoulders routine. Roy is portrayed most accurately in his dashing ladies man persona. Lisa, also accurately portrayed, acts cold as ice and refuses to play along or be swept away by his childish antics.

The technical prints of the 'Tigercat' are most impressive and a particularly interesting piece of information is its Arumon-Grumman manufacturer. This solidifies the theory that the VF-1 Valkyrie design originated from it's modern look-a-like, the Grumman F-14 'Tomcat'. Surely, the similarities in the names of the 'Tigercat' and 'Tomcat' remove the doubt of any other The obligatory arch villan... conclusion. Although cast from the Grumman design, the Arumon addition to the ship is the vectoring turbofans, which allow the ship to reverse articulate it's engines to become a VTOL aircraft. It is very interesting that Lisa claims this design feature was discovered by accident. One must think how a ship's engines might accidentally reverse articulate.

Apparently, the other two-form ship cast in the mold of a Soviet fighter and piloted by a miscellaneous arch-enemy-type-guy of Germanic decent, is meant to eventually bring action to the story. Writers call this foreshadowing.

All in all, the story, which is tacked on to the end of Robotech: Megastorm is looking good. The artwork is decent and the plot has potential. Nearly all of the mainstream information on Robotech takes place after the SDF-1's launch, it's good to see storys taking place before it for a change.
-Macross