It's the 1980s and kids everywhere have caught the fever for the flavor of giant robots! You know, those big mechanical war machines that may or may not combine or transform, that might be from some Asian country somewhere, we aren't sure, all we know is they're flying off the shelves and into our hearts. The robot craze has even taken hold of the role playing game community, which has temporarily abandoned wizards and warriors in favor of blast-tubes and servo-mech pad-emplacements in the form of Battletech, a FASA tabletop war-game that was originally called "Battledroids" until Lucasfilm took notice. And would this really be a fad if comic books didn't try to capitalize on it? Of course not. Surely the high profile and intense excitement around this entire concept would result in comics filled with top notch talent, at least as entertaining as the Japanese animation that inspired the whole thing, right? Right?


Wrong. Now grab your small unit and get ready for actions in the 31st century, because Battleforce wants you.


We join our exciting mecha-droid combat action already in progress, as various mechanical rock 'em sock 'em robots badoom and spamsh each other to pieces!


Come back Dervish, we're booking... booking airline flights? Dentist appointments? Mani-pedis? No, we're using the term as it was used by teens in the 1980s to express the concept of "hauling ass, Dervish!"


Finally comics and mecha-robos work together to deliver the vaudeville comedy "Don't DO that!"


Thoom choom, spaka-spaka? Pok! Krooom.


Wait a minute, a recon ship equipped with scanning equitment? Equitment to take pictures of things? MAJOR espionage operation here! Identification is easy, because they helpfully labeled their recon ship. It's just common spy sense!


Now just what shall we do with Corporal Lugosi... besides send her to a stylist immediately?


Nothing better than a comic book story that wants us to know all about their tedious civilization, what kind of boring building they're in, what dull planet they're on and where in outer space it is, and yet, somehow can't commit to a specific year. Either 3015 or 3025 - pick one, comic!


In the future, military dress will either be tank-tops or shapeless overcoats, and the proper response to new assignments is "smirk."


Two guys sitting around a table discussing trivial details that are of interest to nobody? FINALLY a comic book that captures the true wargaming experience!!


Angry guy is going to do bussiness with somebody, and it isn't necessassary as to who!! Maybe he's going to do bussiness with the proofreader or maybe the editor. That's all there is to it!


Sure am glad this exciting Battleforce comic book is taking the time to describe all the thrilling space-robot battle-forcing going on, because it sure isn't showing it to us. But you don't want to see high-tech war mechas locked in life or death struggles. You want to see guys talking and staring at video screens, that's what you want.


Maybe the Federated Suns really do want war. What do you think, corpse of an ape from one of the Planet Of The Apes movies?


Meanwhile, in a perfectly normal 20th century house we're supposed to believe is way off in outer space a thousand years in the future, it looks like the grounds could use some landscaping.


Thrill to the force of battle as the tension erupts between the right-justified text in a word balloon and a word balloon with LEFT-aligned text! BATTLEFORCE!!


So there's a lot happening in this panel. We can't tell who's talking because of the confusing tails of the balloons, the angle is making us think they're both about to fall on their faces, and one character is either on his knees, or walking in a trench, or is two feet tall. It's hard to tell.


"I have misplaced my destiny stuff on that little world, Fencik. Now let's eat."


Back in the headquarters of Abel Company, which is usually spelled "Able," but it's the 31st century, so BACK OFF, a friendly locker room conversation goes wrong because somebody's a little sensitive about having zip-a-tone all over his face this morning.


Two guys, a locker room, lots of sweat, some talk about slipping and sliding, maybe we should leave you two alone.


Thinking you're tough ain't nothing when you run into someone who can punch you with his detached fists that just float in the air disconnected from his arms!


This time the weird discrepancy between character heights is because this really short guy is standing on a bench. I dunno, maybe just make characters have average heights? Or is somebody involved in the production of this comic trying to compensate for something?


WOW that guy CLEANED your CLOCK and MAN my POSTURE is AWKWARD, MAN


"They call us by the names of various animals, but that doesn't change the fact that you're rough tough mechwarriors! You are the fightingest bunch of sons of bitching fightin' guys that ever warriored a mech! And maybe at some point this comic book will get around to showing us some of that amazing combat you do! But not just yet."


"You're out of uniform, and you're out of shape, and you're really short! I can fix those first two, but this one here, it's a problem."


The Marauders, or Maurders, whichever, will run the ball to the forty yard line and then sink as many baskets as they can before the buzzer sounds, and if this tatic works they shall repeat it, whatever a "tatic" is.


This entire comic book has been nothing but men of widely varying heights all trying to interact with each other, and you're complaining about different sizes of robots? Just be thankful to see any battle mechs at all!


Okay, enough fooling around, now turn off that psychedelic light fixture you bought at Spencer's Gifts and let's get under way.


I'm pretty sure Zoop-vitz Skroom is a third wave ska band.


Careful there buddy, you're stepping on one of your neck tubes, you might dislocate a hip or something! Another hip, I mean.


Just imagine this part was scripted by three neighbor kids playing with those die-cast X-Wing and TIE fighter toys, those were some pretty cool toys, there was a button you could hit that made the TIE fighter's wings fly off? I think? These days one of those toys still on the card will fetch you hundreds of dollars!


Get yourself prepped, Dog Lance, we're going in, as soon as my face quits melting!

And that's the cliffhanger ending of our exciting Battleforce Battletech story, filled with the potential of seeing giant combat mecha in action. Gosh, just think of what those super robots must be like. Too bad we couldn't see any. Well, thankfully this comic included some blueprints of what we could have been reading about, instead of weirdos walking around talking and punching each other in locker rooms.


As a tabletop wargame involving combat robots, obviously Battletech needed some combat robots, and instead of coming up with their own combat robots, Battletech just figured they would borrow some from Japanese anime series like Macross, Crusher Joe, and seen here on the left as a poorly traced Battletech line art and on the right in its original form as a Soltic HT128 "Big Foot," the 1981 Nippon Sunrise anime "Fang Of The Sun Dougram", a 75 episode series concerning freedom fighters on the planet Deloyer battling both the Earth federation and Deloyer's dictatorial government, which is led by the father of... sorry, got distracted there.

But perhaps more clarification on the concept of "Battletech" is needed.


Welcome to BATTLETECH, a world you pray you won't be sent to after you die, which is a spiritual option most people never even consider. An afterlife filled with turn-based tabletop gaming featuring sixty-ton mechanical behemoths rendered in tiny diecast miniature form? Sign me up!


But first let's enjoy Blackthorne Publishing's attempt to carve out their own tiny slice of the Transformers license, with this 3-D Transformers comic that brings to life all the thrills of the T-squares and angles that made drafting class an action packed rocket ride. By the way, the technical term for unwanted ink that appears as splotches or blemishes on the finished page is "scum," seen here in magenta and yellow on the top and bottom of this page, now more than ever, more than meets the eye (tm).


And if you didn't have enough futuristic space robot fighting, enjoy the Battletech comic book, which is not the Battleforce comic book we just looked at, but a completely different and not at all confusing publication also emblazoned with the Battletech logo, and our guess is it features lots of scenes of people standing around talking, and very few scenes of futuristic space robots. Just a guess, though. Battletech would survive some interesting legal hurdles brought forth by the companies with the ACTUAL licenses to the robot designs they were using, and is still around today in tabletop, role play, and video game forms, because people love tech, and people love battling.

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