Robotech: The Macross Saga #11
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeIssue #11 — titled 'First Contact' — marks the comic-book debut of Dolza, the supreme commander of the entire Zentraedi armada and the figure whose later decision to bombard Earth drives the climax of the whole Macross Saga arc. The story pivots on a genuinely clever moment of cross-cultural shock: when Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes demonstrate a human kiss to their giant alien captors, the Zentraedi are so disturbed by Micronian intimacy that they cannot process it, encoding the franchise's central theme — that culture and human connection are more powerful weapons than any mecha — directly into the plot. As a single-issue episode adaptation, it also crystalizes what made Comico's Robotech run distinctive among mid-1980s licensed comics: it treated anime storytelling conventions — emotional vulnerability, romantic ambiguity, a cast of fully realized supporting characters — as legitimate comic-book material at a time when most Western tie-in comics defaulted to pure action.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Comico The Comic Company launched the Robotech comics line in 1984–85 as the first licensee of what became the Robotech brand, adapting each television episode as a corresponding single issue with the comics corresponding one-to-one to their respective TV episodes. Writer Jack Herman scripted this installment — as he did the surrounding run of issues — closely following the source-episode structure, with interior art by Mike Leeke and inks by Chris Kalnick, the creative team that would become the series' most consistent visual voice through this mid-run stretch. The Comico production model was unusual: artists largely worked from tapes of the animation and then the writer dialogued and captioned the pages afterward, meaning the comics are simultaneously adaptation and original sequential work.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First comic-book appearance of Dolza, supreme commander of the Zentraedi armada — the series' ultimate antagonist, whose Imperial Grand Fleet later nearly destroys Earth.
- Story title: 'First Contact,' directly adapting the eleventh episode of the Robotech: The Macross Saga television series (itself based on the Super Dimension Fortress Macross episode 'Fāsuto Kontakuto,' originally broadcast in Japan on 19 December 1982).
- Written by Jack Herman; interior art by Mike Leeke; inks by Chris Kalnick; cover art also credited to Mike Leeke and Chris Kalnick.
- Published by Comico The Comic Company; cover-dated May 1986.
- Core plot: Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, and Ben Dixon are captured and brought before Dolza, Breetai, and Exedore for interrogation about protoculture and Micronian customs — the famous scene in which Rick and Lisa kiss to demonstrate human affection, leaving the Zentraedi visibly shaken.
- Max Sterling escapes capture and independently infiltrates the Zentraedi ship in disguise, setting up his role in the follow-up issue #12 ('The Big Escape').
- This issue was later collected in the WildStorm/DC Comics trade paperback Robotech: The Macross Saga Vol. 2 (2003), which reprinted issues #7–12 of the original Comico run.
- The full cast of indexed characters — including Breetai, Exedore, Rico, Bron, Konda, Claudia Grant, Henry J. Gloval, Sammie Porter, Vanessa Leeds, Roy Fokker, and Lynn Minmei — are present, making this one of the most character-dense single issues of the Comico run to that point.
Cast · 16 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Robotech: The Macross Saga #2 (2003), Robotech Archives The Macross Saga #1 (2018), Robotech - Die Macross Sage #3
Key issues in Robotech: The Macross Saga
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