Robotech: The Macross Saga #7

History

Issue #7 arrived in November 1985, scripted by Jack Herman — who had taken over writing duties from Robotech producer and story editor Carl Macek after the first three issues — with pencils and inks by Mike Leeke and Chris Kalnick, who were becoming the visual backbone of the series at this stage. Like the rest of the Comico run, the issue was produced through an unusual workflow: the artist drew from videotaped animation footage first, and the writer then crafted dialogue and captions over the completed pages rather than working from a full script. The Macross Saga was Comico's flagship Robotech title and received the most editorial attention of the three concurrent Robotech series the small independent publisher was producing simultaneously; the sheer ambition of running all three Robotech story arcs in parallel monthly comics, tied to an ongoing television broadcast, was unprecedented for an independent publisher of Comico's size.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Titled 'Bye-Bye Mars'; published November 1985 by Comico The Comic Company as part of its ongoing Robotech: The Macross Saga series (which continued the numbering from the 1984 Macross #1 one-shot).
• Script by Jack Herman; art (pencils and inks) by Mike Leeke and Chris Kalnick; colors by Rick Taylor; features a wraparound cover.
• Adapts the seventh episode of the Robotech: The Macross Saga television series, itself derived from the Super Dimension Fortress Macross episode 'Baibai Marusu,' which originally aired in Japan on November 21, 1982.
• Karl Riber — Lisa Hayes's fiancé, stationed at Mars Base Sara — dies when the base is destroyed, a death that defines Lisa's emotional journey for the rest of the saga and plants the roots of her eventual relationship with Rick Hunter.
• Khyron and his 7th Mechanized Division (Botoru Fleet) appear prominently: Breetai assigns Khyron to ambush the SDF-1 at Mars, and Khyron suffers his first defeat against human forces — an event that both Exedore and Grel remark upon and that fuels Khyron's later obsession.
• The full SDF-1 bridge crew appears — Captain Gloval, Lisa Hayes, Claudia Grant, Kim Young, Sammie Porter, and Vanessa Leeds — alongside Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, Lynn Minmei, Breetai, and Exedore, making this one of the series' most ensemble-heavy issues to date.
• Reprinted in the Wildstorm/DC trade paperback collection of the first 25 Macross Saga issues (2002–2003) and again in Titan Comics' Robotech Archives: The Macross Saga Volume 1 (2018), which collects the Robotech Graphic Novel plus issues 1–11 of the Comico run.
• A digital edition is available via Kindle/ComiXology as a standalone issue, making it one of the few early Comico Robotech issues accessible in that format.

Cast · 14 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Robotech: The Macross Saga