Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artists: Dietrich Smith, Fran Gamboa
Released: 3rd December, 2014

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Is it bad that I just don’t get this? I mean, I’m a fan of Battlestar Galactica, and it’s not that this is an inherently bad comic, not in the slightest – but it’s that awkward moment when you just don’t click with the material. You may catch the whiff of unfamiliarity in this review – yes, I’m a re-imagined series fan, badly-segued Bob Dylan song and all. Shameful, I know.

Still, one must soldier on in the face of adversity – or at least, that’s what my father told me, right before the cylons killed him – so I read the damn thing. And got weirded out by ‘yahrens’.

The first thing that’ll likely strike you is that incredibly provocative cover – the whole ‘Death of Apollo’ thing, coupled with the spacesuit-encased skeleton doesn’t bode well for everyone’s second favourite Viper pilot, and indeed the story opens with him seemingly crashing to his demise on an ominous red planet. The narrative then rewinds, to commence the exploration of the events that led up to this.

The art is pretty excellent – the likenesses spot-on, and the stylisation of the proceedings is actually surprisingly pleasing, with just the right balance between realistically emulating the old characters and settings, and updating the highly 70’s tech of the series to something a little more practical. There’s even a touch-screen tablet! Shocker. It’s all brought together by some truly excellent colour-work from Fran Gamboa, making the visuals pop in a wonderfully neo-retro manner.

Story-wise, to go into detail would be to the story’s detriment, because whilst my unfamiliarity with the entire proceedings left me a bit cold, it does strike me that there’s a fairly significant development towards the end of the book which may well be something of a surprise to fans of this particular Galactica timeline. It’s deftly handled, both in terms of the slow reveal of the pacing, as well as the pretty excellent artwork.

So I guess the long and the short of it is that this didn’t really click with me per se, but if you’re a fan of Galactica ‘78, I can absolutely see how you might enjoy this book. If you’re more into new Galactica, you’ll see things that’ll make you smile, but as said, the story may be a little bit lost on you.

Rating: 2/5.

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The Writer of this piece was: Ross Sweeney
Ross tweets from @Rostopher24