Review of Dynamite Entertainment's Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus

"Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus" is a one-shot comic from Dynamite Entertainment based on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series. Written by Brandon Jerwa ("Battlestar Galactica: Zarek") and penciled by Jonathan Lau, it chronicles a mission undertaken by Admiral Helena Cain and the crew of the battlestar Pegasus prior to the fall of the Twelve Colonies. Like the "Razor" television movie, it attempts to show us a different side to one of the more interesting, complex stories to come from the re-imagining.

Unfortunately, it fails under its own weight, which is disappointing, yet honestly unsurprising. While the artwork is very good and the story does have its brief character moments, the "Pegasus" one shot was a one shot. A shot that missed the mark by several light years.

It is disappointing because Jerwa has proven himself to be a skilled writer, exemplified by having been able to create the back story to one of the better characters of the re-imagining: Tom Zarek (portrayed by original series' star Richard Hatch). Jerwa was able to show us the origins and depth of Zarek's resolve in trying to free his fellow Sagittarons from their slavery, blurring the line between terrorism and freedom fighting, and bringing Hatch's character into a new light. It also served to showed us the slave state and glimpse into how frakked up the Colonies actually were even before the Cylons toasted them.

"Pegasus" fails to do this. It falls into the trap of having to stay within the lines of something that's already been well established, which is the problem faced by any prequel. In this, the failures of "Pegasus" are unsurprising, and by that measure, "Zarek" should have also failed. But it didn't. There's a reason why.

Unlike "Zarek", there's not much of a story to be told in this standalone comic, because the story is trite and inconsequential to the overall saga. It is what I call a "throwaway foreshadowing story", in that someone discovered the Cylons have returned and a lone, deranged, high-ranking survivor named Tong is found, warns them that they're frakked and then goes off the deep end in a very neat fashion. If you've ever been able to sit through the movie "Starship Troopers", recall the scene where the Roughnecks come across a lone, deranged high-ranking survivor played by Marshall Bell, who warns them that they're all going to die-and you have the general idea of the story. Except that Marshall Bell's performance was a joy to experience, which is more than I can say for "Pegasus".

There is extremely little character development, other than the setup that Cain is seeking revenge against the Cylons for what they did to her father during the first Cylon War. There's also the somewhat nice touch of Cain writing letters to hear dead father, but that character development device was used to better effect in the short-lived "Jeremiah" television series. At least Luke Perry's character, Jeremiah, burned those things and it served as a means to both introduce episodes and get a glimpse inside Jeremiah's head. We don't have that here.

So we have an issue with a trite plot that gives us extremely little in the way of character development, the latter of which is what we're really after as we already know what the frak will happen. So we can't be thrilled with just a story with twist and turns alone, because "Pegasus" has to play within the strictures ordained by the series...

But then again, so did "Zarek".

So why does "Zarek" work while "Pegasus" wallows in banality?

The simple reason is because a "Pegasus" one shot (and I am talking about a one shot, not a comic mini-series) can't do much with on 20- to 30-something pages. It is, therefore, imperative that, like any self-respecting one shot, "Pegasus" had to successfully achieve two objectives. First, "Pegasus" needed to tell a story that is pertinent to the overall series, thus showing us something that the television show won't cover-but something that won't regret our decision to buy the comic, either. Secondly, it needs to be able to be re-readable as well.

Due to the throwaway nature of the story, it's not worth the time to read, much less re-read again.

For greater effect, the story should have been set up after the fall of the Twelve Colonies, where the Pegasus story really gets interesting. After all, Pegasus was by its lonesome for six months and surely something must have motivated Cain to follow a Cylon fleet-a fleet which so happened to be following Galactica and her rag-tag, fugitive fleet.

After all, what's a girl to do after blowing a hole in her XO's head with his own gun and winning a Pyrrhic battle?

If that wasn't enough, it was clearly apparent that the writer's intellectual faculties were hacked by Cylons. For instance, a glaring error lies in the fact that the crew people aboard Pegasus were able to immediately detect that the newer Cylon Raiders were Cylons-given that no one had seen the design before, and it looked nothing like the original "flying winged" versions! Also, there's the small matter of the Cylons trying to break into the Vipers' avionics software... which, given that the events of this story predate Baltar's Command Navigation Program by at least a year, would be worthless. Surely the Cylons knew that none of Baltar's buggy Redmond-like software would've been deployed yet, so why show your hand that way?

Actually, why show your hand at all? If the Cylons were concerned about Colonial expeditions into the Armistice Line, then let them. To quote Six from the comic, "soon none of that will matter".

Speaking of the presence of Six in this story... why would not one, but three humanoid Cylons risk associating amongst themselves on a military outpost just to have a "Starbucks' conversation". You know, the type of superficial conversation you would have over an over-priced Starbucks' coffee and looking at people going through the motions of their day-to-day lives.

There's also the minor misspellings or incorrect names, such as "Robert Taylor" for Cole Taylor, "Pirelli" for Mei Firelli, and "tillium" for tylium. However, at this point, mentioning them would be worthless as by the time you bring those up, it's like noting that additional stab wounds have been inflicted on a person that's already been stabbed to death.

So to comic writers everywhere... when your dealing with a one shot realize that you only have one shot to tell your story. So choose carefully and tell something that is important!

And no, don't waste your money or time on "Pegasus". Instead, save your money for something far better: buy the "Zarek" mini-series on December 26, 2007 when all four issues are collected in a trade paperback.

So read we all!