Coluring Book Theatre: Battle of the Planets

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Still looking for Superman, I found another colouring book, this time in my wife's stuff.

Battle of the Planets was an americanization of a the Japanese series "Gatchaman" removing a lot of the violence and adding an R2-D2 clone to give the show a Star Wars feel. The original series didn't involve space travel at all, so it's funny how many space references they make.

The book is by Whitman and the art looks exactly like the Gold Key comic released around the same time. The show had a wonderful anime style and Gold Key didn't really do a good job of translating it, it's often more simplified but not terrible.

The story seems to be a rendition of the pilot episode, "Attack of the Space Terrapin"

T

Ahh, meet the G Force Team, Eagle Ken Owashi became Mark, the leader of the team with Cerabonic Powers. Mark adorned all the merchandise but we all loved Jason better, he was the dreamy hot head....




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G Force's main nemesis was She Male bad guy Zoltar from the planet Spectra. His origin is a little strange, as I recall the imperious leader took a small girl and tranformed her into Zoltar. This was all in Japan of course, all we got in the US was a glimpse of Zoltar's long blonde hair.


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Spectra had no end of giant Mecha to attack earth, enter the Space Terrapin. I should mention that on the series, the Terrapin was pretty sleek looking, here it looks more like a disgruntled parade float.

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G Force enters and encounters the Specta Goons, which are disturbingly off model. Normally these guys all had mullets and bad teenage moustaches.




G Force has a lot great move of spinning around causing a whirl wind, in the colouring book they call it rotor force, I don't think it was on the series.


T

The Terrapin then lamely crashes into the ocean without the requisite explosion, which would have been fun to colour. Zoltar gets written up by his boss and we're treated to more shots of the Phoenix, the teams cool space ship.

If you like Battle of the Planets, check out our toy gallery here.

Got a colouring book you'd like to guest review? Drop me a line!

Previous Colouring Book Theatre Entries can be found here.

Coming Next Week: Not Superman

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[toys2cool]

pretty cool

[Neutron X]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love G-FORCE!!!!!!! Great to see this colorbook. I had the boardgame way back when. Also great story about how you met your wife. Love conquers all!

Do you have any pics of the French SuperJoe type Gatchaman figures?

[HardyGirl]

I would occasionally watch Battle Of The Planets when I was a kid, but I really never got into it. Cool coloring book though.

[palitoy]

Do you have any pics of the French SuperJoe type Gatchaman figures?

I have the dolls here somewhere, well my wife does...

[toys2cool]

Now that I think about it,I have a bunch of comics with the gold key brand and similar artwork,I wonder if I have any of these,did they make comics or just coloring books for Battle of the Planets ?

[Seeker]

I have the dolls here somewhere, well my wife does...

Ahem! You of coarse ment to say "I have the ACTION FIGURES here somewhere."

[BlackKnight]

Great Book !
I always loved the look of these characters.

[EmergencyIan]

I loved Battle of the Planets (or G-Force as I knew it) when I was little. That's a great coloring book! I've seen it before, but I don't think i ever had it.

I did have several of the comics when I was a kid, though. I would have loved to have had the toys back then. Over the last 7 years or so, so many great BOTP toys have come-out, as well.

- Ian

[Earth 2 Chris]

I remember liking the show, really liking their bird costumes, and being disturbed by the bad guy. I didn't think anyone but me remembered this show for years until it was syndicated again back in the 90 as G-Force.

Cool coloring book, even if they are off-model!

Chris