Welcome to the 12th installment of Nostalgia Snake, a look at 2000s revivals of 1980s properties, revivals now so old they're also quite nostalgic. (Hence the snake of nostalgia eating itself.) And if you have any suggestions for the future, let me hear them. Just contact me on Twitter. This week, we'll look at Top Cow's 2003 Battle of the Planets series, which concluded with quite the cliffhanger.'

Following a teaser issue that introduced a new antagonist to the G-Force team -- an army general named Tomak who believes a team of teenage ninjas aren't the planet's best line of defense -- a monthly series followed. Alex Ross maintained his commitment to the series, contributing concepts and striking painted covers for each issue. The regular creative team consisted of Battle Chasers writer Munier Sharrieff, artist Wilson Tortosa, and Shane Law of Udon Studios.

RELATED: How Alex Ross Reintroduced Battle of the Planets

The creators' goal was to pay homage to the Americanized Battle of the Planets they remembered from their childhoods, while also attempting to nudge the continuity closer to the Gatchaman anime from which the property sprang. That required a fresh start, by not acknowledging any specific episodes of the American cartoon, or using 7-Zark-7, the Star Wars-inspired robot that TV producers hoped would ease American kids into the show.

How Top Cow's Battle of the Planets Defied Expectations

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The 2002 series opens with the villainous Zoltar of the organization Spectra unleashing a mecha-beast called the Iron Terrapin on the city of Central West. G-Force is summoned for their first mission, which ends in disaster. This isn't the well-oiled team of heroes you might expect; these are headstrong teenagers who do, in fact, make some mistakes. This creates a nice dynamic for the series: The cast doesn't quite get along, and their inexperience is a problem in battle.

In the middle of the action, G-Force's mentor, Security Chief Anderson (who's far more sympathetic here than in the preview issue), struggles to convince world leaders that Spectra even exists. General Tomak, despite his prickly demeanor in the preview comic, is revealed as a secret ally of the team. Tomak, leader of the Global Alliance's United Armed Forces, is actually an alien operative from the distant planet Riga, which is also defending itself from Spectra. Tomak's efforts to covertly aid G-Force, however, don't sit well with his alien superiors. This is one of a few plot elements that are potentially interesting, but have zero payoff by the series finale.

Tomak is used to unveil information about the history of Spectra, whose population was close to extinction eons ago. Its supreme leader, the Luminous One, sent probes to Earth and collected DNA from primitive man. It then used this DNA to create a new race of Spectrans, who, we discover, are the army of faceless flunkies serving Zoltar. Ever wonder why the enemy army all look the same, right down to those heavy-metal hairdos? Well, naturally, they're all created from the same DNA.

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Did Battle of the Planets Retroactively Become a Miniseries?

Because the original Gatchaman anime was set on a future Earth, and Battle of the Planets re-cut the episodes to instead stage the action on various planets, Ross and Sharrieff split the difference. There's a growing threat from space, thus, keeping an integral part of Battle intact, but the drama's still set on Earth. The concept of intergalactic adventures is being teased, but the creators wanted this to feel earned.

Zoltar's next line of attack is to release a virus that turns the citizens of Central West into mindless slaves of Spectra, giving G-Force the classic conflict of having to defend themselves while not harming innocent civilians. It provides the team some "street-level" action, as their Phoenix ship has been shot down, and a break from the series' stereotypical threat, those skyscraper-sized mecha beasts. There's also a romantic subplot involving Tiny, the team's portly pilot, and mounting tensions between straight-laced leader Mark and the bad-boy Jason.

From Issue 8 on, the title page declares this a 12-issue maxi-series, even though it hadn't read as a standalone story arc. It's quite possible that Top Cow overestimated the audience demand for Battle of the Planets, as this monthly title was also joined by one-shots and miniseries for most of the cast members, not to mention crossovers with Top Cow's lead property Witchblade, and another '80s revival, ThunderCats. These solo stories and crossovers are actually referenced in the main series, and the Jason special even has a significant impact on this storyline.

The final issue depicts Chief Anderson and the Global Alliance's president kidnapped by Spectra, while the team is in crisis. Following the events of Jason (and it is simply odd to see common first names used as dramatic titles for comic one-shots), Mark is aware of Jason's attempted assassination of their mentor, Chief Anderson. Mark also knows Jason is too good of a shot to miss, so he wants to know what Jason was plotting.

Bad boy that he is, Jason orders Mark to mind his own business. More bizarrely, he tells Mark that Chief always knew placing a wild card like him on G-Force would lead to the team's dissolution.

The Shocking Twist Ending of Battle of the Planets

G-Force doesn't have long to bask in victory, however, because Jason soon disappears. The series' final stinger picks up months later, with Jason meeting with Zoltar in secret, promising to train Zoltar's clone army with the same zeal Chief Anderson used when training G-Force. Jason, we're to believe, is in fact one of the clones created by Zoltar's master.

A two-issue miniseries, Endgame (originally announced as Coup De Gras), was solicited in 2005, promising to resolve the main series' story. Yet, Top Cow's license lapsed, and the comic never materialized.

Considering the full story is unpublished, it's difficult to offer real judgment on where the creators were going with this. It's entirely possible this is all a part of a larger scheme, and some sort of redemption was planned for Jason.

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The Odd Legacy of Top Cow's Battle of the Planets

Reading what's actually in print, however, the story comes across as a little too eager to shock fans. Imagine if Marvel published an X-Men story arc in which Wolverine were depicted not as a rebellious hot-head, but instead as a true villain working to undermine the team. Then again, 2001's opening Ultimate X-Men arc did follow similar beats when introducing a new, "edgier" continuity, so it's possible the creators were drawing inspiration from Marvel's then-hot Ultimate imprint.

It's also interesting to read these issues in the context of the United States so soon after 9/11; there are certainly gigantic robots that topple buildings, but this doesn't happen as often as you might expect. Just as kids' TV censorship prevented the original cartoon from focusing on the carnage, a different type of cultural sensitivity prohibits these scenes from being too graphic.

A later sequence in which the citizens of Central West become mindless drones consumed with violence was perhaps intentionally a commentary on America's post-9/11 march towards war… or maybe just one way to execute an action sequence that doesn't involve more buildings crashing down. That's one of the issues with Battle of the Planets; sometimes it feels rather daring, but the quality of the writing doesn't lead you to believe this is meant as a daring book.

For readers who want an easy action-adventure story with high production values and healthy doses of nostalgia, Top Cow has that covered. But when the story swerves toward controversy, the tone feels all wrong. Unfortunately, Endgame (which might need another new title, following that little art house film) isn't likely to emerge and provide a clear answer behind the creators' intentions. The American rights have reverted to Tatsunoko Production Co., which is far more interested in the original Gatchaman than the sanitized Battle of the Planets. For better or worse, this unusual series might be how G-Force's story ends.

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