Science Fiction Non-Fiction: Alex Ross (Battle Of The Planets)

Just so I don't appear the only Battle Of The Planets crazed lunatic, though that's probably true, I'm not the only one with unbridled affection for the series...

"The show seemed much more like the comics I read; a lot more thought out, a lot more drama, a lot more seriousness and the action to the show. Even though it was heavily edited, it was a lot more vivid; vivid with the violence, vivid with the intensity of the characters. Just the expressions on the characters would be so intense to make you feel like, 'Wow! This is really different!'."
 

-Alex Ross, G:Force: Animated: The Official Battle Of The Planets Guidebook, (p.92)-

And of course Ross took that vivid approach and brought it to the new, much more graphic Top Cow comic books release (2002-2003). Even though the book was adorned with the title, Battle Of The Planets (1978), those comic books were a whole lot more violent and much more in step with the likes of Gatchaman (1972). But it went beyond that as well.

As Ross notes, as kids, the Battle Of The Planets edition of Gatchaman still managed to hit all the right notes and retain much of the emotional intensity of the original Gatchaman. To a certain degree Sandy Frank took it a step further on a dramatic level by infusing his characters with that wonderful voice cast led by Casey Kasem. They actually brought another level of depth to Battle Of The Planets that really would have been lost without them as evidenced by other incarnations of Gatchaman and far inferior voice casting.