Battlestar Galactica: Twilight Command #1 Review

Battlestar Galactica: Twilight Command #1

Writer: Michael Moreci
Artist: Breno Tamura
Cover Artists: Brent Schoonover (A), Breno Tamura (B)
Publisher: Dynamite

Review by Michael Farris, Jr.

Battlestar Galactica: Twilight Command #1 takes us to New Caprica where the Cylons have imprisoned the few remaining human survivors and placed them into a slave colony. Resistance fighters get wind of a force of humans outside the colony, but the task of eliminating the Cylon threat is close to impossible. However, the outsiders—who call themselves Twilight Command—have a plan that could stop the Cylons right at the source.

The events of this comic take place concurrently with season three of Battlestar Galactica. Whenever I read adaptations or spin-off stories from popular shows, movies, or games, I always wonder if the story could potentially be a jumping-on point for someone who is unfamiliar with the franchise. I feel like this story does that well; there might be a few “huh?” moments for the uninitiated (“Who the hell is Adama?” the new reader might be wondering), but otherwise, I feel like this story does a pretty good job of telling people how we got to this point without being heavy on the exposition.

Because of that, I honestly wonder if newer readers would enjoy the story more than people who watched the show. We get to see old familiar faces like Tigh and Chief, but I found myself wondering if this supplementary material was all that necessary. I also wondered who the Humanoid Cylons we see in the comic are if they are not part of the 12 (more on that in a second). There’s kind of a spoil of knowing what happens that makes you question if this story is worth investing in—kind of like Rogue One.

Moreci does do a good job capturing the spirit of the show, though. I enjoyed the narrative structure he uses of starting out with an ambush orchestrated by Twilight Command before taking us back to the familiar sites of New Caprica. We get to see this new ragtag group in action before being taken to characters we know who kind of add an extra sense of mystery surrounding Twilight Command (humans outside the colony fighting back?!?!).

The artwork was a ton of fun and honestly reminded me a lot of Tony Moore’s art in The Walking Dead (with color). I also appreciate that Tamura drew the characters with his own style instead of creating photo-realistic versions of the actors, because honestly that creeps me out sometimes. That said, as I mentioned before, there was one “skinjob” I could not identify because I wasn’t given a name, so I was little hung up on which of the 12 it might be (if he even is at all).

Verdict: Wait and see.

It was a fine read, but this single issue didn’t do enough to convince me that I need to read this spin-off. Battlestar Galactica fans will find familiarity and newbies won’t feel left out, but personally, issue two is going to have to give me more flavor of who Twilight Command is before I decide to be fully invested or not.