Mecha - Volume 01 Issue 01

My Rating

“First Contact”

The Great Smoky Mountains – Tennessee, three men have arrived at a cave entrance high up in the Appalachians. Hyer, a local spelunker, had learned of the cavern system from a survey map completed late in 1986. With a high chance of finding a new vein of gemstones or quality crystals, it didn’t take much to convince his friends to join the exploration.

Twenty minutes later Hyer finds himself dangling from a winch line eighty feet down a vertical shaft. He yells out in excitement as the light from his headlamp shines over the surface of multiple geode formations. It’s a motherload! His friend yells down to him as he requests to be lowered further down the shaft. “Hold up”, Hyer yells back up towards his friends. “There is something very large down here!”

Before the men can get any details on the object sharp tremors begin to shake the granite walls surrounding them. “Earthquake!” In fear of being trapped by falling rocks, Hyer’s friends race back towards the entrance of the cave. As they scramble through the crumbling exit, they witness a huge explosion from higher up in the mountain face. As large chunks of rock begin to rain down on them something very alien looking rockets out of the debris towards the ski.

The Tunguska region – Soviet Russia, for several weeks a large force of military engineers are performing a secret digging operation near the famous impact site of 1908. Even in the harsh conditions of winter their digging equipment has made quick work of the area. A recent report from Captain Rezkova confirms Dr. Tarnofsky’s geophysics results of a large metallic structure lying just under the surface. The object recently gained the attention of the Russian Air Force when it began emitting bizarre radio signals. Today a high-ranking Colonel and KGB agent have arrived by helicopter to witness the uncovering of the object.

Deep space, a familiar radio signal has just been detected by an alien communications array. Multiple lights begin to power up on a massive dark structure floating nearby. Like a waking giant, the unknown vessel launches a projectile towards the little blue planet in the Milky Way galaxy. The missle begins to pick up speed then blinks into the dark as it hits light-speed.

How did a large metal statue end up on an unpopulated South Pacific Island? Where did the suicidal Japanese woman disappear to after hitting the bottom of the seaside cliff? What does an American spelunker, an Australian Aborigine, and a Russian army captain have in common? Collect the series to find out!

Reviewer Notes

Back In the 1980s, if you were like me — bored of the mainstream comic books, Dark Horse comics was a great alternative. The popularity of Japanese Anime and Manga books were about to explode in America, and thanks to publishers like Dark Horse the giant robot genre made it to the indie comic book scene. I was a huge fan of the Americanized versions of Voltron, Mazinger Z, Shogun Warriors, and G-Force (Gatchaman) cartoon series. Then in 1985 Robotech hit the television airwaves and Gen-X’ers lost their minds!

I could go on about the good old days but this review is about Dark Horse Comics’ Mecha series from 1987. Randy Stradley originally came up with the Mecha storylines and submitted them to Dark Horse. With the art of Harrison Fong, the book release to mixed sales results in June of 87. Even though the series shows clear influences on the Robotech and giant robot cartoons from Japan, there is enough American influence to keep the stories fresh.

In a nutshell random people across Earth find, or stumble upon, ancient alien robots which have crash landed on the planet years beforehand. Each person becomes bonded to the mecha in question. Their new job is to defend Earth from otherworldly invaders.

I original read this series when it was released but sold off my copies years ago. A couple of months ago I ran across the entire series in a bargain bin at a local antiques store. The fun memories started flooding back. So here I am, reviewing a forgotten gem thirty years later.

Issue one of Mecha is a decent introduction to the main characters and three of the mecha. To my surprise there is very little documentation on the characters or the series on the internet. I did find this blog post (https://timeldred.com/mecha1988/) from Randy Stradley. It has some interesting facts about the stories and artwork, but that is about all I could find. To me issue one is still interesting after all these years. The story doesn’t reveal too much, but tension is built right away. The mechs are the stars of this series, so if you are a fan of the Giant Robot genre check it out. The price on the six books is very affordable, heck you may find them in your local dollar boxes. I’m giving issue one of Dark Horse Comics Mecha series three out of five stars.