RETRO REVIEW: Magnus Robot Fighter: Invasion

Valiant; $9.95

Following up on my Retro Review of Magnus Robot Fighter: Steel Nation, here’s a look at the second Magnus collection from the original Valiant.

Where Magnus Robot Fighter #1-4 (“Steel Nation”) witnessed the initial world-building and set the stage, the second story arc, “Invasion,” cemented the world of 4001 A.D. for readers. In the initial arc, writer Jim Shooter and artist Art Nichols presented readers with an immense, complicated world to which they added equal layers of action and moral conflict. In this arc, Shooter makes the world even more complicated and yet draws the moral quandaries into starker relief.

Following the events of the robot rebellion in the “Steel Nation” arc, North Am is in disarray, and Magus has departed to roam the Goph lands, the area at the bottom of society and at the base of the vast glistening milespires above.

No sooner has he left, then the Japanese ambassador comes looking for him. Wanted by the North Am authorities, this provides both motivation and opportunity for Magnus to accept the Ambassador’s invitation to visit the usually isolated nation. The second chapter introduces us to Rai, the powerful protector of Japan, which faces its own type of rebellion.

Once again, Shooter adds layers of complexity to a would-be utopia and the result is comic book magic. The story was tightly plotted and it has stood up well over time.

The format in which he chose to do that is particularly interesting.

Magnus Robot Fighter #5-8 also doubled as Rai #1-4. Each issue was a flip book, meaning you read one chapter and then flipped it over to read the next chapter. The story was strong, so the gimmick really made the reader feel like they were getting a jam-packed issue.

In addition to writing – sometimes co-writing with Laura Hitchcock – the series, Shooter also illustrated the Magnus part of the first issue under the name Paul Creddick (a name 1994-era Valiant left out of the credits in this collected edition). However, a mistake was made and the credits for that chapter were duplicated on the first Rai chapter, which was actually illustrated by David Lapham, who provided the pencils for all four Rai chapters (this mistake was not corrected for the 1994 collection). Lapham (one chapter) and Mark Moretti (two chapters) penciled balance of the Magnus installments.

This one is definitely worth searching for in the back issue bins.

– J.C. Vaughn