It seems I’m reaching a point in my Robotech fandom where I’m a little bit starved for material, so I go back and review certain essential works, just when I thought I wouldn’t. Is this the beginning of the end for our little Zentard?

I don’t think so. And this particular effort owes as much to The Protoculture Times, J.T.’s Robotech podcast which has plugged me a few times in the past, and whose first session contained a review of The Zentraedi Rebellion.

I’m not sure how that leads to my wanting to revisit the Uprisings myself. Maybe it’s knowing that I have a bit of an audience this time around.

All right enough of that: let’s talk about the Malcontent tales: The original Malcontent Uprisings comics, and the novel version The Zentraedi Rebellion. Both tell the same story, of a large-scale Zentraedi backlash against humans following the end of the Macross-derived portion of the Robotech TV series, with the main characters being Max and Miriya Sterling, Anatole Leonard, and Colonel Jonathan Wolfe. Though the comics were the original story, it’ll never feel right talking about one without the other.

Speaking from the perspective of someone who has recently come to admit that the Zentraedi are the only thing she really strongly cares about in regards to Macross or Robotech, the original 12-issue The Malcontent Uprisings miniseries is probably Bill Spangler’s best work with the Robotech comics, a lot better than his various Zentraedi prequel stories.

The story of Uprisings is tight and focused and does some interesting things with the established characters. It feels like it matters, in a way that few EU side stories in any franchise get to do, and because of that, it’s probably my favourite Robotech comic series.

Probably the best thing both versions do is to make Max and Miriya into “real” characters with their own flaws, problems, and internal conflicts. I know a lot of people like Miriya, but she’s always been a problematic character for me. Her “courtship” with Max was more than a little unsettling, and afterwards, the two of them seem more like ideals than characters. While this story can’t change how Max and Miriya got together or my feelings towards that, there’s appeal in making issues a little more complex for them.

Max loses his temper, Miriya feels insecure about parenting, both find themselves alienated from each other and there is the tacit acknowledgement that a relationship takes work and that she is still trapped between two “cultures”.

The presence of Miriya’s old comrade and friend Seloy also points back to the fact that Miriya has a life outside of Max and before him, which is cool because another thing that’s bothered me about Miriya is that after marrying Max, she is not shown interacting with other Zentraedi, usually not referred to as one, and all of her friends are also primary human cast members that Max knew before she did.

Though on the other hand, Seloy becomes an enemy, and Miriya is left again without any strong, positive ties to the Zentraedi, so that major weakness in Miriya’s character is at best temporarily fixed.

There’s also a really cool scene where Miriya cuts her hair in a symbolic act, just before she has to be the executioner for rogue Zentraedi who have been sentenced to death. It provides a nice explanation for her otherwise bad Sentinels-era haircut, the comics even including a scene where Max reveals that he’s cut his hair as a sign that he’ll stand with her, bringing his own character redesign into the picture.

But since this story includes as its backdrop something that effects the Zentraedi as a whole, it’s very disappointing that Miriya is the only Zentraedi character who ever gets any real internal exploration. That can be excused for a twelve-issue comic, but when I opened the novel version, I was eager for the male Zentraedi characters to get some development as well.

But even with its expanded scope, the novel still sticks pretty squarely with this Miriya-centric exploration of the Zentraedi, with the focus more being on how the Zentraedi infighting affects humanity.

While the male Zentraedi characters get a much larger physical role in the book than in the miniseries, it’s still a weak role in terms of characterization. Exedore and Breetai largely only serve to provide flat exposition or be the Voices of Doom, providing grim pronouncements about the failure of human and Zentraedi to co-exist. Rico, Bron, and Konda are portrayed as complete airheads in their brief appearance, and, yeah, we know they’re not smart, but they should have some awareness of what’s going on.

I have a particular problem with Exedore’s portrayal in the novel, and it’s really not that he acts like a callous jackass sometimes. I like the character a lot, but I don’t idealize him, and can easily picture Exedore being one to speak without tact in the name of pragmatism, and to not usually consider sparing others’ feelings.

But it also seems to me that Exedore’s attitude in the novel is both too extreme and too passive, up to and including saying outright that the best solution to the current crisis would be to exterminate all Zentraedi...though when Exedore says this, it’s never made clear if he personally advocates that or if it’s merely a snide, exasperated suggestion.

These actions suggests to me the possibility that Exedore is taking some personal investment in how events are unfolding, which is also implied in the TV series, too. But the problem is that there’s no completion, no conclusion, no comeuppance to Exedore’s behaviour, so his appearance in the novel seems pointless, save for putting him there because they had to put him somewhere. Otherwise, it would have been a perfect chance to show the transition between the pessimistic and sometimes downcast Exedore at the end of the Macross part of the TV series, and the considerably more amiable Sentinels Exedore.

The comics do contain a fairly long sequence with Breetai in issue 7, where he’s actually doing something instead of just being gloomy, but the set-up for it is almost madly ludicrous: for some reason, Breetai Micronizes himself and infiltrates the Zentraedi weapons-dealing underground, an act which includes wearing his Sentinels-era bucket helmet, and, at different points, an REF uniform or casual civilian clothes. It looks just as insane as it sounds, and there’s no real reason for Breetai to do these things, nor for him to not be recognized as himself (how many super-tall, hirsute, aquamarine-skinned Zentraedi males with something covering their faces do you know?).

But these scenes are a guilty pleasure of mine, because something’s sublime about Breetai looking so ridiculous and still being the physical powerhouse that he is, and, though it’s rather inexplicable, at least he’s showing that he has an investment in the success of peace.

The final scenes of the issue also demonstrate Breetai having some second thoughts and a new interest in peace. It can’t even be spoiled by Breetai deferring to Rick Hunter, apologizing to him for going off on his own, and then offering the human a salute, though that image comes close to doing so.

The stories might have benefitted by creating some deeper connection, some genuine friendship, between Miriya and the human-friendly male Zentraedi, so that all their varying reactions, the impact of the rebellion on their characters, could be explored. There are small hints of such connections, such as Rico, Bron, and Konda being the ones to take care of Dana sometimes, and Breetai and Miriya working together to publically execute rogue Zentraedi, but they’re obviously not privy to each other’s internal and personal difficulties.

A strong impression that also comes from the Zentraedi Rebellion novel is that James Luceno is trying too hard to be dark and edgy with his material. There’s little to counter the marching, shallow grimness of the novel and of the Zentraedi’s portrayal in particular, and at the end, a reader is left with a sense of annoyed exhaustion rather than it being a powerful story of triumph against terrible odds.

Probably the most gratuitous example of the novel trying too hard is introducing the dynamic between Seloy and Leonard, that they met each other, and the fresh-out-of-a-ship and naive Seloy and the angry, bigoted Leonard played “games” (which are pretty much spelled out as S&M stuff, sometimes involving whips) until she escaped shortly after being artificially inseminated on his orders.

Now, it’s not unreasonable for a bigot to want to “conquer” an enemy in a different kind of way and be able to justify it to himself, or for a female who knows nothing of sex to be taken advantage of, but Luceno goes overboard with the idea, and at the same time doesn’t seem to grasp the fundamental creepiness of what he’s written, since Seloy seems to suffer little ill effects (her own madness and viciousness is never directly attributed to her previous experiences with Leonard), and the story could easily have happened with Seloy and Leonard’s affair being consensual and there being a dispute over the child, which is pretty much what the comic does.

I’m not one for taking a passionate stance against the portrayal of General Leonard in Robotech apocrypha, but this just seems kind of stupid. It doesn’t add anything to the larger picture, and just gets a bunch of people who like Leonard pissed off. If you really must do something this stupidly creepy, why not just make up a new character for it? Or even use T.R. Edwards: he totally seems like the type.

Another thing that really bugs me is the notion of The Zentraedi Imperative, the instinctive conquering urge that’s apparently what’s driving Zentraedi all over the world to fight and destroy.
Narrative-wise, it seems like a huge cop-out, a way of taking responsibility away from the Zentraedi, and complexity away from the story.

There’s no reason why the Zentraedi failure to adjust couldn’t be understood on a purely “human” level, as the simple fact that change is hard and not everybody can make it, even when they start out thinking they can, which was always my interpretation of the TV series events which inspired these Malcontent tales.

And the previous TV narrative also seemed to point to an ironic similarity between human and Zentraedi, that both ultimately have the urge for war. It would make for a much more poignant story if that view was kept up. The novel sometimes makes nudges in that direction, such as when Rick and Exedore revisit their old argument about whether or not humans are also prone to violence, but mostly it’s all about the Imperative.

I don’t want the Zentraedi to be portrayed as saintly, far from it: what I want is the characters to be in control of their mistakes and violence, instead of it being written off as something they can’t help. That only makes them seem like mad dogs that need to be put down.

When I read the Sentinels novels, I was always annoyed that the Zentraedi numbers seemed to be so low, with Breetai said to lead a group of only “a hundred strong” within the REF, and other Earth-based Zentraedi dying in the “Lost Generation” novels. But instead of deliberate cruelty on the part of Luceno, it just seems kind of brainless. Looking back at The Zentraedi Rebellion, it’s easy to read between the lines and think that possibly, the handful of years of the Malcontent Uprisings had fighting so intense that they reduced Zentraedi numbers by scores, maybe a sort of “weeding” out of all the “bad” Zentraedi, of which most apparently are. It would be pretty wrong-headed if that were the author’s intent, undermining the optimism of the original series.

And of course this comic, and has what I like to call “Spangler-speak”. Even though Bill Spangler didn’t come up with all the words, he did come up with most: the attempt made by Robotech expanded universe to give Zentraedi a distinct language of their own. The novel version also incorporates this language into itself, where none of the other books had anything remotely similar.

The attempt to manufacture a Zentraedi language really doesn’t work, though. Most items of Spangler-speak have a direct English equivalent and so it seems kind of pointless to recreate them in a Zentraedi tongue. The sound and rhythm of a lot of Spangler-Speak also doesn’t match up with that of the Zentraedi names and terms that Robotech was given to work with. Instead, Spangler-speak is harsh and grating and loaded with unnecessary apostrophes, though once in a while you’ll get a word that does fit with the sound of the older terms.

The Zentraedi characters in Spangler’s comics often pepper their speech with unnecessary Spangler-speak, sometimes with the English equivalent afterwards, and it gets really awkward to read. (Captain JLS once compared it to fangirl Japanese, and he’s so right).

Some people have compared the Robotech EU Zentraedi language to the Klingon language from Star Trek. Now, I don’t know jack about Star Trek, but one of the smaller appeals of the Zentraedi was that they weren’t really stereotypical “warrior aliens”, but seemed more balanced and normal instead of grunting about glory and honour all the time, which is the first thing I think about when I think about Klingons (any Star Trek people, fell free to come and kick my ass for being ignorant). And any attempt to bring that aspect to the Zentraedi is...not going to make me happy.

However, one new linguistic convention that I do fully endorse is bestowing the main male Zentraedi characters with their surnames from the Macross universe. Miriya’s managed to make it into Robotech canon, but the rest were left out, but here we have “Khyron Kravshera”, “Exedore Formo”, and “Breetai Tul”; though the male surnames aren’t canon, I still tend to think of the characters as possessing them. Note however that Breetai’s original Macross surname was “Kridanik” and that Rico, Bron, and Konda are not given their Macross surnames when there is opportunity to do so.

The female Zentraedi as a whole come off as badass in both versions of the story, finally giving us the image of female Zentraedi on their own being a dangerous, nasty threat to humanity, which the original Macross material skimped out on, with Azonia largely playing second fiddle to Khyron and any other of their female soldiers never seen up close.

Yet at the same time, there is a lingering sense that the female Zentraedi are being presented as “perfect”, and hence less interesting: all Amazon ice queens who could be described with a cheesy phrase like “beautiful but deadly” (because they all still look like Barbie dolls, though in the comics, we briefly see one female Zentraedi with a bald head in the comics, and a short one who’s a little homely-looking...the rest, including Seloy, are standard). I’d rather see a wider range of personality types and character designs among female Zentraedi, but so much for that.

Another concept that bothers me is the apparent idea that Human-Zentraedi hybrids are rare and special for some unexplained reason. In the novel, Dana Sterling, along with Seloy and Leonard’s son Hirano, are stated to be the only mixed-race children around, hybrids being difficult to conceive for some reason, despite many human-Zentraedi pairings.

Also in the novel version, Dr. Zand is being all mad scientist about Dana, and other books lend some legitimacy to that idea that Dana is special. There’s really no reason to write this, given that one of the original points of the Macross dub was that Zentraedi and humans were genetically compatible and that was considered a factor in the peace process. So they could be breeding with each other like frickin’ rabbits with nothing weird about it if they feel like it, and why wouldn’t they?

In all this kerfuffle, I keep losing sight of the purely human characters, and that’s a bad move, because except for the Miriya character arc that I mentioned, the novel and the comic are far more concerned with the effect that the Uprisings are having on humanity than of telling the story from the Zentraedi viewpoint. Even a lot of the extra material in the novel is related to internal human politics before anything else.

Some dynamics to occur in later (earlier-published) novels are set up here, including Dr. Zand being a creepy mad scientist with Dana (with her parents never really finding out, but a very angry Rolf Emerson does--I always found it odd that it was decided that Max and Miriya were to be kept in the dark), Rick and Lisa talking about their wedding, about politics, and Minmei being used as a pawn in a few government schemes.

But honestly, the appearance of the three main characters from the Macross series doesn’t really add much to the book. Like with Exedore, you have the feeling that Rick and Lisa are there because they have to be, and the writers aren’t really doing anything to develop or explore their characters. If they try, it’s merely to retread old ground.

A lot of readers would find an appeal in Colonel Wolff, the daring swashbuckler with problems at home, but honestly I didn’t find him that interesting, and don’t have much at all to say about him.

The art in the comic is pretty bad, either it’s Michael Lane’s amorphous and sketchy work (with lots of gritted teeth), or it’s Greg Lane’s pencils, which are clearly-lined but with a dull, flat look to them, excessive shading that takes it to photocopy-land, and sometimes odd faces. If I had to choose, I’d pick Lane’s art because its lines are cleaner, but it’s still not the best.

But one appealing thing in the comics art is that Micronized Zentraedi who wear human clothes often find ways to incorporate the Zentraedi symbol into their clothing, most notably through Miriya’s belt buckle and necklace, which I thought was fun, since it sends the message that they want to be allied with humans, but also that they are distinct, they are themselves.

Given all I’ve said, the comic is probably the better of the two stories, because its shorter running time doesn’t get the chance to show a writer missing opportunities or messing up the larger factors, or adding the gratuitous attempts at being “edgy”, but focusing instead on the core strengths. But, contradictorily, sometimes the miniseries feels a little too small, with hints of a larger story, which the novel sometimes developed.

I do still find the book and the miniseries to both be entertaining, since there are some good moments in these stories, moments of deeper characterization, tension, complexity, and successful tests of some characters’ wills. The basic idea of a Zentraedi backlash against humanity, a time when the lustre of “culture” wore off and the hard work begins, is a compelling one, but in a lot of places it was manhandled.