Wanted Omnibus: Marvel's Battlestar Galactica

Writer: Various
Artist: Various
Publisher: Marvel Comics (1978-1980)
Includes: Battlestar Galactica #1-23

Dork Note: Issues #16 thru #18 were by far my favorite (see the above three I sliced out from the rest). I would buy the Omnibus for those alone. Unfortunately, this Omnibus will never happen, because (lets face it) if it hasn't happen already with the massive popularity of the reboot - it surly won't happen now.

Clipped from Wikipedia: The comic book Battlestar Galactica, based on the ABC television series of the same name, was published monthly by Marvel Comics from 1978 through 1980, and lasted 23 issues. Roger McKenzie was most often the writer, and Walt Simonson the most regular artist, but the book also had a heavy rotation of guest writers and artists.

Marvel Comics’ began its adaptation of Battlestar Galactica with Super Special #8, a magazine format comic released as a tie-in to the start of the series. Based on an early script of the three hour series premiere "Saga of a Star World", this adaptation, which gave a relatively short treatment to the third hour, was also released in a tabloid format and then later as a paperback as well. Its success led Marvel to print a regular monthly comic depicting the adventures of the ragtag fleet.

When the regular run of Marvel's Battlestar Galactica comic book began some months later, the Super Special adaptation was expanded by several pages, and provided the material for the first five issues of the comic. With issue #6, the TV adaptations ceased, and Marvel's team began to create new stories about the characters of the Battlestar Galactica universe, picking up from where issue #5 left off. 

From this point, both in terms of story content and the narrative arc, Marvel's Battlestar Galactica does deviate somewhat from the televised adventures. Marvel's contract with Universal Studios specifically did not allow them to use anything from the television series that followed "Lost Planet of the Gods". Despite this, Marvel made a conscious decision to continue the story with their own vision of how the series would progress, and so presents an interesting interpretation of Galactica – through a Marvel paradigm. 

In addition, much of the comic's run took place in the magnetic void which the rag tag fleet encountered in the TV episode "Lost Planet of the Gods". In the end of the TV episode, the fleet moves back into normal space, leaving the void behind, but in the comics the ragtag fleet remains in the void beginning in issue #4, with the fleet finally returning to regular space in issue #14. This makes placing the episodes within the span of the TV series difficult, since much of the action could be surmised to have taken place between "Lost Planet of the Gods" and "Lost Warrior".

Unlike both television series, the Galactica comic actually had a planned ending, with a series of plot devices being wound up in the final two part story of issues #22 and #23. Presumedly, the final events of the Marvel Comic series presents the Battlestar Galactica along with rag tag fleet leaping toward the Milky Way Galaxy, where it will resume events in the tv series, in search of the lost 13th Colony known as Earth. This is the first time anywhere that the Galactica - until the new Re-Imagined Series on the Sci-Fi Channel - and the Colonial Fleet is shown leaping into hyperspace.

Fun Fact: Some panels depicted a likeness of Lt. Starbuck for scenes presenting Captain Apollo. These were corrected in the re-print version.