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Episode Studies by Clayton Barr
enik1138 at popapostle dot com
Battlestar Galactica: Gods & Monsters (Part 5)

"Gods & Monsters" Part 5

Battlestar Galactica: Gods & Monsters #5 (Dynamite)

Written by Karl Kesel

Art by Dan Schkade

Color by Chris O'Halloran

Letters by Tom Napolitano

Cover A by Alec Morgan & Chris O'Halloran

2017

 

The Cylons attack the fleet, but whose side will Tallos be on?

 

Story Summary

 

As the fleet comes under attack by the Cylons, an evac Raptor is sent down to the planetoid for Apollo, Helo, Baltar, and Tallos, but Tallos tosses out the pilot and leaves the humans stranded. With all other pilots now engaged in the space battle, Adama is forced to allow Caprica-Valerii to take a remaining Raptor down to rescue his son and the others.

 

On Caprica, Simon begins to sabotage the resistance supplies and the capricious Caprica-Cavil leads him to a presumably short-lived period of torture at the humans' hands.

 

As the fleet's space battle continues, a new type of Cylon ship enters the fray and disgorges hundreds of centurions, which magnetize themselves to the hull of Galactica and plant explosive charges. As Tallos arrives in the battle zone in the stolen Raptor, Starbuck destroys the vessel, but Tallos ejects and latches onto the top of her Viper. Tallos points towards the Galactica, and the angry Starbuck heads for it, flying upside-down to the battlestar's hull and scrapes the centurion off, but ruining the Viper in the process, stripping off a wing, the tailfin, and the cockpit canopy. But Tallos still survives the beating, minus an arm, and indicates to the other centurions on the hull to follow it, leading them to the FTL drive.

 

Baltar reverses the polarity of the drive to fling the metal centurions back out into space, where they are destroyed by their own explosive charges. Tallos' head is recovered and put on display, but it is arguable whether the reprogrammed centurion was trying to guide the Cylons to the FTL drive to destroy it and cripple the Galactica or to put them into the perfect position for Baltar to fling them into space.

 

THE END

 

Didja Know?

 

Battlestar Galactica: Gods & Monsters was a 5-issue mini-series published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2016-2017.

 

Characters appearing or mentioned in this story

 

Apollo

Helo

Baltar

Tallos (destroyed in this issue)

Redshirt

Starbuck

Commander Adama

Colonel Tigh

Lt. Gaeta

Dee

Simon O'Neill (Number Four model Cylon)

Samuel Anders

Caprica-Cavil

Jean Barolay

Caprica-Valerii

Kripke

President Roslin

Head Six

D'Anna Biers

Fleet-Cavil

 

 

 

Didja Notice?

 

This issue is the first appearance of a nugget Viper pilot called Redshirt. Most likely the name was inspired by the red-shirted security personnel of the original Star Trek TV series who were often the unfortunate victims of the "threat of the week" in episodes. The character seen here is depicted later in the issue wearing a red shirt (and also sports a mohawk).

 

On page 3, Starbuck objects to being called "ma'am".

 

On page 6, Caprica-Cavil refers to the "good Samaritan". It seems slightly odd, in a Colonial context, to refer to a Samaritan, as the term is derived from the Hebrew religious group that appears in the Talmud. 

 

A previously unseen and unidentified type of Cylon vessel is seen in this issue. It ejects hundreds of centurions into space to attach magnetic explosive charges on the hull of Galactica.
Cylon ship Cylon ship

 

On page 11, panel 1, Caprica-Cavil's word balloon has the word has the word "radiation" misspelled as "radition".

 

In panel 1 of page 11, notice that a bottle sits on a cabinet top. This is the bottle Caprica-Cavil uses on page 12 to bash Simon on the head with.

 

On page 14, Gaeta announces that dradis console registers a Colonial ship entering the BZ. "BZ" is shorthand for "battle zone".

 

On page 16, after scraping Tallos off her Viper against the hull of Galactica, Starbuck finds the centurion still functioning and remarks, "Takes a lickin'--keeps on tickin'!" The phrase "Takes a Licking and keeps on Ticking" was a well-known advertising slogan for Timex watches in the 1960s and '70s.

 

Page 19 reveals that Tallos' damaged metal head has been put on display in an area of the Galactica.

 

The last page of the issue reveals that the screening room used by the Cylons aboard the Galactica is actually the ship's chapel.


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