"Space Mimic" Battlestar Galactica #9 (Marvel) Written by Bill Mantlo Art by Sal Buscema and Klaus Janson November 1979

The Galactica faces the threat of an alien metamorph.

Story Summary

After Sire Uri's alleged hijacking of the missing fleet ships and attempted assassination of Commander Adama, Uri and his men are placed under house arrest by Colonel Tigh until the Council of Twelve can reconvene to make a decision on their fates. Adama himself is now stuck inside the damaged memory machine, possibly irrevocably.

Elsewhere in the fleet, Master-Tech Shadrack and his team continue to convert all the ships in the fleet to light drive. But one of his junior technicians is overcome by a silvery glow floating through the void and the light takes on the form and substance of the technician himself. The copy kills the human original and shoves it off into space. The copy then attacks Shadrack, but the Master-Tech seemingly kills it with a swipe of his wrench.

But the body is not really dead and, in the Life Center, it takes on the form of Dr. Spang and, shortly after, Boomer. Muffit is able to track the alien being as non-human and Apollo, Starbuck, and Athena corner it in Cassiopeia's form in the memory machine room. Athena fires a shot at the creature, but the bolt strikes the console controlling the lights in the room and the creature then mimics Commander Adama through the machine's circuitry and escapes.

As it flees down the Galactica's corridors as Adama, the creature meets crewmembers who radiate their love and thankfulness for him. This brings out Adama's copied emotions in the creature. When Apollo and Athena catch up with and confront him, he is unable to strike at them and the creature ends its own life instead. 

Didja Notice?

On page 2, panel 3, it appears to be Boomer speaking to Apollo, but Apollo refers to him as Colonel Tigh in the next panel.

As usual with depictions of metamorphs, this one is able to mimic not only another creature, but also the clothing its target is wearing.

Page 10 seems to indicate that the Galactica houses the fleet's food stores in its commissary after grown in the agro ship(s).

It seems odd that Apollo allows Boxey to attend the medical examination of Whittaker's body in the Life Center on page 14. Except, of course, that the plot required Muffit's presence to sense that something was wrong about the body!

How is it that Sire Uri is free to wander the corridors and come into the memory machine room on page 22 when Colonel Tigh stated that he and his men would be placed under house arrest on page 3? Uri must have found a loophole or falsified an alibi to get out of it, because he is also seen wandering free later on in "Scavenge World".

On page 23, Boomer doesn't seem to think it's odd that Commander Adama was walking around and giving orders, even though he knows Adama has been trapped in the memory machine.

Apparently the space mimic can clothe itself in anything remembered by the being it is mimicking. On page 26, we see that, having taken on Commander Adama's form, it is not wearing the spacesuit-like outfit the real Adama is wearing in the memory machine sphere, but a replica of the Commander's normal uniform. In addition, he is wearing the pendant of the Lords of Kobol Adama was wearing in "A Death in the Family".