Battle of the Planets (comics)


Battle of the Planets is a comic book series based on the television series of the same name. 10 issues were published from June 1979 to February 1981 by Western Publishing in Gold Key and Whitman comics. Top Cow released a dozen comics in the 00's.

Publication history

Originally released in comic book form by Gold Key Comics in 1979, the series was later revamped by Top Cow Productions with a new twelve-issue limited series starting in 2002. The series was originally planned as an ongoing comic, but low sales led to its cancellation at issue 12, which ended the series with a cliffhanger. A two-issue mini, Endgame, was solicited in 2005, and was meant to tie up the loose ends, but never made it to print.
In 2003, there were a number of crossover one-shots starting with Witchblade. This was followed by two crossover issues with the ThunderCats; the first was published by Top Cow and the second was published by Wildstorm.
These were followed by a number of other comics: a Battle Book one-shot, one-shots focused on Mark and Jason, and a six-issue limited series called Battle of the Planets: Princess released in 2004, which was written by David Wohl and illustrated by Wilson Tortosa. Top Cow also published three issues of a manga version in 2003-2004.
Top Cow's license is now lapsed, and there are no plans for future Battle of the Planets works from them, including the unreleased Endgame.
A different Battle of the Planets strip was published in the UK weekly in TV Comic from 1981 to 1983, illustrated by Keith Watson.

Collected editions

The various series have been collected into a number of trade paperbacks:
The Gold Key series:
The Top Cow comics:
Digests of the Top Cow comics: