Renegade (1981) Review

Renegade is a fantastic, darkly comic... comic.

WRITTEN BY

No specific credit.

PLOT

After a fierce space battle, former Federation officer Pangal crashlands near Xenon Base and is rescued by the relatively sympathetic crew. Only concerned with his own safety, however, Pangal tries to sell them out to Servalan.

ANALYSIS

This felt true to the grim, but amusing tone of Blake's 7. I liked the parallels made between Pangal and the crew, and the atmosphere of fear, only exacerbated by the stab in the back. The crew weren't exaggerations of themselves, but actually took action that made me double-take a little as I didn't expect a simple short comic to quite go there, but no, they did and it's all the better for it as it shows they weren't afraid to carry over the Blake's 7 trademark cynicism instead of diluting it with simple action stories.

CHARACTERS

Avon in particular is brilliant. The paranoia implied in the TV series is brought to the forefront here, and we actually see how it's starting to impair his judgment a little bit, as he neglects repairing the Scorpio in favor of keeping it immediately ready to fly. His brief encounter with Servalan also sizzles with some of the classic Darrow-Pearce chemistry, even if they're not actually delivering the lines.

Tarrant is the down-to-earth rational straight man to Avon's whims, and the glue that seems to hold the crew together.

I loved seeing Vila get a nice hero moment. They're so few and far between that I cherish every one of them.

Sadly, Dayna and Soolin get the shaft.

Pangal's a nasty piece of work, and an effective villain. His attitude is established early with the murder of his partner, though I was still surprised to see him think so quickly and work out a way to reingratiate himself with Servalan.

As for the latter, she is of course still in her Commissioner Sleer guise, keeping her real identity under tight lock and key. I like how she doesn't seem to consider Avon an isolated case when it comes to hunting down her enemies - she's equally ruthless with all(though the former is undoubtedly her favourite renegade).

NOTES

*This comic was published in the Blake's 7 Marvel Monthly issue 3.

*Pangal's ejecting the life pod at the exact time his ship explodes showed some clever thinking on his behalf. Very nice touch.

*Xenon appears to have become an exotic jungle.

*Avon negotiating over Pangal's life whilst the latter is being held in the jaw of a giant dinosaur thing was more than a little ridiculous, I must admit.

*I love that Vila used Orac physically as a weapon, and clearly so does Avon, judging from his "I wouldn't count on Orac being useless" remark.

*Avon's sudden bout of pacifism to justify leaving Servalan alive feels contrived. I mean, he does say he want to humiliate her, but he also makes a big song and dance over death not being his thing, which at this stage is just a lie.

*Murdering Pangal by teleporting him over to Servalan via a faulty teleporter that cuts him up into bits... one of the coldest Avon moments I've seen.

INFORMATION!

*Servalan maintains her Commissioner Sleer disguise, still killing anyone who finds out the truth, as established in Traitor.

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

"Tarrant really killed him. He failed to repair the teleporter in time."

CONCLUSION

Short, but ever so sweet. I want more of this.