Well, color me surprised. I have no nostalgic attachment to Battle of the Planets/G-Force/Gatchaman, and I really didn't think there would be much offered beyond a nostalgic thrill by a creative team I'd never heard of. However, Battle of the Planets stands out as one of the best "nostalgia wave" books I've read so far, with beautiful artwork that is true to the anime style that spawned the property and an intelligent take on the property that somehow makes me overlook the ridiculousness of the whole premise. This is largely a standard "gathering the team" type issue, but it has the right amount of build-up for the villains and heroes and promises plenty of excitement and action in the second chapter.
When you're writing a comic of this nature, there are certain cliches you have to observe, and Sharrieff hits every one of them. The villain whose face is never glimpsed, the danger room sequence, the traditional military guy who doesn't believe in this outrageous new form of response... it's the kind of thing I've seen done a hundred times before, but it's important to establish the tone and style of the book. I also had a great appreciation for the way these were carried off visually, as the first few pages especially really serve to heighten the anticipation for the rest of the book.
I have no particular attachment to these characters, so I don't know how true to their personalities any of the writing is. However, I found that Sharrieff gave each of them a personality that was quick to grasp, falling into classic action movie archetypes and separating them out so that even I, a Battle of the Planets neophyte, can now figure out who is who in the costumes. Also, Sharrieff doesn't overplay the institutional resistance to the lead characters, giving a sympathetic ear at the right time and making the story point a complication rather than a continual annoyance.
Where the book really shines, however, is in the artwork. I don't know to what extent Alex Ross's "art direction" drove the book, but Tortosa and colorist Shane Law seem to have done a "digital inking" approach that captures the anime look quite well. Tortosa is working off some strong designs for the G-Force crew, but it takes talent to be able to manage these bird designs without making them just look goofy, or to handle the technology of planes, cars and giant mecha, and the design work here is very solid. In addition, there's a lot of promise for the action storytelling, as Tortosa does beautiful splash pages as well as some great work on the "danger room" sequence and Jason's shooting range sequence.
There's a lot of hype and backlash about nostalgia books now, but I think it's better to judge them not on the appeal of their base properties but more on how well the stories are being executed now. In that regard, Battle of the Planets stands out as a fun super-hero/science-fiction comic, and I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
