"The Only Good Cylon" Battlestar Galactica #3 (Dynamite) Writer: Greg Pak Art: Nigel Raynor Colors: David Curiel Letters: Simon Bowland Cover C: Adriano Batista 2006

Adama, Starbuck, and Zak confront the Basestar.

Read the story summary at the Battlestar Wiki

Didja Know?

The issues of this series were untitled. I assigned the title "The Only Good Cylon" as a play on the phrase "the only good *fill-in-the-blank* is a dead one" due to Returner Zak's sacrifice in this issue. 

Characters appearing or mentioned in this story

Starbuck

Commander Adama

Apollo

Earth Protectorate

Zak (Returner; takes on the callsign Buster in this issue)

Billy Keikeya

Baltar

Head Six

Lt. Gaeta

Jenny Lesa

President Roslin

Chief Tyrol (possibly)

Didja Notice?

Starbuck gives the Returner Zak the pilot callsign Buster, for the three maneuvers he busted on his final flight test (as revealed in "Act of Contrition").

Zak seems not to know that his father's callsign in his piloting days was Husker. It seems unlikely that he would not already know this.

Adama seems to claim that he got his callsign of "Husker" because he had a sore throat the day they handed out nicknames (possibly, he's just joking). Of course, we know now that he callsign came from Adama's ECO, Coker, "husker" being a term used on Coker's homeworld of Aerilon, in the farming districts, a husker being a hayseed who can't drive his tractor straight, as revealed in "Blood and Chrome".

Adama's old Mark II Viper (Viper 7242) is shown to still have his name and callsign on it, as it did when it was re-presented to him when the Galactica was to become a museum ship in "Humanity's Children". However, Viper 7242 was previously shown being piloted by Kat in "Scattered".

On page 7, Baltar again refers to Head Six as a Cylon, as he also did in "Fear and Joy", even though he learned in "Home" Part 2 that there is no Cylon chip in his brain and seems to accept that she is either his own psychotic figment or "an angel of God" as she then claimed. On page 8, Head Six even tells him that she was once like the organic templates for Returners Baltar finds aboard Medevac 12. However, in the following issue ("Old School"), Baltar admits that all evidence indicates that she is just a figment of his imagination.

It's fairly subtle, but on page 8, notice that Head Six's red dress is transparent. She also wore a transparent dress in "Humanity's Children".

Baltar comes to the conclusion that the Returners are Cylons of a sort, reconstructions of now-dead human beings. In the Season Four episode "He That Believeth In Me", Starbuck wonders, after seemingly coming back from the dead herself, if she is some kind of Cylon construct (though the Returners are not mentioned).

The man seen in the hangar bay of Galactica on page 13 may be Chief Tyrol.