The TV show being fairly popular in the UK, but a massive hit in France, more French editions of "La Bataille des Planètes" survive than the English "Battle of the Planets" version.
Unusually, the transfer sheets don't have separate serial numbers, but on each of them "10L9" is printed in yellow ink. Normally this would indicate a second edition, but in this case, we just don't know — since they all have the same number.
Part 1
The card stiffener often is completely blank, but for this series it contains stands to be cut out to support the figures traced from the back cover (as shown above).
Part 3
Who can say what the transfer sheet artist had in mind by so prominently including the two female figures at top left? It seems a very peculiar choice, to say the least… perhaps it says more about him, than about the subject at hand.
Parts 2 & 4
Unfortunately we only have Parts 1 & 3 unused at the moment, & from Part 2 we only have the transfer sheet (normally the hardest item to find)! But all is not lost; you can get a good idea of what Parts 2 & 4 looked like, from some of the other materials we've been able to scrounge.
Firstly we have the ad from the Thomas Salter Trade Catalogue for 1981, which conveniently displays Part 4 (top) & Part 2 (below) on the right-hand side.
Then there's this advert for the series, taken from an issue of the French Bande Dessinée Pif-Gadget:
Someone kindly sent us the above image of his used backgrounds for Part 2 & Part 4 (above), & the back panel from the 'Part 3' set has this surprisingly sketchy illustration of all the sets in the series (below):
Part 2 looks slightly dull (unless you're fond of snow), but Part 4 has some intriguing undersea Lovecraft activity going on. To end with, a view of the front & back of an unopened Part 2:
Hopefully we'll have some more to show you later; get in touch if you have either of our missing sets!
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