ARLA ARLA
Real Name: Arla
Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Reality-48123; see comments) extraterrestrial (Tirolian)
Occupation: Rebel/evolutionary
Group Membership:
Underground/Resistance against the Masters
Affiliations: Zol, Zor;
formerly Vard
Enemies: Nimuul and the
Elders of the Tirolian Empire, Vard
Known Relatives: Unidentified members of a "high
family"
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly Tiresia, Tirol, third moon of the planet
Fantoma, Valvarre system
First Appearance: Robotech Genesis: The
Legend of Zor#1 (March, 1992)
Powers/Abilities: Arla had no superhuman abilities.
She was dedicated to her people and to opposing a tyrannical leadership.
She was willing to risk her life for a
cause and to sacrifice herself to save her lover.
History:
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#2 (fb) - BTS) - Arla was a member of a "high family."
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#1 (fb) - BTS / (Robotech Genesis:
The Legend of Zor#2 (fb) - BTS) - Arla was the fiance' of Zor, a promising
young scientist and the son of senator Zol, living in Tiresia, the capital
of the Tirolian Republic.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#1) - On a date with Zor, Arla looked
up at the immense Fantoma, considering it to be beautiful, but Zor argued
that it was taunting, as its massive size meant its gravity was too great
for any of their race to ever travel there. Nonetheless, he told her that
the Republic would survive by going out into the stars to discover other
worlds whose treasures they could harvest. Zor further explained that he
had been accepted on a techno-voyage, and Arla told him that it was
wonderful as it was what he had always wanted.
When Zor noted his apprehension, she assured him that
it was just nerves. He told her that he was leaving in a few days and that
the thought of being away from her was difficult, but she assured Zor that
she would wait for him. Zor told Arla that he loved her, and they kissed
before he bade her farewell.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#2) <1520 A.L.> - As many
citizens felt that Senator Nimuul's social reforms were unduly restrictive
and curtailing their rights, Arla was one of those who gathered outside of
a government building in protest. Looking down from above, Nimuul
recognized Arla -- after Zol told him her name -- as being from a high
family. After Zol confirmed that she was engaged to his son, Zor, Nimuul
noted that it was awkward, with a senator's son running around with a
rabble rousing civil protester. Zol stated that they loved each other, but
Nimuul noted that with the way things were changing, Zor was going to have
to decide on which side he stood when he got back. 
Later, after Nimuul had declared martial law and sent
warriors to subdue protesters, Arla rushed to Zol's private senate
chambers and warned him that Nimuul was having the other senators
arrested, and she urged him to come with her. Nimuul then arrived
alongside two armed guards and announced that he was now an elder.
Pleading with Nimuul not to arrest Zol, Arla asked with what he was being charged, and Nimuul noted that he and other senators had questionably treasonable views. Despite Arla's protestation, Zol was stripped of his senator's sash and placed under arrest. Nimuul further revealed that the republic could do nothing to stop things, as there was no republic anymore, only the Tirolian Empire.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#3 (fb) - BTS) - Arla joined the Underground to oppose Nimuul and the Empire's tyranny.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#3 - BTS) <1697 A.L. (Aeon Lanack)> - After Zor had returned home, seen the new empire and his imprisoned father, he worked desperately to prove the potential energy of the Flower of Life.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#3 (fb) - BTS) - Disguised as an
Imperial Officer, Arla spent days looking through the complex to find Zor.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#3) - Arla located Zor, and the two
embraced, after which she revealed that she had joined the Underground to
fight the terrible thing that had happened to their people, their
government and their way of life. Stating that now was the time for all
true Tiresians to come to the aid of their world, she asked Zor to join
them. When he told her he could not, she asked why he would make himself a
willing part of this, and when he told her that she knew, she told him
that they were just using his father against him, and that he could fight
them. However, following his father's advice to work with the government
to spare others' suffering, he told her that all would be redressed in
time, but that he had not the means at present.
Arla then asked about his new energy source and told Zor that the
rebellion was hoping to use this new technology to fight against Nimuul's
empire. Zor worried that she was more interested in this than him, but
when she kissed him, he seemed to be reassured that she loved him. He told
her that he was going to make everything right, and that he just needed
time and the power. As she prepared to depart, she told him that she
thought that right now he needed some sleep; she told him that she would
be in touch and made him promise to get some rest.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#3 - BTS) - Dreaming, Zor's will helped him understand the secret of the Flowers of Life.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#4 - BTS) - After Zor had unlocked
the power of protoculture for the Elders, it was used to rejuvenate Tirol,
and then Nimuul pressed Zor to use the power to create clone slaves as
well as giant Zentraedi clones, which were put to work on mining ore on
Fantoma.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#4) - When Arla and others opposed the use of clones, Nimuul sent the royal clone guard to eliminate the opposition. Arla fled the assault.
At a subsequent meeting of the Underground, Zor's potential assistance vs. his continued creation of weapons for the masters was discussed. Arla advised them that while she had not seen Zor in months, he had said that he would help them. When she advised that if they could free Zol, Zor would be free to join them, the Underground resolved to liberate Zol.
However, the Underground's weapons proved to be no match for the clone army, and Arla and her allies were forced to retreat.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#4 (fb) - BTS) - Considering that the
Underground would continue to attack in an effort to free Zol as long as
he lived, Nimuul apparently had Zol slain.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#4) - The Underground subsequently
resolved that the only way to stop the masters was to cut off their power
at its source and destroy the Science Institute. Arla argued that Zor
worked at the Institute and was a helpless pawn of the masters, but the
Underground's leader told her that for the good of Tirol, they would need
to destroy the Science Institute, even if Zor died with it.
Arla subsequently rushed to the Science Institute to warn Zor. When she reached him and explained what was happening, Zor prepared to stop them, but they both fled before the returning Zentraedi.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#5 (fb) - BTS) - The Zentraedi put
down the rebellion, and Zor and Arla were separated during the crackdown.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#5 - BTS) - Zor considered that Arla
had been right and that he should have joined the rebellion but that now
it seemed to be too late. He hoped that Arla was alright, wherever she
was.
<88 A.R. (Aeon Robotech)> The depletion of energy used in putting the rebellion led Nimuul to force Zor to return to Optera with a group of Zentraedi to harvest all of their Flowers of Life. Following a mental contact with Regiss of the Invid, Zor left them with one sector of flowers. The Invid sought revenge for this assault.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#6 - BTS) - After returning to Tirol
and giving the Flowers of Life to the empire, Zor asked for the release of
his father in return for all they had done for him, at which point Nimuul
revealed that Zol was dead.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#6) - Arla located Zor at the
Imperial Science Institute, telling him that the resistance had been wiped
out. When he told her that Nimuul had ordered him on another mission
off-planet, she begged him not to go, telling him that every time he had
left, things had gotten worse. When he told her that he had to go, she
asked him to take her with him as she couldn't live there without him.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#6 - BTS) - Zor subsequently devised
the means to strip the Empire of the Protoculture, the power of the
Flowers, and then to destroy his records and the Flowers themselves.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#6) - Zor revealed what he had done to Arla and shared his plans to take her with him to the Super Dimensional Fortress in orbit and then to the stars beyond. As they departed, however, they were confronted by Vard, a former old friend who had remained loyal to the Empire. Ultimately, Vard fired on Zor, and Arla pushed Zor out of the way, taking the fatal blast herself. The enraged Zor blasted and slew Vard.
(Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor#6 - BTS) - After traveling to the Super Dimensional Fortress, Zor departed with it, and he seeded numerous worlds with the Flower of Life.
Tirol was attacked and presumably devastated by the
Invid, who also attacked an outpost on which Zor had stopped, apparently
slaying him as well.
Comments: Created by John & Jason Waltrip as part of Eternity Comics, a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group.
Courtesy of Loki, who suggested Arla to represent Robotech for the event:
Robotech started as a cartoon in 1985, a co-production between Harmony Gold USA and Tatsunoko Production. Like Battle of the Planets (originally in Japan Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) before it, it was a redubbed anime, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and was about humans piloting giant robots (mecha) to battle giant aliens known as the Zentraedi. Trouble was, for daily run syndication a show needed 65 episodes minimum (allowing it to run five days a week for 13 weeks without repeats), and Macross only had 36. So Tatsunoko took another series they had produced that had giant robots (Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross) and redubbed it as a continuation of the prior series. To explain the sudden change in, well, everything, they explained that it was fifteen years after the war with the Zentraedi, the robots had been upgraded to new designs, and the old cast of human characters replaced by their successors - younger siblings, children, etc. A new foe had arisen, the "Robotech Masters." Southern Cross only lasted 24 episodes, leaving the US Robotech still short of their required 65 minimum, so a third Tatsunoko anime, Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, was drafted in to fill the gap. Another time jump, new humans and tech, and a new alien foe, the Invids. This got them beyond their 65 episode requirement (up to 85 in fact).
Following the series they did a movie in 1986 (using footage from yet another unrelated anime), attempted to do a sequel series in 1988 - Robotech II: The Sentinels - which only got 3 episodes made out of a planned 65 before it got canceled thanks to financial issues arising, and then it lay quiet until 2002 when Harmony Gold announced a new movie, which eventually came out in 2006. The 2002 date is relevant because it retroactively impacted the comics. And there was another movie in 2013, but it's not important for this discussion.
There have been a ton of Robotech comics. The first, from DC, isn't actually related to the cartoon. Just like Shogun Warriors toys were originally Japanese toys based on unrelated anime that got repacked for the States as if they were all part of the same mythos, in 1984 a company, Revell, licensed the rights to release another bunch of disparate toys and called them Robotech Warriors. As far as I can tell, it's purely by coincidence that Harmony Gold had hit on the same name (if they released the cartoon in 1985 they were probably working on it the year before, prior to the toys hitting the shelves). Ironically, some of the Revell toys originated from the same initial anime Harmony Gold was working with too, Macross. DC had a tie-in comic to the Revell toys, only intended to be a three issue miniseries, but it sold so badly that they canceled it after two issues. Some legal shenanigans ensued between Revell and Harmony Gold over the Robotech name, which ended with them agreeing to co-licensing - Revell could have the toys, Harmony Gold the series, including comics.
In terms of Robotech proper, the licensed comics started at Comico (1985 to 1989), which overlapped the next licensee Eternity (Malibu - 1988 to 1994), which segued into Academy Comics (1994-1996, with Eternity's ongoing series carrying straight over without changing numbering), then Antarctic Press (1996 to 1998). Then the license was unused until 2002, when the new movie was announced and Wildstorm took up the comics (2002-2010); additionally, at this point Harmony Gold announced that they were partially setting aside the canonicity of the prior licensed spin-offs (not just comics but novels, RPGs, etc) AND the movie and the three Robotech II episodes - basically, the original cartoon is absolute canon, and everything else is still kind of canon unless and until something new comes along that contradicts it. Following Wildstorm the license went to Dynamite (2013-2015) and then Titan (2017 to present).
Earth-48123 Seeking peaceful energy solutions via the Flowers of Life, the Tirolian Zor unwittingly provoked the Opteran Invid to become conquerors and allowed his own people to create the giant warrior Zentraedi. Earth came under successive waves of alien attacks, and humanity defended itself using giant human-piloted robots (mecha). Macross #1 (1984)
This profile was
completed 03/08/2026, but
its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th
anniversary 's celebratory event.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Arla should be distinguished from:
Robotech
Genesis Cards - Arla------------------------------------------------->First posted: 09/21/2026
Last updated: 04/16/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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