From Losers to Glory-A Gundam Wing Special-Part 9

Previously:

The flawless Duo Maxwell got a volume pretty much all to himself: got to meet his kind of sort of girlfriend from the Anime (Hilde), got to unleash Deathsythe Hell on Wing Zero (While Deathsythe H channeled it’s inner unleashed Evangelion Unit 01), and it looks like the next volume of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz-Glory of the Losers is gonna see Duo getting to do something he never got a chance to in the Anime: take a shot at the former Lightning Count himself, Zechs Merquise.

Vol.9 (Episodes 33-34)

In the Anime:

The Mobile Doll Virgos of the Romafeller Foundation overwhelm the Treize Faction and push them back to Treize’s Headquarters in Luxembourg.  Heero, finding peace in the Sanc Kingdom not much to his liking, departs to join in the battle.  The Wing Gundam is crippled but Heero manages to escape to Treize’s mansion and meet the former OZ leader face to face.  Treize gifts Heero with the newly built Gundam Epyon.  Heero learns too late once he is in the field that Epyon possess a Zero System similar to the one found in the Wing Zero.  The Wing Zero ends up falling into the hands of Zechs in space, sacrificing the Tallgeese in the process.

In the Manga:

•  Volume opens with the first fall of the Sanc Kingdom.  We see that it was Darlin and Pagan who saved Relena.  Relena and Zech’s father dies holding his wife in his arms.
• In space, Duo and Hilde battle Zechs and manage to overwhelm his Tallgeese.  Before they can finish him, Howard contacts Duo and offers to help him finish Deathsythe Hell in exchange for bringing in the damaged Wing Zero.  In the end, Duo hands over Wing Zero but declines to join up with Howard and Zechs and flies off with Hilde.  In the Anime, Zechs battles Wufei in a similar fashion using Wing Zero while trying to recruit him to Peacemillion.
• Dorothy meets with Treize, who reveals his lack of faith in Relena’s abilities and his intentions to pass a completed Gundam Epyon to Heero.  In the Anime, Treize and Dorothy never meet.
• By the time Noin finds Heero on Earth, Heero and Quatre have parted ways, with Quatre presumably headed back to the Middle East to recruit the Maguanac Corps once again.
•  While Howard is working on repairing Tallgeese, the Zero System in Wing Zero activates and shows Zechs his complete history, including a vision of the future in which the Endless Waltz model of Wing Zero (now sporting the wings of Tallgeese) plays a hand in devastating the Sanc Kingdom. 
•  Rather than completing it’s repairs, Tallgeese is stripped and sealed away in a vault by Zechs, rather than it being destroyed as in the Anime.
• Heero’s Wing Gundam has been given a new Buster Rifle by Noin, the Drei Zwerg.  It is destroyed in battle just before Heero departs for Luxemburg.
• While on route to Luxemburg, Heero is contacted by Dorothy, who hints that a gift is waiting for him at his destination.  When Heero takes too much damage in battle, Dorothy pleads for him not to self destruct.  As it turns out, Dorothy is there at Luxemburg with Treize, who further asks Heero not to die in battle.

So it looks like we’re back to covering just a couple episodes worth of Anime material again and I wonder if this is gonna be the norm for the rest of this mangas run.  Still, doesn’t mean we cant do things a little differently, even if we’re not taking full advantage of creating a more impactful alternate reality like in earlier volumes.  Duo’s fight with Zechs is brief but totally bad ass and one worthy of these two fan favs from Gundam Wing.  Naturally, the real takeaway from this is the overall fate of the Tallgeese.  In the Anime it was sacrificed by Zechs just so he could get Wing Zero.  But with the model just being heavily damaged and stored away, it sets up two things: one, we know where the certain Wing augments for a certain Gundam are gonna come from; and two it’s likely that the OG Tallgeese is going to be used as the basis for Tallgeese III…which we’ll likely never see because I don’t think we’re going to go into Endless Waltz itself, which is a shame, God what if Noin got her hands on that baby and used it in the finale?  Anyway, connecting Dorothy and Treize is an interesting combo im surprised the Anime never attempted.  Both are fascinated with the beauty of battle and dying honorably in combat, it’s a wonder Dorothy was never made out to be a Treize Kushrenada fan girl.  It gives the impression that Dorothy being so close to Relena and feeding Treize info on her actions and plans could better set up his eventual coup d’etat, but Treize is well informed enough as is.  Idk, maybe Dorothy is here to replace Lady Une so Treize can have a cute girl at his side at all times.  One thing is absolutely certain: no matter how you tell the story of Gundam Wing, the unveiling of Epyon is always gonna be awesome.

Next time, Epyon rides into battle with Heero in the saddle.  Will Wing Zero become the Endless Waltz beauty we all know and love and will it reach the Sanc Kingdom in time this time?  Maybe it will, maybe it wont, either way I’m sure the fate of the Sanc Kingdom will still be the same.  Check back next Friday for another chapter of From Losers to Glory: A Gundam Wing Special.