Perhaps because it's fresh in mind, but I liked this issue more than any single episode I can remember of either version of the show! From 1980, Battlestar: Galactica #16, "Berserker" Plot and script by Roger McKenzie, plot assist by Bob Layton, art and colors by Walt Simonson.
Still on the run from the Cylons, the Galactica and the surviving fleet are in desperate need of fuel; and Adama reluctantly sets to order a geologist team to check out a planet described as "one huge active volcano." Before that happens, a Cylon satellite orbiting the planet sends out an alarm, which the Galactica can block temporarily, at the cost of interfering with their own communications. A Viper patrol is sent to destroy it (interestingly, and suspiciously, there's no one we know in that patrol...) but finds it too easy. Scanning, they discover the satellite is booby-trapped: destroying it would set off an explosive charge in the planet, destroying it and still warning the Cylons. The satellite would have to be disarmed first, so the demolition team is sent in. One member notes none of them have any experience, except "Master-Tech Shadrack," who I think was a recurring character in this stretch of comics but I don't think was from the show. They may have needed a Scotty-type, though. As the shuttle launches, Apollo realizes they wouldn't be able to contact the Viper patrol or Galactica, and takes another patrol after it.
Before reaching the satellite, the shuttle is attacked, by a murderously powerful fighter. The first Viper patrol is already gone, and the mystery fighter guns down the rest until only Apollo remains. And even he gets shot up, with the enemy pilot snarkily taunting him! Meanwhile, Shadrack and his team work on the satellite, which is full of deadly traps.
About to crash land, Apollo has to pull a desperate trick perhaps more Starbuck's speed: blow his canopy, then blast the fighter with his sidearm! Both ships crash, but both pilots survive, with the enemy revealed to be a Cylon--Mark III! A Mark III Imperator series, he explains chattily: you get the feeling he's grateful to have someone to talk to, even as he tries to kill Apollo. III explains he and his prototype brethren were feared and exiled for being too ambitious, but with a faster-than-light ship he could return to take the Cylon Empire from the Imperious Leader. On the run and out of breath in the volcanic craters, it's not helping that Apollo emptied his laser shooting down the Mark III, but he still has a plan: feign injury, lure him into a snare, and dump his metal ass into the lava!
By then, Shadrack had disarmed and destroyed the satellite; which was probably there to keep III there more than anything. Apollo contacts Galactica for pickup for himself and his surviving pilots; and they spend a couple weeks mining fuel from the planet. Sometime after that, a figure emerges from the lava; the Mark III lives! And while the humans may be gone, there were several wrecked Vipers for him to salvage: he had already waited a thousand years--er, 'yahrens'--for revenge, this would take no time at all. III was pretty talky for a Cylon, but I guess with Lucifer there was a precedent.
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