Marvel US comic marathon

Hook2 · Post by **Hook2** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 1:18 am

I would rather have the scraplets kill them than spike!!!

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 10:32 am

The Man in the Machine harks back to those human-centric stories Bob used to churn out during his early run with varying degrees of success. It also marks the official passing of the baton from Buster to Spike as the lead supporting human character. We'll never see Buster again. I like to think he and Jessie settled down and brought up a whole litter of stupidly-named kids (Rover, Tigger, Gearstick and Zap no doubt).

The idea behind this story is a good one. Exactly how do you follow life as a Headmaster? You can't blame Spike for giving up the Autobot cause... his motives are selfish, but human. It does make me wonder about the practicalities though. If Spike now has a metal skeleton he must play havoc with the metal detector machines at customs. And weigh a ton. Does he have scars? Bet he has some impressive bendy moves in the bedroom...

The image of a headless Fortress Maximus gathering dust on the Ark is both a creepy and a sad one. The rather sweet psychological twist that the pit in Spike's dream is actually Fort Max's mouth (Freud would have a field day with that) is nicely done, and Delbo doesn't cheat - looking back on the issue you can see that was what he was drawing from the start.

The Pretender Beasts are run of the mill baddies, and Carnivac is nothing more than a boorish foot soldier compared to the nuanced character in the UK run (this story clashes a little - but not a lot - with the Time Wars/Survivors storyline).

Carnivac also mentions the Space Bridge. So that ol' hunk o' junk is still going then...

Best First wrote: This is one of those stories that i wonder how much better it would be had Senior drawn it (which admittedly is true of almost all stories Senior did not draw).

I imagine the hand waving obliteration would have been a lot more compelling.

It would probably have looked something like this.

http://transfans.co.uk/popup.php?id=1575

Yaya wrote:Having said that, looking back, had there really been an Underbase housing that kind of power, that's pretty much how it might have really gone down. No uplifting speeches or honorable defiant last words from Blaster or Omega, just ZAP!!. You're dead. Next! I guess it was nice in that sense, that there was some actual realism to things, that it somehow mirrors real life in that the best of people often go out with a whimper.

Nicely said. The deaths here are at best perfunctory, at worst stupid. No one dies gloriously... but then, who in real life ever does?

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 1:47 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:I like to think he and Jessie settled down and brought up a whole litter of stupidly-named kids (Rover, Tigger, Gearstick and Zap no doubt).

spiderfrommars wrote:
It would probably have looked something like this.

http://transfans.co.uk/popup.php?id=1575

The sheer amount of awesome memorabilia you UK guys have that I would kill for...

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:45 pm

That might be the single greatest cover I've ever seen.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:46 pm

Statistically, it's been proven that any one persons life would be a minimum of 75% more awesome if drawn by Geoff Senior.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 11:56 am

Guess Who the Meccanibals are Having for Dinner marked the point in the UK comic when the editor in all his (lack of) wisdom decided to spread the US stories over 4 issues instead of 2. It really worked against the pacing of the scripts.

Still, coming to this afresh after awhile I see no real signs that Bob had given up. He's written this sort of stuff before, and worse (Cosmic Carnival). He gets plenty of mileage out of the Pretender concept (it's how the 'bots are able to infiltrate the space station, fool the Mecannibals and (eventually next issue) become *gulp* objects of desire. And it's all wrapped up in a story that continues in the fallout of the Underbase saga, as the 'bots seek to fix their fallen comrades.

Cloudburst and Landmine are a cliched double act (the former goes by the book, the latter the opposite) but it works. And it's funny how just removing their helmets in this story helps us see them as characters and not toys.

Okay, so Landmine isn't much more than a Han Solo type but Bob is mining Star Wars for all it's worth in this story, with the opening stealing wholesale from the Mos Eisley cantina scene. And in amongst all the silliness it's pretty dark - that poor C3PO-alike robot gets thrown out into space (robot apartheid!) and then eaten alive. And our heroes do absolutely nothing to help him. Twice!

And the Mechanicals make amusing baddies (with an original look, designed by Sir Bob himself) in small doses. Delbo's having fun too, realising the myriad of aliens on the space station.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 8:39 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:Delbo's having fun too, realising the myriad of aliens on the space station.

Again, all or most of them being Transformer sized and not human sized. Continuing the trend begun in the Cosmic Carnival, and to be continued in the Matrix Quest.

Thankfully, next issue is the last time we see Berko, so the aliens won't seem so immediately large from now on. No offense to Berko, even if he was so drunk he couldn't tell these 'humans' were several times taller than him and spoke with mechanical voices.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 9:23 pm

Excreting microchips is a very useful skill.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 10:04 pm

I remember enjoying the Meccanibals story quite a bit. Perhaps that was because the second part helped to bring on puberty. "Where I come from there are no men, and no women, and no mates!"

US#51-55 gets a pretty bad rap, but even "King Con" wasn't too bad, especially as it was one of Bob's cheesy movie homages a la the Car Wash of Doom. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.

Bet he has some impressive bendy moves in the bedroom...

"They don't call me the leader of the Headmasters for nothing, baby."

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:32 am

bumblemusprime wrote: US#51-55 gets a pretty bad rap, but even "King Con" wasn't too bad, especially as it was one of Bob's cheesy movie homages a la the Car Wash of Doom. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.

I'm well up for giving these issues a re-evaluation. Bob's heart may not have been in it anymore but he was professional to the last. I'm not saying this was scintillating stuff - but my point is that Bob's stuff rarely was.

And I enjoyed Recipe for Disaster. Cloudburst duping the Meccanibals into letting them fetch additional garnishing before being eaten is hilarious. In fact this issue is Cloudburst's turn to shine and he becomes the first Transformer in history to nearly get raped by a randy Amazonian princess.

The scene where she gets all Mrs Robinson on the Autobot Pretender is as creepy and as funny as you would want it to be. Cloudburst's reaction is completely logical, and his statement of there being "no men, no women, no mates" on Cybertron should be music to the ears to the anti-fembot brigade.

And then he gets decapitated! It led to a bit of discussion on the UK letters page - if Cloudburst could survive such an injury then why couldn't Cyclonus?

It also means we get a great piece of dialogue:

Landmine: Y'know, for a woman she's not bad.
Cloudburst: Yes, she is a very compassionate, caring woman.
Landmine: No, I mean anyone who can lop your head off with one blow is okay by me.

The conclusion to the story is one of Bob's tidiest ever too. Sky Lynx saves the day, the robots are recycled and the Mecannibals turn on Dreadwind and Darkwing. All in a day's work.

And there's a moral! Judge a person by their character and not the substance of their skin. Remember that kids!

Some additional musings:

Transformers appear to be able to translate most other languages.
Cloudburst has clothes under his Pretender armour. Maybe they're not bad disguises after all (though I dread to think what kind of underwear Bomb Burst wears).
Landmine mentions Sharkticons suggesting the TFs have come across the Quintessons in this continuity.
Whatever happened to Sky Lynx after this?
Femax sounds more like a brand of tampon than an alien planet.

That is all.

Rebis wrote:Again, all or most of them being Transformer sized and not human sized. Continuing the trend begun in the Cosmic Carnival, and to be continued in the Matrix Quest.

Yep, there were plenty of giant humans in the original run. Thankfully this was stamped out by G2 and the Transformers could retake their place at the top of the pecking order.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:20 pm

spidey wrote:he becomes the first Transformer in history to nearly get raped by a randy Amazonian princess.

No doubt Prime awarded him a medal when he got home, eh?

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:11 pm

spidey wrote:he becomes the first Transformer in history to nearly get raped by a randy Amazonian princess.

Y'know. Never really wondered about it before but do you think the 'Pretender process' has given them the equipment for that?

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:35 pm

Legion wrote:
spidey wrote:he becomes the first Transformer in history to nearly get raped by a randy Amazonian princess.
Y'know. Never really wondered about it before but do you think the 'Pretender process' has given them the equipment for that?

Can't imagine the conversation the Decepticon Pretenders had about it:

"Mine has prongs! Awesome!"

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:38 pm

Skullgrin always seemed pretty horny.

And come to think of it, he did seem to enjoy having his horn polished didn't he? Perhaps his outer shell was based on a species that didn't keep their genitals in the same place?

Though I'm not a fan of those last Bob issues, I do like the slightly more sensible use of Pretender tech, by presenting at least some of the wider Universe as ******* hating robots they have an excuse to take on organic disguises.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 5:21 pm

This is the one thing I like about Masterforce- Pretender shells that could shrink. Would make sense to blend in with a variety of humanoids.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:25 am

So King 'Con... what do you think came first.. the title or the plot?

Not a bad looking issue. Some of Delbo's best work, probably helped by the moody inks.

Ol' Bob was introducing swathes of new characters right up to the very end. Here we get 8 new ones... and they're Micromasters! I like the dinky little guys. Their backchat to Prime feels a little overdone (overcompensating no doubt) but overall I like their attitude. And the idea of TFs downsizing to conserve energy makes perfect sense.

*shudder* I just had a flashback to Dreamwave's Micromasters mini. Dark days.

I like the way Iguanus takes the piss out of Skullgrin for Monstercon from Mars. He deserves it. But later Skullgrin doesn't want to kill Cecilia. So is he a fleshling lover or is he just being expedient?

Nice to see the Micros have mannequin drivers. Nicely harks all the way back to Rock and Roll Out.

I kind of felt sorry for Iguanus in the end. There's something quite pathetic about the way he goes "Nooooo" before grabbing the maguffin and getting fried by lightning.

What an abrupt ending! In the space of a couple of panels Roadhandler and co decide to ditch Prime and become Cecilia's best friend. Unconvincing.

bumblemusprime wrote:
Legion wrote:
spidey wrote:he becomes the first Transformer in history to nearly get raped by a randy Amazonian princess.
Y'know. Never really wondered about it before but do you think the 'Pretender process' has given them the equipment for that?
Can't imagine the conversation the Decepticon Pretenders had about it:

"Mine has prongs! Awesome!"

TMI.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:03 pm

The title totally came first.

After that conversation on Pretender anatomy, I hereby forbid the term "came first" from the rest of this conversation.

I loved King Con when it came out, possibly because my parents acquiesced and bought me all the Micromaster patrols. They cost a mere six bucks and I got four transformers, so it was a pretty easy way to fill a shoebox with toys.

Delbo really did improve around this point. He's no Senior, but his work on the Back From The Dead arc and his swan song on Rhythms of Darkness are quite dynamic and dark.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 5:20 pm

He was always... fine. Not especially dynamic, and yeah, maybe a little too literal in his following of the style guides... but he was fine. Every once in awhile, you could tell he was having fun with a script and he turned up his efforts a little. Perfectly competent artist.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 6:43 pm

The Micromaster's are just insanely dull characters. The only notable thing any one of them has is the long range fisting ability.

Post by **Kaylee** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 6:49 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:The Micromaster's are just insanely dull characters. The only notable thing any one of them has is the long range fisting ability.

I need to find a way to distill your essence down to an algorithm then use it to start a 'generate a sig' service

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 9:13 pm

DJ_Convoy wrote:He was always... fine. Not especially dynamic, and yeah, maybe a little too literal in his following of the style guides... but he was fine. Every once in awhile, you could tell he was having fun with a script and he turned up his efforts a little. Perfectly competent artist.

Rhythms was definitely him turning it up. Although it would have been better by Senior, it was far better than I expected from Delbo.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 11:03 pm

Except for jheri-curl Spike.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 12:59 pm

The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship sees Bob Budiansky do some of the interior art! Guess he wanted to leave the title with a flourish.

I like the idea of the Micromasters basically being crimefighting superheroes in New York. It's only touched on here but would have made a more interesting story than the one we got.

Instead we get Roadhandler becoming a wrestling superstar and for some reason Zarak sees it as worth his while entering his own contestant to take him on.

It's mildly diverting but insubstantial and ultimately a bit stupid. None of the characters come out of this well - and for that we have to blame the writer.

Still, Roadhandler's got some cojones to diss Optimus Prime on live TV!

At one point Stormcloud says he's only going along with Zarak's plan because it suits his purpose. Is that because he's working for Megatron? How closely did Bob and Simon work on the handover?

Scorponok's robot mode is drawn differrently this issue. Am I missing something or is it an art error? (I never had the toy - too expensive).

inflatable dalek wrote:The Micromaster's are just insanely dull characters.

I dunno. A few stood out from the crowd. Stormcloud.. Whisper... Roadhandler... Blackjack.

I think the problem was that there were so many of them so the potential for giving them decent character development was limited.

DJ_Convoy wrote:Except for jheri-curl Spike.

Even at the time I thought that was one tragic hair do.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 3:27 pm

To be fair, most of the Micros never get any screen time or anything remotely resembling a personality until MTMTE.

And even then.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:54 pm

The wrestling issue was pretty wretched, according to eight-year-old Spencie. No doubt thirty-year-old Spencie would like it for cheese value.

Eight-year-old Spencie was quite ready and willing to get Back From The Dead. Remember, this was the THIRTIETH issue of the US run without Megatron. I just... oh, the awesome within Back From The Dead cannot be spoken. Not to mention that Simon played to his great instinct for creating character sympathy. What a ****** situation Ratchet was in! Thirty-something comatose patients, all friends, and as a caring doctor he couldn't do anything.

I'm totally ahead of you Spidey. Let it be known that I would never be here on these boards but for Back From The Dead.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:55 am

Ah, Back from the Dead. The change from Bob Budiansky to Simon Furman isn't particularly jarring is it? Yes the dialogue is livelier, the tone a little darker, but with Delbo on hand the switchover is seamless.

However, Furman has picked up the ball of what went before and is running with it already. He puts Prime front and centre (something Bob rarely did), brings in underused characters like Hot Rod and Getaway and reminds us what a class act Ratchet is.

It's also a swifter read (more action! less expositional speech bubbles!) and it goes without saying that the ending is a classic. What a way to give the comic an instant shot in the arm - Megatron is back!

But all in all I'd say Back from the Dead is far from vintage Furman though in a single issue he certainly made his mark.

Hmmm... the fact that the Sports Car Patrol terrorise Ratchet with reanimated Autobots the same day he has a nightmare about it is an outrageous coincidence.

And why is the issue so short? It's dropped from 22 to pages to a paltry 18.

bumblemusprime wrote:Remember, this was the THIRTIETH issue of the US run without Megatron.

Other than The Flames of Boltax of course.

bumblemusprime wrote:oh, the awesome within Back From The Dead cannot be spoken.

From a UK perspective I'm not so sure it was that awesome. Sure, it was a lot better than its immediate predecessors but the UK run was having a slight renaissance at this point (albeit in black and white). Deathbringer, the Carnivac saga and Demons were really epic stories in small 5 page chunks.

Funnily enough the editorial page proclaimed proudly something like: "Simon Furman is now writing for the Americans! Here's to continuity at last!" And yes, the two strips were in sync more than ever for about 20 issues before ironically splitting apart for good.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 2:30 pm

It was 18 pages because they started filling the back of the comic with the new Universe profiles Budiansky (or someone) had written in anticipation of a news TF: Universe series that had been kiboshed by Marvel.

Funny that this seemed subpar in the UK. It was the best issue eight-year-old Spencie read in years.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:11 pm

bumblemusprime wrote:Funny that this seemed subpar in the UK. It was the best issue eight-year-old Spencie read in years.

Probably part of the reason was due to the dun-dun-dunn! of Megatron's return being lessened by his (well, Straxatron's, anyway) continued appearances in the UK material in the intervening period.

Post by **Best First** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:42 pm

Yeah they wuz all like "Megatron is back!!!!"

N we wuz all like "from, where, the shops? aiiight".

more or less that is exactly how it went down.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:45 pm

I seem to remember an angry letter in the US comic taking issue with Megatron being "back" as he'd been back for ages in the UK book. The editor was like "Yep, you're right."

Imagine the crushed reaction: "But- but- I was RIIIIGHHHHT!"