Marvel US comic marathon

[spiderfrommars]

and now we know who the TF life signal in two parts mentioned a few issues ago is.

But Snarl said the tf´s life signal was in two parts in Earth. And Fort´s body was in the Ark with them.

Half life signal would be more accurate?

Or its that every master "carries" every tf lifesignal with them and HiQ fate would be everyone´s at the end?

Well you're 'The Last Autobot'. You should know.

Maybe Spike is one signal and the helmet (the link with Fort Max) is the other?

Or maybe one signal was actually the body of Max aboard the Ark which deflected back off the original signal and multiplied it?

Spike doesn't like it when you call him a half life.

[Sunyavadin]

I always thought that was Ratchet and Megatron. The only two TFs there who weren't completely deactivated, just in suspension till they could fix them.

[The Last Autobot]

I always thought that was Ratchet and Megatron. The only two TFs there who weren't completely deactivated, just in suspension till they could fix them.

They were also in The Ark, and Snarl was reffering to the Earth.

Maybe Spike is one signal and the helmet (the link with Fort Max) is the other?

Only Spike remained in Earth as a human withouth any suit or helmet (which were in the Ark).

Or maybe one signal was actually the body of Max aboard the Ark which deflected back off the original signal and multiplied it?

This could be. Its either that or there was another tf life signal in 2 parts in Earth who we will find out in 20 years...

Spike doesn't like it when you call him a half life.

Half transformer life signal


And by the way, aside from Spike did any other headmaster spoke with his Tf like him in the US? All the other looked like they were just humans replacing the Tfs (the more prominent example would be Zarak) and somewhat using their experiences and all.

[Sunyavadin]

Maybe PTD Galvatron?

[Kaylee]

Yeah, she only went and helped the Transformers defeat Unicron, and her fate is left in the dark. Makes you wonder why the palaver of bringing her back in The Human Factor when nothing new was done with her.

According to the TFWiki she was going to be a main character in the Neo Knights comic, which thankfully got shelved. I suppose the plan was to ressurrect her over the course of that.

Kinda cute idea but there was nothing special about them enough to deserve a whole comic.

[spiderfrommars]

Issue 80! Or, as I experienced it back at the end of '91 and the start of '92... issues 331 and 332. I didn't know 332 was the final issue until I read the editor's note on page 2. I could've cried! Noooooo!

With the End of the Road the hope is that Furman and the team will sign off the G1 comic with a bona fide classic. Sadly what we get is a rather rushed affair that suggests to me that there were some last minute rewrites.

It starts really well. There's some shocking scenes of Autobots getting slaughtered. Getaway gets blown to pieces and poor Siren gets beheaded off panel. As a mangled Wheeljack is about to be put out of his misery it's almost too much to bear.

There's only five Autobots left and it's all because of Grimlock's first major gaff since taking over the leadership. He leads the Autobots into a deadly ambush and the odds are stacked up. Add to this a rabid Fangry and other Decepticon hunters on their trail and things look very, very bad for our heroes.

But the tide turns, all too quickly, and before we're halfway through you can already tell the Autobots are going to make it out of this one.

First the Neo Knights turn up, soon followed by Optimus Prime in a pretty cheesy scene with dialogue exchanges like "It can't be!" "It can. It is. Optimus Prime is back!" Is this the same Furman that's just delivered the poetic A Savage Circle and the thrilling The Last Autobot?

But full marks for giving the Last Autobot a spaceship mode and the face of the Autobot insignia. It begs the question though... who is the Decepticon badge based upon?

It's pretty funny when we see Stranglehold's fantasy. Apparently he dreams about drinking wine whilst being draped over by nubile bikini-clad women. (Later Squeezeplay gets the Rapture treatment but we don't see what he was thinking about - answers on a postcard).

Bludgeon turns out to be quite the religious fanatic, as he orders his troops to "Destroy the unbeliever!" after Prime makes blasphemous remarks about The Ultimate Warrior who he has apparently studied all his life.

Prime's a bit smug and violent here. He punches one Decepticon's head in completely. Ow. Then in the space of one big splash page the Decepticons are duffed over and the Autobots have won. Oh.

It's a nice touch that Bludgeon first appears to admit defeat honourably and go into exile (he looks ridiculous with a broken helmet by the way) and then whispers to Stranglehold that they'll be back to fight another day.

But dear me, it all wraps up in the blink of an eye. There's not really the sense of the love and care so typical of this era of the comic. Though the "Brought to you with lumps in throat by..." is very sweet.

Maybe PTD Galvatron?

Hmmm... shouldn't the Nucleon have woken him up too?

Only Spike remained in Earth as a human withouth any suit or helmet (which were in the Ark).

Nah, I think we saw him driving home with the helmet at the end of Man in the Machine.

According to the TFWiki she was going to be a main character in the Neo Knights comic, which thankfully got shelved. I suppose the plan was to ressurrect her over the course of that.

In this issue there's a tiny speck in one of the last panels that I think is GB Blackrock and Circuit Breaker's only appearance. And to think they were supposedly heading for their own title!

[Sunyavadin]

Hmmm... shouldn't the Nucleon have woken him up too?

Because a Nucleon-powered Galvatron would totally be good for everyone.

Come to think of it - outside of Wrecking Havoc and T:2006 did we ever see him transform anyway?

[spiderfrommars]

Come to think of it - outside of Wrecking Havoc and T:2006 did we ever see him transform anyway?

Cannon mode? Sure. Gun mode? Not so much.

[Sunyavadin]

Trying to remember him using his cannon mode...

One frame in Fallen Angel, likewise in Burning Sky. Next we see of him doing it isn't till Altered Image, if I recall correctly. That's 16 months without! Then we have Time Wars, Aspects of Evil, Perchance to Dream, all go by without it. It's not till Rhythms of Darkness, 2 years on, that we see him do it again. I sincerely doubt this is a Transformer anyone would NOTICE being an Action Master

[DJ_Convoy]

All things considered (the abruptness, the almost literal deus ex machina and so on), I think End of the Road is a pretty good ending. Optimus and Grimlock, back to back, taking out 'Cons warms the cockles of my now dead heart.

[The Last Autobot]

Only Spike remained in Earth as a human withouth any suit or helmet (which were in the Ark).

Nah, I think we saw him driving home with the helmet at the end of Man in the Machine.

I saw that too, but he told Fort in issue 79 "When I handed back the control Helmet". So it looks like he did it off panel.


Issues 79 and 80 were the first comics I bought (in english, I had the first 24 issues in spanish) from a local comic book shop who had almost all of them. I bought them first because I thought they would be the first ones to go If someone found them. And started to buy the rest from that moment (at the end I was the only one who bought all of them, back in 1998).

I liked all the feeling of this final issue, it felt rushed but I appreciated a couple of bits of it.

Looks right to me that among the 5 survivors were 4 that I could say had a very important role through the series. And that although Furman Blaster wasn´t too much "himself" he received a kind of lethal attack and continued functioning and fighting like Budiansky´s would.

The Last Autobot impacted me a lot, and because of that I picked my nick. He seemed just larger than life.

What I didnt like is that the final pic of "all the autobots" seemed way too minimal. A more deserving one would be the final G2 issue With Prime addresing all the Autobots and Decepticons.

[bumblemusprime]

End of the Road was such a big disappointment to me. It was obvious that Furman had rushed a lot of things, and introduced the Last Autobot as a MacGuffin to fix everything. I actually wrote a new version to satisfy myself, with some kind of reborn Primus cosmic baby thing, as if the bath of Matrix energy in Edge of Extinction started his life cycle over. Circuit Breaker stumbles onto Cosmic Power Baby and it picks up her emotional vibes. It promptly blows Shockwave up, since he's the one who fried her in the first place. Excess cosmic power spume falls onto Megatron and Galvatron and merges them into uber-Megatron, and HiQ turns into Prime with some additional cosmic power spume.

Then they fight. I wasn't really sure where I was going from there. But it made me happier to imagine it ending that way.

[spiderfrommars]

Looking back... 80 issues of a robot toy comic... that's pretty good. I can't imagine Transformers were top of many kids toy lists in 1991. No wonder the comic/cartoon debate used to be so flamey back in the day. We stuck with it! We grew up with it! To the end!

So now I'm wondering about the G1 #81 idea. It would be a much simpler place to carry on. But G2 has its very strong points, so that's what I'll take on now and see if it helps me make up my mind.

But before I do that I have to wade through the Gi-Joe/Transformers crossover that kicked off in Gi Joe 138.

Firstly... 138??? How did they manage to keep going so long? What was their secret? Wikipedia tells me it ended in 155. No doubt this misjudged crossover helped put the boot in.

At least Joe fans could gladly ignore the last crossover if they so wished. I bet they were livid when a big alien robot turned up at the end of the first issue.

Reading it now it's funny the sense of continuity from TF #80 as it's Wildman/Baskerville on art again, though their work appears to have mutated into the 90s style that included plenty of big haired busty ladies. (Interesting that they hardly had anything to do with G2 - too good for TFs now boys, eh?)

When Gi Joe was last the back up strip in the TF UK comic Cobra Commander was dead and his imposter was getting jiggy with the Baroness whilst Serpentor declared a Cobra civil war. Well now Cobra Commander seems to have got back his life (and sense of humour) and there's plenty of new toys running about. If anyone wants to fill me in on what happened inbetween please do.

This issue is pretty much Joe by numbers with one eyebrow-raising part as Snake Eyes stabs Scarlett through her chest to maintain her deep cover. Things brighten up at the end when Megatron turns up for a short cameo.

Realignments is next and it involves Megatron taking on the might of Cobra before doing a deal: a new body in exchange for Cybertronian technology. This looks like but never really feels like the Megatron we saw grappling with Galvatron in TF #78 - Hama writes Transformers like highly evolved computers and nothing more.

But still, we get Megatron with a new tank mode. And he's green. And it works.

So where are Shockwave and Ratchet?

One frame in Fallen Angel, likewise in Burning Sky. Next we see of him doing it isn't till Altered Image, if I recall correctly. That's 16 months without! Then we have Time Wars, Aspects of Evil, Perchance to Dream, all go by without it. It's not till Rhythms of Darkness, 2 years on, that we see him do it again. I sincerely doubt this is a Transformer anyone would NOTICE being an Action Master

Don't forget the movie. It's canon! (or particle canon, if you will).

I saw that too, but he told Fort in issue 79 "When I handed back the control Helmet". So it looks like he did it off panel .

The editor's note refers to issue 51, so the inference is that he's talking about that particular story.

Looks right to me that among the 5 survivors were 4 that I could say had a very important role through the series. And that although Furman Blaster wasn´t too much "himself" he received a kind of lethal attack and continued functioning and fighting like Budiansky´s would.

Agreed. Grimlock, Prowl, Blaster, Kup and Slag felt right somehow. I'd be quite happy reading a comic about their adventures.

[bumblemusprime]

Agreed. Grimlock, Prowl, Blaster, Kup and Slag felt right somehow. I'd be quite happy reading a comic about their adventures.

That would be stellar. Between Prowl's fuddy-duddyness, Grim and Blaster's old rivalry, Slag's sheer lunk-headedness and Kup's experience, that would pretty much be like the Avengers of the TFs: the most powerful heroes in the world if they could only work together.

I thought that the Joe stories were pretty interesting, although not enough for me to pick it up, although some of that had to do with Chris Batista's art (I didn't pick an issue up until #139, I think--still missing the crucial #138).

[Guest]

Firstly... 138??? How did they manage to keep going so long? What was their secret? Wikipedia tells me it ended in 155. No doubt this misjudged crossover helped put the boot in.

I think it's when it went all ninja and became "gi joe featuring SNAKE EYES!!!!"

At least Joe fans could gladly ignore the last crossover if they so wished. I bet they were livid when a big alien robot turned up at the end of the first issue.

It's not that much of an incursion, really. Megatron pops up for a few issues, gets Cobra to fix him and the Ark up, then disappears with it.

Reading it now it's funny the sense of continuity from TF #80 as it's Wildman/Baskerville on art again, though their work appears to have mutated into the 90s style that included plenty of big haired busty ladies. (Interesting that they hardly had anything to do with G2 - too good for TFs now boys, eh?)

When Gi Joe was last the back up strip in the TF UK comic Cobra Commander was dead and his imposter was getting jiggy with the Baroness whilst Serpentor declared a Cobra civil war. Well now Cobra Commander seems to have got back his life (and sense of humour) and there's plenty of new toys running about. If anyone wants to fill me in on what happened inbetween please do.

Lots of things. Basically, when TFUK stopped running it as a back-up story was prior to the original US cross-over. We were that far behind!

In a nutshell, and probably leaving out a few important plot twists (e.g. Firefly, Zartan, etc.):

Destro muscles in with his Iron Grenadiers and takes out Serpentor, having decided to side with Fake Commander and the Baroness and not Serpentor. GI Joe leave because it's clear it's become an internal matter and they have no juristiction on sovereign soil. The original Cobra Commader comes back from the dead, rounds up all the traitors and buries them in that stranded boat, Mindbender included. However, seeing that the cloning process was a good thing, Mindbender is brought back to life to make a few good clones. It's actually Mindbender's escape clause that the tech won't work without him. Cobra Commander then invites all his 'friends' to the Silent Castle for a welcome home party, but instead of getting down to some grooves, he brainwashes them all to serve him again.

Then the Silent Castle transforms and this brings Megatron and Starscream.


What I'd find interesting, is if IDW's continuation of GI Joe regards the G2 crossover and beyond as canon, i.e. when Jhiaxus' ship blew up a city (San Francisco?), is that city blown up in IDW's GI Joe? Then again, knowing IDW, it probably just got rebuilt to exactly the same in the space of an issue.

[inflatable dalek]

GI Joe was the more popular of the two franchises in the States during their original runs, being based on something established from the 60's probably helped it pick up older nostalgic readers who kept up with buying the book after the kids had moved on from the toys as well.

[DJ_Convoy]

Well, what happened in G2 wasn't reflected in Marvel Joe, so no, I don't believe San Fran blew up, there.

[bumblemusprime]

GI Joe was the more popular of the two franchises in the States during their original runs, being based on something established from the 60's probably helped it pick up older nostalgic readers who kept up with buying the book after the kids had moved on from the toys as well.

We also tend to have a cult of vets and soldiers as larger-than-life heroes. The backlash against Vietnam vets has led to a real reverence for fighting guys lately.

[Legion]

Well, what happened in G2 wasn't reflected in Marvel Joe, so no, I don't believe San Fran blew up, there.

So, it was a one-way crossover? nice.

alternatively, the crossover occurred on a separate Joe timeline to the one depicted in the main comic... interesting.

Was the G1 Joe crossover ever mentioned in the Joe ongoing?

[DJ_Convoy]

the original? Ignored by Hama, I believe.

[Guest]

Well, what happened in G2 wasn't reflected in Marvel Joe, so no, I don't believe San Fran blew up, there.

So, it was a one-way crossover? nice.

alternatively, the crossover occurred on a separate Joe timeline to the one depicted in the main comic... interesting.

Not really. G2 was more of a spin-off from their appearances in GI Joe. Also, it happened in the main comic, rather than as a mini-series.

Was the G1 Joe crossover ever mentioned in the Joe ongoing?

No idea. But I think from a US point of view, it was intended to be canon as it's GI Joe who contact Cybertron to alert them of Megatron's activities. I think.

From a UK point of view, but ignoring G2UK, either G1 crossover would work, as there was that whole "Action Force and GI Joe team up to fight Destro and Cobra!" mini-comic that ran prior to Action Force being re-branded as GI Joe:The Action Force.

[Best First]

i think IDW need to do TF81 purely so we can all enjoy Dave's continuation of this topic - that alone should be justification enough.

[Ozz]

Was the G1 Joe crossover ever mentioned in the Joe ongoing?

No idea. But I think from a US point of view, it was intended to be canon as it's GI Joe who contact Cybertron to alert them of Megatron's activities. I think.

But that was shown in G2 #1 written by Furman, right? Hama still could pretend the mini-series didn't happen and not reference it (or G.I. Joe appearances in later G2 issues) in his own series. I think he ignored issues of regular Joe series that he had nothing to do with, or even his own ones.

[spiderfrommars]

Megatron spends the next two Joe issues standing around, not doing much at all. I like the way he plans to gouge out the brains of Dr Biggles-Jones (silly name) but why not nab her now and be done with it instead of still playing along with fleshlings?

It's a shame we don't find out more about what Megatron's been up to. How long has he been online? How the hell did he fix the Ark after it had been totally trashed?

Gi Joe prided itself on being a realistic comic didn't it? Hence the shape shifting baddies, the inability of characters to machine gun each other at pointblank range and leading protagonists constantly coming back from the dead...

And in this issue "Ninja Force are deployed!" Woo and indeed hoo.

Happily Hama doesn't always take things too seriously. Dr Mindbender is miffed because Cheers got cancelled.

Megatron can fly now. I can't remember if this carried over into G2 (though issue 138 hinted that he was flying in his G1 mode too).

In the Goin' South cliffhanger we get our first glimpse of the Autobots! Interestingly Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are pictured in their G1 and not G2 forms. But something else still doesn't feel quite right here. They feel like cartoon characters.

The next issue - Sucker Punch - has pretty bad artwork. There's a mighty fight between the Joes and the Cobras with a highlight being the Snake Eyes swordfight (against the catchily-titled Night Creeper Leader). The ending is good too as Scarlett threatens to take down Megatron. Good luck with that luv.

Destro muscles in with his Iron Grenadiers and takes out Serpentor, having decided to side with Fake Commander and the Baroness and not Serpentor. GI Joe leave because it's clear it's become an internal matter and they have no juristiction on sovereign soil. The original Cobra Commader comes back from the dead, rounds up all the traitors and buries them in that stranded boat, Mindbender included. However, seeing that the cloning process was a good thing, Mindbender is brought back to life to make a few good clones. It's actually Mindbender's escape clause that the tech won't work without him. Cobra Commander then invites all his 'friends' to the Silent Castle for a welcome home party, but instead of getting down to some grooves, he brainwashes them all to serve him again.

Then the Silent Castle transforms and this brings Megatron and Starscream.

Thanks! You can tell Hama wrote this stuff on the fly.

You sure the original crossover is set after the Cobra civil war storyline? That seems insane!

i think IDW need to do TF81 purely so we can all enjoy Dave's continuation of this topic - that alone should be justification enough.

Ha ha... well, I'm sure Chris Ryall has this thread bookmarked. It's only a matter of time...

Y'know, reading this crossover I can't help feel it's slightly spoiling the end of G1. G1 #81 is a more attractive prospect than G2 #13 for me at the moment... but I'm likely to change my mind after reading the Furminator's issues.

Was the G1 Joe crossover ever mentioned in the Joe ongoing?

No idea. But I think from a US point of view, it was intended to be canon as it's GI Joe who contact Cybertron to alert them of Megatron's activities. I think.

But that was shown in G2 #1 written by Furman, right? Hama still could pretend the mini-series didn't happen and not reference it (or G.I. Joe appearances in later G2 issues) in his own series. I think he ignored issues of regular Joe series that he had nothing to do with, or even his own ones.

We see the Joes contact the Autobots in the Joe comic too which suggests they've had previous adventures. I don't know if the original crossover can even fit in with Joe continuity though.

[Guest]

You sure the original crossover is set after the Cobra civil war storyline? That seems insane!

Actually, no. And, with a little research, it would seem that we weren't that far behind. The cross-over took place shortly after the events of Pit-Fall, but was not mentioned in the GI Joe comic at all. So, still a long way behind, but not quite as far as I'd thought.

Of course, the reason we were so far behind in the first place was due to Action Force being owned by Palitoy, whilst GI Joe was Hasbro, and although Hasbro acquired Palitoy's toys, comics-wise Action Force was being published by IPC/Fleetway in their Battle comic, and that run didn't finish for several years.

[DJ_Convoy]

Yep; and the "Battle" version of Action Force is completely different. The main villain of the strip (before it tuns into GI Joe, essentially) locks himself in a Mayan tomb with a bunch of snakes and emerges as Cobra Commander!

[Guest]

Yep; and the "Battle" version of Action Force is completely different. The main villain of the strip (before it tuns into GI Joe, essentially) locks himself in a Mayan tomb with a bunch of snakes and emerges as Cobra Commander!

I remember reading them first time around, but also, if you check the fan media forum, you'll find, way down, a user called The Baron, who is part of a site that scanned them all.

[inflatable dalek]

Shortly after the first Joe crossover there's an issue where one of the characters brings a Transformers toy (called Jetfire but they drew a gonzo super sized Megatron) suggesting it is just a toyline in the "proper" Joe continuity as far as Hama was concerned. You can sort of tell they had to use the thumbscrews on him to do the G2 crossover.

[bumblemusprime]

The art was pretty bottom-of-the-barrel in these Joe issues. Marvel had such a glut of titles that they were pulling kids in their last few months of art school to draw regular monthly issues, which I believe is what happened to Manny Galan. Anyone good on Joe or TFs was snatched up for higher-selling stuff. Derek Yaniger was drawing a couple of other things by the time G2 was rolling, and Andy and Stephen did a host of Ghost Rider spinoffs, then a bunch of 2099 stuff.

I didn't mind the story, although Hama had no idea how to write Megatron.

[DJ_Convoy]

Yeah, Manny Galan was one of their art-correction guys, I believe. I just read some goofy Marvel thing from 1993 or '94 recently that had a bunch of fake ads... he did the art, and it looked just fine... nothing like his art on G2.