Marvel UK comics marathon

Post by **Best First** » Fri May 27, 2011 6:45 am

I love Salvage for;

a) The bit where Mag's flips out a ****s Galvy up, no problem
b) THE GUZ GUZ

City of fear coincicided with another delievery fubar for me, i think i missed at least 2 of the issues.

Agree about that freaky head! I seem to remember some people thought it was Kup but the letters page assured us otherwise.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri May 27, 2011 12:41 pm

I may be reading to much into it, but that Thrills article seems to be aiming for some sort of subtle innuendo over the word "Dick".

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri May 27, 2011 1:00 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:I may be reading to much into it, but that Thrills article seems to be aiming for some sort of subtle innuendo over the word "Dick".

How odd. From the article, Thrills seemed like such a high-brow publication.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri May 27, 2011 1:06 pm

Rebis wrote: How odd. From the article, Thrills seemed like such a high-brow publication.

Of course it is, the pickle joke is shamelessly stolen from Trevor and Simon, and you can't get more highbrow than that. Swing your pants.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Fri May 27, 2011 5:26 pm

City of Fear was actually quite scary wasn't it? Furman tried to spook us a few other times... Demons springs to mind... but this gave me genuine chills.

Sunyavadin · Post by **Sunyavadin** » Sat May 28, 2011 3:15 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:City of Fear was actually quite scary wasn't it? Furman tried to spook us a few other times... Demons springs to mind... but this gave me genuine chills.

Damn right. I was sooooooo creeped out by this one as a kid.

It could only have worked the way it did with Dan Reed's art. That stuff was creepy even when it WASN'T zombies.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon May 30, 2011 5:27 pm

Legion of the Lost!

Kicking it up a notch, we get Furman expanding his zombie story in what may be my favorite cliffhanger of EVERY cliffhanger so far in the Marvel UK series. "Not to him! Not to Impactor!"

Flame brings back the throwaway notion of Cybertron as a "cosmic dreadnaught" that only showed up for a few lines in the US comic, and that would be revisited in War Within. Fairly cool concept, I guess, and helped by the fact that Flame is totally insane. He's a shallow mad-scientist stereotype, but he gets some good lines.

"Won't you listen to reason?"

"Ha ha! In a word, no!"

The real dramatic meat comes between Springer and Impactor. I was a little bugged by EmoSpringer in the beginning of this, but I ended up loving the end, in which zombie Impactor is about to skewer Springer in the ventilation duct, and Springer manages to talk Impy back to some kind of consciousness.

Anderson's art suffers without the shiny gloss of Baskerville's inks here, but as usual he manages. I like to think of Jeff Anderson and Jose Delbo as similar artists: they get the job done and they tell a compelling story, but I'm hard-pressed to remember any individual scenes that really blew me away.

Post by **Best First** » Mon May 30, 2011 5:43 pm

Agree - altho Jeff does manage at least one pretty memorable scene - you ain't got to that yet tho so i'll keep schtum!

Ah, also i think Ironhide digging out Megs and Wavey counts.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon May 30, 2011 9:13 pm

The Flame stuff is good, if not vintage Furman. I always felt the stuff he wrote in '88 (after Legacy) lacked a bit of zing. I reckon he was putting most of his creative juices into the Dragon's Claws and Death's Head comics.

Also, whatever happened to Whirl?

Best First wrote:Ah, also i think Ironhide digging out Megs and Wavey counts.

Yep! Anderson had his share of golden moments, mainly because he worked on some of the best stories.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue May 31, 2011 10:43 pm

Meltdown!

Robin Smith is back! Or was he/she ever there? Anyway, the art isn't bad here. A bit more dynamic than Anderson's.

Xaaron hasn't transformed in hundreds of years? It never occurred to me that anyone could have the ability to turn into a car and not use it. Desk jobs do us all in, apparently.

Nice use of Trypticon! I love how Simon can add depth to characters, like the GuzGoz, who only appeared once in the US comics for their requisite toy commercial.

Impactor looks awesome, and is easily the best part of this story. This ending has got to be one of my favorites so far, no less because it was a fairly simple story set only on Cybertron with characters in the current continuity.

I must confess, though, that I'm always bugged by stories where Autobots and Decepticons play nice. I don't expect much realism from TF comics, but I do appreciate when Simon acknowledges the viciousness of war, and the ways in which these groups genuinely hate each other.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:51 am

I thought Flywheels kinda stole the show in these issues. A bit of a forerunner to Carnivac in a way, showing that not all Decepticons were all bad.

bumblemusprime wrote: Robin Smith is back! Or was he/she ever there? Anyway, the art isn't bad here. A bit more dynamic than Anderson's.

Actually it was his debut on the interior strip. Smith was best known for several nicely painted covers (eg. http://transfans.co.uk/popup.php?id=1454 ) which led to readers writing in and asking that he draw a whole story. In the end they got want they wanted.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 12:17 pm

DICK BRANSON is a dead groovy guy. Already famous as a pickle mogul, a music baron and a record breaker, the world's richest bearded git now moves into the world of Giant Robot Destroying! Yes, those wicked shape-changing Decepticon robots really meet their match when they cross dicks with Dick in issue 160 of the crap comic Transformers. Basically, this giant robot shark is well pissed off with Dick and tries to do him but Dick's too hard. Does this mark a new era of Dick style superheroes? Superdick? The Incredibly Hippy? Spider Branson? Captain Capitalist? Thrills hopes not.

Haha, the fact that you quoted this totally justifies the effort it took for me to type it into the wiki the other week. I'm glad I scanned in that picture of Zenag and the Cloran too

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 12:08 am

We were both transcribing that at the same time? And no doubt you, too, were procrastinating work, yes?

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:52 am

Oh hell yeah - I assumed you'd just copypasted the whole thing from here http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Space_Pirates - looking at the history it seems I added a bunch of stuff at the beginning of March including typing up all that nonsense about Branson

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 3:29 am

For those who have been waiting with baited breath for my next installment... we are moving and the TPBs have been packed. Never fear, "Deadly Games" will be here... sometime... maybe July... stuff...

Sunyavadin · Post by **Sunyavadin** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:40 pm

Ah, Deadly games. A nice tie-in to the GOOD Megatron origin story.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:14 am

ITTTTTS ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!

Deadly Games!

Another moody and horrific story in the mode of City of Fear. The alien foe is fairly generic, although he's at least intimidating enough to make us sorta kinda think that he could maybe take on Magnus, if Magnus weren't a regular star and a bigtime toy...

The pile of dead Autobots under the Jekka Ampitheatre is brilliant. Just fantastic horrific stuff. Dan Reed doing what he does best. Unfortunately for this tale, action scenes are not what he does best. The fight is forgettable.

Magnus's speech at the end is rather eye-rolling, but I love Simon's sense of humor about it. Nobody paid any attention. It's also how I felt after the big speech at the end of Stormbringer. "Can I find a comic where the planet actually blows up?"

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 4:01 pm

Wrecking Havoc!

Over to the Space Pirates trade for this one. I forgot how dizzying Titan can be. You made me go upstairs on my sore post-run legs, Titan. For that I shall not forgive you!

Bryan Hitch-errific. I love the art here, even though it's obvious that he is trying to cop off Senior. In places he is clearly undeveloped, like some of the awkward poses of TFs standing and facing each other. In other places, like the opening jet battle, he shows the masterwork that we see today.

The story is fun--Cyclonus versus Galvatron!--and picks up the odd thread of Cyclonus and Scourge as Targetmasters, who apparently, except for two panels, didn't fight much in Scorponok's company. (Aside: RTS Cyclonus actually comes with Nightstick, but RTS Scourge does not do the same for Fracas. So with another Targetmaster gun, and a Galvatron who turns into a little gun--did Energon Galvy?--and Springer--and Broadside--and others--I could recreate this fight.

Also a couple of jets. Okay, so my toy dreams are somewhat shattered.

The ending of the story is fun but a little pithy. Magnus and Springer get undercut a lot by Simon's apparent dictate that Galvatron needs to keep wandering around. I'm not sure why Galvy had to trick them. I mean, according to his history, he could even kick all the Wreckers' collective metal asses.

Still a relatively fun story, and complicates the Decepticons' power dynamic in preparation for Time Wars.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 4:59 pm

Always felt Furman wrote Deadly Games on autopilot really. It was present day Magnus' last story - he deserved better.

Wrecking Havoc is no great shakes either but it leads nicely into Dry Run and Time Wars, both stories that I love dearly.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 5:16 am

Yeah, they're placeholders, but even Furman's placeholders are nice and action-packed with a little bit of the epic and the grotesque. Nonetheless, Galvatron's wearing thin. He's been wandering around finding himself, mebbe gettin killed a bit, ever since bloody Fallen Angel. I'm reassured in knowing that he will get a fittingly grotesque send-off in Time Wars.

So I too dug through a LOT of old comic boxes to find...

The Big Broadcast of 2006!

I detested this even more than Spidey did. Although Lee Sullivan's artwork on the frame story is quite quality.

It's terrible, isn't it? I was hoping that it would reach the heights of so-bad-it's-good, but no, it's just bad. There's no self-awareness in the terribly simplistic teleplay, not like in Car Wash of Doom. We just have to accept that, here, in our comic about killer robots, there will be jet fighters with kitty heads on them blowing up a planet of nice friendly dogs.

The blocking is rather awful. Superion's battle against the Quintesson ship is presented in a series of dull straightforward angles, and let us not forget that when Rodimus and Galvatron finally fight, they crash together and fly apart like ******* magnets.

There's an embarrassing lack of communication between script and artists as Silverbolt and Air Raid are in "semi-Superion mode" but somehow remain in complete vehicular mode! And then there's the moment where Cyclonus says one of Galvatron's lines clear as day!

Wreck-Gar's dialogue is stupid and simplistic, as compared to the fun Simon has with it. There are no moments equal to "I disqualified one of my own team!:

Alan Kupperburg's pencils are lame and unexciting. The scene in which Rodimus deflects Galvatron's shot looks like it was modeled with TF Bend-Ems.

I could go on... I did.

This comic is what people imagine a "toy book" to be like. Fortunately for TF fans, this type of tripe has been the exception to the rule from the beginning.
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Post by **spiderfrommars** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 3:24 pm

Could it be the worst TF story ever?

The Lee Sullivan stuff is really beautiful though. And the "Goodnight Children... Everywhere!" ending is nice and chilling.

The UK editorial team came up with some genius ideas to make the two continuities mesh over the years, but the whole "Big Broadcast of 2006 was just a children's story" angle was the cheekiest by far.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 5:26 pm

I love Furman's slam on the cartoon story. "Absurdities and contradictions! I accuse you of feeble-minded stupidity!"

And what a relief it is to go from here to...

Space Pirates! Parts 1 & 2!

It's a shame that Lee (that's Sullivan, not Pat) didn't draw this, as it is full of some incredible action sequences. Wreck-Gar fights his way out of Quintesson's courtroom and ends up "still not safe to go back in the water!" The Quints blow through the windows of Autobot City and drive the Autobots back with relentless fire. Even with Dan's more liquid style, it's a wild ride.

Furman plows through Wreck-Gar's scenes and has a blast with the TV talk. "Are you suffering from a tense, nervous headache? You are now!"

Alas poor Hopper. We hardly knew ye.

The first of a few large plot holes is evident here: since when have the Quintessons had the troops and the firepower to stage a full-frontal attack on a heavily fortified Autobot stronghold? And win?

But if it is plotholes ye do not seek, this carnagefest be not what ye must be reading.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:25 pm

bumblemusprime wrote:
Space Pirates! Parts 1 & 2!

This one had a very slow start. Unlike, say, Legacy of Unicron which kicked off with a bang, the first half of Space Pirates is a bit epic-by-numbers. It's when Rodimus turns into Hot Rod that the story leaps in stature. Ironically.

I believe Part 1 has the distinction of being one of the only TF comics without any TFs in it (ok, ok, apart from one panel which shows part of Wheelie).

bumblemusprime wrote:The first of a few large plot holes is evident here: since when have the Quintessons had the troops and the firepower to stage a full-frontal attack on a heavily fortified Autobot stronghold? And win?

Why not? We don't know much about the Quintessons after all, and at least their society hasn't been weakened/fragmented by civil war.

Post by **Best First** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 6:38 pm

Yeah i don't think it's a plothole - certainly not in the comicverse.

Agree about poor old Hopper.

My biggest issuea with Space Pirates is probably how contingent the plan is on Arcee having a bit of a selfish moment and also i just have a general distaste for how lame Rodimus turned out to be - it's actually a relief when he becomes Hotrod again.

The use of the matrix in this story is also a bit curious, but we will come to that... along with a certain city size titan.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:48 pm

Oh yes, it's Arcee's first comic appearance isn't it? Where had she been hiding?

Post by **Best First** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:10 am

In the kitchen. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

*sigh*

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:17 am

Talking of Hopper, it always irritated me that they would create new chars just to be killed.
Would have had much more impact if we had seen a known Bot blown up. Plenty to choose from that wouldn't limit future stories...

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:29 am

Maybe they could have killed Windcharger again.

I'm torn on Arcee's appearance. Not crazy about how her incompetence, but it doesn't seem particularly gender-related, as it's something Hot Rod would do too, and he is, going by his name, the epitome of man robotness.

Space Pirates! has the dubious distinction of being very similar to the cartoon at times. Rodimus has the whole midlife crisis. The Quintessons monkey with the Transformers' destiny. The Matrix does inconsistent stuff. Of course the line-level prose, pacing and action are all better, but still, it's the weakest of the great UK runs.

Space Pirates! Part 3 & 4

Weirdly enough, Dougie Braithwaite has drawn some of Journey Into Mystery, a comic I very much enjoy, but I didn't enjoy his art here.

Kind of a bridge between the action of the first chapter and the action of the last, with slowly, less dynamic art to show for it. Braithwaite isn't bad--he's not mangling proportions--but he isn't great, either. It feels a bit like Ladybird Books art. Rodimus bellows at the Junkions with a rather cartoony look on his face. When he asks "what' going on around here?" he looks a bit like he's farted.

The only real action is between Soundwave's Decepticons and the Quints. Knowing what lies ahead from Sullivan, I have a hard time getting excited about it, especially when Braithwaite's work doesn't quite blow me away. He pulls off the shot of the wounded Autobots hanging on the wall, though, and pulls it off well.

Post by **Kaylee** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 3:28 am

I always got the impression that the comic pulled in the Quintessons because they could. They don't really serve a purpose in terms of story telling or add anything dynamic to what's already there. I think the conversation went: "Hey look at these guys in the cartoon... let's work them in too so the kids have some continuity across the mediums".

Don't cross the mediums. It would be bad.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:17 pm

Space Pirates! Parts 5 & 6!

Lee Sullivan just blows this out of the water. After a couple of chapters of so-so art, these balls-out action sequences are handed to He Who Is Second Only To Senior. There are so many awesome sequences. Hot Rod's tooth-grinding backward shot, the silly little aliens dancing around in fury, Ghyrik's Matrix corona, and most of all, the majestic sequence of Metroplex transforming and going all Godzilla on the Quints.

Rodimus's transformation into Hot Rod is instantly interesting. It brings to light a lot of the problems that we've run into with Rodimus's character. He's not a terribly bright leader. I watched "Forever Is A Long Time Coming" in conjunction with this story and despite the wretched animation, it did a slightly better job of justifying Rodimus's weak personality with Kup's line about "growing into the Matrix." Optimus wasn't always Optimus, either, and we're seeing Rodimus at the very beginning of his career. It doesn't make me like him any better. I wonder how Roberts will handle Rodimus, with the hindsight of his indecisive personality in both cartoon and comic.

That said, his Hot Rod-ness makes for a pretty inventive chase through the bowels of Autobot City, a nice raid for reinforcements on Blaster's chest, and a whole lot of mayhem.

Simon writes great dialogue for Wreck-Gar, this time appropriating a sports announcer's voice. I love it.

The end is a bit of a wank, though, isn't it? Simon seems to be struggling for some way to up the stakes and bring the Matrix back into the story, so he has Ghyrik inexplicably crack it open, and Hot Rod throws his voice to beat the Quints. What was wrong with Hot Rod just throwing Ghyrik out a window? He could trust Metroplex to catch the Matrix.