Transformation 122: Gold-Buggered.

12/9/2014

It's the odd couple cop movie to end all odd couple cop movies as Irishcop O'Cliche teams up with a boombox to take on the greatest threat to mankind ever known.

Also, Goldbug is very nearly helpful and the comic is deeply excited about more Action Force.

All in my look at Mechanical Difficulties! Part 2.

Also, RIP to Richard Kiel, the best Bond henchman of them all.

5 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

12/9/2014 03:51:06 pm

Quite an odd little story. I think I can see what Budiansky was aiming for but the execution is so poor. Do the modified cars' weaponery fold back into them? If so then Blaster may be swatting aside not just the Mechanic but also MASK, a rival toyline. (It's not as funny or in your face as the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special where Swift Wind sees the Monstroids and declares "They're changing into other forms. What evil robots!") But the central dilemma is a mess though it does mean Budiansky once again gets to have a loner hero on the road in the America West - clearly nostalgic for Ghost Rider though the new toy rule has forced Goldbug on him instead of Groove.

Although Dummy Run! has Senior artwork it's also about the only standalone one-part story that would have been available at this stage - most of the other early Action Force stories are multiparters, however they're titled, or bubble episodes feeding off bigger events around them and so not good for this sort of thing. (The only other one that fits the criteria is #17's Meditations in Red - a Grant Morrison piece before he was famous - but that's an in continuity infodump about Shang-Chi the Master of Kung-Fu.) The original printing has an amazing Senior cover - http://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/File:Acfrwk018.jpg - but it's a wraparound spread that wouldn't have worked here.

Stuart

13/9/2014 06:33:03 pm

I'd seen the cover art before, but not been aware of how hard it would have been to find a standalone story in the early Action Force issues. I therefore wonder if this was deliberately written as something that could be reprinted by itself in Transformers?

It's also interesting that for Transformers, even when the book was in a dire state, the wrap around cover was something that was only used for big Anniversary issue numbers. Action Force having to rely on one by issue 18 in order to drum up interest is very likely a sign of how that book needed all the help it could get.

Also, my mind has been blown by finding out that in that Joe music video I linked to, Destro is played by Vinnie Jones. The Baroness is Some Woman From House, Scarlett is Julienne Moore and Snow Job is Alan Tudyk... But how the hell didn Vinnie Jones get sucked into this?

Tim Roll-Pickering link

14/9/2014 04:17:24 am

Possibly although I'm not sure what the full history of wraparound covers is for 1980s. IPC/Fleetway's MASK title used them regularly but over at Marvel they were more of a special event.

ThunderCats has one on issue #30 which is a bit of a jumping on point issue (ISTR Transformers ran a special ad for it) but was that comic in trouble so early as well or was it part of a regulr drive to catch the new wave of viewers with the cartoon back for the autumn/children at new schools? A lot of the Transformers big promo issues are from around September and similarly they may have been nuturing the circulation even if it was't in trouble.

Felicity link

1/11/2019 10:47:17 pm

Didn’t Grimlock tell Blaster and Goldbug they should have killed the humans instead of abandoning their post at Forbes’ Garage rather than risk being discovered by humans? I don’t have the issue handy so I could be misremembering.

In comics, cartoons, and even movies, it never goes well for the gangster bosses when they all meet in one place. Either one of them gets killed by the badass new villain to show how scary he is, or a hero shows up and brings the police and everyone gets arrested. I think the only time the bosses meeting together has ever worked is in movies that depict the forming of the syndicate/commission from real life back in the thirties.

That’s a great cover on that “Action Force” comic. Was it also by Senior? It looks like it. I may have to take back what I said about his humans, at least partly. (I’m still not 100% pleased with how his Neo-Knights looked, or Miss Fatale.) When Senior is on top of his game he could compare with Paul Gulacy for good human art.

We got “Action Force” reprints over here as “GI Joe: European Missions.” I have one issue of it. It has a strange feel, because the dialogue sounds British (even though you would think that text has no accent as such), the characters somehow have more British-looking faces (even though you would think British and American faces would be essentially the same) and the characters are working for a different government. Somehow even though Snake Eyes is being silent, he’s being silent in a British accent. The issue I have mentions that Crazy Legs joined the SAS. Lt. Falcon, the new character from “GI Joe: The Movie,” is the leader in that issue’s mission, and he looks very British, facially. I think I enjoy how off-beat it all is.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

2/11/2019 12:05:02 am

It was indeed by Senior - it was originally used as the cover for the first issue of the weekly Action Force. https://gijoe.fandom.com/wiki/Action_Force_(weekly)_1

Senior doesn't have many Marvel US credits beyond Transformers, according to http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/ He did an issue of What If (#64) and then two issues of War Machine (#9 & #10 - the "Hands of the Mandarin" crossover) - the editors were Rob Tokar and Nel Yomtov respectively suggesting how he got the gigs - but nothing else.

Transformation 122: Gold-Buggered.

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