Transformation 138: Tanks for the Memories.

2/1/2015

Happy new year! Welcome to the tenth anniversary of when Transformers the Movie is set. Though the good news is there's still a year to wait till the Marvel Winter Special is set.

This week, what unlikely skill from her TV show will help Joy save the day? And what do giant robots represent to archaeology? All those questions answered and more in my look at issue 138!

10 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

3/1/2015 07:08:45 am

I think the contemporary comic/franchise that comes nearest for few female roles is probably Mask, given the size of the cast. The first couple of years of toys have no female characters and there's only a couple of additions for the cartoon who were left out of the comics (although that could be licencing issues). Then one of them got a toy in the third year and there is a comic cover showing Mayhem and Dagger in shock and awe at the arrival of Vanessa Warfield. IIRC the comic didn't last long enough to reach the fourth & final year of toys when Gloria Baker finally appeared.

I can understand why the toylines had so few female characters but would it have hurt to make some Nebulans female? Or later on some individual Micromasters? (In fact didn't at least one of these happen in Japan?)

The new Special Teams are a bit of a continuity nightmare - somehow they have the combining technology when so much fuss was made about it being developed on Earth with a helping hand from the Matrix and there's repeated indication that this group of Autobots and Decepticons have had no contact with Earth until now.

From what I've heard Nostalgia & Comics was never very good at expanding out of Birmingham with each store eventually ending in one disaster or another. Still to have kept the Birmingham store going is a better achievement than most of the attempts to expand into a comics chain.

Oh and the reprint of Man of Iron also broke an achievement at the very end. Jim Shooter was proud that during his time as Editor-in-Chief there hadn't been a single reprint. But then this came along in his final month being credited!

Harry

3/1/2015 11:37:55 am

'The new Special Teams are a bit of a continuity nightmare - somehow they have the combining technology when so much fuss was made about it being developed on Earth with a helping hand from the Matrix and there's repeated indication that this group of Autobots and Decepticons have had no contact with Earth until now.'

Also, the Predacons. Were they reformatted on their arrival on Earth to be able to combine, or were they always able to from when they first assembled as a team (i.e. some time after 'What's In A Name?')?

It *could* be handwaved by saying the Matrix Flame, being linked to the actual Creation Matrix, led to any advances made by the Earth-bound Transformers being available to those on Cybertron, I suppose.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

1/2/2015 04:45:48 am

I've generally assumed the Earthbound Decepticons shared the combiner technology with Cybertron and so both the Predacons and the Seacons were adapted either for work on their homeworld or when sent to Earth. Trading technological developments for logistical support is just the sort of thing Ratbat would do.

Stuart

4/1/2015 12:22:56 pm

I don't think the later combiners get refereed to as "Special Teams" in fiction, so you can always handwave it that the Technobots and company are, like the Predacons, a simpler and less impressive version of combination that was developed on Cybertron during the four million year absence.

Going into the third and fourth tier 80's franchises, I suspect Centurions didn't do so well for female characters either.

Auntie Slag

4/1/2015 04:10:05 pm

There’s something about Onslaught (not the Ben Stiller movie), that should have marked him out for greatness in terms of a second ranking leader, alongside Soundwave and Bludgeon… but he never quite made it.

Such a shame, because I thought he had that cold, calculating no-nonsense approach. He could almost have been (to my mind) Megatron v2 without the soppy attitude towards Starscream (which is really only a G2 affectation. I don’t remember Megatron ever caring much for Starscream in the original Marvel G1 comics, in fact, he was perfectly happy to create a set-up in order kill him during ‘The War Within’, Furman’s first story for Transformers).

Onslaught would have been such a good field general, if Megatron needed to hang back at the base to have tea and some level of protection.

snowkatt

5/1/2015 01:12:16 am

dont you mean the enemy within ?

the war with in was a dreamwave title

Auntie Slag

7/1/2015 09:53:52 am

Enemy Within, yes! Thanks Snowcatt :-)

Chris Chapman

8/1/2015 01:51:43 pm

Interesting that the Titan book that contains Ladies Night avoids reprinting this cover on its back with all the others - presumably they just thought it was far too cringey?

Stuart

9/1/2015 05:52:19 am

ha, I'd never noticed that, considering Furman was editor of those books it's not impossible.

Felicity link

5/11/2019 05:40:37 am

There as one other female Thundercat: Wilykit. She and her brother Wilykat are still Thunderkittens, though.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, I like the Technobots and Computron so it was nice to see them in the comic, however briefly.

Between “Robotix” being on TV, “Inhumanoids” being on TV and rentable on VHS, and “Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines” being the Internet, I have now seen all the above-mentioned shows. “Robotix” and “Inhumanoids” have some excellent 1980s-style American-Japanese animation. “Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines” is less glitzy but still has solid artwork (sort of like some episodes of season three of the “Transformers” cartoon).

Transformation 138: Tanks for the Memories.

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