Transformation 141: Off the Rails.

23/1/2015

This week, three lovable (if you define lovable as "Cuntish") children are caught up in a fight between Defensor and Bruticus.

Also at risk: Their teddy bear.

Amazingly Scorponok's bubble plan is the most sensible part of the issue.

All in my look at issue 141!

9 Comments

Chris chapman

24/1/2015 02:02:48 am

Yeah... it's just... it's terrible isn't it? I wonder why Bob decided to take this kiddie approach so late in the day - under instruction from Marvel or just insanity?

Tim Roll-Pickering link

30/1/2015 03:53:16 am

I think he may have been trying to emphasise just how far off the rails Grimlock has gone - threatening a kid or worse is one of the standard ways of instantly upping a villain's meaness factor in a way that smashing through a RAAT contingent wouldn't.

snowkatt

24/1/2015 02:23:12 am

i dont really mind this issue
its not exactly stellar but compared to somethings that come after it ( monstercon from mars cash and carnage or the mechaniballs ) or some of the things that came before ( afterdeath showdown )

its not really that bad more like fluff
budiansky has done better and will do better again ( he seems to be briefly fired up for the headmastes) but its not exactly the worst thing ever in trasformers comics

as for the kids i always thought raat and grimlock being a moron were more annoying then those four

and out of those four alan ( the blonde haired kid ...yes i know their names primus help me ) is the most level headed and likable

whatever that is worth

Auntie Slag

25/1/2015 02:34:43 pm

Yeah, it was issues like this (very much mimicking Snowcatt here), that threw up in bright neon that Transformers was for kids at a time I was feeling like I wanted to grow up and read more manly stuff like The Beano. Again, its not that the kids were terrible... more than Grimlock was being an utter dick and really most of the robots were coming across as barely more credible than their cartoon counterparts.

By the time adverts started showing up for the Pretenders and Powermasters, I felt like they'd properly jumped the shark and had to call time. Gone were the days of Prey, Dinobot Hunt and Target: 2006.

Annoyingly its something they really missed out on; Hasbro et al identify their core audience, work on the basis that a franchise has about three years before the kids lose interest as they grow, and yet the comics felt like it was getting younger rather than maturing.

Dalek when is your chat with yer maun Roberts coming? Have I missed it? You need a box office trailer running for something like this! Alert the damn media, man!

Tim Roll-Pickering link

30/1/2015 04:18:51 am

I wonder if the reaction to the movie had anything to do with it? It caught Hasbro/Sunbrow by surprise and they had to backtrack on Prime's death.

Also the US story is almost exactly at the point when Marvel phased out the Star Comics imprint and absorbed the remaining kiddie books into the main line. Transformers had been lucky to avoid Star but it may have been pushed down when the division was ended.

John D. link

25/1/2015 04:00:17 pm

I was pushing 8 years old when this came out and must admit to identifying with the kids. They seemed nowhere near as as stupid or stubborn as RAAT. I also felt strangely relieved that The Ark seemed to be fixed. That had been stressing me out! The Autobots had gone from Ratchet scavenging for radiators in a human junk yard to fixing Cybertron's best ship

Stuart

25/1/2015 10:16:26 pm

That is the main saving grace of Grimlock's leadership for me, he's clearly not taking any shit from the lazy sods.

@Slag: The interview with Master Roberts and the Secret Special Guest will be up hopefully before the end of January. I'm just waiting on a reply for the second interviewee. If it takes a bit longer than that, I may hold off revealing it to tie in with the start of Legacy. Either way, I will pimp it a lot come the time.

Alex

26/1/2015 01:29:12 pm

Tease!

Felicity link

5/11/2019 08:33:08 pm

I wonder if either Bob Budiansky or Jim Shooter made it a principle that in a “Transformers” comic book the average bystander should never be blasé about the sight of Transformers. And that’s why we get all the comic-relief humans like the railway man in this entry’s quote.

Personally I like the human touch. It’s when the humans are deliberately obtuse about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, as with Circuit Breaker, III, and RAAT, or when there are frustrating misunderstandings and deceptions, as with the Nebulans, that I dislike the presence of humans.

While I’m not a fan of these kids as characters, I don’t hate this issue. The Protectobots and Combaticons provide enough entertainment, and on the lettering front this is the first “Transformers” lettered by John “Jack” Morelli. At one point I liked the lettering in this issue so much that I made a font of it! I also like the (US) cover of this issue by Frank Springer.

As far as being trapped in the 1930s culturally is concerned, at least the kids are dressed in clothes that are timely for the 1980s, and are playing Space Wars. Did kids really still dress up as Indians in the 1980s?! Hey, I just realised there’s a Sammy in both stories! And they both take lifts from strangers. Tsk tsk!

Transformation 141: Off the Rails.

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