Transformation 15: Red Alert!

24/8/2012

Everyone's favourite paranoid android becomes a one panel wonder as Megatron watches TV and Prime decides he wants to see Brawn die horribly.

All in our look at:

The Enemy Within! Part 3: Crime... and Punishment!

12 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

24/8/2012 02:32:34 pm

Is it possible Red Alert's appearance is actually the product of an early approach to the toyline that would usually treat new toys as hitherto background characters who've now stepped forward rather than specifically showing their addition to the cast? The cartoon generally went in for this in the second season, and I recall a similar approach in the near-contemporary MASK comic.

Auntie Slag

25/8/2012 03:12:50 am

As ever you bring up issues that I never bothered to question at the time (I’d have been such a good Nazi officer)! That being Prime doing his Monty Python Witch test setting Brawn up against the second most lethal Decepticon (though the way they’re portrayed in these early issues re: Man of Iron and The Enemy Within, they all seem capable of nasty things. They’ve got teeth as big as... they can jump as far as... LOOK AT THE BONES!).

So yes, Prime seems rather different in his leader role at the moment, being more of a BF Skinner kind of Prime than heroic, doubting, pouting Furman prime of later years. Which is quite good as he has a staff that are so devoted to his every move.

You say Brawn was easily bested, but he took out a lot of Autobots. It could be inferred that he bitchslapped the lot of them (and that there aren’t enough pages in the comic to show him whooping them all). This also suggests Red Alert is either very strong (taking Brawn out with one punch), or that someone unprepared to take a hit is easily hurt. I’m referring here to Houdini, who I think died from being unprepared to take a punch to the gut?

Like Tim’s comment, I like the idea of characters popping in and out. Maybe staying in the background getting milk from Tesco’s until its their time to come into the spotlight.

Stuart

27/8/2012 01:33:25 pm

Sorry chaps, haven't been ignoring you, for some reason Weebly don't seem to be sending me notification emails anymore. That's going to make finding the spam more fun...

@ Tim: As good a theory as any. I'm amazed someone hasn't written a lengthy fan fic about what Red Alert was up to during all the other stories between now and Time Wars.

@Slag: I'm imagining Prime as John Cleese now. "He's not Primus, he's a very naughty boy".

Tim Roll-Pickering link

28/8/2012 08:13:42 am

I seem to recall that at least one letters page stated Red Alert was a victim of either Raiders of the Last Ark or Shockwave's attack and had been in the repair bay ever since. That presumably satisfied readers at the time who never stopped to ask why he wasn't on the other check lists and you don't get many asking about Sunstreaker in the same period.

My own theory is the same as the review's (though I've posted it in the past on TFwiki when I discovered the two page spread wasn't included in the British reprint). I also reckon Inferno is in the same position.

Auntie Slag

27/8/2012 02:29:18 pm

Someone has written a fanfic about Red Alert's whereabouts during 85-88 or whenever. It involved him and Inferno living in a cloaked vessel in orbit overseeing the Autobot/Decepticon shenanigans and making key (unseen) moves at the appropriate time.

The thing is I read about this aaaaages ago when I was just getting back into Transformers (say 2000/1). It wasn't really fanfic, it was almost like an official Marvel explanation for their whereabouts (although clearly that's not the case or we'd all know about it).

It was a cool premise though, explaining why Red appeared during The Enemy Within, and so weirdly turned up as one of Rodimus' team during Time Wars.

I'm sure a bit of googling will bring up this story :-)

Stuart

28/8/2012 03:15:15 am

That does indeed sound awesome. Rather than The Plan Battlestar Galactica movie which *SPOILERS* shows events from past episodes and reveals that Al from Quantum Leap was running about in the background running everything.

Alexio link

1/12/2012 05:51:25 pm

Late reply, I know, but the story in question is Martin McVay's "Transformers the Untold Story" - http://theunderbase.co.uk/wiki.asp?o=The%20Transformers%20-%20The%20Untold%20Story

Stuart

1/12/2012 07:40:36 pm

No reply is too late for my ego. Thanks for the link.

Alexio link

7/12/2012 03:37:17 pm

Always happy to help! Still loving the blog. Incidentally, read everything Martin McVay's written. Mind-boggling stuff, some of it.

Stuart

7/12/2012 03:55:00 pm

I shall add his work to the increasing pile of recommendations people have been giving me since I read Eugenesis at the start of this year.

One of my big standing up foaming at the mouth rants is about how that, pre-Roberts- both Dreamwave and IDW were happy to give work to fan artists with good results but never gave the fan writers much of a break. When you consider that British TV is now pretty much run by the Doctor Who fan fiction writers who were given their big break by the Virgin novels (which has been the case pretty much since the 90's, hence you getting odd things like an Emerdale plot about GM crops just so the wheelchairbound character can be given a Davros speech from Genesis of the Daleks) you have to wonder what some of the people with potential and enthusiasm might have done for the comics.

Jeremiah Ecks

14/9/2021 07:00:42 am

Well, I mean you're right Stuart. Look at James Roberts as just one TF fandom name and you wonder how many more could have had a chance!

Instead we got Mike Costa who, perhaps someone liked him or someone didn't, but he has expressed that writing Transformers was uncomfortable and not a great fit. I know lots of fans who are actually good writers who could have used a chance instead.
(Not disparaging Mike Costa BTW. Just making the point that he didn't feel comfortable on Transformers)

Alex Smith link

14/9/2021 04:57:53 pm

I mean how would you even go about getting into writing comics these days, let alone licensed comics?

Transformation 15: Red Alert!

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