Transformation 153: A Forceful Merger.

17/4/2015

Mega changes are afoot as Action Force arrives as the new backup strip, creating levels of excitement that can only be properly expressed by Fizzle's expression on the cover.

But as well as the Baroness' bum, the comic also has the exciting and fun conclusion to Galvatron's plot, wilst the Firecons are HOT HOT HOT.

All in my look at:

Enemy Action! Part 2.

19 Comments

Lee Gannon

17/4/2015 11:41:36 am

Funnily while reading this I'm watching the Community episode 'G.I. Jeff'.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

17/4/2015 01:32:19 pm

A good mix of action and political intrigue. But although Shockwave's plan gets followed up on, we never see Galvatron follow up his leadership bid.

Regarding full style mergers, Marvel UK had been this for years with the original Spider-Man weekly absorbing variously The Super-Heroes, The Titans, Captain Britain and Hulk over the course of its run. Care Bears had absorbed the Get-Along Gang in 1987, apparently dropping them from the title after just three issues but keeping them on-board for another 30+ or so. Presumably Furman was hoping to slowly slide the AFers out in a similar way.

US books had done a few as well - probably the biggest was when Detective Comics was cancelled and merged into Batman Family, albeit with the higher numbering.

Nathan webb

17/4/2015 09:23:46 pm

The decepticon under water base in this episode, is it the same base in the under base sage, the decepticon Island resort?

Stuart

18/4/2015 04:31:45 am

@ Lee: Renamed Action Frank in the UK no doubt.

@Tim: Yeah, the lack of follow up of aspects of the Galvatron plot is going to become a recurring motif. Top info on the rest of the comics industry as well.

@Nathan: Yep, this base is basically the underside of the island.

Nathan webb

18/4/2015 05:42:43 am

I thought it was the same base but I'm sure Ratbat was leader of the decepticons there. Was it ever covered how the leadership change transpired? I have a the U.S. version of under base but I'm not sure if there was a UK episode that bridged the gap.

Stuart

18/4/2015 06:31:55 am

Ratbat takes charge of the Earth troops in an American story that can't be too far off- Shockwave is killed off in the original printing but Furman shifts things about for the UK so he survives and moves into the old Decepticon Fortress.

One of the trickier continuity issues is he then carries on being a naughty baddy (inbetween saving all of reality at the end of Time Wars) but his return in the American series will ask us to buy none of the other characters ever noticed.

Nathan Webb

19/4/2015 12:03:12 am

I remember when I was young, constantly rereading back issues and trying to make sense of the continuity, checking annuals and worrying that I had missed cross overs or specials because things didn't make sense. Now I know why, damn you Furman!

Nathan

19/4/2015 03:28:02 am

Lol, I just read vol3 of IDWs Classic transformers to find out what happened to shockwave. I forgot about that.

Ryan F

19/4/2015 01:24:48 pm

Yeah, this isn't one of my favourites, I have to say. The payoff is great - Galvatron's scheme is a good one - but this is just basically 22 pages of action with a clever ending. A bit like the upcoming Deadly Games.

This is another one of those Furman "get everybody where they need to be" stories. Because most of the Decepticons are under Ratbat's command in Totaled, Furman needs to introduce the Seacons here to act as Shockwave's underlings in future stories, like Salvage.

Nathan

20/4/2015 08:15:42 am

Furman's job of creating extra stories and having them fit between the U.S. episodes and still make them entertaining, even epic at times must have been a logistic nightmare, Not to mention keeping a toy manufacturer happy! I doubt many writers could keep it up for so long without burning out.
I take my hat off to him even if not every loose end got tied up.

Ryan F

24/4/2015 10:06:35 am

It's like the use of Streetwise in 'Stargazing'. He's probably the only Autobot not seen on the Ark in either Spacehikers or Totalled, and what do you know? It's because he's on Earth with Starscream!

Ralph Burns

24/4/2015 11:43:12 am

I always preferred Cocky Bastard Galvatron to My Nuts Are Screaming Galvatron so the former appearing in this story was a strong aspect of it.

John D. link

24/4/2015 02:02:36 pm

Great point from Nathan Webb - as the months went by it became increasingly had to accept that the US and UK stories were the same story! Think things really come unstuck when Hasbro (UK?) re-releases the "classic" autobot cars and "Earthforce" arrives. I was a little kid but I accepted Earthforce was some kind of weird nostalgia trip. Looking back, would it not have been better for Furman to have written the Earthforce stories as occurring around about "deception dam busters"

Tim Roll-Pickering link

24/4/2015 03:05:11 pm

Furman has said he tried to tie the US and UK stories more closely, only for reprints to throw the schedule out. (Try working out where the US stories would have reached had it not been for UK reprints and you can see the big idea - e.g. Darkwing and Dreadwind would have staggered over just a few pages from Megatron's destruction to the bar.) So he gave up and just wrote some standalone tales he never expected to be questioned about decades later.

Stuart

25/4/2015 04:38:20 am

I think he was also working on the assumption there was a good chance the British book would be cancelled before any stories that contradicted Earthforce were reprinted, it seems to have been teetering on the brink from the moment it went back to black and white pages.

John D. link

25/4/2015 05:13:14 am

Why did the uk reprints happen? Will that be explained in due course? I never realised the black and whites were supposed to tie in - that would have been very cool indeed. I don't think Earthforce should have been written on the assumption it was all going to end, that seems almost lazy. Of course all this discussion makes the decision in regeneration 1 to wipe the uk stories out of continuity all the more baffling.

Colin H

6/1/2017 11:10:42 am

Is it worth poiting out at this rather delayed juncture that the cover is obviously a homage to Giant-Sized x-Men #1?

Stuart

6/1/2017 11:20:58 am

Not at all, it was remiss of me not to spot that one!

Felicity link

7/11/2019 02:12:17 am

For some reason when the Sparkabots debuted in the American comic, in #46 (“Ca$h & Car-Nage”), I just completely failed to realise it. I was so charmed by the Firecons and their fat little monster modes that I didn’t make the connection that Sizzle, Fizzle, and Guzzle were their opposite numbers—not even when Sizzle (IIRC) used his flamethrower to rebuff one of the Roadjammers. Now I know!

Transformation 153: A Forceful Merger.

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