Transformation 161: *Title of a Pretenders Song*

Transformation 161: Title of a Pretenders Song

19/6/2015

Optimus Prime is back!

Oh, and six other guys. Fugly and Binback or something. Bob Budiansky is considerably less excited by them.

All in my look at: Pretender to the Throne! Part 1.

The book comes ever closer. And will now even have illustrations!

15 Comments

Ryan F

19/6/2015 12:17:13 pm

How foes Ethan find Sparkplug at the boarding house? That's not the worst 'Sparkplug's house' oddity we'll see in the comic... He hates the boarding house now, but by the time of 'Man in the Machine', Sparkplug is not only still living there, but now he owns the place, and it turns out it has a really nice, spacious kitchen.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

19/6/2015 02:31:59 pm

I think the phone line is simple and probably just down to the phone company rerouting it. Today it's very common for people to take their existing number with them, at least within the phone area, and I wouldn't be surprised if US companies offered the same service in the 1980s, at least to small businesss. Your friendly neighbourhood sinister government agency may also have lent a hand in the interests of being able to listen in.

I think the Pretenders are only the second example after Swoop of a subline being only partially released here - previously the absentees were mainly bigger one-off toys from Shockwave and Perceptor through to Trypticon and Omega Supreme or possibly local rights unavailable ones such as the Deluxe Insecticons and Roadbuster/Whirl. Presumably Hasbro UK realised what a dull idea they are - the robots are already in disguise and the shells are rubbish as action figures.

Is this the first time any of the Autobot or Decepticon teams on Earth suddenly find hitherto unmentioned characters lurking in the background? If so it's another sign of Bob's burnout as he increasingly runs out of ways to either create new TFs or legitimately summon them from Cybertron.

Larry Hama seems to be trying to actually make Serpentor's rise to power logical rather than just "here's the new leader we literally cooked up". His hands were somewhat tied but he seems to be relishing depicting the power struggle.

Stuart

19/6/2015 02:41:16 pm

The closet to random characters turning up without explanation prior to this would be "It falls to Red Alert to stop you now!", though that was, like, three panels rather than a major push.

Thankfully the random art of Headmasters does at least allow for all those characters having been there all along. It's when it turns out other guys had undergone the Headmasters process just off-panel it gets a bit silly.

Simon Hall

19/6/2015 12:49:11 pm

Perhaps he went all Norman Bates in there...? Perhaps it was the spacious kitchen. Who knows...

BTW, this sentence made me laugh out loud " "In-game" art, complete with special border so readers can tell the difference between this and reality." :D

Transformation covering the promotion of the Pretenders is an interesting one. By now, the UK will have been well used to characters appearing in the comic that wouldn't get a release over here, but without an originated UK promotional story like the SPECIAL TEAMS! (copyright Ralph) and Headmasters means that editorial felt it necessary to stave off letters asking when such and such a toy would be showing up over here.

I've got to say, Hasbro's decisions about which product to bring to the UK seemed a lot more sensible back then than the mad jumble sale we tend to get over here these days. What a difference Globalisation makes, eh?

As for this story, yeah, I like VR Prime - he's tons of fun and Bob really does write the goofy stuff well (like his later oddball Sleepwalker title from Marvel) and the imaginative environment of the computer world really does show what Delbo is more comfortable with. I don't think we'll get anything as good from Delbo until Monstercon From Mars.

Stuart

19/6/2015 02:32:19 pm

@Ralph: Obviously there's more money in the boarding house business than mechanics. Or he has spy cameras in every room.

@Simon: Yeah, a year before they'd have done a story in advance of this (either as a flash forward or some tortuous dream sequence) showcasing the six toys out in the UK.

Though- entirely coincidentally as two of them won't get an issue for ages- three of the six chosen for the UK will be the only three out of the original 12 to actually get anything to do (Skullgrin, Cloudburst and Landmine).

Bouncelot

19/6/2015 02:46:42 pm

You seem to have forgotten that Iguanus also got a moment in the spotlight in the story King Con, where he was the titular character.

Stuart

19/6/2015 02:50:08 pm

He got to be the subject of a visual gag, not at the same level as three I mentioned as (allowing for the Mechanibals being a two parter) basically got an American issue each.

It's a cool gag though. Bob so thought of the "King Con" title first didn't he?

John D. link

19/6/2015 04:09:09 pm

Pretenders always looked like such a bad idea, the robots themselves were small and ugly and the shells were just hunks of useless plastic. I think the 6 vs 12 pretenders is the first example of Hasbro uk hedging their bets on a line. I can't think of others. Is this a good point to mention I was somehow given the knock-off Perceptor? (In fact he might not have been a knock off, maybe The Perceptor mould was licencesd to somebody else over here.) Story wise I thought this was really clever stuff for a US story which were usually less clever than the UK ones.

John D. link

19/6/2015 04:12:33 pm

Ps why is Goldbug with Fort Max and co? Is this after his brain module was implanted in a toy car post-Scraplets? And he finds the Ark has disappeared into space? And it just so happens that the Headmasters turn up at the same time at the volcano? If so then that narrative actually holds up. I think.

snowkatt

19/6/2015 04:22:50 pm

yes

his brain module was still in a badly damaged toy car as the headmasters responded to a SOS signal from goldbug in the volcano which was long after grimlock had the ark repaired and launched

Ralph Burns

21/6/2015 07:24:26 am

My hilarious original post did not go throw as the page claimed I used too many exclamation marks. I choose instead to believe that I have been sucked into Multi-World with Floppy Disc Prime and that you are all unreal! As are the Pretenders, as they are too ridiculous to exist. I loved that cover-mounted sticker back in the day though. It made me super-cool. I could 'pretend' to be a non-entity robot!

Ralph Burns

21/6/2015 07:25:50 am

...though of course as the comic pointed out, Pretenders are not as cool as....

SPECIAL TEAMS!!!

Stuart

21/6/2015 07:27:46 pm

@Ralph: The Monster Pretenders-- combining SPECIAL TEAM and Pretenders-- must be much loved by you.

I'd totally managed to forget we'd seen Goldbug retrieved by the Headmasters from the Ark. I've actually edited the text; unusually for me as I usually just own up to my FUBAR's in the next one. But as James Roberts (CLANG) kindly pimped this on twitter I thought it should create the illusion I know what I'm talking about for any new readers brought in.

Nathan

23/6/2015 06:03:52 pm

I remember reading this when it first came out, comparing the pretenders in the comic to those on the advertising page. Having realised their were more robots in the comic than there were toys i assumed they had made up a few characters who were likely to die in a later issue like they did with impactor, rack n' ruin etc.
it never occurred to me that they might not sell all of them in this country.

Felicity link

8/11/2019 06:53:56 am

Ethan Zachary rejects your reality and substitutes one of his own.

I loved the depiction of the in-computer world and how Prime moves through it in this issue.

I just realised I was wrong and we are *not* in the “GI Joe” issue I was thinking of. That issue was the battle of Cobra Island, not the battle of Springfield.

Transformation 161: Title of a Pretenders Song

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