Transformation 169: The Wrath of Flame.

7/8/2015

It's the conclusion of the last great (in terms of quality) UK colour epic, as Flame's plans go up in flames and Impactor gets to die all over again.

Plus Trypticon uses his head and the 1987 readers survey results!

All in my look at Meltdown! Part 2.

15 Comments

Ralph Burns

7/8/2015 10:42:53 am

I BOUGHT THE BOOK.

I look forward to vigorously defending Space Pirates and Time Wars when their time comes. They are ace and I will not hear a word against them. OR MAY MY BONES ROT.

Have to say, despite Star Trek II being my favourite film and having read this a million times I had never clocked the obvious 'death of Spock' riff. *slape forehead* *screams as slapped forehead with harpoon hand*

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Simon Hall

7/8/2015 12:51:13 pm

I HAVEN'T BOUGHT THE BOOK BUT I WILL DO SHORTLY

I will also stand with Ralph 'SPECIAL TEAMS!' Burns to defend Space Pirates and Time Wars as I too like them very much, and whilst I enjoyed the Flame story, it doesn't wow me. I do like Robin Smith's TF art though, one of my favourites from the TF run (and I liked his Bogie Man in Toxic! too).

Stuart

7/8/2015 05:41:13 pm

Well you've got the time, when I get there I will accept any defense of Time Wars that explains the following:

1: The point of the 2009 Decepticons being in the story (and by extension the whole 2009 first issue).

2. The 1989 Autobots refusing to believe a group including Kup, Blurr, Scattershot and the basically identical to Hot Rod Rodimus are future Autobots when their own numbers include Kup, Blurr, Scattershot and the basically identical to Rodimus Hot Rod (though luckily the '89 versions of these characters stay in the Ark throughout so as to avoid destroying space/time by accident). Especially factoring in that more of the 89 Autobots than Goldbug were there for Target:2006.

Work upon it!

Ryan F

8/8/2015 02:22:58 am

Dunno about your first point, but as for the second...

In every example of mass-displacement so far, good guys have swapped for bad guys. So when Decepticons Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge arrived in T:2006, it was three Autobots who got sent to limbo. Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr arrive in the present, three Decrpticons get zapped. The killing machine that is Death's Head arrives in the present, it's bye-bye Autobot First Aid. Fallen Angel: Galvatron swaps with Skids.

So no wonder the Autobots are confused: never before has Autobot swapped with Autobot.

...I think.

Stuart

8/8/2015 06:40:04 am

Ah, Mr. F is good. And there's still six months(ish) to get better.

I accidentally left off the last image with the readers poll results, these have now been added.

Simon Hall

8/8/2015 12:48:16 pm

The 2009 Decepticons don't seem that pointless to me - they don't get the expected dust up with the 2009 Autobots they're persuing because Soundwave puts the brakes on their jolly into the past to listen to Optimus' giant floating face.

That they get lost in the ensuing battle against Galvatron is one of the failings of that plot strand, admittedly.

The point , I suppose, is that Soundwave wasn't actually that arsed for going after the Autobots, but agreed to the Terrorcons demands as they were pissed off and up for a fight and didn't get one.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

8/8/2015 03:31:38 pm

Ah the finale to the greatest TF epic of all. Impactor's sacrifice is an awesome moment that pushes it into top position- having only recently come back from the dead he willingly gives it all up to once again let Xaaron live.

The panel on this post is actually one of the main things that pushed me towards the theory caution was taken - yes it could be a Napoleon moment but the hand seems to have been position so deliberately that it feels like it's meant to be obscuring it.

It's a pity the poll only has the winners and not the full results - it would be interesting to see just how popular the promo Action Force story had been with contemporary respondents compared to the others.

Ralph Burns

11/8/2015 10:41:44 am

The 2009 part of Time Wars makes perfect sense as it establishes the get-out used for later Marvel US that the future stories can be in an alternate possible timeline. We know this as we see an issue of Dragon's Claws on the ground during the Terrorcon rampage and in the 'real world' that comic was not in publication in 2009! Ah ha!

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Stuart

11/8/2015 11:13:34 am

It did successfully predict the series would be back in print in a trade that year though! Spooky.

Ralph Burns

11/8/2015 02:23:20 pm

I can't stand the confusion in my miiiiiiiiind.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Benway

11/8/2015 10:14:10 pm

Of only vaguely related relevance: I just re-read Amazing Spider-man 254 by Tom DeFalco and Rick Leonardi from 1984. At one point Jack O' Lantern moves the fight into a toyshop and almost immediately shoots some G.I. Joe toys in a blatently over the top way. The toys are right in the foreground and presumably supposed to be product placement but it's really exaggerated with the fight in the background and exploding Joes up front next to a sign saying "G.I. Joe". Better Yet, they are in the opposite direction to Spider-man, and it's drawn so that Jack actually sacrifices a clear shot at Spidey just to turn round and destroy the damn things! The next page some proper Marvel toys including Iron Man and Captain America (the REAL non-jingoistic American hero!) just sit there unharmed.

G.I. Joe was such a bloody odd thing to foist on the rest of the world.

Stuart

12/8/2015 11:29:08 am

That also ties us back to Jack being one of the villains in the original Machine Man backup, good to hear he carried on being as poor as he started out.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

12/8/2015 12:55:36 pm

It got even worse:

http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/SquanderedLegacy/SquanderedLegacyPart3.html

snowkatt

10/9/2015 02:12:18 pm

oh dont even get me started on that clusterfuck

the whole story actually fits together when taken hobgoblin lives in acocunt but its still bollocks

Felicity link

9/11/2019 05:08:04 pm

They don’t show what Xaaron transforms into? Aw! What a rip off!

I see that you’re ahead of me on acknowledging that having it turn out that Zandar is taking the piss out of Slaughter by asking about the provenance of the vehicle could be seen as Hama poking fun at himself.

The other rant about auto-makers, ranted by Roadblock, I’ve covered in another comment, so I’ll just add that IIRC tensions were high because the yuppie motorists were starting to get violent. Someone took a swing at Lady Jaye. Hama was smart enough to realise though that even GI Joes can’t just punch civilians no matter how much of a reason they give them. The Joes grudgingly take the abuse because they don’t want to look like fascists.

Which brings me to the other scene, the American flag. This happens when the Joes have to rescue the American ambassador to a (literal) banana republic and they arrive to find the locals vandalising and looting the embassy. Yes, it does seem like Roadblock is being overly patriotic when he threatens to reduce someone’s head to a fine red mist for burning the American flag, but it’s nicely balanced out by what happens afterwards: the ambassador barks “No wonder they hate Americans!” and Hawk responds with “Really? I thought it was because our support of one right-wing dictator after another and the corporate theft of their natural resources.” Pretty good stuff for a kid’s comic meant to sell toys!

So you have to give Hama that much, at least. :-)

Transformation 169: The Wrath of Flame.

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