Transformation 177: Back For Good.

2/10/2015

Optimus Prime is back, and he's not afraid to unleash his two poses! It's a rip roaring exciting epic about..erm...assisted suicide.

That's cheerful.

All in my look at People Power! Part 2.

Weebly have changed their web builder layout, so if anyone spots anything especially wrong this week let me know (to my eyes the default font size looks bigger, but that's not really an issue).

11 Comments

Simon Hall

2/10/2015 06:14:12 pm

I've never really thought too hard about the Powermaster process and how it would work. I just thought it made for fun toys :) Helpful critique there by me.

I quite like this story overall. Its definitely one of Bob's more thoughtful entries and I agree, its a nice mediation on euthanasia (quite disappointed by our Government's stance on the whole 'right to die' debate, basically saying no, thinking the nation will suddenly start bumping off unwanted relatives. However do the Swiss manage it...?!).

Just on the bearded entrepeneurs, whilst I'm no fan of the ubiquitous hipster stylings of the current age, I'm baffled that a shop selling imported cereals was a target for peoples ire. Its hardly the same as the wretched pox of bars that sell ham and beers and are full of insufferable pricks. A bit of variety on the high street can only encourage an area to thrive, otherwise you end up with a town centre like I have in Bradford thats full of pound shops and betting parlours, and surely that can't be all people aspire to or want out of their towns?

The response Grimlock gives to the kid about trying to find Action Force monthly was surprisingly unhelpful - Mr Dalek, had the Classified ads starting showing up in the comic at this point, as these frequently carried adverts for Comic Shops which you would have thought editorial might have pointed the curious in the direction of (as Overkill would later do). On the flipside of that, there weren't that many comic shops around and they were pretty widespread around the country, so wouldn't have been terribly accessible for the readership.

...I'm not sure what my point was now.... :/

John D. link

3/10/2015 09:45:19 am

Interesting interpretation of the plot. I do have deep concerns about any legalisation of euthanasia but this probably isn't the forum. More importantly - what on Earth was Robin Smith thinking of? Appalling artwork. Later on Andy Wildman would really "sell" a chunky and powerful Powermaster Prime (Geoff Senior's interpreTtion always felt blocker and less impressive).

Tim Roll-Pickering link

3/10/2015 02:38:44 pm

I'm writing this en route to Manchester to take part in the triumphant continuation of a leader many thought we'd no longer see by now. (Crap joke but Ukip had their conference two weeks too early for the rather easier one.)

I have fond memories of finding a run of issues #176 to #179 in Books, Bits and Bobs, a wonderful shop that used to be in Kingston right by the station. Sadly it's no longer there, with that whole stretch of the road replaced by a new development.

Odd to see such big moments in both the main and back up strips at the same time. And given Furman's disdain for the AFers, it almost certainly wasn't planned. The return of Optimus Prime feels like it was planned as an epic with his revival here, then an interlude on the voyage home and perhaps then a triumphant retaking of the leadership in the issue displaced by the Big Broadcast (assuming Bob had a plan stretching so far ahead). And so a battle with the local thugs feels entirely appropriate as the first step on the road back.

Rereading that AtoZ, I think it's assuming that Optimus Prime's trailer/battle station mode can operate as a standalone entity (or have Hi-Q man it) in a similar way to the old Command Deck (which had the alternate designation as the "Prime" part of the piece). And wasn't the toy originally going to be a sort of Headmaster as well with the giant mode head changing into a scout car? Or would the name Roller have been applied to the second trailer on the Ginrai version of the toy? This all suggests the AtoZ may have been written without the actual toy to hand.

I don't think classic era TF fiction ever really did much with Prime's splittable nature - other than Plague of the Insecticons they generally ignored the Command Deck and treated Roller as an independent entity if he was even used. And it's easy to see why - it's a complex arrangement to write for and doesn't really offer any advantage over separate entities. Much the same problem comes with Sky Lynx and the Duocons.

Ralph Burns

4/10/2015 02:36:49 pm

I like how the cover makes it appear that Prime is angrily aiming at the imposter Rodimus Prime in the cover box. Optimus does not approve of the quality of leadership in his absence.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Andy Turnbull link

9/10/2015 06:10:00 pm

So despite becoming a powermaster and having to eat more Hi-Q is going to get slimmer and start growing his hair back.

Sign me up!

Stuart

9/10/2015 06:11:50 pm

Just watch out for that pesky Last Autobot!

Dave Barker

10/10/2015 12:15:40 am

I've been reading this blog for a while now, and I'm normally content to just skulk in the shadows as Ravage would if he read blogs, but I feel compelled to show my appreciation for the mention of Books, Bits and Bobs! Though disappointed to learn it's no longer there (I haven't lived in the area for years). I used to pick up great wads of back issues from a little shop in Merton Abbey Mills for 45p a pop, and was able to fill lots of gaps in my collection at a time when it sounds like that wasn't all that easy to do. If that shop even had a name I'm not sure what it was, but it was my first brush with comic collecting, and I'm pretty sure I would've been a much more miserable person without it. Good, good times...

Stuart

10/10/2015 08:01:06 pm

Thanks for reading Dave!

This blog is like Peter Kay, if Peter Kay only remembered things just two other people remembered.

Dave Barker

16/10/2015 08:00:33 pm

I'd like to see him attempt his schmaltzy hack work on Books, Bits and Bobs! Even moreso on the unnamed Merton Abbey Mills shop- no one remembers that one! Maybe I just dreamed it. If Peter Kay doesn't remember it, it didn't happen; I live my life by that rule.

Felicity link

10/11/2019 07:42:37 am

As I get older and more things start to hurt, I don’t think I would mind existing on a computer disc instead of in real life where pain reminds me I’m alive.

I hadn’t gotten the impression that Kari and Hi-Q were a couple the way Galen and Llyra were but it could have been happening off-panel.

I also never would have thought to view Prime’s choice of life as a disc or death as a physical being as a statement on euthanasia.

Ironic that being a Powermaster causes Hi-Q to go from fat to thin, as Powermaster Optimus Prime, with all his extra armour, looks sort of fat. It’s a strong sort of fat, but if I were the artist I would maybe re-arrange things a little so he doesn’t have quite so much of a “policeman’s chest.”

Still. Optimus is back and we’ve got him for another three years! Yay!

JeremiahEcks

13/1/2025 03:01:48 pm

Isn't the Optimus Prime Powermaster artwork commissioned here by Robin Smith also used in Prime Bomb in the annual?

I thought this profile piece came from the Prime Bomb art rather than the other way around.

Transformation 177: Back For Good.

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