Transformation 177: Mr. Top.

9/10/2015

Optimus Prime goes to the circus in a story completely unlike a Doctor Who adventure from later in the year. I don't know what would make you think there was a connection.

Plus, the deadly revenge of Peter Pez clown Policeman in SPACE.

All in my look at: The Cosmic Carnival Part 1!

Next week is the 200th Transformation (including all the bonuses), so expect a party.

20 Comments

Andy Turnbull link

9/10/2015 06:24:13 pm

That VHS advertisement!! If it hadn't been for the fact that TRoOP was so good I'd have been raging when I finally watched it.

Nice to see how polite Optimus is when dealing with slavers.

A welcome return for Frank Springer, I do wish we'd gotten a bit more of him on the book. I feel sorry that he was just finding his feet with the regular book waaay back and then he was gone. Only to have to repeat it with Headmasters a few years later. I wonder if perhaps he was the only artist mad enough to take the gig.

Alex link

9/10/2015 06:44:38 pm

"[...]plus it also increases the sense of what small players Cybertronians are on the galactic stage"

Perversely, I also enjoy this. It's nice to get a larger perspective on the war, something I also like in IDW's output.

Stuart

10/10/2015 07:59:56 pm

@Andy: I wonder if it's too late to sue Tempo video?

@Alex: Yeah, it's fun no one else gives a toss about them.

John D. link

11/10/2015 10:34:27 am

Does anybody have any thoughts on why Prime was picked to be a Powermaster and not, for example, Megatron? Did Bob have advance notice that a new Prime toy would be coming?

Alex link

11/10/2015 10:59:31 am

It's also interesting to note that he doesn't have an opposite number in the Decepticon ranks (for instance, Fort Max is clearly the boss of the goody Headmasters whilst Scorponok is boss of the baddies) - perhaps, at some point, Overlord was planned for a US release?

The Wiki notes that at this point in the toyline it's still rare for there to be new toys of older characters, with Goldbug and Powermaster Prime being notable exceptions.

snowkatt

11/10/2015 03:53:02 pm

Overlord was released in 1990 in Europe, so it's possible that Hasbro had plans to release him in the US, but passed it over in favor of the hype for Optimus Prime.

Also the Toyline is already slanting in the Autobots favor.
4 Autobot powermasters versus 2 Decepticon powermasters. ( 3 if you count Overlord and got him on import. )
3 classic pretender Autobots, against 1 Decepticon pretender.

Headmasters was the last time I think that the gimmick was evenly divided between both factions across the board.

The Headmasters Juniors and Pretender Juniors were also evenly distributed, but by that time they weren't the main focus.

Stuart

11/10/2015 09:10:41 pm

Of course, even though the UK stories are the only Transformers fiction to make any play of it, Megatron already had a new toy in Galvatron.

Alex link

12/10/2015 02:22:21 am

Maybe the release of two large toys in the Headmaster era didn't go as planned, hence Overlord's removal from the Powermaster line?

I realise that the toyline usually favours the goodies, even in the earliest days of the line, but the Powermaster imbalance puzzled me even as a kid (I tried to rationalise it by thinking 'well, at least the two baddies combine').

There was always Double-Dealer, I suppose., but he's meant to be a bit half-and-half, ain't he? Cheeky bit of both.

Stuart: Regarding Galvy, in strict toyline-only terms he already has an opposite number in Magnus. While poor old Roddy gets to be a 'protector', or something.

Ralph Burns

11/10/2015 02:56:57 pm

That fucking VHS cover. Lies. Lies! LIES!!!!
*shakes fist*

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Cradok

12/10/2015 01:00:28 pm

This, as far as I can remember, is the last of the Marvel TF comics I read. I was never terribly impressed, not having liked Sky Lynx or the Spacehikers. It was nice filling in the gaps before the stuff I did get to, though.

Toy release wise, 1988 is interestingly one of only two years in G1 where there's fewer Autobot toys than Decepticons, because even though the Autobots had one more Powermaster and a Sixchanger, the Decepticons had the Seacons. The only other year is the next one, again because of a six-member combiner.

Simon Hall

12/10/2015 07:59:04 pm

Hmm...wonder if Prime was a Powermaster because Hasbro realized killing him off in the '86 Movie was a bit of a faux pas and this was a way of generating interest "Look kids! We've brought Optimus Prime back!". Plus, re-releasing original toys wasn't generally heard of back then, so I can see why Prime ended up with an all-new toy.

As for why there was no opposite Decepticon toy - aside from what was going on in Japan - I suspect the decline in sales of Transformers put paid to any idea of a Decepticon Powermaster of any stature - in much the same way two of the planned four Powermaster Decepticons jets never saw the light of day.

The Transformers toys of 1988, like today, were made during a period of recession and I'm sure costings and sales projections would have played some part in the decisions Hasbro made (which were largely 'do more of what sold well last year, but smaller and cheaper').

As for Cosmic Carnival, yup, I enjoyed this one too. Bob's run of Transformers from this period comes in for some real stick, but I've found a lot to enjoy in these stories (perhaps because I've read most of them in later years, rather than at the time). There's only the wrestling one at the end with its cartoon moralising that I don't particularly care for.

Have to say, I do miss Tomlinson's design work for Transformers from this point forward. The horrible, open space nothingness that Transformation becomes never looks good.

Nathan webb

13/10/2015 11:04:48 pm

Hi Simon Hall, I'm really intrigued by your mention of aborted power master jets. Do you have a link to where I could find out more?
Thanks

Simon Hall

14/10/2015 08:54:09 pm

Hi Nathan Webb! I hope you are well. I am fine. I do believe I read about the Powermaster jets in the Cybertronian Guidebooks, which were published some ten years or more ago.

A link to the books on the tfwiki.net (which also mentions THE BOOK)

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unofficial_guidebooks

There really isn't much more information on them other than the brief comment I repeated above, unfortunately.

Cradok

16/10/2015 04:37:24 pm

Man, the Cybertronians, they were awesome. I had them all, shame that they didn't continue past the first two years of BW. I don't remember about extra PM Cons, though. Now that I think about it, I've not actually seen my copies for years, I wonder where they got to...

Nathan Webb

15/10/2015 08:19:11 am

Thanks Simon, I'll try to get a copy of the guide book.

Nathan webb

16/10/2015 10:56:14 am

The best thing about the power masters was the return to the original format of autobot cars (and lorry) vs decepticon planes.

snowkatt

16/10/2015 04:24:48 pm

Was it ?
I never cared for that dynamic myself, especially because each regurgitation of G1 goes to that and im so sick of it.
The constant gimmicks were tiresome though
The micromasters and action masters were the nadir.

Felicity link

10/11/2019 05:57:47 pm

Although I’m less of a fan of this issue due to its setting, the return of the Space Hikers, and the non-José-Delbo art, this is still a satisfying issue. There’s a surprising amount of emotion in Berko’s backstory, Sky Lynx’s heroism, and Big Top’s comeuppance.

It’s nice to see Powermaster Optimus Prime in his “plain” Optimus Prime mode. I had the toy of Powermaster Optimus Prime and I can tell you that the inner Optimus Prime was not an exact copy of the original Optimus Prime, but I enjoy the cheat used by the comics where it’s treated as if it were a copy.

Everybody rapped in the eighties! Even “Doctor Who” was bound to feature rapping at some point. (I suppose “Transformers” never quite did the rap thing, though with characters like Blaster who act cool and talk in rhyme, that could count.)

Good point about the Transformers being known to the other residents of the galaxy. With just a line or two we now get a sense of there being a galactic society that includes Cybertron as one of many known civilised worlds. (At least, over here in our “Transformers” comics, I don’t think we’d yet seen much of other worlds or races besides Cybertron and Nebulos.)

Also enjoyable: the word “honeyslug” as a term of endearment used by an alien couple.

LiamKav

1/10/2020 11:21:01 am

"I can tell you that the inner Optimus Prime was not an exact copy of the original Optimus Prime, but I enjoy the cheat used by the comics where it’s treated as if it were a copy."

That's only in this issue. The previous one and the two future appearences of Prime's small robot mode (in the US) all use the updated character model that looks more like the toy. Yomtov doesn't colour his forearms the correct blue though until the next story.

(There's also some appearances in the B&W UK stories of his small robot mode, again with the updated character model.)

John D. link

2/10/2020 11:31:45 am

I like the "cheat" too :-)
I cant think of the other US occasions when the inner robot appears, when did that happen?
Looks like nobody knows why Megatron didnt get a Powermaster update. Maybe Prime's toy was a bigger seller. I had Megatron, but i think my mum binned all the extra bits of plastic on literally Boxing Day. So he wasn't a great toy. My sons still play with my Optimus Prime, he is the last G1 transformer i still own..

Transformation 177: Mr. Top.

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