Transformation 182: The Jaws of Death.

6/11/2015

It's the last issue of the comic I didn't read at the time! To celebrate some Transformers almost turn up, the Quintessons explain a lot of things to each other they already knew and Wreck-Gar is Top of the Pops.

But in a good way.

It's all in my look at Space Pirates Part 1!

25 Comments

snowkatt link

6/11/2015 04:38:25 pm

Well we all have our first issues and they are all common or garden issues that hold no special significance to anybody else, but our selves.
My first issue of Transformers was US issue 9, somewhere in the 90's.

Yes that one.
It's not especially great or good even, but the art is serviceable and the story decent and for me it will always be that "one".
The very first TF comic I ever read, so to me it will always be special. But I think most, if not all other Tf fans, will shrug their shoulders at it and go eh.
Or go, oh gods that's the one where Circuit breaker is introduced !

...Yeah I do know how to pick my first issue don't i ?

I have the whole visionaries series op dvd, all 13 episodes.
I still have to watch them, got a bit of a backlog there.

Tony the tiger is less obnoxious then Peter Pez, but that bike looks ridiculous.

If Legacy Of Unicron is Transformers The Movie II, wouldn't Space Pirates be Transformers The Movie III ?

Never cared for the Qintessons myself, even if they are utilized quite well here.
Though I am quite pleased to see them fry ..ahem, I never liked them much in season 3.

Wreck gar is a challenge to write for, I'm sure but it's also a challenge to understand him. What with him talking in references that are 20 years old by now, for shows and series I never even heard of, let alone ever seen.
Some are easy to pick up on. ( Jaws 2 )
Others ? Help me, TF wiki, you are my only hope !

And now for some shameless shilling time !
I decided to finally have a comid blog of my own. Where I tackle three totally different long running series.
Gold Digger, ( 230 issues )
The Savage Dragon, ( 214 issues )
And the complete IDW Transformers run. ( close to 200 issues as well, probably more. )
Well over 600 comics with a 2 day update schedule, so this madness will be "just " a 2\3 year project. Instead of a 10 year one.
Anybody interested in reading me rambling about these comics,
click this link >>http://focusedtotalitycomics.blogspot.com

Or my name*
And now we return to the regular program, with our host Wreck gar !
Sponsored by Pez !
And Frosties !

* blog is still under construction the layout is a bit spartan at the moment

Stuart

6/11/2015 05:04:42 pm

It's pleasing to be an inspiration! I'm on the way out the door now, but I will add it to the links page later. If I forget prod me to remind me!

snowkatt link

6/11/2015 05:14:38 pm

Ta.
I'll give you a prod if you forget to add the link.
Currently I alternate between series during each update, to keep things from becoming repetitive.

I have also played Devastation on the ps3.
In short : Very shor,t very repetitive but it looks and sounds gorgeous and the game play is solid.

And Grimlock's secret is save, i won't tell Ralph !

Paul

6/11/2015 05:35:45 pm

My first TF UK issue 2. Not sure why I missed #1 but I thought it was amazing.

Finally managed to get number one about 7 years ago when I found the first 30 or so issues in quite decent condition in a second hand shop.

Obviously I'd read the content before, but it was nice to have.

It means I have every issue (I think) bar the one in Target: 2006 where Skywarp was destroyed. Sadly that was damaged beyond repair when my beloved cat Blackie got locked in a room and couldn't make it to the facilities...

Alex link

6/11/2015 06:41:40 pm

<Or go, oh gods that's the one where Circuit breaker is introduced !

...Yeah I do know how to pick my first issue don't i ?>

Don't worry, man. My first single was 'Spaceman' by Babylon Zoo. For shame. For shame.

snowkatt link

8/11/2015 04:05:51 pm

Oh that song ! ( I had to go to youtube for it )
Other then the weird intro, I can't say i like it much.

And hey I could have picked an even worse comic, as my first comic.
How about Youngblood 1 ?

...brr

Felicity link

11/11/2019 01:42:12 am

Junkion cultural references are especially tricky when you’re a kid because they’re 20 years out of date even for the 1980s, having been written by writers in their 30s.

And I can’t blame them…in the unlikely event that someone hired me to write a “Transformers” story containing Junkions, I’d probably have them make a lot of 1980s references.

Tetsuro

6/11/2015 06:06:06 pm

I shall now be That Guy and point out at least two errors in the article:

"and they’re demented justice system is great fun"

"Having firmly established the Quintessons target is Earth we instead see the Ghyrik led invasion for head for... Autobot City Earth."

But hey, at least I forgive you for the shameless self-indulgence when it comes to issues of any personal value, because that's probably what I would do (except even more indulgent). Surely that makes up for it, right?

Dave

6/11/2015 06:15:04 pm

Actually, this issue is special for me for the very same reason! I also hooked up with the series permanently with the next issue (it probably is less special to me than you as you have stuck with Transformers as a fandom)

As a kid I remember thinking that the Part 2 was a typo as so much of a deal was made of the new look and next week's episode didn't feel like a continuation or anything. I think when I'd previously been bought ad-hoc issues, they felt like I'd missed something. I remember having Wrecking Havoc Part 2 on holiday and although it gave a recap, it felt like I was joining halfway through. It would be interesting to read Space Pirates Part 2 again to see if the recaps were really as subtle as I remember, or if I just rolled with the punches.

Anyway, this was a magnificent story to my 7/8 year old self! It did feel epic, following on from the Movie and having so many characters in it over the course of it's run. It, along with Time Wars and the Underbase saga, was the story that kept me a Transformers fan until the end of it's run and still retain a big fondness for the franchise (well, G1 and G2) even now.

That's a point actually; when you get there, will you be covering those crappy British G2 comics?

snowkatt link

6/11/2015 06:21:30 pm

I think you rolled with the punches.
Part 2 opens very abruptly and it could stand on its own, but it's obviously half way through an opening arc.

Course I read the TPB versions, so I have no recaps at all.

Alex link

6/11/2015 06:43:10 pm

And of course this story was the inspiration for Eugenesis, which itself set in motion a chain of events that would lead, inevitably to the destruction of this...

Erm, I mean More Than Meets the Eye. It leads to More Than Meets the Eye.

Ralph Burns

7/11/2015 09:03:55 pm

Ahem. I think you'll find that Grimlock IS real and did in fact answer reader's letters for 100 glorious issues.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Stuart

8/11/2015 04:43:10 am

OK, Grimlock is as real ad Dreadwind.

Links added and corrections made.

With all this talk of our first issues there will be nothing to say in the comments next week!

snowkatt link

8/11/2015 04:15:53 pm

Course there is ! We can discuss which issue of G2 we got first
or the first Dreamwave issue.
Or the first IDW issue, ( which are my thing apparently )

Or our first comic in general.
My first comic was ASM 341

Tim Roll-Pickering link

8/11/2015 01:45:26 pm

I have what most almost certainly be a false memory of briefly looking inside this issue at the time whilst in a petrol station shop on the Shrewsbury to Welshpool road during a visit to my grandparents. But the dates just don't match up so it must have been a slightly earlier issue that failed to hook me in - maybe #179. So my first regular issue wouldn't have been for another year.

Space Pirates is, in my humble opinion, the worst story of the full colour era. It's trying to be ambitious but it faffs about with too many silly characters and concepts from the cartoon that could have been safely ignored. The Quintessons could have been easily confined to characters briefly seen in the movie and Wreck-Garr is a comic relief character who just doesn't compel when solo. This is also a story that the Collected Comics began but didn't finish and didn't even feel the need to explain why.

I can't understand why the comic felt so compelled to do this story. The cartoon adaptation could easily have been shrugged aside for more conventional tales rather than rehashing so many elements, especially given how few readers would have actually seen the third season.

As for the timing and the back-up, information on the Marvel UK Visionaries is hard to find online with even the number of issues unclear but it appears to have been a monthly that lasted six issues. So I think it may have been the best timing to wait until next week to implement the great news of a merger, giving time for Visionaries readers to come over. And there's a long tradition on the comic of things not quite syncing up so everything is starting anew come the relaunch issues around the new school years.

Simon Hall

8/11/2015 05:48:50 pm

I actually really like Space Pirates. So there. I'm sure I'm the contrary one who likes all the stuff everyone else says is rubbish..! This was one I managed to collect parts of at the time (missed this first part and the conclusion). I really like the two pronged plan the Quints have and Soundwave being the boss :) There's some daft stuff (After an issue full of Wreck Gar talking TV, the constant rhyme of Wheelie is a bit much), but things like Rodimus reverting to Hot Rod and Metroplex punching his way out of Autobot CityI genuinely thought were ace (being ignorant of Season 3 doing this every other week at the time). Its fun stuff!

As we're talking first issues, the first issue of Transformers I got was the first part of the Robot Master story way back when. I got odd issues here and there, but gave up and just stuck to Collected Comics after a while (they seemed oddly easier to find in my neck of the woods). I came back to the ongoing title somewhere near the end when they were reprinting US # 75 and you got some way cool massive posters that linked up to form a really big picture of Unicron leering over Cybertron.

I got on the ground floor with G2, but missed the G.I. Joe stuff as I must have missed the promotional stuff that said there'd be a run of Joe issues that lead into the new series. I did recall seeing that issue of G.I. Joe with Megatron holding Cobra Commander in his hand, but didn't pick it up, because he was only in the very last frames, and its G.I. Joe, which by the early '90s was just full of Snake Eyes and boring ninja cobblers.

Cradok

9/11/2015 10:23:53 am

This might have been the last issue you didn't get, but it was the first issue *I* did. As I mentioned somewhere before, I'd been getting Thundercats since issue 2 back in March 1987, but for some reason didn't start getting Transformers until this. And, as first issues go, in some ways really grabbed me, but turned out to not be terribly indicative of the comic in general. The main story was... alright. The Quintessons I knew from the Movie, and actually enjoyed this version of them - something with definitely tainted my view of them in the cartoon when I found out a dozen years later - but Wrek-Gar wasn't great, and the lack of actual Transformers I cared about hurt. Art was good, though.

Grimlock leaving the letters page meant nothing; less than nothing, maybe, since I never much liked Grimlock. Still don't, for that matter.

The thing I loved most, oddly given that it was the Transformers who interested me, was the backup. Combat Colin was great, always loved it. And the fact that it was a full backup was great too, with an interesting cliffhanger. Imagine my disappointment next issue.

I got this issue signed by Simon Furman, who was delighted that it was my own, well worn, copy. I may have babbled a bit much for a 30-year old, but he took it in stride.

bouncelot

10/11/2015 12:31:16 am

My first issue was #36, but I particularly remember this one. Between about #160 and #200, there were a lot of issues I missed. In particular, I only picked up two of the issues between #173 and #200 - this was one of them (the other was #193). I think during that period, I ended up getting some issues of Thundercats, Action Force, and He-Man (the latter was, looking back on it, really badly written).

Incidentally, on the Visionaries, I know their origin story got printed in a collected comics format (I think I read it before it turned up in Transformers, the second time they featured as a back-up). I don't remember their regular book, though.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

10/11/2015 10:11:36 am

The Visionaries origin was reprinted in their annual (which, unlike the TF book that year, isn't so evasive about what year should be applied to it). If it also had a reprint special then that's four UK printings in the space of about a year! I did turn up a post that claimed there was a spring special in 1989 which reprinted the contents of issue #5 with the same cover. Was Marvel trying to get blood from a stone, was the cartoon repeated very quickly or had the licence contract seriously underestimated the amount of material available?

Ralph Burns

10/11/2015 12:33:25 pm

Yep I had that Special. It was indeed identical to #5 right down to the cover!!!

SPECIAL TEAMS!

John D. link

11/11/2015 12:21:48 am

Fun it read these first issue memories. I think mine was maybe Collected Comics #1. Looking at the TF Wiki I can recall "deception dam busters" and start to form a clear memory of the issues from around the time of my 6th birthday onwards (the end of dinobot hunt, the smelting pool - which I was deeply moved by - omega supreme, and so on). The omega supreme issue was the oldest one I possessed into my 20s - I ave a vague recollection of earlier ones being chopped up by my sisters to create "auto bot letters" they claimed had been delivered by "a Porsche" (no don't a reference to the Jazz toy I carried everywhere..)

bouncelot

11/11/2015 06:53:35 pm

Funny how much detail we remember about this. #36 was my first issue, followed by #40. I missed #47, but then had the comic delivered from #48 until when we moved house in late 1986 (which was, I think, when I lost everything before #50), but lost #54 on a trip somewhere. Odd how I remember what happened to some of my comics.

Will Rigby

15/7/2018 09:45:47 am

It turns out that the German Transformers Comic-Magazin, retold the first three parts of this story, as a text story in its final issue.

Vaguely interesting trivia is finished.

Stuart

15/7/2018 12:08:51 pm

That's a cool bit of info, thanks.

Felicity link

11/11/2019 11:19:50 am

I liked “Visionaries,” the cartoon more than the comic but the comic too.

Transformation 182: The Jaws of Death.

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