Transformation 184: Make Mixmaster's Day

20/11/2015

The newest Future Shocker hits the halfway mark with a story that is desperately treading water as it tries to fill eleven pages.

Yes, I know. There's irony there considering how much waffling I normally do.

Still, Ghyrik gets to enjoy the view; the Junkions are complete gits and Wheelie and Wreck-Gar employ a very cunning escape plan.

All this and a nightmare fuel ending in my look at Space Pirates! Part 3.

19 Comments

Cradok

20/11/2015 02:08:23 pm

Yeah, that show of the strung up Autobots stays with you. Really creepy, and nicely drawn. I'm never going to be impartial about Space Pirates as a story, since it was my first, so I'm going to mostly refrain from commenting on it. Soundwave being in charge didn't mean much to me at the time, but is pretty nice in retrospect. He's probably the best leader the future Decepticons had, something to be said for just being a sensible guy.

This issue is the only one that I (intentionally) defaced, since I cut out the competition entry. I didn't win, but would get him for my birthday the following February.

Alex link

21/11/2015 04:58:03 pm

He's the best leader the present-day Decepticons had as well!

snowkatt link

20/11/2015 02:12:51 pm

That sexism will make a comeback in full force, in the coming weeks though where Arcee is reduced to the damsel in distress.
And being pink with it too, cause she is the girly one.

...urgh

Other then the absence of sexism, well there isn't much to this issue is there ?
Not much to say about it either, it just pads and pads a bit more.

At a guess the Junkions are playing coy with Rodimus about the whereabouts of Wreckgar because he told them this was a "for your eyes only James Bond mission, which includes the other party hush hush ."
But that's the only reason I can give, I just always assumed he told his men to keep their cards closed to their chest.

At a guess why Transformers fans aren't really all that concerned with Braitwaith is because he did all of 2 issues and 1 cover.
Which isn. t exactly a huge body of work to comment on.
Bryan Hitch's body of work isn't much bigger, but it's 3 issues and 9 covers
and the covers make it feel like more then it really is.

I'm not familiar with Braithwaiths work outside of Space Pirates ( and a Punisher Max story line with some dodgy perspectives) and I don't really like his work here. It's clearly the work of a talented beginner, but still a beginner.
It's rather rough around the edges and a bit doughy and unformed.

I disagree about the last splash page though.
The camera is way too zoomed in, so we cant really get a feel of the scale.
but even worse the Autobots are strewn around in a miss matched manner.
4 of the Autobots are strung up on the wall and facing away from the camera, but Blaster is trussed up and looking directly at the camera.
I can assume that he and Wheeljack are hanging from antenna or the like, but the panel is cropped in so close it's hard to see and it looks like just a jumbled mish mash.

Nor are the Autobots so damaged to believe that they are dead or even badly damaged, we have seen them survive worse.
The purple prose tries its best to sell something, that just isn't there
All in all the splash page is a bit of a damp squib, much like this whole issue really.

Part 4 makes up for it though and then bollockses it up with the sexism again,
but ill grouse about that next week.

(Speaking of bollocking, I had trouble with my computer and it took me 5 days to sort it out. Which off course bollockses up my whole schedule for Focused Totality. RGH ! )

Stuart

20/11/2015 02:16:42 pm

Such computer based fun is the curse of the internet blogger. I feel your pain.

snowkatt link

21/11/2015 02:06:40 pm

Yeah, it sucks.
I had worked in advance but not on Transformers.
So currently I'm pushing out the reviews that are furthest along, to get content on the blog and things back under control again.
Unfortunally, that means Transformers are taking a minor backseat for the moment.

Nathan webb

20/11/2015 07:02:54 pm

I think I would have been 10 when this issue came out and I remember being really shocked but in a boyish way impressed by the final image of dead autobots.

Ryan F

20/11/2015 10:02:47 pm

I hate the cover on this. Bad punctuation.

Oh, and who's that Brawn-coloured guy at the top-right of the picture of the strung-up Autobots? It's been bugging me for ages!

Benway

21/11/2015 05:37:17 am

Is it Brawn?

snowkatt link

21/11/2015 02:08:05 pm

Probably just a generic.
The mid section is taken from Galvatron.

Alex link

21/11/2015 05:02:17 pm

Brawn lives!

(Seriously, though. Like Stu says in the article, the comic Transformers have survived much worse punishment* than what was meted out to them in The Movie. I've no problem with Brawn and Wheeljack being there.)

(*We will ignore Catilla's weak point being his shoulder. I've never been all that satisfied that the Time Wars deaths really counted, either - just that the Galvatron incident being followed so closely by the Underbase incident meant that repairs would take a while. Battletrap, at least, survived.)

Cradok

22/11/2015 01:10:08 am

Yeah, that's a mishmash of parts. The torso is Galvatron, the upper legs are fairly common shapes, but I don't think they specifically belong to anyone; if pushed for a name, I'd probably say based most on Optimus. The lower legs, again, fairly generic, but I'd be hard pressed to even suggest a name, there's just no one I can think of with that shape and detailing. Certainly not Brawn. I will say that whomever it was, his foot ends with the flat part, that foot is just some foot that's been stuck on the bottom. The arm is anyone's guess, too little to go on. Probably still not Brawn, though, his are squared off, and those seem to be round.

It's odd all over, really, the two full body shots - Slingshot and Percy - are aggressively copied from their Universe art. Blaster and Wheeljack are inspired by it, but different in a lot of ways. Trailbreaker seems to be based on someone seeing a picture of him once and trying to remember how he looked, that chest is weird, I can't remember seeing him like that anywhere else offhand. And then there's NotBrawn, made up of parts.

John D. link

21/11/2015 05:03:33 am

The final image of the auto boys is definitely memorable, I thought it had maybe been in last weeks issue and was surprised you didn't mention it. I agree however that it'd missing any sense of scale. Even as a kid I thought it would have looked better from a wider angle. Really interesting point about the cast and the lack of nebulans. As a kid I accepted this was the UKs cast & that headmasters etc weren't really "UK". I wonder what Furman's thinking was. Maybe he just didn't like any of the characters, apart from Nightbeat?

Benway

21/11/2015 05:40:38 am

As a kid I just assumed the Nebulons got old and retired or got killed at some point. Or the Powermaster Nebulons ate all the food in the universe and everyone starved. Something or other.

John D. link

21/11/2015 05:05:48 am

"Auto boys" haaa! "As a kid" is becoming my very own SPECIAL TEAMS!

Ralph Burns

21/11/2015 01:37:23 pm

Words cannot convey how much the last page put the shits up young Ralph. My favourite (Blaster) dead? Those Quints had best eat ret hot alien laser death!!! DIE YOU TENTACLE FUCKERS! AND YOUR EGGY BOSS BASTARDS TOO! TAKE YOUR CORKSCREW SHIPS AND SHOVE THEM UP THE RED WINE ARSEHOLE OF TIME!!!

UNH! HOPPER!
SPECIAL TEAMS!

Nathan webb

23/11/2015 10:46:35 am

Well that escalated quickly!

snowkatt link

24/11/2015 02:30:26 am

Hopper had it coming man !!!

Paul Moseley

8/11/2017 02:20:05 pm

Looks like a Jodie Calvert from Huddersfield does exist!

https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=ms-android-samsung&biw=360&bih=311&ei=FRIDWtHdBpHBkgWewauYDA&q=Jodie+calvert+Huddersfield&oq=Jodie+calvert+Huddersfield&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3..35i39k1.6841.8601.0.9008.4.4.0.0.0.0.355.691.0j1j1j1.3.0....0...1.1j4.64.mobile-gws-serp..2.1.205....255.9x-yz7JhEY4

Felicity link

11/11/2019 11:06:40 pm

The cartoon would go back and forth on how friendly Wreck-Gar and the Junkions were. Even in “The Big Broadcast of 2006,” the Junkions were acting stand-offish towards the Autobots as much as the Decepticons even before the Quintessons started trying to reprogram them.

Is Ghyrik a Furmanised respelling of Gyrich from the “X-Men” comics?

“Dread Tidings”? I wonder how that felt to the kid who wrote in to say the column should be called “Grim Tidings” only for Grimlock to get snide with him.

Yay “Visionaries”!

Transformation 184: Make Mixmaster's Day

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