Transformation 204: At Last, It's the 1989/2009 Show.

8/4/2016

It's almost time for the grand climax!

But not quite, before we get there we get an issue that is technically mostly padding. But what padding. Get ahead like a Jumpstater and discover what happens when you repeatedly get shot through the chest. All to be found in my look at:

Time Wars! Part 6.

9 Comments

Ralph Burns

8/4/2016 08:40:57 pm

From an adult perspective there is something very dramatically interesting in Magnus' off-hand fate. He survived all those battles with Galvatron, made it alive to the year 2009 (presumably thinking that nightmare is behind him), was punted back in time and casually taken out in a horrific and sudden manner rather than being able to confront his one-time nemesis one last time. He doesn't even get to live until the end of 'his' great story. Sometimes that happens in wars.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

John D. link

8/4/2016 09:41:34 pm

I've said it before but I think Lee Sullivan is great. Strangely under rated. This issue was brilliantly drawn. Interesting point Ralph about Ultra Magnus. Do you think Galvatron is confused because he remembered lots of G1 Autobot cars that are bizarrely missing from this entire story? Interesting that next weeks cover features Kup and Bkurr prominently, 2 characters who are quite troublesome in terms of making everything hang together. Next weeks cover is excellent bthe way, truly iconic.

Stuart

8/4/2016 09:56:03 pm

Next week's cover also has Bruticus and Divebomb amidst the corpses (at least), don't hold it up to scrutiny!

Tim Roll-Pickering link

8/4/2016 10:43:12 pm

I think it's this issue more than any other that is most people's problem with Time Wars. On its own it may just about hold up, but as part six of seven and, in a way (quickly counts), part 127 of 128 it has a lot to do in sorting things out before the final climax.

The first problem comes later but for those of us (myself included) who became regular readers after this issue, Time Wars was held up as the ultimate battle. And when we finally got to see it, the Collected Comics cut out just before this one. So it would be about a decade before we got to see the final parts and the weight of expectations (and yes, increased age meant we were more discerning) meant that for us it would be very hard to have a satisfactory ending.

But this issue is also way too fast and loose with the threads. In theory there's nothing wrong with things never being satisfactorily resolved and it happens all the time in real life. But when they've been heavily trailed and built up for so long, brushing them aside just feels hollow. Now one could have done something fancy by having Magnus fight *Megatron* instead and have some symmetry - the last battle for one participant turns out to be the first one for the other (although the exact relationship between the present and future Ultra Magnuses has never been terribly well set out - he's never been shown to have useful memories) - but instead we get him brushed aside with barely an acknowledgement of who he is. No mention of his long running conflict or a final showdown, just a casual brushing aside.

Oddly it's Soundwave and the Terrorcons who feel the most wasted. Remove them from the story and very little is lost. The Mayhems perform the role of temporary allies preparing to turn on the Autobots as soon as the crisis has passed. Soundwave and the Terrorcons pursue the Autobots for revenge, put this aside when they learn of the wider threat but then bail out as soon as they see the chaos and others will solve it. Now had there been a "Time Wars: Epilogue" where Roadimus and co limb back to 2009 to walk straight into a trap set up by their erstwhile allies then it would have been a decent pay-off - but I guess the number of available issues got cut short and the idea of holding back the shock of what happens in the future for a later story was too tempting to pass.

We don't talk much about the designers on Transformers but the wide variety of ways the Classic Cover Calendars are handled suggests something was going on in the office - who was in that post during 1989?

Chris Chapman

10/4/2016 10:21:47 am

So an easy way to improve Time Wars - lose the Mayhems and use the Future Cons for their bits of the story. Means Soundwave gets plenty to do and the team-up feeds into his continuing arc as the most sensible Con. Springer can still be worried.

Then have Magnus fight Megs as suggested above. Lose the Autobot civil war issue to buy space for Magnus and Megs. Boom!

Simon Hall

14/4/2016 09:46:44 pm

I agree with Ralf (and not just about SPECIAL TEAMS!). I like that this is a chaotic and messy fight that no one's prepared for.

The real world shenanigans that may have truncated the story and editorial hyperbole have conspired to leave a lot of folk with some ill will towards the story.

I do find the final part feels very rushed and after yearning for the last two parts (uncollected in the Collected Comics run), it is a slight disappointment, despite the visuals. I always found Sullivan's art on these two issues very sparse. There's just a lot of dead space around a lot of the characters a lot of the time, whereas Wildman, Smith and Reed had very 'busy' panels. Sullivan's work feels a bit rushed and below the standard of his earlier work on Salvage.

Burstingfoam

15/4/2016 01:20:13 pm

I love Time Wars, it's far and away my favourite TF tale, and that last panel of Prime v Galvatron still makes me smile in a bizarre and strange way.

BUT

How does Optimus use the Matrix when this version of Optimus doesn't have the Matrix? And since both present and future versions of the Matrix are already in the real world (the present version being somewhere out there in Prime's original body) then why does it matter if he does this?

And more to the point did Furman realise his error and use it to inspire the entire Matrix Quest storyline?

LiamKav

6/10/2020 09:11:26 pm

To be fair, there's been no indication at this point that PM Prime doesn't have the Matrix. It's not addressed in the US issues (mainly because turning the Creation Matrix into the Matrix of Leadership didn't happen until after Prime's death, and even then it was the UK comic.) For all we know Ratchet popped it out before the fired off his body, left it on the shelf, and then put it back in when Prime returned. We don't find out what "really" happened to it for several months yet.

(Something I've always wondered and figured the best place to ask is a 5 year old blog post... What colour is Galvatron's face in the comic? I always thought it was dark grey but the image at top looks more green to me. Or is that ambient lighting?)

Stuart

6/10/2020 09:37:02 pm

Usually grey, so that's either an effect or a mistake.

Transformation 204: At Last, It's the 1989/2009 Show.

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