TRANSFORMATION 22: V Stands for more than Victory...

12/10/2012

An extremely packed issue this week, with format changes, new characters, expostion galore, the first letters page and special guest star Marc Singer.

All in:

The New Order Part One.

6 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

12/10/2012 09:31:29 pm

"Machine Man sees him face off against a Halloween costume themed villain with a flying hover-board who is in no way like Green Goblin. Jack O'Lantern probably didn't go down as they greatest new addition to the Marvel roster of baddies."

That's probably one of the most positive things said about the character on the internet! Bashing him, particularly in his later identity as the second Hobgoblin, is almost a compulsory sport online.

"But it's in black and white and contains two Seekers. So how are you supposed to know which is which?"

The stickers on their feet are different. The left foot is Starscream's so by elimination the head is Skywarp's.

Stuart

13/10/2012 01:34:29 am

Blimey, I'd had no idea Jack was a proper Marvel villain, I'd have thought he'd have been buried in a deep dark hole after this.

Good call on the stickers, I fail competitions.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

15/10/2012 01:23:57 pm

Few Marvel villains go unused and he was a Steve Ditko co-creation so the Spider-Man titles must have found using him irresistible and picked him up almost immediately. And they were certainly aware of his less than stellar status as Jack O'Lantern, aka Jason Philip Macendale, was generally treated as a third rate villain who usually complicated clashes with other foes rather than presenting a major threat in his own right. However thanks to some major editorial cock-ups and miscommunications the original Hobgoblin got killed off and Jack O'Lantern became his replacement. For about nine years he roamed the Marvel universe generally treated as a massive loser with multiple attempts to boost his power (including for a time being fused with a demon!) until he was finally killed off by the return of the original Hobgoblin.

There have been a few other Jack O'Lanterns but they've not made the greatest impact. In a curious rerun of history one of them wound up being used to resolve the mess created by the killing off of another major foe, Mysterio.

Stuart

16/10/2012 01:11:11 am

I must admit my knowedge of the wider Marvel Universe is functional (and overly geared towards early Clearmont X-Men) so that's pretty interesting stuff.

Considering he seems to be very "inspired" by Green Goblin sticking him in Spider-Man rather than any other the books that didn't already have hoverboard flying Halloween style villains (more than one!) was a daft decision in and of itself.

Colin H

27/2/2018 08:33:38 am

What I'd never noticed before is that the Honeymooners isn't completely supplanted by V; it's still there on the third page. And something that I remember impressed me at the time is the Decepticon version of the logo - as if invading the Ark and trashing the Autobots wasn't enough, they'd started taking over the comic itself. Good stuff!

Felicity

29/10/2019 11:34:02 pm

That’s neat that they replaced “The Honeymooners” with “V” as a more contemporary show of more interest to our generation. I love “V.” Of course the idea is that Shockwave is watching *bad* TV programming so he jump to the conclusion that humans are dumb, so the thousandth rerun of an old corny sitcom works better with this than something cool like “V.” Notice that he also sees a game show where contestants dress up in silly costumes and a sinful soap opera. There’s a pattern here! He’s lucky it’s only 1984 so he didn’t have to experience “reality” TV.

There’s a moment like this in the cartoon where the Aerialbots see a TV sitcom on a screen at the Ark. A man starts to sit down. A young woman warns “Dad! She had to buy new furniture!” The chair breaks and the man falls on the floor. The Aerialbots conclude that humans are idiots. All they know of us is that sitcom and on that basis...well, it’s just a good thing they saved those world leaders in spite of having gathered from human culture that they wouldn’t be missed by their constituents.

For the first several years that I owned that comic, I never realised “Are All Dead” was supposed to be only part of a sentence beginning with the title logo, “The Transformers.” Given that Shockwave wouldn’t be able to see the logo above his head without breaking the fourth wall, I naturally assumed that he had burned “Are All Dead” into the wall for no apparent reason. Only years later did the penny drop and I realised that it was “The Transformers Are All Dead”! Still a great cover though!

TRANSFORMATION 22: V Stands for more than Victory...

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