Transformation 233: Fleshling-Lover

27/10/2016

Geoff Senior is back! And so is Skullgrin. These two events are not obviously connected though.

In the American strip we get what may well be the last great moment from Uncle Bob, whilst over in black and white we find Thunderwing suffering a serious staff shortage in every sense.

All in my look at issue 233!

16 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

28/10/2016 09:13:22 pm

From memory the fate of the ozone layer was the big environmental issue of the day and so "ozone-friendly" did get used a bit as slang for environmentally friendly.

I can see where Dreadwind is coming from as some artists have depicted the smaller Prime body with the original's character model and we're about to get this exact approach same with the Pretender Classics.

As for the stories - yeah the Micromasters aren't very interesting are they? No wonder Bob zoomed in on the Pretenders instead.

Alex Smith link

30/10/2016 11:43:35 am

Annoyingly, there were new character models done for the Classic Pretenders. Would have been nice to see them in Delbo-vision.

So, the Air Strike Patrol and Sports Car Patrol are built here by Thunderwing - at what point do they begin working for Megatron, then?

tigerbread

30/10/2016 02:12:33 pm

This story is set 14 months ago, plenty of time for those 'cons to switch sides (hand waves).

Alex Smith link

1/11/2016 01:19:06 am

It might be addressed at some point, I just can't remember.

Stuart II (Not that one)

28/10/2016 09:59:02 pm

Mmm, more Micros and Pretenders. My two absolute favourite gimmicks ever. Oh yes, feel the sincerity...

That Xaaron, ey? Again just staying at home with his slippers on. Truly, The Boy Does Nothing. Still, I suppose it preserves his Mis-Teeq. (Yes, Dalek, thanks for podcast heads up. How about a podcast where Marion and/or Tom interview you about this project? Just a thought...)

Ralph Burns

29/10/2016 10:26:35 pm

By this point the new format was bedding in properly and young Ralph felt the comic was getting good again. Little did he suspect the era of comedy Earthforce crap still lay in the future...

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Stuart II

31/10/2016 07:44:40 am

Earthforce, crap? Never, sir, never. I loved those stories. It felt like a wonderful soft reboot, and I enjoyed the set-up immensely. I mean, who wouldn't love a bunch of random misfits getting more characterisation than they've ever had before, being led by a highly inappropriate egomaniac, trying to get on with life away from the main action and the rest of the Autobots doing the "important" stuff? <cough> MTMTE <cough> Hmmm, I wonder if James Roberts is an Earthforce fan? I would love to see the Earthforce stories collected properly in the IDW Classics series, with the black and white strips being coloured. Fingers crossed...

Alex Smith link

1/11/2016 01:14:20 am

I've always enjoyed Earthforce as well - no, it's not exactly Target 2006; Christ, it's barely To A Power Unknown... at times, but it's all character stuff and there are some great moments with otherwise-forgotten characters.

Plus, there's some nifty black and white art and Carnivac taking on Starscream. Always a bonus.

Stuart (That One)

30/10/2016 09:29:58 am

Tim:

That's interesting about "Ozone Friendly", guess I was just never one of the cool kids.

Stuart (Not That One): I'm sure we'll give a show over to this when I get my arse into gear and put the second book together.

Ralph: ...but crap comedy is my God!

tigerbread

30/10/2016 02:16:44 pm

Strange how Roadhandler didn't look very Micromastery next to Xaaron
in that panel...

Cradok

1/11/2016 12:00:58 pm

I'm alright with that, actaully. General Transformers scale issues aside, Xaaron is often drawn as smaller than the 'standard' size, so a Micromaster coming up to this chest is pretty much in scale.

Tetsuro

31/10/2016 12:18:24 pm

Seeing that next week panel and realizing what Arcee story we're talking about here fills me with dread.

John d. link

3/11/2016 11:23:40 pm

The transfer I mentioned last week - is this week's free gift! Who would have thought it! (Me. Subconsciously.). Hadn't noticed the Earthforce MTMTE parallels til now. I have only recently discovered MTMTE and am loving it.

Felicity link

22/11/2019 07:27:05 pm

IIRC “Enough of this gay banter” is also a line from a “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” sketch. (A quick Google shows that it was from “Vocational Guidance Counsellor.”) By 1989 standards the word “gay” in that sentence does stand out but it might not have in 1969. Either way, Dreadwind might have been referencing that show.

The comic seems to have a belief that the inner robot in Powermaster Optimus Prime is the same as the original Optimus Prime, even if the toys aren’t the same. When the Autobots were building the new body in Hi-Q’s lab on Nebulos, they said they were building it according to the schematics of his old body. Whenever we see Optimus without his extra armour in subsequent issues (for example at the circus), he looks like his old self. He even transforms into his old truck mode. Apparently this is just something that is true in the comic universe even if it is not true in the real world.

I agree, I definitely get the feeling that was a real air show, and the real people who work there showed up as characters. There might have been a note to that effect in the original “Special Missions” comic.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

23/11/2019 01:24:28 am

Actually they're a bit mixed on the smaller Prime. It's true that in the Cosmic Carnival he had the classic character model but in both King 'Con and Back from the Dead his smaller mode is clearly the Powermaster smaller character model and I think the same is true in Prime's Rib (the art is a bit indistinct and being black & white it's impossible to see if the forearms are red or blue). Aspects of Evil seems to be going with the idea the smaller form looks like the old but doesn't stop to explain why Prime doesn't use the larger body there or in the Movie.

I'm trying to think when else we see the smaller body. Most of the time Prime goes around in the larger form as though it's his default form (much like Ultra Magnus pre Dreamwave).

Felicity

23/11/2019 11:08:58 am

That’s true; I’d forgotten about those appearances!

Transformation 233: Fleshling-Lover

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