Transformation 240: Back From the Drunk.

16/12/2016

It's a big week this week as one S Furman Esq makes his debut on the American comic.

What better way to celebrate than going down the pub?

It's all in my look at ISSUE 240!

And if you're in Manchester at the James Roberts/Jack Lawrence/Nick Roche signing at the Travelling Man tomorrow, do say hello if you see me. I rarely bite.

10 Comments

Some chancer called Ryan Frost

16/12/2016 07:56:05 pm

Zombie Goldbug's pupils really freak me out. Transformers shouldn't have pupils in their eyes, it just looks weird. The scariest thing Marvel ever did with the Transformers was the cover to US#58. Those eyes!

Although the instances weren't very memorable, Budiansky wasn't completely averse to the idea of Transformers dreaming: Skids had a little moment in Showdown where he imagined himself in a gunfight with Megatron.

As you say, it's weird how Prime thinks Megatron is long dead, when they were only just in Time Wars together. Maybe the rift played havoc with Prime's memory or something, I dunno.

Even as recently as Flames of Boltax, they put in an editorial note to cover US mentions of Megatron's death (p8: "Megatron is believed - mistakenly - to be dead."). A shame that Euan Peters, who took over just after Boltax, wasn't quite as anal about that stuff as Furman was.

Stuart

16/12/2016 08:43:25 pm

Oh you had to think of a really obvious Budiansky dream sequence.

*Shakes Fist*

Tim Roll-Pickering link

16/12/2016 09:56:56 pm

As well as the plot - art - script method, Marvel US in this period seems to have still had Jim Shooter's mantra of "every issue is someone's first" with a requirement to make it clear exactly who the characters are and what their relationships are. And this was nearly a decade before Marvel US briefly adopted intro gatefolds so it fell to the story even more (whereas in the UK the Transformation page could in theory help new readers). And this trick could also disguise - a reader might have just assumed this dialogue was making it clear that the best known Decepticon leader outside the comics was no longer around in the story and this unseen Scorponok was now in his place. At the time I didn't clock who the mystery villain was, but I don't think I'd read issue #223 at this stage and certainly not #107 so those clues passed me by.

As I've said before, but for the reference to Thunderwing it's pretty easy to see Out to Lunch! having been planned to run immediately after what will be the US strip in #251 and then eleven weeks of reprints knocked it off course. But that does raise the question of where the Megatron revelation coming up (just how long is that issue's post going to have to be?!) was planned to be printed in all this and thus if the death was to have been shown at this point. Certainly the idea that the newly arrived Megatron could not simply take the other's place as leader with a corpse around without someone noticing and thus goes off on his own would solve one aspect of the mess but it really should have been explicitly stated. And you could even make that line "...NOW dead" with just a simple bit of relettering - but it needs an actual death to have already happened.

Without knowing either Euan Peters's full credits or if he even had an assistant at all, I wonder if part of the problem in this period is the lack of editorial input from someone with a background in creative writing. Peters was a designer and colourist but not to my knowledge a writer and so if there wasn't someone with a grasp of the characters & continuity around in the office it must have been hard to handle the more creative side of modifying reprints and supplying explanations in the letters page. And I don't want to blame Peters too much - editing the title may well have been another job that was hard to fill and so the most senior & experienced staffer around may have been given the job by default after Furman went freelance, and we don't know if there was any up and coming assistant around either. But certainly a lot of the problems all seem to come back to the lack of a Rimmer or Fuman in post - as indeed was also seen on some other books that combined imported and originated material.

Mr. Shortt

17/12/2016 12:51:58 am

Wonderful issue, lovely review. Both these stories are highly underrated and I distinctly remember this period as feeling like an exciting time to be a fan again.

What's the story behind the Bob Budiansky/Simon Furman lunch meeting? Was it amicable? Was Bob a fan of Simon's work, and vice versa? Did they have a few beers? Where did it take place? I would love to have been an Insecticon on the wall for that one.

Simon Hall

17/12/2016 09:25:18 pm

Chalk this one up as another story I like. I think this introductory story from Furman is stronger than some of his later US work (especially Matrix Quest).

I honestly don't mind the continuity going out the window at this point - personally, I was dipping my toe in the murky waters of comic book collecting (I say collecting, my collection has always been a by-product of reading!), and was aware of the UK comic being behind the US one. As Tim said, it takes an editor invested in the material to iron out any continuity 'glitches', or someone with the creativity (and budget) to do it.I suppose as well, my experience of reading Transformers has always been in the wrong order, so stuff being a bit off doesn't bother me as much.

The b&w story is the start of what I enjoy most about these stories - short, character based that add a lot of colour (hah!) to the Transformers. Good show.

Alexander Smith link

20/12/2016 05:03:54 pm

Out to Lunch is easily one of my fave black and white stories and really enshrined the Decepticon Powermasters as two of my favourite characters. As you say, Wildman's on fire as well.

As for the 'Marvel Method' of scripting a comic, I side with Warren Ellis on this: "There's full script, and then there's the wrong way."

Alex Smith link

20/12/2016 05:07:08 pm

Also, Alan Moore on the Marvel Method:

"I've never really got on with that, I can't see – that just looks sloppy to me. I mean, I remember once Archie Goodwin, who I greatly respected, saying it does allow for serendipity. Yeah, I can see that, but I should imagine that as a reward that is probably outweighed by the fact that all the characters, the artist has to give them neutral expressions because he doesn't know what they're gonna be saying, or thinking, in those panels, so he has to make them look kind of neutral, a bit constipated, and everything gets sort of blanded out. Whereas, I can control this – I can make sure that everything works, at least in my little crappy drawings, I can make sure there's not too many words for any panel "

Ralph Burns

25/12/2016 01:58:37 pm

As much as I enjoy it can you imagine a kiddy comic today being allowed to get away with a story based around heavy alcohol use in a bar? I can just imagine the 'BAN THIS EVIL COMIC' tabloid headlines on a slow news day now! On a more serious note, I do think it's spectacularly poorly judged for a children's comic. The characters aren't just tipsy, they're completely off their faces and I don't think substance misuse ahould be portrayed in a comedy manner in a children's title.

That said, I love 'Out to Lunch' now as an adult (it's very well observed) but it did confuse me a lot as a child as I wasn't exposed to drunken adults so I did not understand the story.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

LiamKav

10/10/2020 06:49:16 pm

To be fair, the 80s cartoon also has a small section where the Deceptions get smashed on high-grade Energon. It seemed as long as their was plausible deniability, it was fine.

Felicity link

26/11/2019 02:23:41 am

The fact that this first story is Simon Furman working in a Bob-Budiansky-like style is a good thing, for me. Far from being “the least of Furman’s work,” this is my favourite period of his work. The story right afterwards with the Classic Pretenders and Primus is a close second, and the Matrix Quest has really grown on me over the years. So we’re in for a good time in this batch of stories.

But after this “sea change,” the worst is yet to come. Then it’s basically a steady downhill slide…Nucleon, the Rachet/Megatron monster, the Optimus Prime surrender, the Neo-Knights, the Decepticon civil war, and especially, most of all, everything with Grimlock (especially at the expense of Prowl). There are a few oases of goodness in that period—I liked “Rhythms of Darkness,” and for some reason the Unicron cult from “The Void!” tickled my fancy.

The special double-sized issue #75 (as it was for us over here) was uneven. Furman and Senior did all that they could reasonably do to make it appropriately epic (scale was always going to be a problem). However with all those pages devoted to just one battle, there’s not as much plot density. Unicron’s big explosion was underwhelming and his death dialogue was corny (the “terrible, wonderful life” passage). Nevertheless, I’m glad the series continued on, and we got as many issue as we got. It would have been all too easy for Marvel to end the comic on that climax, and they didn’t; they gave us some after-care.

As the final year of US Furman stories wears, on there’s a definite feeling of the world losing its innocence, of things not being as good as they used to be, just as in life. The fact that “Generation 2” (the comic) was so appallingly bad was just a logical extrapolation of this trend. So in that sense, I shouldn’t even be so upset about it!

But for now we’re in the good part! I love these early Furman issues! José Delbo’s art is cool and confident during this period (despite those eyeballs) and he’ll be tag-teaming with Geoff Senior whom we also love. Furman’s writing is fresh and stylish. The world is still full of possibility and the feeling that it’s all going to be OK. Right here, right now, there’s no other place I’d rather be, as a song from that time aptly expressed it.

Wow. I really wasn’t swift on the uptake back when I read these issues the first time…I didn’t see the Megatron reveal coming despite the foreshadowing you mentioned, and I didn’t figure out it was Shockwave in the story that’s coming up despite his speech patterns. So kudos to the writer and artists for being subtle enough to keep me in the dark! :-)

Transformation 240: Back From the Drunk.

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