Transformation 244: Retcon.

11/1/2017

Oh boy.

Here we go then. It's a long, long one this week (I don't think I've used so many images before), as we wrestle with the problem of Megatron.

Still Ravage is fantastic and we get the start of one of the best remembered Combat Colin Stories.

It's all in my headache inducing look at ISSUE 244.

I'm so glad next week it'll mainly be jokes about the underwear factory from Corrie.

18 Comments

Ryan F

12/1/2017 05:34:25 pm

I think the giant out-of-place Targetmaster guy is actually Recoil (going by the 'Ark' big book of character models), and therefore yet another instance of an artist getting the Nebulan character models mixed up with their robot counterparts (Krunix says hi).

In a few issues time, 'Recoil' will suddenly be replaced with Kup as Delbo realises his mistake!

As for Straxus' crazy plan, you could (sorta) rationalise it. Maybe being just a head (and having been beaten by Blaster) meant Straxus had become a bit of a laughing stock. Better to nick Megatron's identity than rebuild himself as himself.

As for why he kept a copy of Megatron's memories on the clone... maybe it was to fool Soundwave, who can read minds and stuff? (I know, I'm reaching here!)

Stuart

12/1/2017 07:00:17 pm

All those Nebulons look alike to me. I used the Wiki, so you've another one up on them there.

I did give the story the grace of assuming Megatron completely bullshitted about what brought him to Cybertron, can't imagine Straxus actively planning to pretend to be Megatron if he knew everyone was trying to kill him last time he was home!

I wonder what Ratbat did or didn't know about Rebirth?

Tim Roll-Pickering link

12/1/2017 07:27:07 pm

I guess the memories were copied so that the fake Megatron couldn't be caught out by lack of knowledge. Perhaps Straxus had been watching the cartoon where the fake Optimus Prime could almost have a big sign around his head saying "Fake" and realised that that wouldn't work?

But yes, this is THE problem issue. Well we get an explanation for Megatron's absence that works for the US. And the retcon does at least explain how Megatron could have been in two places at the same time. But everything else...

As I've commented before, I think the single biggest problem most people have with this is that this effectively makes the original Galvatron a copy of Megatron and not the original. And I know there are doubters but throughout Salvage, Altered Image and Time Wars there was no hint whatsoever of Megatron being a fake - heck even Straxus assumed he was inside Megatron rather than vice versa - and Galvatron was his future self. Indeed at one point Galvatron even explicitly remembers a critical wounding as Megatron. The whole concept of history not working out as Galvatron remembers was primarily down to Galvatron explicitly deciding to do things differently from before (and possibly also from Rodimus Prime travelling back in time, literally taking Optimus Prime's place) with a hint that by the end madness is also infecting him. The alternative explanation would be that the whole changed history worked out over a much longer period yet somehow the fake Megatron broadly did the same actions as the original - which opens up the further question of just how the real Megatron survived in that particular timeline.

Beyond that, it's interesting to note that it's never too clear in the US stories just what Megatron's position is in the Decepticon hierarchy on Cybertron. He clearly has some influence to have sent the Air Strike Patrol in response to Scorponok's request so perhaps he actually is meant to be in command in some way. Indeed the Decepticon structure as a whole is never made too clear so perhaps there are multiple warlords in co-operation or even a vacuum that Thunderwing's rise is meant to fill. And perhaps Ravage was sent to Earth to spy on Scorponok, then found Megatron had been destroyed and so the lone soldier opted to throw his lot in with Shockwave as the best way to complete the mission?

(Incidentally Shockwave's later return in the US did get a bit of commentary at the time. In issue #72 a letter, presumably written when #69 was on sale, asked how Shockwave was still alive and the answer stated that the missing years and quest for warriors was a tale that might eventually be told. The issue was published just about the point when the original UK stories ended so perhaps the letters page writer assumed that a UK story at least might do the job.)

It's why Straxus embarked on this plan at all, why he was sent to Earth and why even he seemed to believe he was a presence seeking to possess Megatron's body that just don't make any sense at all. Or indeed why everybody acts as though Megatron has been dead all this time - there are potential ways to explain it but they all need stuff adding in.

Another example of how what we thought we saw actually isn't that is about to come up. The mini-comic next week tries to explain the renaming of the franchise to "G.I. Joe the Action Force" in a way that implies that whatever the retitling of the strip we're actually currently reading the adventures of G.I. Joe and Action Force are elsewhere. That possibly explains what the Transformation page is talking about.

And yes, I had no idea about the Prisoner when I first read the Combat Colin story. But Lew's always been good at using references to things the audience may not know about without it detracting from enjoying the story.

Burstingfoam

12/1/2017 08:56:43 pm

Ah, dear old Two Megs. Geeky confession: I'm in the very last stages of a personal project to transform the entire Marvel run of TF (UK and US plus G2 and Regen 1) into little mini-movies (very basic). The only story I actually rewrote in this process was this little gem. It was just too silly. Instead, in my version, the explosion of the space bridge causes an anomaly that creates two Megatrons, one with the brain of Straxus overlaid with Meg's personality who is sent to London, the other the 'real' Megatron who ends up back on Cybertron. Simple, no need for any nonsense. Yes, it still creates some Galvatron problems, but nothing's perfect.

Yes, I rewrote Furman, which is like rewriting Shakespeare, but then I was never convinced that he got the ghost scene correct in Hamlet anyway.

Alex Smith link

16/1/2017 11:15:09 am

Mini-movies sound amazing!

Burstingfoam

17/1/2017 09:16:26 am

It's not that exciting, just a bit of copy and paste of frame by frame of the comics with some music laid over - I've recently discovered in my aged state that I can read comics better that way. I've been on adoption leave, and I had far too much free time on my hands.

Dave

14/1/2017 12:01:49 am

I would have been just a bit shy of 9 years old when this came out, and I have very fond memories of watching Beauty and the Beast (although an adult show, I think it was on fairly early on a weekday night), so I may well have been the one person in the Venn Diagram of Transformers readers/potential Beauty and the Beast purchasers! To be honest, although not exactly setting the UK on fire, I remember it being fairly well discussed at school at the time. On a par with McCoy's era of Doctor Who at any rate.

Simon Hall

14/1/2017 05:33:18 pm

An even simpler way of reconciling the UK/US stories here would just to have a Megatron adventure where the spacebridge malfunctions again... Nevermind though, I kind of like stories like this for existing, if only for providing fuel for fanfiction.

I remember seeing Beauty & The Beast too! It was on ITV, IIRC around teamtime. Not on too late. Presumably because as 'fantasy' show it was deemed suitable for all. Can't remember anything about it though, and didn't twig until some years later this was the same lady from The Terminator.

I wish there was a Combat Colin trade paperback. I'd love to read this stuff again.

Stuart

14/1/2017 05:45:52 pm

I believe Lew has plans for a CC trade this year.

Based on my extensive research (what someone told me on Twitter) B&B did start off at a reasonable 9PMish time but would up in an Alien Nation style after midnight style slot over the 3 year run (which was when I remembered it being on, different ITV regions msy have varied), so it seems it had more of a pressence here initially than I thought.

Tetsuryu

15/1/2017 07:28:42 am

I was wondering when'd be an appropriate time to chime in since I had something to say on both stories, but seeing the major points of contention nicely coincide with the same issue...

When I first read the entire Marvel comic, I took the shorter route of reading the US version. Which was also convenient in the sense that I was spared from the major continuity headaches, but back then I didn't particularly pay attention to artist and writer names - hell, as far as I remember, I didn't even notice Delbo had replaced Perlin on the art.

What I did pick up on though was the first issue of Back from the Dead!, or at least this story, when Furman took over. It's been like ten years now so my memories are a bit hazy, but I do distinctly remember noticing something had changed in the way the character spoke. They seemed more articulate somehow? Maybe the plotting seemed a little tighter too. Like I said, it's been years.

Anyway, regarding the continuity headache, I realized a while back it'd be much easier to just ignore the entirety of Two Megatrons and just dismiss Megatron's backstory in the main story as a lie. While that would probably significantly alter the reader's perception of Megatron's a character in this story, particularly when you take his past relationship with Ratchet into account, it hardly makes any difference since any plot threads he might still be carrying at this point are effectively ended by the final issue of this story when Megatron is dead (again), Furman will blow this place up and be home in time for corn flakes.

Felicity link

27/11/2019 12:36:45 am

The Perlin-to-Delbo transition was smoothed over by Akin & Garvey inking Delbo’s first issue. I wouldn’t blame someone if they thought “Spacehikers” had been pencilled by Perlin!

John D. link

15/1/2017 10:51:58 pm

I think it was pretty reckless of Simon Furman to being Megatron back into play in the UK comics. Did he maybe think there was no future for the character after Hasbro didn't make a Powermaster of him? Maybe he thought he was in the clear. If so, why did Megatron return in the US comics? There are lots of ways the Classic Pretenders could have been created. Odd to give so much characterisation to somebody whose toy couldn't be bought. Incidentally I think on Boxing Day my mum binned all the disposable Megatron kibble. She is 75 but I am still taking her to task on this...

John D. link

15/1/2017 10:55:01 pm

Boxing Day 1985 I mean.

As I had said before I never bought the returning U.K. Comps Megatron as being Megatron. He didn't really act like Megatron. I think Megatron would have wanted to regain control of his troops rather than side with a powerful maniac who was claiming to be some future version of him.

Ralph Burns

18/1/2017 09:23:01 pm

Story made perfect sense to me at the time. Never had a problem with it. Also: Senior's art covers all sins.

Now the upcoming Earthforce stuff: that is when the pure excrement hits. :(

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Colin H

25/1/2017 05:09:44 pm

Now here's a curious thing: I remember that Beauty and the Beast ad from time of publication, but this was a long time after I'd stopped buying anything from Marvel UK except for Doctor Who Magazine (which I'm pretty sure didn't run it). Can anyone else remember where else it might have been printed?

Harry

17/2/2017 03:12:39 pm

OK, bear with me, I wasn't reading the comic by this time and I may be overlooking the obvious, but here goes...

I completely understand that, to US readers, Megatron hadn't been seen since that time that he blew up the Space Bridge, while standing on it himself, and, given that we already knew that the Space Bridge could do Very Bad Things to a robot (c.f. Straxus and also the generic Decepticon whose name escapes me from way back), readers there could be forgiven for having believed the character dead, as could the Transformers themselves in that continuity. Any excuse whatsoever given by Megatron would work for the American continuity.
The problem, as I see it, is this. Furman retcons things here such that the 'Megatron' seen from 'Ancient Relics' onwards in UK-originated stories was a 'clone', Straxus in a Megatron facsimile construct with a copy of Megatron's own memories overlaid. Say we go with this, and the 'fake' memories are so that Soundwave couldn't detect the truth, or 'Megatron' couldn't be caught out on a lie. Why, then, in the US story, is Ratchet so surprised to see that Megatron still lives, if everyone (including the clone itself) believed that to have been Megatron? The reveal in 'Two Megatrons' is made by the real Megatron, and his audience consists solely of the clone, who is dead by the end of the story, and Ravage. Are we to believe that Ravage told everyone that the clone was a fake, Autobot and Decepticon alike, yet purposefully decided not to tell them that the true Megatron still lived, 'cos why give the Autobots or rivals for the 'con leadership vital information? And when would he have had the time to do this anyway? And why would anyone believe him even if he had done...? ;)

Cradok

26/1/2018 02:26:28 pm

I once tried to fit Earthforce into everything by using the Straxus Megatron and shifting Two Megatrons. It didn't really work because EF has to take place after the Dinobots are brought back in US72 and before Megatron dies in US59... oops.

There *is* a place that it can fit(ish), if you can buy that after Megatron is split from Ratchet, he manages to escape, go to Cybertron to kill Straxus, and then gets nabbed and shoved back into stasis. Also, that place is literally in between panels in an issue.

There would also have to have been offscreen casualties of the Earthforce Autobots who are also resurrected by Neucleon, but that's not as big of a stumbling block.

Earthforce doesn't fit, but I was always proud of my attempt. I feel it came closer than any other I saw.

Felicity link

27/11/2019 01:13:06 am

I loved the writing, art, lettering, and colouring (those lovely green captions!) in that flashback, and having only read the American comic at that point, it didn’t create any continuity problems on my end.

I did wonder, at the time, why the Empty sarcastically calling himself Lord Straxus seemed so British. I must not have known yet that the writer was British (and so presumably to him any character not explicitly given an American accent would sound British in his head).

I like the widely-spaced eyes José Delbo gave that generic Autobot in the flashback. Delbo will be doing some more pleasing generics in upcoming issues, IIRC.

That’s a great panel by Geoff Senior of Ravage’s head. Kudos to him for having the confidence to draw Ravage from that angle, too.

The Megatron impostor problem sounds like the Spider-Man clone saga, only done first. Fans did not like the idea that the Spider-Man they’d been following for 20 years had actually been a clone, while the real Spider-Man had been off somewhere else. Hence the hasty rewrite to say that no, that was just a lie by one of the villains and we haven’t been following the wrong Spider-Man.

Strangely enough I would have gotten a “Prisoner” reference in a comic despite the original TV series airing before I was born. One of my earliest memories is watching a rerun with my father and being terrified of Rover. Around 15 years later PBS began showing “The Prisoner” and I remember my science fiction fan friends getting into it at that time. I donated to PBS just to get the penny-farthing fridge magnet and non-fiction book to give as a gift to my father. I even found the soundtrack on cassette! That’s also when I bought the four-issue comic mini-series “Shattered Visage” though it turned out to be so low-affect as to be very confusing.

But it’s equally great when these references happen and you don’t catch them because years later when you re-read the comic it’s a whole new layer to experience. Like a flawless lysken crystal.

I almost never got to see “Beauty and the Beast” when it was originally on, but I would have liked to have. What little I did see looked cool. I did catch it in reruns in the late 1990s but by then my enthusiasm for fantasy had cooled. Sometime in the mid-1990s my local comic shop owner just gave me a free copy of the “Beauty and the Beast” comic shown above, presumably because it had been taking up room in the back issues and he couldn’t sell it, so he figured it would at least have a good home with me. (“Free garbage!” my friend once joked.) Unfortunately I no longer have it. I skimmed through it but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I forget whether I recycled it or gave it away. I hope it was the latter and someone out there is enjoying it now.

Transformation 244: Retcon.

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