Transformation 255: On the Prowl.

30/3/2017

The classic heroes are here!

Plus, a whole new era of "ARRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH where does this fit?!!!!!!!!!!!" debates start.

It's Prowl Vs Bevis and Butthead in my look at issue 255!

Plus, happy birthday Combat Colin.

10 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

31/3/2017 08:26:17 pm

The Classic rereleases are surprising given how recent they were - (though they're not in Perchance to Dream) Jazz and Inferno were still present in the 1986 UK toy catalogue, and the Special Teams were only released that year. So they had the potential problem of being "toys your elder brother's put aside" and even "toys your classmates had". This wasn't an issue for me but I wonder if others were dismissive of such recent returning product. Generation 2 to some extent suffered from this problem.

As for the reasons behind their choice, the best guess is that they started with the 1984 Autobot cars as the most obvious starting point. Five of them are back, two are repaints of two of those five, another would come the next year (and Sideswipe had also lasted into 1986), so it's a question as to why they didn't pick Trailbreaker, Hound and Mirage instead (and Mirage's mould may have already been damaged by then).

Of course at the time things felt differently - there was a vibe about the original characters being back and Prowl rapidly became a favourite of mine, perhaps because of this issue.

Combat Colin is 30? Blimey, I didn't realise it. And a glance at Joepedia suggests that at one point the blurred face was meant to be Zartan, which makes some sense (as he killed the Hard Master) then Firefly was given more nijary stuff. But it just increases the mess of everyone being connected to Snake-Eyes.

Stuart

31/3/2017 11:33:51 pm

By odd choices I more meant the choices made for which of the re-released characters got to be in this story rather than the choice of toys themselves.

More specifically Silverbolt, who seems out of place with the four 84 cars and brings the rest of his guys with him and it's hard to do them all well in five pages.

Considering (IIRC) Jazz is on the Galvatron chess board and was part of the tie-in competition prize, I suspect a last second Hasbro mandate to put Superion (and of course Menasor) in there instead. Hence that issue being the weakest.

I suppose Galvatron is a bit of an odd choice as well, even beyond the continuity. It's such a generic villain role they could have given it almost at random to any classic (or more recent newish guy) release.

Simon Hall

31/3/2017 08:26:17 pm

Derek B! There's a blast from the past. Crikey. Had a successful career as a producer too, as I recall. Poor guy died in 2009. That letter reminds me of the 'cool' horror show Look-In had morphed into around this time to keep itself relevant to an increasingly disinterested audience...Always get a bit of buzz hearing Transformers name-checked in songs - PWEI's 'Can U Dig It?' being my favourite, although I liked that 'Transform and roll out' dance tune from ten years or so ago that's littered with samples from the cartoon and I've forgotten who its by.

A lot of these Earthforce stories still feel very fresh and new to me, having discovered them long after the fact. I like the 'Purchase'stories and I think this and the Sunstreaker one are my favourites (the Sunstreaker one just because I have a very strong visual memory of the cover, for some reason).

Stuart

31/3/2017 11:21:23 pm

Yo freaky Simon, I'm gonna have some rad things to say about Sunstreaker as well.

Ralph Burns

31/3/2017 10:57:51 pm

It may sound odd, but young Ralph appreciated the bar code being yellow this week so it blended in a bit more with the cover. Young Ralph hated barcodes appearing on the covers of his comics with a passion that could turn a vicar into a being of questionable virtue.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Stuart

31/3/2017 11:35:05 pm

It's the little things that matter.

Personally it's the Battlechargers being front and centre I love.

John D. link

1/4/2017 01:59:09 am

Yeah Jazz was on Galvatron's dash board - drawn by Geoff senior? I remember being excited by that. Jazz was always one of my favourites, because he was one of the first toys I had. There was also the funny thing where, depending on what you read, either he was second in command, or a "lieutenant" behind Prowl. What was Uncle Bob's position? I expect Jazz might have been scheduled to be part of perchancw to dream, until somebody pointed out he was already getting a big role in the US strip. Is Perchance to Dream where the idea of the IDW spotlights came from? Credit to Mr Furman.

John D.

1/4/2017 02:00:07 am

Chess board!!

Cradok

8/2/2018 02:00:54 pm

Aah, this is *my* Prowl.

Felicity link

4/12/2019 07:45:23 pm

Simon Furman seems to have read too much into the part of Prowl’s profile where it says his mind has a powerful logic centre. This does not mean he has to be uptight and authoritarian.

Over in the cartoon continuity, it would have been cool if Chip Chase had become Prowl’s Headmaster partner. Though that would make what happened to Prowl’s head in the movie that much worse, if Chip was his head at the time.

I’m going to track down those Derek B. songs! Sometimes it’s nice living in the age of the Internet.

I agree with Tim Roll-Pickering above that the blurry guy is Zartan.

Did Clutch retire? He’s the guy with the stubble who likes working on old cars, right? He and Rock & Roll are captured by Cobra while cruising through in Broca Beach in their old car and they get brainwashed by Zarana and the Dreadnoks.

The guy who retired from GI Joe that I remember was Grunt, who went back to finish his college degree and met a girl while jogging one morning. He thought she called him by his secret GI Joe code name but it turned out she just assumed he was an ex-army grunt. Also, in modern slang, “taking a grunt” means to poo, so it’s good that he didn’t think she meant it that way.

Transformation 255: On the Prowl.

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories