Transformation 277: Everybody in the House of Love.

7/9/2017

This week, after six years, Wheeljack finally gets to be the mad scientist we all knew he was deep down inside. Completely batshit you might say.

Plus, something something Joe crossover.

All in my look at ISSUE 278.

14 Comments

Mark Stevenson

8/9/2017 01:43:37 pm

Nice to see a mention in the letters for old-school TMUK writer Andy Dornan. He contributed a lot to the CG2 fanzine in the 90's, including the script for A Rage In Hell - the first two parts of which were illustrated by a precocious young talent named Nick Roche...

Stuart

8/9/2017 01:45:10 pm

That's cool, the name must have rung a bell as it felt like a TMUKer sort of letter.

Alex Smith link

8/9/2017 06:08:54 pm

Did he not also coin the term 'cyberforming' to refer to what the Empire do to planets, something which has entered 'official' parlance now?

JeremiahEcks

1/3/2025 06:56:59 am

Might have done, it sounds like an Andy Dornan word. I'm not part of the TMUK crowd now but hope he's doing well.

JeremiahEcks

1/3/2025 07:01:52 am

My favourite bit from Rage in Hell, as drawn by young Nick Roche, is where G2 Megatron teleports to the Hub in tank mode and blasts Optimus with such force, it wrecks him. Followed by the Liege Maximo single handedly destroying his G2 body and Megs' G1 form coming out of the wreckage unscathed (in CG2 continuity, Megatron's tank mode was just armour, like a fancy Pretender shell if you will).

Nick Roche was ALWAYS GoaT material to be fair, especially if his fanfic work is as clear to me in 2025 than the last time I saw it which nay have been 1999-2000.

Lee J Gannon

8/9/2017 05:48:04 pm

'Prowl and Jazz surrounded'. Don't you mean Wheeljack not Jazz?

Stuart

8/9/2017 05:54:07 pm

Whoops, I do indeed...

bouncelot

8/9/2017 07:33:44 pm

According to the blog post, you've been reviewing #277 two weeks in a row.

Stuart

8/9/2017 08:42:27 pm

It was that good!

Simon Hall

9/9/2017 06:51:47 pm

Its clearly having to wade through the tripe of the Joe crossover that's causing this. Although the mistakes are more interesting than the crossover.

The House That Wheeljack Built is good, making the cliche of the base attacking the heroes bearable thanks to some good character work and art.

And my three Lew Stringer comics turned up the other day - all signed! What a gent. Looking forward to reading Combat Colin - this blog has had me wanting to read these strips again for years now, and its nice Lew has been able to get them back in print :)

Ralph Burns

9/9/2017 06:58:22 pm

My opinions on this week's UK strip are the diametric opposite of our esteemed blogger. While reading this week's entry I ate a most pleasing 'Five Guys' cheeseburger, cajun fries and some Fanta. Unlike Wheeljack, I can carry out tasks effectively!

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Tim Roll-Pickering link

15/9/2017 12:42:52 pm

"Mindbender arrives (and gets glared at by Snake Eyes. See Trans issues 199, 201-203) "

A reminder of just what a nightmare this series is to fit into Joe continuity, even more so than TF continuity. Somehow the whole plot of Snake Eyes getting captured by Cobra is meant to fit into the middle of the crossover, which also probably means the G.I. Joe team was in official operation here despite being briefly disbanded in their own title... You can see why Hama was so keen to decanonise it.

It's odd to think that at this point the crossover is now the longest running single story arc that the comic has yet done. No wonder it grated so much.

Andrew Dornan's letter was a little bit annoying at the time, and I recall a later letter writer taking him to task. It's a bit too much "I've got all this (the guide and the toys with the tech specs) so why cater for anyone else?" Was this quite the original letter or did "Dreadwind" do the old trick of adapting a letter to provoke defences to justify editorial?

(It's also awkwardly timed with the original AtoZ run due to end in just a few months anyway. But could this be why they didn't do the full set of Movie characters at the end, just dropping the ones they can into the main run?)

As for the British strip - it's a good character piece but can feel an irritating inconsequential comedy piece until the following week.

Felicity link

17/12/2019 02:43:06 am

So GI Joe is to blame for Goldbug’s weird mouth. No wonder Ratchet felt entitled to undo it with Classic Pretender Bumblebee!

JeremiahEcks

1/3/2025 07:10:22 am

Exactly Felicity.

When Ratchet had a chance to revert Goldbug to Bumblebee he either felt he was reversing the;
a) hack job of some inept humans who forced a new identity onto Bumb.

b) hack job of a Jimmy Saville quoting weirdo who also forced a new identity onto Bumb.

Wreck-Gar's is particularly erroneous as he knows Bumblebee is going to be in his original firm come 2006 so why change it in the past except to be cavalier with time? Moron.

Anyway onto topic... it's why I don't have a massivevissue with Ratchet turning 'bug back into Bumb later on despite the ethical implications. Because he's fixing what he sees as a botch job error.

Transformation 277: Everybody in the House of Love.

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories