Transformation 283: Wild Wild West.

12/10/2017

This week, why not sit back, relax, and enjoy my thoughts on Triggerbots going native and Octane driving into an explosive situation?

Don't worry about a thing, you don't need to be anywhere else. Don't look out the window! Just read my look at ISSUE 283!

10 Comments

Ryan F

13/10/2017 06:32:01 pm

Well I’m still here!!!

Just to say, there’s often stuff you write on this blog that I don’t agree with, but it’s never less than insightful and entertainingly put! Count me in as someone who thought you were a bit OTT last week, but - hey - if we all had the same opinions as each other, the world would be a much more boring place!

Always thought Cheyne was more a reference to the old TV show “Cheyenne”, myself, but I guess Shane works too! It would help if we knew how Cheyne was supposed to be pronounced - there’s a street in London called Cheyne Avenue and that’s pronounced like Lon Chaney’s surname.

There are LOADS of Western references in this one! One of the natives is called “Hud” (the name of a Paul Newman film) and if memory serves one of the locations is called Osaplam, which is Malpaso (Clint Eastwood’s production company) spelled backwards. I’m sure there are more but I’m stuck in a hotel without access to my notes.

And (spoilers!) shape-shifting emotion-sucking vampires? I initially thought Furman might have been influenced by Polymorph here, but the dates are slightly off so it doesn’t quite work. Boo!

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Stuart

13/10/2017 06:54:34 pm

I suspect I'm missing a lot with this and the next MQ but being hugely familiar with the genre/source material for each.

I like the Clint Eastwood's production company one, that's proper nerdy!

Ryan F

13/10/2017 07:08:46 pm

Well, it was the other way round for me with Big Shutdown and Bird of Prey, where the Chandler and Maltese Falcon references went right over my head! Interesting how familiarity (or otherwise) of the source material affects our reading of the pastiche. Because I don’t really “get” Bird of Prey, that’s always been my least favourite of the Mayrix Quest stories.

Stuart

13/10/2017 09:16:25 pm

Oh, and on influences for the psychic parasites, I'd guess it's a cross of two Star Trek villains, the salt vampire combined with the sedate attitude induced by the This Side of Paradise spores.

Charles RB

14/10/2017 02:12:57 pm

Octane's final end is wonderfully nasty - especially as his fellows go "NO ONE EVER DIED FOR A FUEL TANK" and bog off - and part of a run of really strong Earthforces (Makin' Tracks is alright but the rest nail it). Pity there wasn't more like this nearer the start!

bouncelot

14/10/2017 04:53:20 pm

I don't think I'd ever noticed the possible Roxxon reference in that strip (though I guess the "gas station" could plausibly be Exxon). If we take it as Roxxon, then that means that the final reference to the Transformers being in the Marvel Universe is years later than is generally thought (The Icarus Theory being the last previous example)..I guess it's somewhat fitting that it comes in an Earthforce story, given that the "Transformers definitely aren't in the MU" thing was only actuially stated in the US comic's letter pages.

And, of course, it's becoming increasingly clear that Matrix Quest is just Furman recycling Dinobot Hunt for a US audience.

Lee Gannon

14/10/2017 11:19:58 pm

The Transformers do exist in a Marvel Universe just not the main 616 one.
Transformers US / G.I. Joe - Earth 91274 http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Earth-91274
Transformers UK / Action Force - Earth 120185 http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Earth-120185

Charles RB

14/10/2017 09:32:09 pm

The "let's split people into small teams in a new environment each issue" trick is a really good way of handling the massive cast & toyline mandates, Furman should've reused it even more - and other writers too, at that. Last time was Titan's first six issues, and same again for vol.2* and if only the later volumes had done that too

* But not as good because it had Skids & Mudflap

Tim Roll-Pickering link

14/10/2017 11:10:25 pm

Had the classic triple changer rereleases been announced at this stage? Tracks's resurrection the other week would suggest that Furman might have been given an advance list of returning toys. And if so it's odd that between this issue and #275 he feels able to kill off current and even forthcoming toys - perhaps Hasbro were just faxing their orders in and not bothering to check if it could hurt the sales.

I wonder if the advert was sold as a colour slot which wound up displacing the AtoZ to black and white? It otherwise seems an odd decision to make. Annoyingly the colour reprint wouldn't happen for six months and we never really got a run of accidentally skipped characters.

Felicity link

17/12/2019 06:39:55 am

Oops! I forgot to subscribe to comments when I made my comment on the last entry! Forgive me if I go back and make one more superfluous comment just to subscribe.

I didn’t comment very much on the entries just before that because your decreasing interest in the crossover led to you making fewer remarks about it which gave me fewer comment hooks (since that’s the part of it I can speak to). ☺

It’s weird how animal-like Thunderwing’s face is in that panel. He looks vaguely like a bat or a cat.

Like Ryan F above, I also thought “Cheyne” was a shortening of “Cheyenne” rather than a homonym of “Shane”—maybe it works on both levels.

It was nice to see more José Delbo art, along with the usual good lettering from Jim Massara. IIRC we get one more from him (the Longtooth story) and then that’s it until the alternate Galvatron future issue.

I can’t say that I blame Jazz. I’ve had some road rage myself. Maybe Simon Furman got cut off by a trucker the day he wrote this story!

Yes! Now we’re getting into the left critique of foreign policy in “GI Joe”! The NABM is in bed with the right-wing dictator, but the US government is complicit in that, having backed General Villavaca (“Cow town”? As in Calgary?). And they knew damn well it was wrong, which is why they want it covered up, thus sending the Joes to do that particular dirty job. And the story agrees with you that the protesters are justified and should want to burn down the American embassy (except for the flags, of course). Plus seeing as Hawk and friends blew up the office with the incriminating documents anyway, it’s hard to complain that the locals are trashing the place too.

I miss Peanut Butter Fudgee-Os (only available in late 1993 and early 1994), Turkey McNuggets (only available during American Thanksgiving, 1997), and Pac-Man cereal (which I think I last ate in 1989?).

Transformation 283: Wild Wild West.

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