Transformation 302: Stampede.

22/2/2018

This week, it's the end of 1990!

Meaning we get to meet some new heroes in ISSUE 302.

Plus, a new Autobot in the 1990 ANNUAL.

And some very odd specials in the 1990 COLLECTED COMICS.

It's all quite, quite magnificent.

25 Comments

Charles RB

23/2/2018 03:50:59 pm

Magnificent Six is brilliant - and does seem to be the missing link that gets us to Wreckers, with its torture and shameful dark deeds of the past.

The Neo-Knights are.... depressingly less brilliant. There've been generic hero figures in Furman's team books before, from Dragon Claws to To The Death, but there's always been some characters that stand out, or who get a subplot or moment that drags them into murky depths (like Dragon binge-watching his old glories), or the plot and enemies grab your attention. And outside of Circuit Breaker and Blackrock's upcoming sacrifice of her - which is proper grim, taking the ending all the previous Blackrock-and-Beller stories (and Beller's solos) and doing the opposite, with no hope of return - the Knights don't have that. Nearest you get is Gruber laughing at Optimus when Primus ghosts him. A bit sad, considering how Furman seemed to almost instinctively dash off interesting people when he wasn't trying (Death's Head, Keepsake, Xaaron).

Richard link

23/2/2018 04:40:22 pm

I love The Magnificent Six. It made a huge impression on me as a kid, and the introduction of Megadeath (that name! that look!) blew my mind. The way the classic heroes were evolving (exemplified by the AtoZs) also tapped into the feeling that the comic was maturing along with its audience, acknowledging the passage of time and events.

Ryan F

23/2/2018 09:14:48 pm

It’s like Furman didn’t learn anything from Circuit Breaker’s original appearances, or indeed RAAT. Stupid humans getting confused and treating all Transformers as hostile is just such a boring way of adding extra ‘drama’ to a situation. It just cheapens the Transformers to see them bested by such crap opposition. Transformers have gone toe-to-toe with Unicron, Death’s Head, time rifts, Demons and whatever else, yet run away screaming when attacked by, er, a guy with giant feet? At least maybe the Neo Knights going down like a lead balloon would make Furman think twice in future, yes? (Remembers Skywatch and Circuit Smasher) oh bugger.

Charles RB

23/2/2018 10:01:25 pm

It makes sense in IDW, where the Autobots are foreign infiltrators that don't talk to humans and - as he had VP Allen note in the Titan run - would just look like two imperial powers feuding over us. Marvel, not so much when the Autobots repeatedly go out of their way to talk to humans, save humans, and not fight humans. But that's the Marvel way ever since Spider-Man, so here it is again!

Tim Roll-Pickering link

23/2/2018 09:27:18 pm

By presenting a government back team of mutants, this issue predates X-Factor by about a year (although Freedom Force had been around a while, but was largely portrayed as antagonists). And with Image comics only a few years away, it's not surprising that derivative teams and ideas were coming to the forefront. At the time I read this I was completely unfamiliar with Marvel mutants (this was around the end of the period when Marvel UK didn't do any superhero titles, and even the two annuals shown here are a step up) and found this story somewhat hard to understand because it never fully explained how the team got their powers. It was also difficult to realise the Air Strike Patrol got killed off in this one, with the art just compounding the problem.

I was another reader of the comic who never got given the annuals at the time and never had the spare cash to hand to get this one on the one occasion I saw it on sale. So it wasn't until the late 1990s that I got this one and the dark nature of the story didn't stand out so much in the spring. I suspect a toy mandate has caused problems with the cast here - it would be far more logical to have used just the six classic heroes, with Inferno in the Silverbolt role and Ironhide in Inferno's, reflecting how the fire engine wasn't (officially) part of the Ark's crew and doesn't (necessarily) have any history with the others. But I guess Hasbro UK wanted the Aerialbots promoted as well, though I doubt anyone knew early enough that Ironhide would be replaced in the toyline in 1991.

What a mess the Collected Comics were that year! I strongly suspect there was an autumn/winter special on the original schedule (there was in both 1989 & 1991) but something got in the way - perhaps the editorial change meant it got lost? Or perhaps the decision to run regular reprints in the weekly meant the Collected Comics were considered superfluous?

Simon Hall

24/2/2018 10:08:42 am

Thunderpunch's speech pattern annoys me, ay? Like he's some broad Yorkshireman instead of... whatever he's supposed to be, The Neo Knights (really?) were just terrible. And so deserving of some extremely sketchy art to compound how rubbish they are (I didn't know the Air Strike Patrol died here either). Furman does do good work with Circuit Breaker though for the rest of the books' run and I actually don't mind the character. I do wonder why Marvel never did anything with her. She would have made a neat Iron Man villain, if nothing else. I suspect she's just been forgotten about and doesn't have the kitsch appeal of some of Marvel's other z-listers to warrant a revival (hello Squirrel Girl).

I love the 1990 Annual. I don't know why, it's only really got The Magnificent Six to sell it, but there's enough about it to feel like some actual effort is being put in - or at least the formula established by previous Annuals is being maintained. I like the A to Zs, but I kind of wish toy box art had been properly used as with the last two annuals, as that made the British Profiles feel a bit more unique. Personally, I never really liked it when they used clips from comic art (as with Wheeljack here). It just doesn't look right to me.

I missed the Collected Comics for this year, despite them being my only way of catching up with Transformers, outside of the Annuals I got for Christmas. I can recall seeing CC #15 on a shelf in a random Smiths, but that was the last one I saw until the Time Wars ones later in 1991. I never clocked on to these being released at any other time other than Summer or Winter, so always missed out on some. You'd think the covers would give it away really...

I wonder if the 3 issue format also made it harder to collect complete UK stories? Not many of them were 6 or 9 parts long and couldn't be comfortably contained in that quarterly format. Plus, as mentioned, the weekly comic using reprints probably didn't help / limited the selection for the specials.

Paul Moseley

24/2/2018 09:35:32 pm

Isn't Thunderpunch Canadian? Hence the accent.

Felicity

24/12/2019 05:02:11 am

It’s a testament to how inaccurately Canadians have been portrayed in comics and other media that I (a Canadian) can’t tell if you’re serious or if you’re making a clever reference to the way that Wolverine has been written with an Australian accent in both comics and video. ☺

My roommate has a theory that the reason Wolverine sounds Australian so often is that Americans know so little about their neighbour to the north that they actually know more about Australia than they do about Canada.

Certainly they seem to consider the Canadian “eh” to be interchangeable with the Australian “ay,” which for the record it is not.

JeremiahEcks

7/3/2025 12:25:17 pm

Circuit Breaker exists in 616 Marvel, Simon (she appeared during Secret Wars II) and therefore, like Death's Head, remains a Marvel owned and not Hasbro owned character. Hence, difficulties with her ever reappearing.

But like you, very surprised Marvel have never capitalised on it. Kieron Gillen for example could have brought her back during his Iron Man run like he did with Death's Head.

The Neo-Knights however are more complicated I would think because IIRC the Hasbro ownership thing is, if a character first appeared in Transformers, Hasbro own it. Hence why C.B. and D.H. appeared in other comics before Transformers despite being intended to be used in Transformers explicity.

But the Knights first appear in Transformers. Doesn't that mean Hasbro, and not Marvel, own them?

Tim Roll-Pickering

8/3/2025 11:15:15 am

The legal information in the last seven issues of the US comic seems to be asserting ownership of the Neo-Knights, including G.B. Blackrock, though the legal information focuses upon the trademarks (in part because the copyright is a different set-up). That suggests someone at Marvel had sorted a few things out to make it possible to use the Neo-Knights - maybe someone from Hasbro signed something off, not expecting the franchise to ever be used again and happy to get a few cents from a fire sale.

bouncelot

24/2/2018 02:31:06 pm

Are you sure that The Human Factor is the worst art in the series? I've always had that one down as The Big Broadcast of 2006 (UK-exclusive framing sequence excepted, of course).

Cosmic Horse

24/2/2018 08:22:42 pm

I am happy to go on record and say i quite like Dway Turner's art here. It's chunky and dark and has a spontaneous quality that's lacking in most of the U.S. art. I much prefer his stuff to the majority of Delbo's for example. Still, I'm aware I'm in the minority. Bunch of philistines.

Cosmic Horse

24/2/2018 08:24:09 pm

That image of the computer screen is terrible, mind.

Ryan F

24/2/2018 08:25:41 pm

I quite like it, too. It’s dark, broody and atmospheric. It adds a bit of gravitas to a script that barely deserves it.

LKW

7/10/2018 07:02:18 am

While there are certainly some bad panels on display here, I would also take Turner over Delbo, aka the-most-godawful-artist-ever-to-work-on-TF-comics (though Will Simpson might want to argue that), Cosmic Horse.

JeremiahEcks

7/3/2025 02:13:08 pm

Big Broadcast is worse and so is some of Frank Springer's stuff.

Felicity

24/12/2019 04:49:06 am

“Comfortably the worst art on the entire series”? No way. I can think of much worse. Frank Springer, Alan Kupperberg, Mike Manley, and Andrew Wildman have all turned in much worse work than Dwayne Turner at some point.

You could make a case that this is some of the most off-model art of the series. However, while Turner’s art was certainly unusual for “Transformers,” it wasn’t actually bad as such. It’s grown on me over the years. That “Whisper having a bad face day” panel shows how Turner is able to give objects three-dimensionality and mass and pleasing proportions in spite of the fact that he’s unfamiliar with drawing Transformers, such that they end up looking vaguely human.

This issue also shows us Turner’s art at a time before the Image style became the default style for the entire comics industry and Turner followed suit with his style in Chris Claremont’s “Sovereign Seven” (published by DC but drawn very much in the Image style). Much like Greg Capullo’s early work on “Quasar” before he became an Image clone and started drawing “Spawn,” this is a rare chance to see the Turner doing Turner.

The Neo Knights are less defensible. I like Katrina Vesotsky and Lee Gruber individually, and it’s nice to see GB Blackrock back. I like the idea that Blackrock has rescued them from homelessness and given them resources. I could do without the bickering, the costumes, and the codenames, all of which feel tired by this point. To answer your question, no, I don’t think I would buy a “Neo Knights” series, at least not based on what we see here. With some changes, I would.

However, Simon Furman did a great job with “Brute Force” (which also reunited him with José Delbo and Janice Chiang). That was only a four-issue limited series but I would have bought it as long as that creative team stayed on it, and I’d say it counts as a baby step towards having a career away from “Transformers” for Furman. It’s too late to bring it back now, though. It’d just get ruined like everything else.

Add me to the people who had no idea the Decepticon Micromaster Air Strike Patrol was supposed to have died in this issue.

JeremiahEcks

7/3/2025 02:11:15 pm

The Neo-Knights. Ah the sad lamented and oft-hated Neo-Knights.

As an adult, they don't work. They take up too much air time in the lead up to Unicron, during it and especially after it. There's not much original here either - maybe Rapture and Circuit Breaker could have gone onto other things, but Thunderpunch was generic and Dynamo just never seemed to have much of a character.

But teenage me?

Loved 'em.

But that was the era for me of loving X-Men and Mutants and comics and heroes and... yeah, I dug the Neo-Knights for sure. And ultimately, a friend of mine and I ended up pushing the Neo-Knights hard in late 90's fandom - making our own characters to join them - in a huge battle against the Decepticons in various fanfics, some of which we had planned, some of which we wrote and they were... eager shall we say... and some never came to pass.

I'd do it all very differently now of course. But back then... we had fun establishing a new team of Neo-Knights in our fanfic. Even if it wasn't very good.

Looking back though, the fandom crowd were being very patient in humouring us and our obsession with these X-Rip Offs.

Still, I assert there is A place for characters like this in Transformers - Circuit Breaker especially as she could have been an interesting character had she been allowed to develop in any way at all. But the way this version of the Neo-Knights were handled? No way.

Additionally Furman's pitch for the Neo-Knights series was that the entire Transformers story was a fictional training program for them to get ready to fight tech-based Marvel baddies such as Warlock's race or Doombots or what not. So if the whole of Transformers is in their training programs, how do they know Peter Parker is Spider-Man? How do they know who Nick Fury is?

Hmm...

(Me? I'm more surprised some of the awful 90's UK comics got greenlit - Digitek anyone? - but a Furman led TF spinoff didn't...)

JeremiahEcks

8/3/2025 10:32:56 am

Well I covered the Neo-Knights but not the Magnificent Six, it seems.

Well... it's... Magnificent. I am as much of a fan of it as Stuart, and I'll leave it at that.

Speaking about continuity (although a gentleman must never do so!), there are two things here which are interesting.

1) This has to be set during Earthforce as in US, there's no continuity gap for it. If so, however, this guarantees we know when Earthforce is intended to be set... Prime mentions he has been negotiating, unsuccessfully so, with Scorponok for a truce. We know in The Price of Life that he is contemplating doing so, but hasn't as of yet. The very next UK and US issue, Surrender, he... well, surrenders to guarantee the truce. If the Magnificent Six is saying he has been negotiating the truce and Surrender with Scorponok unsuccessfully, as of yet, it means Price has had to have already happened but Surrender has not (yet). Interestingly this also gives Optimus and Scorponok, who we know were both active during Earthforce, something to have been *doing* whilst all the other shenanigans were ongoing.

2) Megadeath isn't a Pretender, like Stuart assumed, but I can see why he would think so from his design... so let me plug some continuity holes.
Whether Megadeath is or isn't one isn't important but let's say that he comes up with a prototype Pretender process. This explains why Thunderwing is one in the past. However let's say it has issues and it never takes off.

Years later, Scorponok takes Megadeath's designs and using his 'maverick science', he develops a new Pretender process where the gimmick is more solid. So it's not that Scorponok comes up with the idea per se, but makes it his own and takes credit for it. In turn Transformers like Thunderwing upgrade their previous shells, if they even still have them (judging by TWs appearance in Secrets & Lies, no he does not) using Scorponok's new concepts.

Or it's just a continuity glitch. YOU decide!!!! 🤜

Stuart

10/3/2025 04:07:09 am

Apparently the reply chain limit on a comment has been reached in terms of the post I wanted to reply to, but (after thanking folks for keeping this alive), in terms of the Neo Knights ownership:

It's pretty much been conclusively proven by various researchers (mostly Gherkin and the TFUK appendix site( since I wrote this that Marvel's claim to ownership of Death's Head was dubious and retro engineered (notably, the Furman edited trades that collect High Noon Text edit out the date on Bryan Hitch's signature that would conclusively prove it was created after Death's Head's first appearance in Transformers).

So presumably some similar skullduggery would have been done for the Neo Knights if their spinoff had happened.

JeremiahEcks

10/3/2025 05:51:00 am

I've just been enjoying all the old posts, Stuart, so I'm just having a blast. Maybe some old faces will reappear too!

So, the High Noon Tex thing is... fake! Surely that's caused some legal issues?

Don't like the sound of it either as it sounds like the sort of problem that could permanently bench a character...

Ryan Frost

10/3/2025 08:09:50 am

The publishing dates of High Noon Tex have been known for years, it’s never been a secret. I just assumed that Hasbro never really cared, given that DH, although a cult favourite, is still a relatively minor character in the grand scheme of things.

Also, trademarks have to be constantly protected. The fact that Hasbro have gone thirty-plus years without making any attempt to assert their rights over the character would seriously weaken their chances of a win if it did go legal. First thing a judge would ask is “why not sooner?” and there’s no real rebuttal to that.

Tim Roll-Pickering

10/3/2025 11:49:47 am

Trademarks and copyrights are two separate categories though.

With trademarks this was a period when Marvel was going almost protection happy. Many a cover from the time has text promoting the appearance of all manner of obscure characters with a lot of names followed by a trademark symbol, no doubt to cover themselves if the character became popular enough for a series down the line. In this period the US covers include TM symbols for "Matrix Quest", "Matrix", "Grimlock", "Optimus Prime", "Galvatron", "Ravage", "Shockwave", "Starscream", "Scorponok", "Unicron", "Megatron" and "Autobot". I think "Ravage" is the only one they ever actually made use of. Unless the legal information in a comic is deemed a trademark in itself, the only use of the Neo Knights ones I can find was way back on issue #9 when Circuit Breaker was introduced. But that legal information suggests that Marvel had already sorted something out at the time - Marvel US had a good legal department by this time and going forward it was determined to tie things down given some of the problems with their older holdings.

Copyright is different and also UK and US copyright laws vary. However the limitation period in the UK is normally six years so if Hasbro didn't have words with Marvel UK by 1994 then the Death's Head ship was sailed, yes?

JeremiahEcks

10/3/2025 08:15:49 am

I honestly have never heard of anything approaching controversy for publishing dates for High Noon Tex.

So I've been believing a lie all these years? Don't even the Hachette or TF Classics books refer to this as fact though?

Shame Hasbro didn't move sooner though as I reckon they would have done more with Death's Head than Marvel.

Stuart

10/3/2025 11:00:36 am

Luckily (or not), I don't think Death's Head has been succesful enough to fight over.

Transformation 302: Stampede.

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