Transformation 305: An Offer You Can't Refuse.

16/3/2018

This week, Hector has three offers to consider. One from a virtually naked woman, one from a giant robot who wants to stick him in a orifice, and a guy who wants him to be in a terrible comic.

But which will he accept?

All this and the end of Action Force, in my look at ISSUE 305.

11 Comments

Charles RB

16/3/2018 06:53:31 pm

"You might be hated and feared if you're a human dressed like a cartoon superhero that works for the US government to defend America from scary killer foreign robots that kill!"

Why?

This works for the X-Men because the idea is they're freak weirdoes who could be anywhere and anyone and they're going to replace us, we think - and their enemies are primarily other mutants. None of this applies to the Neo-Knights setup (and I bet everyone would love the X-Men if they were fighting robots that vandalise US monumetns)

- Charles RB

Tim Roll-Pickering link

17/3/2018 06:53:42 pm

Well the X-Men have fought their fair share of non-mutants over the years and haven't come away from battles with the Sentinels as public heroes (although the original X-Factor somehow managed to attain great popularity and shrug off their mutant hunter cover after beating Apocalypse). It's just one of the quirks of Marvel that mutants are normally feared and hated no matter what they do.

LiamKav

26/10/2020 12:11:39 am

The contrivance is that apparently the public don't mind if you got your powers artificially or by accident, but if you're born with them you're a terrible person. Circuit Breaker is much closer to Iron Man than Cyclops so there's far less reason for the faux-Marvel public to hate her. In fact considering how much the public dislike Transformers she could easily be a beloved hero.

Ian Hewett link

16/3/2018 07:30:41 pm

The worst art I ever saw in relation to the Marvel US Transformers was the tail end of the GI Joe/Generation 2 crossover in GI Joe 139-142. Bearing in mind it was supposed to be advertising the new G2 book, it did a bloody awful job.

There were some great covers in this era, and I didn't immediately twig at the time that this one had been used before (although as I'd just bought issue 5 of the US comic, I knew it was based on it). I spent a whole afternoon trawling through my battered old UK comics to see where I'd seen it before. Staz's cover on the next issue is superb.

Looking forward to your comments on the pre-Baskerville inking over Wildman's pencils on his US debut. :)

Tigerbread

16/3/2018 09:00:37 pm

Baroness, didn't she rock a red bra and panties combo? (circa #200) She was into leather as well...Its telling that the Joe Strip far outshone the lead story at this point

Tim Roll-Pickering link

17/3/2018 07:10:53 pm

The cover may be the sign of another budget slip - the reuse of US covers probably wasn't just down to the artists being British but maybe another saving. Still it's an excellent piece to reuse.

The legal info paragraph refers to "ACTION FORCE" and "Milton Bradley International" - has someone accidentally used an ancient template or did the legal name never change and nobody noticed?

There's a real sense of clearing the decks with this Transformation page & Darn 'N Blast - I guess the intention was quite simply to stop trying to pretend the old stories fit with the new when it seems even Furman wasn't bothering (although had the UK strips still been running and not diverged with Earthforce then it would have been quite simple to write a tale of Shockwave's delusions and quest for warriors, perhaps showing how he'd been a marginal figure forgotten by many and maybe even explaining why Galvatron, Cyclonus & Scourge all took his position as "Decepticon leader" seriously post #159). And yes, the departure of G.I. Joe without a new title to go to has to be presented as a benefit.

Uraael

19/3/2018 09:56:30 am

My brother and I were quite cross with the abrupt ending of the story. I hate unfinished stories particularly, so it was good to see an ending (if not the full ending) make it into a Collected Comic. A real shame, too, as the civil war itself was fairly epic.

Imagine if Transformers has built up to Unicron's arrival and then stopped, shunting that into a special to appear seven months later. There'd have been an uproar!

While Weebly seems not to have enjoyed G.I Joe, I was always a fan of Hama's sense of continuity, many of the characters, and the slow build of his stories. Considering Furman was just about to start doing exactly the same with the US run of TF to magnificent effect I think the poor old Joes should get a wee bit more credit than they do.

John D. link

19/3/2018 01:17:34 am

Loving this chat about the Governess. She certainly is a fine figure of a woman, though I can’t say I noticed at the time. I also never found circuit breaker remotely attractive, though I suppose I was still a wee bit young for it. Or maybe I couldn’t love a woman who hated the Autobots. Her and Blackrock were pretty decent characters, this Neo Knights stuff was deplorable though. I wasn’t even that into Deaths Head, never mind these Z-Men.

I see on Twitter that Stu is describing next week as the start of the “Indian Summer”. I would go as far as to say we are now moving into the peak period of the comic. A real raging against the dying of the light. Incredible art, brilliant writing and the biggest baddie of the lot approaching.

I have tried a few times to discuss the following - here goes again - if sales were now maybe 30,000 (am completely guessing) instead of the peak of 200,000 (have seen that quoted a few times), surely it was still a pretty profitable publication? Why then was it axed? Was there finite capacity at the Marvel UK printing facilities? Was "Ghostbusters" and Blues Brothers etc going to make more money?

Tigerbread

20/3/2018 11:20:59 pm

I saw a youtube review of the comic mention that the sales cut off point was about 100,000 in the '90s (Even US Batman sales can't reach that anymore) I'm pretty sure the sales were still well above 30,000 at this point.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

20/3/2018 11:25:57 pm

If memory serves correct that was Marvel US's general cut-off point. (DC was different as their viability figures took into account overseas reprints as well.) I'm not sure what the UK levels were.

Was it the end of 1991 that Marvel UK had a change of management? It's possible the new team didn't think the proposed continuation viable (if the announcement was ever serious rather than a way to tread water for the last few issues).

Felicity

25/12/2019 06:34:48 am

As swipes of “Are All Dead” go, that was a pretty good one. Interestingly, Shockwave is coloured grey there, which makes him resemble the Radio Shack “Astro Magnum” Shockwave toys.

You’re right that GB Blackrock should have mentioned to Hector Dialonzo some of the more tangible benefits of joining the Neo Knights, especially since Dialonzo asked what *exactly* Blackrock was offering in the panel you scanned. However, the chance to belong sounds like something, at least. And it’s a really nice moment when Circuit Breaker accepts the invitation too.

Does Starscream’s gun look like two credit cards?

I remembered the kinky Baroness-tied-to-the-tank part of this “GI Joe” issue though I didn’t realise it was so infamous. Well, bondage becomes some people. People who wear black leather catsuits every day, for example.

Strangely enough, the “off-the-rails” nature of the later “GI Joe” comic appealed to me at the time. I guess I was in just the right mental space for it. I liked Zartan getting a mohawk and becoming a good guy; I liked the new ninjas; I even liked some of the Andrew Wildman artwork!

Not the “Transformers Generation 2” parts though. Between tank Megatron and the terrible things being done to the human characters that was a depressing experience. And that was just the “GI Joe” comic. The main “Transformers Generation 2” comic was even worse.

Speaking of depressing experiences, we now head firmly into the era of Andrew Wildman being the only penciller (apart from Geoff Senior on the climactic battle with Unicron) and Simon Furman favouring Grimlock and character-assassinating other Autobots. There will still be a few good moments here and there, though, like the cult of Unicron and Action Master Optimus Prime. I’ll try to focus on those and any others that the upcoming reviews remind me of.

Transformation 305: An Offer You Can't Refuse.

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