Transformation 310: Split Personalities.

19/4/2018

This week, Kup gives an ultimatum, Prime saves two lives and Grimlock is faced with a difficult choice.

Plus, Combat Colin goes yampy and James Roberts knows more than you do.

All in my look at THE PRICE OF LIFE PART 2!

8 Comments

Ryan F

20/4/2018 08:05:42 pm

Can’t believe you missed the fact that the cover of this issue homages the cover of the 1968 Prog classic “Topographic Magpies of Tarkus in Aspic” by Porcupine Thief. Boo!

This story is great, but it’s a bit too neat, you know? Like that DS9 episode ‘The Begotten’ where both the A and B plots had a linking theme (people making a hash of parenthood) despite being completely separate strands.

Here, it just strains credulity that Prime and Grimlock are having the EXACT same dilemma (i.e., does curing your comrade exceed the risks?) at the exact same time.

I know it’s a well worn literary device to have two unconnected plots mirror each other but here it’s so perfectly neat that if feels - I dunno - constructed? Unnatural?

I really like this story otherwise, though.

Tetsuryu

20/4/2018 08:06:08 pm

You know, I never really saw Kup forcing Optimus Prime to deal with the hybrid as risking the latter's life in any way; it was pretty obvious that Prime was going to mop the floor with them.

If anything, the decision to make Prime do it himself is the baffling one. Kup could have gone over his head and just dealt with Ratchatron himself with some additional Autobots. Maybe he didn't quite believe in what he was saying and knew at least some of the Autobots would be rather reluctant to gun down a former comrade, a point proven by when Sureshot questions his decision? By forcing Optimus Prime to do it himself, no one would question it.

Simon Hall

21/4/2018 12:03:23 pm

It's quite a soap opera way of writing, but that's no bad thing. It worked great guns with Lee / Kirby and also with Defalco / Ryan on FF (the latter of whom Furman and Wildman's run here reminds me most of, with ongoing plots and sub-plots bubbling away). And my thinking aorund Kup's actions of baiting Prime, were pretty much what Tetsurtu has put.

He'd make that decision in a flash, if it didn't then put him at odds with the people he's supposed to 'secure'. It's quite a political move, and one can't help but wonder if Kup's own brush with being a mess drifting through space is what's coloured his judgement -even if that rigns hollow, becasue got 'help' to get better. So, it would seem to Kup that mental health problems are less of an danger/ inpediment than physical ones. Possibly. So that's alright then.

Comics International! Man, I loved that. I was an avid reader of that right up until Dez Skinn left. It kind of lost it's way after that and by then, the Internet had happened, so no one cared and it died a slow death.

I also had a letter published in that - there's was some comment on Death's Head in the letter's page about the odd closing panels in #10 so I wrote in explaining that the story eventually saw the light of day in the Body In Question. Which I seemed to have neatly timed with Simon Furman writing in about the very same thing!

Can't remember if that was before or after I got a letter printed in Overkill, though.

Ah, the mooted Death's Head series. Havoc # 6 from sometime in Summer '91 will be the first inkling that this won't be the Death's Head we were expecting. As they promote the cover artist of that issue as the one to be working on it : Liam Sharp (who turned in an absolutely stunning piece of Deathlok for that issue).

Tetsuryu

25/4/2018 10:49:57 am

The simplest and the most obvious reason for Kup's actions is that he's simply testing Prime by forcing him to make a difficult decision under a great deal of stress. Protecting Prime may be his job, but if Prime himself becomes a risk factor, I would imagine judging his fitness for duty is also part of that job.

Tom

23/4/2018 05:49:48 pm

Reading this review with all the context of the ads and editorial has an uncanny way of sending me back. Last issue was the first one I had a standing order at the newsagent (I remember having the shift to fortnightly being explained to me - it might have been the first time I'd heard the word fortnight) and I am reminded how earth-shatteting The Price of Life was for me. My grandad was dying of colonic cancer at the time and the idea of Grimlock the funny dinosaur man finding a cure amongst all these deathly ill people is probably why I'm still hooked on these robot comics today.

John D. link

24/4/2018 03:43:06 pm

Ryan F - I always assumed this cover was a knowing nod to Underwater Sunlight Wizard Blues, by Hobbit's NostrilFingers, but am happy to be set straight. Regardless, Stu is embarassing himself here by not even making these rather obvious associations :-)

For me the comic is now in absolute top gear. The scripts, the art, the drawing, the inks, the coulous (yes, even the colours). For me the colouring chap on Regeneration One (JP Bove?) was actually far too good and I don't think it complimented Wildman/Baskerville's style.

Re the actual plot, I think you have to assume that Kup has seen what Megatron is capable of over millions of years and is therefore quite terrified. Marvel Megatron never really got to prove his powers in the same way that IDW Megatron has been able to. (I love the James Roberts chat about "point one percenters" explaining why Megatron, Prime, Grimlock, Overlord etc. are stronger than most others.)

Snowkatt

17/5/2018 10:39:26 am

I always thought Hobbits Nostrifinger split up after their second album, and the drummer and bassist went on to from Hobbits Nostrils.

Tetsuryu

25/4/2018 10:54:37 am

An interesting thing I noticed; this story, along with the ones that follows it, were on the very first issue of the Finnish Transformers comic I ever got as a kid, so I've read this story a lot of times - so many that whenever I re-read the whole book in english, I kind of tend to skim through it because I've practically memorized the dialogue at this point. In Finnish.

What I noticed was Prime's dialogue comes off differently in that fifth frame used in the article after Fixit tells him he can save Ratchet. Maybe it's the translation, but I always got the impression he was imploring his fellow Autobots to his point of view; but reading it in English here, it sounds less that and more like a bit of "told you so" smugness.

Transformation 310: Split Personalities.

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