Transformation 321: RIP Zarak.

6/7/2018

It's the exit for a Decepticon who has clawed on to leadership longer than anyone else (thanks to the decision not to release Overlord in the West).

Plus Grimlock shows how to slap the devil and the Neo Knights are laughable.

All in my look at ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION PART 3!

18 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

7/7/2018 01:34:02 am

With the exception of Fortress Maximus & Spike, I'm struggling to think of any time in the last few years that a Headmaster has really been shown as two beings. A lot of the time the heads come off simply to do small scale work and they could easily have become a single entity by now (as they are in the Japanese cartoon). Maybe every Headmaster and Nebulan ultimately fuses into a single mind and Spike wasn't so wrong to keep trying to evade it.

Alexander Hayden James Smith link

7/7/2018 03:12:31 am

Highbrow and Gort in 'All in the Minds', or is that too far back? Certainly, I can't think of many others. Perhaps Muzzle and Nightbeat in 'The Big Shutdown'?

Tim Roll-Pickering link

10/7/2018 11:59:53 pm

Well the annual was three years ago so pretty much at the limit. Nightbeat's head may have used the name "Muzzle" but even then it was exploiting the separate head trick rather than being shown as a distinct entity.

Jon Talpur

7/7/2018 09:42:10 pm

I remember the letters page answer to C. Smith's question regarding Hasbro UK's plans to continue the line over the next four years, which in hindsight proved to be a remarkably accurate response, suggesting that, bucking the trend up to that point, Hasbro UK actually had a long-term strategy to keep the line going. Post-1995 would be another matter altogether, of course.

I can only assume the question was influenced by the discussion of the toyline ending in the US comic's letters pages since the UK was still getting new toy releases. By this point an increasing number of readers with access to the US comics knew the UK comic was very much on borrowed time, making for a melancholy feel to this final stretch of issues.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

7/7/2018 10:14:03 pm

Yeah - it was around this point I discovered a comics stall in our local indoor market, only picking up the US comic in time for the last two issues.

IIRC there was actually a break in Transformers toys here between Generation 2 and Beast Wars, which meant from the latter onwards the UK was about a year plus behind. The response here suggests this coincided with the ending of some long term Hasbro contracts.

Will Rigby

10/7/2018 05:56:51 am

Wait, your the same person as Inflatable Dalek, who used to do reviews for TFArchive?

Anyway another good overview.

Stuart

10/7/2018 06:32:05 am

My secret is out! ;)

Yes I am indeed.

Charles RB

10/7/2018 11:31:31 pm

"And just imagine looking at this and thinking that Scorponok was a lose end that needed revisiting for ReGeneration One."

That always felt like a loose end from IDW getting shoved hard into G1 (rather like Nefarious, which feels Machination-y and not much like the films)

JeremiahEcks

22/3/2025 06:05:51 am

A lot of Regeneration One felt like that. Omega vs. Monstructor, Grimlock vs. Scorponok, Soundwave vs. Blaster... they all felt like things that Furman set up in his original run and never paid them off because he got booted, so when being asked to do Regeneration One and looking for some genuine plot threads to resolve (that G2 didn't already cover), he had to invent some that felt familiar already to fit the 'familial' feel of the book.

Some of these threads are fine enough - don't mind Soundwave vs. Blaster as it's the obvious go-to that doesn't happen as much as it could, but Scorponok being resurrected was a serious no-no. Considering the other Headmasters, excepting Fort Max, didn't do anything interesting (OK, including Fort Max!) then they could have all stayed dead (except Chromedome who obviously was still alive).

JeremiahEcks

22/3/2025 06:07:13 am

By 'original run' I don't mean Furman's original Marvel run, but agreeing with Charles that it feels like he was paying off his original IDW run instead.

John D. link

14/8/2018 07:38:20 am

Just to add that if I had one grumble about this issue it would be the lack of strategy about how to fight Unicron. There seemed to be no plan whatsoever...

JeremiahEcks

22/3/2025 06:12:04 am

I mean, in the Transformer's defence, Primus is dead, the Matrix lost and Unicron is literally unrelentingly ripping up your home planet in front of your eyes. Hard to have a plan when something that huge is right in front of you going "nom nom nom."

Their original 'let's panic and run' makes more sense than them being able to figure out something. Everything is otherwise happening too fast and if the Matrix never appeared, Unicron would have won here.

Felicity

30/12/2019 02:37:34 am

On that cover Optimus Prime looks like he has a plastic bag over his mouth and is trying to breathe in. The artist must not have realised that the metal faceplate isn’t like a kerchief worn over the mouth, with the mouth moving around behind it. Neither did the voice actors in the English dub of “Headmasters,” who spoke their lines in a muffled voice whenever it was a character with a faceplate.

The comic was never consistent about how much of the robot mind and how much of the human mind is in the Headmaster. At first it seemed like the Headmaster Transformers killed themselves by offering their heads to their Nebulan partners, and their personalities only emerged posthumously as the Nebulans’ minds were “suffused with latent engrams” from the Transformers. Whether the original Transformer personality re-emerges when they separate was never explicitly shown, the way it was in the cartoon.

Fortress Maximus thinks of himself as an Autobot when dealing with Grimlock on the moon but as Spike when he sees Buster (“My brother!” he says, while still in Fortress Maximus mode).

As you point out, the original Scorponok never seems to be around; even as Scorponok, Lord Zarak thinks of himself as Lord Zarak wearing his Scorponok suit, not as Scorponok.

The Targetmasters and Powermasters seem to have a different deal. Hi-Test and Throttle argue with Dreadwind and Darkwing. Optimus Prime and Hi-Q can operate independently. Optimus Prime can even retain his trailer-components-as-armour without Hi-Q in his chest. Then of course that gets changed in the last five issues as it turns out there is a merging.

And here comes the Prowl/Grimlock dynamic that basically ruins Simon Furman for me as a writer. All the good writing he’s done, which I’ve tried so hard to focus on up ’til now, is undermined by this aspect, which makes me feel depressed and angry whenever I think about the last year of the comic.

Hooray for cat pics!

I thought that poster at the bottom was Underbase Starscream at first!

JeremiahEcks

22/3/2025 06:15:13 am

Felicity, why did Prowl / Grimlock turn you off SO much? You might cover it in a later post so sorry if you do but...

I've always liked their interplay so am curious to know why you really don't.

Felicity

23/3/2025 05:58:38 pm

I’d always liked Prowl before, when he was portrayed as a normal Autobot--capable, calm, loyal, and with his logic centre helping him in battle, rather than defining him So it was upsetting to see him depicted as an uptight, critical chronic malcontent, just to be Grimlock’s foil and glamourise Grimlock. Maybe if it had been one of the Autobots I’m less attached to, like Brawn, my feelings would be different. Or if it were one of the handful of characters that are known to have a problem with authority, so Grimlock would know how it feels to be forced to be the disciplinarian. Or Furman could have used Kup, whom he already established as constantly scolding his leader.

As I revisited these entries and the comics recently, I’ve found myself embracing the beauty in Simon Furman’s writing, and I’m pleased to discover that I genuinely enjoy nearly all of it. Each issue sparkles with at least one moment that warms my heart. And I remind myself, someone wrote that! There’s just a few things that didn’t quite resonate with me.

JeremiahEcks

23/3/2025 06:15:46 pm

Thanks for the reply Felicity and yeah, I can see your point of view on that.

I'll be interested when I get back to them to see what you think about IDW Prowl...

Maybe Red Alert would have been an appropriate substitute? Was he a Classic Hero like Prowl? I don't remember which characters had Action Master figures at the time -- Inferno, Snarl, Blaster, Jazz... who else would have worked? Did Prowl even have one himself?

Tim Roll-Pickering

23/3/2025 06:23:34 pm

Red Alert was not in the Classic Heroes though Sideswipe was added in 1991 (along with Tracks). Back on issue #282 I speculated that the story in that issue felt like it was plotted for Red Alert rather than Inferno and wondered if there was a plan to release him instead.

Prowl did indeed have an Action Matster, released with the Turbo Cycle.

JeremiahEcks

23/3/2025 06:45:46 pm

@Tim That makes a lot of sense. So, aside from what Felicity suggested, from using someone like Kup, there probably weren't any Classic Heroes or Action Masters who fit the bill, then?

How about one of the newer characters? Mainframe?

Transformation 321: RIP Zarak.

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