Transformation 331: The Penultimate Doom.

14/9/2018

This, last but one, week, Grimlock's ego gets all the Autobots killed. Can the Neo Knights save him? There's no clues to be had from the cover, that's for sure.

Plus, the final Annual and 1991 Collected Comics!

And I'm glad this is the last time I'll have this much to write over two days...

End of the Road! Part 1

1991 Annual

1991 Collected Comics

15 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

15/9/2018 12:13:36 am

Has Furman ever been asked about what these issues would have been like had the title still been going? The mass slaughter feels very much like it was done for a final issue rather than yet another clearing out old toys and it would be fascinating to see any outlines that survive for an ongoing title.

Nice to see Lew still parodying some Marvel tropes - the number of times a character death has been revealed to have been a clone/robot/never before mentioned twin/temporal divergent is huge. Here it's a good bit of foresight.

Given the rather sudden shift to fortnightly and the long lead in time we've seen with other annuals, it's most likely "Another Time & Place" was at least outlined on the assumption that the end of the US book would have been reprinted by Christmas. And it's only 10 days out. I never saw the annual at the time (though I did see the Monster In My Pocket one on sale back then, my local Woolworths having the smart idea of displaying it next to the toys) and it would be many years before I found a copy. Was there a poor distribution? It's also a pity the adverts stuck it with the more child focused books (assuming the Beetlejuice book was firmly aimed at people too young to get the video) rather than the more older focused ones that the G.I. Joe book got shown with.

One consequence is that by the time I got to read the story (thanks to an online transcription 20 years ago), I'd already experienced not only Generation 2 but also seen some attempted chronologies online. And although I never liked the "Earthforce is between G1 & G2" placement (not helped by Transmasters UK a) relying on a bridging story that was unavailable online and b) a bit too much elsewhere taking this approach as gospel), I readily accepted that this is the bridge from G1 to G2 as an incompatible alternative. And the added weight of coming over six years actually helped to give the story a feel of an epic conclusion that didn't disappoint, unlike some of the endings to sagas the Classic Comics had cut short on.

One very obscure sign of the book's decline that I noticed at the time is that whereas Collected Comics #18 has it's own legal information, #19 just reprints the regular one from the comic at the time, right down to asserting Machine Man is Marvel's IP, not Hasbro's. Otherwise it was great to finally see Time Wars in some of its glory, but cutting off at part 5 meant when I did finally get to see part 6 it was even more of a disappointment.

The G.I. Joe special reprinted issue #75 of the US comic, including the cover, plus some factfiles and the map of Cobra Island. Details of the special are here: https://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/G.I._Joe_the_Action_Force_Holiday_Special_1991 and of the original issue here: https://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/Holding_Actions! I'll see if I can fish out my copy to check what the contents page said. There were two further G.I. Joe specials in 1992. The Spring Special reprinted "Getting There" from Special Missions #19. This had already appeared in the Incredible Hulk Presents two and half years earlier. https://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/G.I._Joe_Spring_Special_1992 The Summer Special reprinted "Scoop" from Special Missions #23: https://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/G.I._Joe_Summer_Special_1992

Stuart

15/9/2018 12:21:30 am

Ah, well I didn't know about those other specials! Looks like, as with Transformers, a bit of a gap and a revamp (and probably a new editor, only tasked with sorting through the archive for stuff to chuck out cheap) meant the dangling plots got forgotten.

Ryan F link

15/9/2018 08:32:30 am

Of all the Transformers to be exposed as a heterosexual, it’s the butch, moustachioed guy in the kinky outfit? The one who looks like he’s cosplaying as one of Sil’s camp bodyguards?

Either Furman is being REALLY unobservant here, or this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage Stanglehold’s status as the gayest character in the G1 comics.

Charles RB

15/9/2018 06:05:27 pm

It's almost funny seeing how much #331-2 and the Annual are going "this is the end, it's over forever, off we go to Neo-Knights" when WE know that G2 is coming around in just two years. Even funnier seeing the DH2 ad that seems all begrudging and, best of all, gets his origin wrong!

Simon Hall

15/9/2018 06:31:33 pm

The DHII origin mentioned in that side-bar is interesting...I wonder if there were plans to tie the character into the whole Marvel UK sub-verse (as it was advertised in the back of the DHII limited series) before changing his creators from Mys-Tech* to A.I.M ?

DHII was launched as part of Marvel's Big Guns promotional event in the US (which included Terror, Inc and new titles for Luke Cage and Namor), so I wonder if as part of the deal for Marvel UK's characters to get their own US format books published and distributed by the parent company, DHII was used a 'tester' and some elements of the story were changed to better bed the character in with US audiences - whose support the new Marvel UK books would ultimately need. It certainly worked if that was the case! If nothing else, by using A.I.M. , you're not wasting time on any set up / explanation for Mys-Tech in a short limited series.

*Mys-Tech being the shadowy organization that linked all 5 of the new Marvel UK books; Hell's Angel, Warheads, Motormouth, Digitek and Knights Of Pendragon II

I never really liked (and still don't) this ocncluding story to the original TF run. It just feels like a story that had already been plotted and had some hasty alterations made to the dialogue to make it serve the purpose of a conclusion. Often happens in comics (if it happens at all), but still doesn't make it a particularly great read.

Andy Turnbull

21/9/2018 06:54:14 pm

The last 5 issues of the US run were a late edition. Simon was told the book was originally scheduled to end with 75, then they were told another 5 issues so he did the one page aftermath bit and plowed on. While i do love these last issues, the ending of 75 would have been a stronger note to finish on and not too different a beat from the ending of G2 when it comes.

Jon Talpur

20/9/2018 06:16:09 pm

1991 saw some of the last bunch of the "heavy-hitter" 80s cartoon/toyline annuals at Marvel UK (The Real Ghostbusters, ThunderCats, G.I. Joe), so I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the Transformers annual for this year failed as such; Neary's clear-out put paid to other franchises as well.

I asked Simon Furman at the last Auto Assembly about any post-332 Marvel UK issues. The editorial (and forthcoming mention in Combat Colin) point strongly to *some* sort of early post-332 planning having been undertaken, but Simon told me there weren't any plans he was aware of.

I'd guess either the plans were way too high-level for anyone to be thinking realistically about, or he'd simply misremembered in the meantime, or maybe he was never going to be a part of future issues in any case. It's hard to imagine Marvel UK would have simply dumped Furman, but then again he was moving more into writing directly for Marvel US, and Neary may have wanted to opt for new blood on the writing side.

Stuart

20/9/2018 06:58:40 pm

Yeah, I think a new writer seems pretty likely. Another Time and Place does feel like a final statement regardless.

If we take the stories at face value, Neary pretty much stopped any continuation of Transformers as soon as he heard about the idea, so he'd have had no thoughts either way.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

20/9/2018 08:50:29 pm

It wouldn't really have been a "dumping" when Furman hadn't written for TF UK for well over a year bar a single text story in the annual (and even that would have been quite a while ago). Also IIRC this was the period when he was living in the States and so may not have been well placed to write for a British book.

Alternatively I remember in one interview he assumed perhaps the Marvel UK team had taken his involvement for granted and then the project collapsed before he could be asked. Given the different deadlines in publishing, it's entirely conceivable a lot of the chaos all stems from one brief period.

Charles RB

21/9/2018 06:42:12 pm

I wonder who the other writer would have been?? They had a few writers doing fill-ins for the annuals and one-offsd for the weekly, but would Steve White or John Tomlinson want to go through the continuity? Maybe Ian Rimmer would've been asked to do it, they did keep calling on him and he'd edited it before.

Andy Turnbull

21/9/2018 06:51:37 pm

I would have assumed there was a fair chance Dan Abnett might have been asked to pick up the reigns.

Felicity

2/1/2020 02:07:39 am

I’m not a fan of that structural device, starting in medias res and then circling back to show how we got there. Simon Furman is far from alone in abusing it. It happens all the time in episodic television. It eventually becomes tiresome because it tells you, the reader or viewer, that you’ve got some heavy lifting to do before we can get all the pieces of the puzzle in one place and find out what is actually happening. In theory it could be quite satisfying to see the pieces fall into place but in practice it just makes you go “Just tell the damn story!”

It’s sad that the Prowl/Grimlock fighting has to happen, but if it does, it’s nice that at least this time Prowl turns out to be right.

The “#80 in a Four-Issue Limited Series” banner on the US cover felt like a slap in the face to me at the time, as if they were saying we should be grateful we got as much as we did, thereby implying we were ungrateful. But as an adult I realise it may not have been meant that way. They may have just been celebrating the fact that the series was strong enough for there to be demand for 76 more issues than were originally planned.

All the Mys-Tech stuff looks interesting. (I’ve also read about it in “Marvel Age.”) If I ever find these comics in the 25¢ bin at a comic convention I will definitely give them a try!

LiamKav

28/10/2020 06:43:15 pm

I've honestly never considered that the "#80 in a four-issue limited series" was intended as a slap in the face. I'm pretty sure it's just them being cute. "Hey, our little toy tie-comic got to 80 issues! How cool is that?"

Felicity

2/1/2020 03:22:13 am

Well, *I* liked the Action Masters, and if the writer of the comic couldn’t see the beauty of them, that’s his loss.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

28/10/2020 07:06:50 pm

Ironically Furman's last year of G1 doesn't actually use the ability to transform that much (and when's the last time there was any "robots in disguise" outside a Pretender shell?) so for many removing it makes no real difference.

Transformation 331: The Penultimate Doom.

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