Transformation 55: Master and Commander.

31/5/2013

This week, Budiansky vents his fury as we get duelling Marvel editors, in a story that will be deeply entertaining if you worked in their offices circa 1986. Everyone else may be buggered.

All this, and Rocket Raccoon of Guardians of the Galaxy fame, in my look at:

I, Robot-Master! Part 1.

8 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

31/5/2013 10:20:49 am

The Robot Master cover story is silly but I wonder if part of the problem is a missing piece of the explanation, either because Budiansky took his audience for granted or because it fell in editing. Claiming the robots are the products of terrorists rather than alien invaders from another planet would mean the public at large wouldn't have to come to terms with the existance of aliens and all that that means for religious faith.

By this point in the series it would be difficult to cover up the existence of the giant robots at all or to pretend they weren't a threat given all they'd done, so perhaps the terrorism angle is seized on as the least worst explanation that won't cause a spiritual crisis.

Stuart

31/5/2013 10:38:50 am

Now that is an potentially interesting angle (and it's a shame the IDW comics have gone scorched Earth on... well Earth as a setting because I could see James Roberts doing something interesting with it).

To be honest though, I think Bob's thinking may have been the result of the last vestige of the book being treated as a Marvel Super-hero team style comic with robots, because one of the standards of those is being feared and misunderstood by the world at large in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

Ryan F

31/5/2013 03:55:19 pm

Also you have to consider when this was set... aliens were evil and scary, but evil terrorists, well, they could be beat. A key scene for me is the one where Joe Public just assumes Donny is a Commie, and some other random guy assumes he's from the PLO. In the 80s the Americans were at the peak of their world domination, and maybe they could afford to be a bit blasé about terrorism.

Thankfully, Budiansky and Fingeroth seem to bury the hatchet soon after this, because in future issues we see Finkleberg do hero stuff like help Skids fight Ravage, and donate his pay check to the Statue of Liberty repair fund.

Ryan F

31/5/2013 03:57:06 pm

PS: anyone know the relevance of the "K" symbol on Robot-Master's costume? That's always puzzled me...

Stuart

2/6/2013 04:34:09 pm

I think it's supposed to be a stylised R (with the top curve of the circle forming the top of the R), but it's not the best executed design and does indeed look like more like a K.

snowkatt

6/6/2013 10:40:37 pm

i...i really have nothing good to say about this one
the only amusing thing about it was megatrons rampage at the start his reaction to coal and then grinding to a halt which show just how alien these beings can be

other then that its dire stuff

Felicity

3/8/2016 12:27:10 am

I never got the feeling that Donny Finkleberg was supposed to be a commentary on Danny Fingeroth as a person. The sense of it that I got was the Bob Budiansky wanted to create a fictional comic book writer and decided to make it a reference to someone. At worst, it came across to me like gentle ribbing.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Budiansky might have anything against Fingeroth, but now that you bring it up, I guess that’s possible too.

As you point out, over time, Donny Finkleberg proves to be a much more sympathetic character than we would initially think.

I wonder if the person firing him (telling him not to write the Potato Salad Man graphic novel) is supposed to be Jim Shooter. That would explain why their hand is placed so high. Shooter was very tall.

Stuart

3/8/2016 01:24:39 am

I like that Jim Shooter idea, that's even more meta with him having given Bob the job of developing TFs.

Transformation 55: Master and Commander.

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