Transformation 64: Special Needs.

2/8/2013

There's not much in the way of laughs this week as I cover what may well be the worst issue to date, with poor writing, art and colouring.

On the other hand, the bit with Mixmaster is brilliant, so just look at the panel to the left and then pretend the rest of the comic didn't happen.

Better things await us next week (in time for Auto Assembly), but for now here's my look at:

Second Generation! Part 2.

8 Comments

Simon Hall

2/8/2013 02:41:55 pm

Ooh where to start with this one?! There isn't much i disagree with in your critique of this one Stuart. Its like recent episodes of TF: Prime where its all fisticuffs and not much else. I do like all its daft bits though - Mixmaster's snippy comment, Menasor arguing with his arm (giving us a glimpse of his mental problems, if we're being kind) and the big waking up moment 'Special Teams'.

I wonder if the dream and the events therein are shaped by Prime's influence making the Autobots the victors and so on, which perhaps explains why Shockwave's toy boner hasn't dissipated by the end.

Basically, its a big wibbly dream so its allowed to be daft. And I'll take this over Hasbro's later interference with the Headmasters which really is cack.

Kitson's art...I don't find it particularly bad here. Certainly not when one compares it to the massive headed Shockwave and fat headed Dinobots we got earlier from him. More than enything, the wild variation in quality in some aspects of his work (even in the same issue) suggests that there were days when he really, really hated drawing Transformers. It's a shame, as when he's good, he's very very good.

Anyway, next week brings one of my favourite Transformers comics ever with Megatron and Shockwave's hilarious bitch fight.

Stuart

4/8/2013 12:59:15 am

The similar thing done with the introduction of the Headmasters is actually a pretty interesting comparison (and the same roughly applies to the similarly mandated focus on the Classic Heroes) in that by that point, and as now editor of the book, Furman clearly doesn't want to go through the Second Generation thing again of trying to make World's Apart fit in with the as yet unreprinted issues of Headmasters and just does a handwave story that doesn't fit perfectly in the mini-series (IIRC it basically has to happen between two panels of issue 4).

Interestingly I think it fits in better with the Headmasters Saga version from the Annual where there's a specified lengthy gap towards the end where the Autobots and Decepticons have "Many battles".

Auntie Slag

6/8/2013 02:33:28 pm

"Superion nailed Menasor - but good. And then Defensor..." Ugh, this really did have some poor writing didn't it. Like an errant hack trying to sound American.

However, story-wise I liked it. I'll qualify that as liked it at the time.

For the art I always felt that Barry Kitson drew excellent faces, hands and guns. Also, his artwork was always combined with an excellent colourist. I loved the mix between what looked like paints and bright, bold felt pen.

As a nine year old Slag in'86, part of me felt slightly ripped-off by the repeat of the dream sequence battle... but crucially what saves this issue is three things:

1) It's sandwiched by the Shockwave/Megatron love story, which is dark and brooding compared to the day-glo Batman TV show hi-jinks of the Special Teams dream sequence. I took it as the Matrix showing us a rather sanitised, TF cartoon style episode (with Superion, Defensor etc), wrapped inside the darker tone of the Marvel UK comic.

2) Seeing more of the Special teams was cool. They WERE cool at the time. The last cool thing was the Dinobots, and to a little kid the Dinobots seemed like a long time ago. This did indeed feel like the future of the transformer race!

3) Prime, Megatron, Shockwave & Soundwave all act like adults here, compared to the kiddy-style fighting & banter of Superion, Defensor, Bruticus & Menasor. Without thier gravitas, without the rather nice, if flawed artwork and excellent colouring this would have been a pants issue.

Looking at it with adult eyes it stands up terribly, up there with some of the lamest Earth Force stories (the Ironhide one, for example).

And there's plenty of non-sensical stuff too. How Prime concluded that they have the one-up on the Decepticons this time makes no sense, when even someone as dense as Ironhide could see the Special Teams are evenly matched.

The way a combiners body parts would reshape annoyed me greatly. Menasor was the best example of this; sometimes his arms would be boring silver blocks with a car attached (making the combining element look cheap & awful), other times his arm actually would be the car!

Definitely not an issue I ever looked at too closely. It was filler, it was fluffy, and it's repetition was a cheap shot to kids already desperate for the next big thing (honestly, the Aerialbots seemed as cool as cool could be. Who didn't want Autobots that turned into jets like Starscream, Thundercracker & Skywarp?).

The saving grace was that the comic was 30p. Even a bad Transformers comic (at the time) didn't feel like a waste of money. It wasn't Delbo drawn and pop-art coloured. I had loads of other Transformer comics, I could play with the toys in the meantime, a new issue was due the following week whilst in the current one four Pacific Rim style Jaegers thump s*** out of each other.

Cool at the time, fun when you're nine... crap now.

Felicity

12/8/2016 05:54:19 pm

Dolphin Adventure Holidays seems to have used art from a Kia Ora ad!

Felicity

13/8/2016 05:15:16 am

I don’t know whether you read “Rom” comics or not, but Soundwave is standing in a very Spaceknight-like posture in the panel above (on the comments page).

Felicity

28/10/2019 01:15:35 am

Even the *lettering* is subpar! And the lettering is usually the thing I still like in these UK issues, even when I don’t like the art!

Felicity

28/10/2019 01:28:48 am

W&P: Words & Pictures? Water & Power?

Sean Hagins link

7/12/2019 02:14:22 pm

I wonder if you are reading the Transformers UK for the first time as an adult, or if you read them back in the '80s as a kid. As Auntie Slag said, the Special Teams WERE cool at the time (I was about her age being 10 or 11), and I really enjoyed this issue with Buster (who was basically us-the human kid looking in) having a large part in the next big thing. That's why I liked the UK stories-they gave backstory that drew you in. In Canada, the US stories were cheaper to buy, but nowhere near as exciting!

I also may be daft according to you, but I actually liked Matt and the Cat much better than Combat Colin, but I also really liked the Chromebots

Transformation 64: Special Needs.

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