Transformation 71: The Junction of Your Destruction.

20/9/2013

This week, Devastator does his best tramp impression; Optimus has Grapple's head right up his arse; Megatron makes lemonade and Omega Supreme gets rid of all the Decepticon toys no longer on sale (except for Megatron, Soundwave, Ravage and Laserbeak. Which two of these will still be in the American stories by early 1987 is somewhat surprising).

All in:

Command Performances! Part 2.

13 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

20/9/2013 10:00:54 am

On the "deaths" of the Decepticons, Starscream's toy was still present in the 1986 UK catalogue and I believe also in the US (hence the two ghost episodes in the third season of the cartoon). And Frenzy was rereleased that year (now with Ratbat rather than Laserbeak) and still available the following year. And didn't the US Robot Points offers bring the chance to obtain older characters no longer on shelves? So the warning signs about potential reuses may have already been there at the time rather than Galvatron - I'm not so sure Budiansky knew his identity at the time he wrote this in early 1986 and he wrote the tech spec entry which was the first to suggest a separate entity.

And it may seem silly at first that Megatron can brush off the loss of six troops but having just re-established contact with Cybertron he can easily obtain replacements - a sign of the callousness of the Decepticons and so the losses are not a point Shockwave can really argue about.

Stuart

20/9/2013 10:44:17 am

Good points as always Sir. I hadn't realised Starscream was still out at main retail in the States, though I knew about the UK.

In terms of Galvatron, I would think it most likely Bob was "In" on that from the off even if he did take part in the spoiler-protecting bluff of the original tech spech. Considering he was editing the comic adaptation and very much in hand with hasbro on the toy development side he'll almost certainly have been sent scripts and outlines as they came along (Marvel US is presumably the source of the very early film script Furman seems to have used for Target: 2006 complete with "Life Spark").

Mind, all that is pure speculation on my part and hard to prove either way. It might just have been a straightforward Hasbro mandate outside of Bob's control, the "Cold Storage" line does feel like a bit of an afterthought.

Ryan F

21/9/2013 02:31:03 am

I always thought this was more of a 'clearing the decks' exercise, rather than anything toy related. With the Insections, Triple Changers, Special Teams etc. joining up with Megatron in upcoming weeks, I think keeping all the 84 characters in there too would just clutter things up. Also, the "cold storage" line, to me, reads as Bob not wanting to contradict the movie. After all, if the 84 Decepticons are alive in 2006, then their permanent deaths here would be problematic in that regard. Not also how he writes an "out" into Prime's and Megatron's upcoming deaths, too.

snowkatt

3/10/2013 03:33:42 am

actually i always took the recording of the merging in to devastator !!!! ...ahem

to be more then just a visual recording but also measurements and sensor readings of the actual combininge ffort
with which the autobots could extrapolate a less convoluted design centered around a central body and 4 appandages
devatsator is made up out of six not 5 so he would be a prototype
while the scramble city combiners are the evolution and production models
which is a logical extension beyond they just turn up from cybertron which we are getting after this

its just a shame this issue is followed up by some of the absolute dregs
...wait harmless fluff i called it

i also like the fight between omega supreme and the 84 decepticons
not only because im tired of megatrons whiny bitching ( it would still take several issues before he finally dies ! ...urgh ) im also burne dout on the 84 decepticosn who were never that interesting and are over exposed with out actually telling anything much about them

Felicity link

23/8/2016 06:24:52 am

Like Snowkatt above, I got the impression that Bumblebee was doing more than taking video of Devastator combining; he was recording readings of some sort.

Then there’s that one panel where we see Devastator’s head and shoulders as he’s combining and it does look like he’s lying on the ground on his back, but the very next moment he’s on his feet. I’ve looked at that panel over and over and I can only guess that he was actually standing the whole time and the “ground” was either the walls of the pit of the coal mine, or some very rock-like clouds.

“Faiz Rehman, Tredegar” seemed like it was an obvious anagram daring us to unscramble it and find that it tells us that it’s a fake letter. However, I plugged it into the Internet Anagram Server and while there were some hilarious results, there was nothing that screamed “Of course it’s a pseudonym! Could we be more obvious?!” So I guess it must be real!

Apparently Tredegar is in Wales. You probably knew that but it was news to me. I’d never heard of it before and would have guessed it was somewhere in South America!

Stuart

23/8/2016 06:38:47 am

That's the Welsh for you!

Felicity

23/8/2016 07:45:19 am

“It feels like a total put-up job”

Or *(puttup)* job! :-]

Faiz Rehman

23/8/2016 08:09:09 am

Ha ha - this is the Faiz Rehman. I replied to this thread before but it never got published for some reason. Yes, I hail from South Wales, and was a regular Marvel UK letter page contributor back in the day. I got my insights from a Marvel US Transformers comic I picked on on holiday to Orlando and cleverly crafted that letter to see if I could get it published. I won a mini-transformer IIRC :) Hope that helps:)

Stuart

23/8/2016 08:23:08 am

Awesome, sorry your prior reply got eaten. Its always nice to hear from the people who had their letter's published.

Felicity link

23/8/2016 08:59:19 am

That’s awesome and wild! Hey, maybe someday the legendary Shingo will surface. :-)

Faiz Rehman

23/8/2016 09:29:00 am

Cool thing is I still have that little Transformer and my kids play with it whenever we're back in Wales:) The comic was fun - I actually preferred the original Marvel UK strips to the US run, my faves being ones drawn by the dynamic Geoff Senior. Is he still drawing today?

snowkatt link

23/8/2016 11:09:17 am

Senior works in animation and storyboarding these days,
he has drawn the variant covers of IDW's ReGeneration One.

He also contributed to issue 0 which saw Jose Delbo and Will Simpson return to pencilling duties as well.

Faiz Rehman link

2/10/2023 06:26:18 pm

Just thought I'd let this group know that as well as having achieved the dizzy heights of the Marvel UK Transformers letters page, I'm also now a comic book artist for Cutaway Comics Doctor Who spin offs:) You'll find my art in the back strips for the Paradise Towers comic, featuring the Happiness Patrol (I drew the strips for #1 and #3). The strips are only 2 pages long each, but I've just drawn an 8 pager that's going to feature in another mag, hopefully in time for the DW 60th anniversary. Thanks for reading this and best wishes!

Transformation 71: The Junction of Your Destruction.

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