Transformation 88: Triple Feature

17/1/2014

It's a case of three times the pleasure this week as I not only finish off Target: 2006, and not only cover the comic adaptation of the film, but also the ultra rare and hyper obscure movie poster magazine!

This is an event that can only be celebrated with a picture of Masterpiece prowl looking disapprovingly at Masterpiece Grimlock.

Target: 2006 Epilogue.

Winter Special 1986

Transformers The Poster Magazine.

8 Comments

Simon Hall

17/1/2014 01:18:13 pm

Yay for Stuart's mum holding up the poster! Have a brew on me :)

I owned the US version of the movie adaption and, yeah, like a lot of movie adaptions, its functional at best (Marvel's T2 effort and DCs various Batman, Batman Returns adaptions I read around the early '90s were similar not-by-the-regulars will this do? efforts - although DC did put a bit of effort in with Batman - him being their most bankable character and all). I did like the quartering of Magnus - so obviously edited in the film that the comic goes with, as well as picturing the Matrix as a glowing lump of green Kyptonite. Well done Nel. I swear, although Marvel comics of this era did have inferior colouring to British and European comics, even by their standards he stuff is just rubbish.

As for T:2006, a wibbly epic works for me. Definitely the Cybertron based stuff in this issue that grabs the attention. The stuff with Unicron putting the toys back in the box is just awful.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

17/1/2014 04:12:47 pm

I guess Target 2006 got a lot of its reputation from the novelty of the situation and the shock revelations. And then it increased its mystique when the Collected Comics reprint fizzled out so for all of us who came to the party late it was only whispered about. Read once everything is familiar and we're all older and more used to a lot of the tropes and it has a harder time holding up to its reputation than other stories based around incident and character.

Your favourite epic is about 70 issues away. Would that be one of the few epics the later specials managed to reprint in full? If so it's also mine.

On the movie adaptation, is Blaster's rank formally listed as "Autobot Communications Officer" on either his tech specs or AtoZ? It's the kind of statement that sounds like somone pulling a description off a list. And yeah, Springer's work is enhanced without colour - some of his Dazzler issues are amazing. Yomtov can be a pain - I've lost count of the arguments I've seen over TF identification because the likeness is vague and/or the colours are a mess.

I note the poster magazine was edited by Sheila Cranna so perhaps Ian Rimmer never mentioned it in the regular comic? And then as the readers aged the regular issues were stored under the bed but the poster got torn down, binned and forgotten.

Stuart

17/1/2014 05:06:34 pm

Good catch on Cranna, she also edited the second Annual so she may well have been in charge of all the "Specials" put out in '86 (based on a cursory glance the collected comics, Plague of Insecticons and The Complete Works 1 only seem to credit the original teams behind what they reprint, so who put them together is more up in the air).

Transformers Universe has Blaster down as just "Communications", but if you ignore the bold and read down from allegiance it does indeed go "Autobot Communications". I guess adding officer was the closest we get to innovation there.

Interestingly I've made a few people for whom the Movie comic was genuinely a placebo for the film rather sad, so I guess at the time it ticked al the right boxes for the readership despite the flaws.
Though not later specials, my favourite EPIC from around issue 150 was reprinted in the comic itself. But what could it be? Stay tuned!

@Simon: Nel Yomtov: I swear he's the main reason the Marvel Star Wars and G.I.Joe comics were recoloured for the trades despite him only doing a few issues of each ;).

snowkatt

19/1/2014 03:43:30 am

yes..well to me the epilouge or part 11 is just weak as a whole
its nothing more then a copout to tie off the loose ends and cover the story in time for the toys to be put back in ther box whent he next american story rolls by

and as such it feels rushed and inconsequential
unicron gloating over his three minions is a huge glaring error if he could do that with any transformer let alone the chosen one ( and hot rod was already the chosen one in the movie ) why even bother with galvatron or worrying about the matrix at all ?

the scenes on cybertron are the worst offender though with some fake suspense that suddenly has the rug pulled out from under it when megatron arbitrarily calls them back just in time before anything happens

still a cop out to me
but to ratchet up the fake tension and give the reader something as a pay off the newly introduced non toy character ( with a ridicilous name and design ) offs the other non toy character introduced 6 weeks earlier
which ha sno pay off or drama it just feels shallow
and pandering because there must be a pay off

if impactor has been around for longer or had more personality it would actually resonate here it just feels cheap

and his personality is on better display in city of fear where he is dead

this is the worst episode since that awfull unwieldy clunker that introduced the wreckers and stopped the momentum of the story dead whiel treading water
at least the art isnt as awfully clunky this time around

target 2006 does need something of a re apprasail in my opinion
it is the standout story at this time and one of he longest its a game changer but the things that came after it are just so much better
just because it was the first doesnt mean target 2006 is the best
it just drew a line in the sand and anything after it is just better

especially if you scrutinise it closer the story starts to rack at the seams and doesnt hold up anymore
especially not with clunkers like part 4 or an ending that fizzels and cops out

target 2006 for me is a decent story but quite over rated
if anything i prefer its sequel wanted galvatron dead or alive a lot more

the movie :

i am actually one of those who read this adaptation of the movie before i saw the movie
its only 66 pages but functional the art is functional
the script is functional
thats about the extent i can say about it
functional
its neither good nor bad just ...functional

dont get me started on crayon yomtov though
he must have used crayola or something to color his pages
he is worse then vinnie coletta because coletta coudl actually put out good work
i havent seen anything of yomtov's so far that goes beyond URGH

if anything idw should recolor the marvel reprints just to get rid of yomtov and his crayons

the posterbook

i dont have much to say about the posterbook ( i didnt even knew it excisted )
other then that its huge

how tall is your mother anyway ?

oh and hello to your mother btw

Kevin Routledge

20/1/2014 05:08:33 am

I still enjoy the story, and rate it highly in so far as transformers fiction is concerned. I think perhaps that the flow might have been improved with some reshuffling, i.e. the introduction of Springer et al could have been rolled into 'Wreck and Rule' coming in after Xaaron makes it clear to Impactor that Volcano will continue. Then cutting between Impactor plus triple changers and the bar scene.

Other than that I think it stands up well and 'Wreck and Rule' in Issue 82 is one of my favourite stand alone moments in the UK comic. I think Ron Smiths art is great, it's chunky and vibrant and the colouring is impressive as usual. It's arrival in the middle of the story didn't really bother me that much.

That's probably due to the Cybertron set stories holding my interest more effectively than anything set on Earth thus far. Coming hot on the heels of Bob's 'The Smelting Pool!' and 'The Bridge to nowhere!' it felt like a nice continuation. The moment Roadbuster fed the informant false info and stood by and watched as he was executed was sinister and was probably what hooked me.

I think Impactor had a decent enough introduction to make me care about his death when it came (more so than if Xaaron had been offed or any of the other newly introduced characters with actual toys) and when it came it was very brutal. Not sure it needed to happen just for the sake of a pay-off, but I quite liked that it ended with flicked Vs and a loud raspberry. I found Megatron putting the kibosh on everyones carefully laid plans with what amounted to a single phone call funny, even then.

Perhaps if Decepticon gunner had been someone familiar at least it would have carried greater weight. As far as I know Reflector was never properly introduced and was perhaps only seen in the comic badly coloured on the floor of the Ark. If he were to take Macabre's place and the combined form were to be destroyed and the individuals killed I know this would have been more shocking for me. Especially as a child in Britain, who despite having limited access to the cartoons, was familiar with the character.

Killing established characters can also be a bit cheap especially if like the recent Marvel crossovers it's done for no reason other than to kill an established character; plus you know they'll be back. At least Janet van Dyne was sent to the Microverse and wasn't brought back as one of the undead!

As for the other half of the story, I think Galvatron was more likely to assume that if nothing mattered he would be free to go nuts and blow away whomsoever he pleases. I'd like to have seen a desperate struggle for survival on all sides as they try to send Galvatron back to his own time.

Mind control is not required here either, time travel is MacGuffin enough. Still, I enjoyed the story, honest, but for me Dinobot Hunt is king thus far. Four Decepticons take on all the Autobots ...and win.

In conclusion: the movie adaptations are all guff and that poster is awesome.

TTFN

Kevin Routledge

20/1/2014 05:10:18 am

I like saying 'thus far' don't I? I think I've got a new drinking game here!

Stuart

20/1/2014 01:02:31 pm

@Snowkatt: My mother if 5ft4, so that's an at least two feet poster.

@Kevin: Thus far I agree with a lot of what you say.

Felicity

25/9/2016 09:47:39 am

The comic adaptation of the movie is pretty sad. The best thing about it is the lettering; that’s what holds it together for me. I re-read it once in a while but it’s faintly depressing.

I keep forgetting how much less invested I am in any of the movie characters than the pre-movie characters. Oddly enough, I still like some of the post-movie characters such as the later combiners, so it’s not entirely a “season three is bad” problem. I just find it hard to connect with the cast that was introduced in the movie itself. And of course, all the pre-movie characters that are in the movie are there at the beginning, but not so much in the last half, so I get less interested as the movie goes on.

Fortunately season three has its share of appearances by pre-movie characters, including some first-season characters such as Soundwave.

Transformation 88: Triple Feature

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories