Transformation 96: Cock Blocking Budiansky.

14/3/2014

This week we start off the countdown to 100 as Furman delivers the first part in a story with Shockwave bringing the Predacons over from Cybertron so they can pretend to be working for Megatron before trying to kill him (which will end with an exploding space bridge). Where does he get his crazy ideas?

All in Prey! Part 1.

16 Comments

Auntie Slag

14/3/2014 11:41:52 am

AARRRGH! The date man, the date!

You wrote: Issue 96: Prey! Part 1. 10th January 1987.

But this issue is the 17th Jan '87. I was there, I bought the comic.

We shot our own people in WWI for less than this!

Stuart

14/3/2014 12:04:51 pm

The cover date is when it goes off sale, a message to the newsagent as to when to put the next issue out. It was actually released the Saturday before. Ha!

bouncelot

14/3/2014 01:11:50 pm

Note that Megatron is planning a one-on-one fight against Optimus - having sent Runamuck and Runabout to deliver a challenge to that effect in the last story. So your claim there that their mission doesn't get picked up again turns out to be untrue. :p

snowkatt

14/3/2014 02:32:49 pm

its true for the american series
unless issue 24 is the result of that challenge

which would explain a lot

Chris Chapman

15/3/2014 01:23:10 am

I love this arc! I don't care how much Furman rips off Bob, I came to the story via the later Summer Special, so I didn't even read Afterdeath etc at the time.

It's interesting that Prime's video view at the start wraps in US stories - is this one of the last times that a UK issue actually makes an effort to do that?

Can't wait till you get to The Harder They Die. My favourite ever stuff from Senior...

Simon Hall

15/3/2014 03:46:35 pm

Prey has to rate as one of my favourite Transformers stories...ever!Like Mr Chapman, I'm mainly familiar with the story from the later Collected Comics (12 & 13, fact fans), one of the few times CC managed a complete run of a given 'epic'.

I always wondered about the Preds showing up in US#24, so its nice to have that mystery cleared up. Have to say, its Furman all the way vs Bob on this one.

The Predacons make such an impressive debut here and , like the Constructicons and Shockwave, created that perpetual annoyance that they weren't available in the UK.

I love all the stuff with Prime at the start. It was so rare in the original Marvel run (and, as it happens, pretty much all TF comics ever) that we got a proper bit of insight into the Leader's state of mind. Its interesting as well to see the difference in his character here, where he's determined to shape the Autobots into a capable team less reliant on him and seems a slightly tougher character than he ultimately ends up as in his Powermaster and Generation 2 versions. At least I think so.

The 'flat' colouring employed by Marvel UK at this point I felt added a lot of clarity to the artists work - especially Will Simpson with his 'busy' style. Although I liked the painted stuff, I felt it only really worked well for Senior and Anderson whom had slightly less dense drawing styles than Kitson et al. It was also nicely graded in places and the palette was a lot more expansive than the four colour dotty process the Americans were still using.

Stuart

15/3/2014 07:47:00 pm

I should say, without wishing to ruin the surprise of the next few weeks, that in terms of quality I'll be coming down on the side of Furman as well. I do still think some of the thinking behind this story's genesis can't help but come off as dickish, but the results will still speak for themselves.

Not completely convinced by the idea the opening of this story is supposed to follow directly on from Megatron's random challenge at the start of the previous story, it does work, but even though Optimus is aware of the Battle Chargers there's no real feeling Megatron knows what has happened to them, nor that he still thinks they're off delivering the message and is waiting for Prime to turn up for a fight. It just feels like he's ragging on Motormaster for suggesting "Lets kill Prime".

Incidentally, today (well, yesterday in the time zone I am now) was Uncle Bob's 60th birthday. And a very happy one too him in the unlikely event he reads this.

Chris Chapman

16/3/2014 03:07:56 am

No, I agree. It's a great story, but there's also a sense of Furman's growing contempt for Bob's material - which isn't really very professional!

snowkatt

18/3/2014 03:23:33 am

not very professional maybe but understandable

budiansky's quality is slipping a lot and it reaches one of its absolute nadirs in afterdeath and furman either sees his work being messed up by that or has to build his own stories about pretty poor stories

prey is a better send off for prime then afterdeath
and while budiansky regains some of his vigor with gone but not forgotten and funeral for a friend ( both good stories in my opinion ) as well as king of the hill ( a string of of very good stories )
he then wastes it with making grimlock a moronic tyrant
and that little cure to end the scraplet threat ( which was otherwise a good story )

lets ignore the car wash of doom
headmasters seems to get some of budiansky's creativity going again
and he still has a few good stories left but never again as strong as his first 8 comics
gone but not forgotten funeral for a friend and king of the hill really are budiansky's swansong

headmasters is the epitah

and furmans had to pair his material up with that and weave his stories around it and its clear to see why he was disdainfull
unprofessional yes but understandable

Tim Roll-Pickering link

18/3/2014 04:46:32 am

This was also a general trend in Marvel US at the time as creators poked at each other's work, retconned back & forth, tried to assert control of particular characters & situations and generally bickered. It could make for some quite disjointed storytelling and very awkward continuity.

If the general malaise crossed the Atlantic it's easy to understand Furman getting caught up in it - much later on we'll see a very blunt example of it.

Nick

19/3/2014 04:11:11 pm

1. I liked Motormaster. I liked that he was an evil counterpart of Prime in vehicle mode, I liked his blocky, unfussy design and I like that whenever I see him or hear his name, "King Of The Road' plays in my head. Good song, that. I know Bruticus is the gestalt golden boy amongst many G1 fans but I always preferred Menasor.

2. I had the book of the tape of the movie of the toy. I was delighted to discover it was a straIght adaptation, using the same images, sound effects and voices.In the previous tape/books, Starscream looked like he was wearing Bret 'The Hitman' Hart's sunglasses and sounded like a Lenny Henry character.

snowkatt

19/3/2014 11:03:35 pm

at tim

1987 was also a rollercoaster of a year for marvel
shooter was fire in 87 which left marvel in ediotiral chaos
shooter was unpopular but he knew how to get material out of the door and held a tight editorial reign

his departure probably either caused the general sniping in the marvel comics offices or it was excerbated by it

just look at the whole hobgoblin mess and things just became worse after that

im a self confessed clone saga fan but it ran for way too long with way too many fake outs cop outs and over reaching plot archs it became too unwieldy

and i still think it shoudl have been harry osborne not norman !
but thats a discussion for another day i suppose
and with in two years the whole company was owned by perelman and we all know what that lead to

it was toy biz that saved marvel from collapse

Tim Roll-Pickering link

20/3/2014 07:39:38 am

The sniping had been going on for several years before Shooter departed - he particularly found the Claremont-Byrne feud a pain to deal with (made even worse because only one had an editor who blocked some shots) and often cites it as an example of why only the Editor-in-Chief could write Secret Wars. It's become a more general thing across the industry - Comic Book Resources has a blog of "Meta Messages" devoted to examples of creators sharing their opinions via their work.

Felicity link

27/10/2019 01:33:30 am

Spitfire and the Shooter Troubles!

Rack 'n Ruin

8/12/2014 12:59:13 pm

I can (belatedly) confirm that letter writer John Dorney is indeed the Doctor Who fan and actor John Dorney. He is on BBC2's really rather good Only Connect tonight, on a team of Doctor Who fans. In the intro he was described as having had his TF letter published in this issue. Mystery solved!

Stuart

16/5/2015 04:20:55 am

And I can belatedly thank you for that tidbit!

Transformation 96: Cock Blocking Budiansky.

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