Play the Game.
The 1986 Annual.
Comics:
To a Power Unknown!
Victory!
Text Stories:
In the Beginning...
The Return of the Transformers.
A Tale From Cybertron: State Games.
The Mission.
The second Transformers Annual is very much in the same style as the first, hardly surprising perhaps considering Shelia Cranna has returned to edit it. Next year with publisher Grandreams no longer involved and Furman editing the thing there will be a bit of a shake up, but here we get a book that is very much part of a pair with the first, even down to the black spine.
That said, you can see the conflict between the slightly more juvenile comic Cranna last worked on and the title it has matured into during the interim, the stories we get here tend to veer between thoughtful and smart tales that are essential to the ongoing story, and completely throwaway fluff of no consequence whatsoever.
With the regular comic no longer doing Robot Wars updates the Annual takes up the mantel of keeping new readers up to speed, with the first of a series of recap features that will be included in most of the remaining hardbacks. One difference between these and the features the weekly used to do however is it's not just a straightforward summary, but a proper narrative story that finds an in-fiction excuse to sum up events so far.
Comics:
To a Power Unknown!
Victory!
Text Stories:
In the Beginning...
The Return of the Transformers.
A Tale From Cybertron: State Games.
The Mission.
The second Transformers Annual is very much in the same style as the first, hardly surprising perhaps considering Shelia Cranna has returned to edit it. Next year with publisher Grandreams no longer involved and Furman editing the thing there will be a bit of a shake up, but here we get a book that is very much part of a pair with the first, even down to the black spine.
That said, you can see the conflict between the slightly more juvenile comic Cranna last worked on and the title it has matured into during the interim, the stories we get here tend to veer between thoughtful and smart tales that are essential to the ongoing story, and completely throwaway fluff of no consequence whatsoever.
With the regular comic no longer doing Robot Wars updates the Annual takes up the mantel of keeping new readers up to speed, with the first of a series of recap features that will be included in most of the remaining hardbacks. One difference between these and the features the weekly used to do however is it's not just a straightforward summary, but a proper narrative story that finds an in-fiction excuse to sum up events so far.
As such, In the Beginning... focuses on human teen Adam Reynolds as he attempts to win a hacking bet with his Sinclair computer only to instead break into the main Decepticon computer, which proceeds to answer all his giant robot questions (covering up till just before Second Generation) whilst it secretly builds up a lethal electric charge to send down the phone, with his life only being saved by a distraction from his cat at the same moment his computer explodes.
It's a simple framing device, but it makes for a more engaging read that a simple story so far entry and writer Furman works hard to throw in some nice turns of phrase in order to stop it being too dry. The illustrations from old British stories are generally very well chosen as well, creating a nice visual walk down memory lane as well.
The main flaw is Furman's knowledge of computers is lacking, if nothing else I'd have thought the Decepticons computer would have to be on the phone line in order for an attempt at hacking it via dial up to be even slightly possible, and I can't see them being signed up to the American version of BT somehow. Still, for a clip show it works very well and it's hardly surprising Adam would be brought back the next time they tried something like this.
There's also a nice little interactive gimmick that, when Adam comes across data on Prime and Megatron, the reader has to turn to other parts of the Annual for the full profiles. These aren't just reuses of the Universe profiles, but actually contain new, and to the best of my knowledge never repeated, bits of information such as Optimus being a former medic.
It's a simple framing device, but it makes for a more engaging read that a simple story so far entry and writer Furman works hard to throw in some nice turns of phrase in order to stop it being too dry. The illustrations from old British stories are generally very well chosen as well, creating a nice visual walk down memory lane as well.
The main flaw is Furman's knowledge of computers is lacking, if nothing else I'd have thought the Decepticons computer would have to be on the phone line in order for an attempt at hacking it via dial up to be even slightly possible, and I can't see them being signed up to the American version of BT somehow. Still, for a clip show it works very well and it's hardly surprising Adam would be brought back the next time they tried something like this.
There's also a nice little interactive gimmick that, when Adam comes across data on Prime and Megatron, the reader has to turn to other parts of the Annual for the full profiles. These aren't just reuses of the Universe profiles, but actually contain new, and to the best of my knowledge never repeated, bits of information such as Optimus being a former medic.
An innocent man.
This is followed by our first comic story, To a Power Unknown!, which shows us how lucky we are generally with these books as it reads as much more like the sort of bilge you'd usually find in one of the infamous World Distributor tie in Annuals, and would have taken very little rewriting to work in one of their Challenge of the Gobots books.
Written by Ian Mennell and Will Pringmore in their only work on the franchise and with art by Will Simpson it seems to take a cue from the TV episode Attack of the Autobots, only with the technobabble affecting both sides this time.
Whilst there's some nice humour in the Decepticons acting all sweet and nice and the visit to the UK to find out what's causing the beam that's changing their behaviour results in some nice pop culture references (though it's lucky this Annual didn't come up a few weeks earlier as before his not guilty verdict the appearance of Ken Barlow in a kids comic would have resulted in some shameless bad taste jokes on my part) there's nowhere near enough going on in it to justify the 11 pages it takes to tell, and makes you wonder how it took two people to write it.
Also, it's probably not a good idea to base your story around science if you don't even understand how heat works. Even if this does result in the most memorable moment of the tale as we have the return of Bastard Jazz as he "Accidentally" kills a human riding in Starscream with his heat seeking missile because the Decepticons supposedly goes instantly cold when he turns into a robot. It's worth noting that Jazz was unaffected by the EVIL beam when he opened fire on a Decepticon with a human in him in the first place.
Written by Ian Mennell and Will Pringmore in their only work on the franchise and with art by Will Simpson it seems to take a cue from the TV episode Attack of the Autobots, only with the technobabble affecting both sides this time.
Whilst there's some nice humour in the Decepticons acting all sweet and nice and the visit to the UK to find out what's causing the beam that's changing their behaviour results in some nice pop culture references (though it's lucky this Annual didn't come up a few weeks earlier as before his not guilty verdict the appearance of Ken Barlow in a kids comic would have resulted in some shameless bad taste jokes on my part) there's nowhere near enough going on in it to justify the 11 pages it takes to tell, and makes you wonder how it took two people to write it.
Also, it's probably not a good idea to base your story around science if you don't even understand how heat works. Even if this does result in the most memorable moment of the tale as we have the return of Bastard Jazz as he "Accidentally" kills a human riding in Starscream with his heat seeking missile because the Decepticons supposedly goes instantly cold when he turns into a robot. It's worth noting that Jazz was unaffected by the EVIL beam when he opened fire on a Decepticon with a human in him in the first place.
Give him a big hand.
Luckily, our first text story brings us back to the good stuff. Written by James Hill, The Return of the Transformers is, as you'd expect from him, full of continuity references. Most overtly it features the return of Danny Phillips from last year's Annual, but it also deals with a long standing problem I've mentioned before that goes all the way back to the start of 1986.
This is of course, that back in Crisis of Command, Optimus refused to create any Ultimate Autobots, but by the end of the year Hasbro mandate had seen the birth of the Aerialbots. Hill's story points out this in-fiction hypocrisy and impressively doesn't come up with any easy answers about whether Prime was right to change his mind.
Indeed, this is one of the bleakest stories of the entire Marvel run; Danny has been traumatised by his prior experiences and become obsessed with the robots, only to hear have his faith in the shattered by a near lethal encounter with Decepticons and Superion. The Aerialbots themselves are also flawed, problematic characters who don't gel as a team at all, with their supervisor Jetfire basically washing his hands of the problem at the end of the story, leaving Optimus none the wiser as to their ongoing issues.
This could be seen as mean spirited on Hill's part, taking down the Aerialbots just because their arrival has made nonsense of his earlier story from the weekly. But all the flaws in the characters he uses are right from their profiles, and this remains the best and most sustained characterisation most of the team has ever received (especially Fireflight and Slingshot), and the story certainly doesn't gloat over their problems, instead presenting the entire sequence as a tragedy.
It also makes it rather nice the Aerialbots won't get much else to do in the rest of the comic's life as there won't be anything to really contradict their troubled portrayal here (indeed, the only other proper Aerialbots story in Perchance to Dream continues many of these themes), leaving them with one of the darkest backstories of any of the Marvel characters.
Hill was obviously writing a good deal in advance of seeing some of the American stories this is set after (there really isn't any easy point where Superion and the original three seekers are all about at the same time- the wiki suggests prior to Underbase with this actually being Powermaster Prime, but that doesn't really work with this clearly being an early adventure for the jets), but that's just small potatoes and in any other Annual this would be the highlight of the text stories.
This is of course, that back in Crisis of Command, Optimus refused to create any Ultimate Autobots, but by the end of the year Hasbro mandate had seen the birth of the Aerialbots. Hill's story points out this in-fiction hypocrisy and impressively doesn't come up with any easy answers about whether Prime was right to change his mind.
Indeed, this is one of the bleakest stories of the entire Marvel run; Danny has been traumatised by his prior experiences and become obsessed with the robots, only to hear have his faith in the shattered by a near lethal encounter with Decepticons and Superion. The Aerialbots themselves are also flawed, problematic characters who don't gel as a team at all, with their supervisor Jetfire basically washing his hands of the problem at the end of the story, leaving Optimus none the wiser as to their ongoing issues.
This could be seen as mean spirited on Hill's part, taking down the Aerialbots just because their arrival has made nonsense of his earlier story from the weekly. But all the flaws in the characters he uses are right from their profiles, and this remains the best and most sustained characterisation most of the team has ever received (especially Fireflight and Slingshot), and the story certainly doesn't gloat over their problems, instead presenting the entire sequence as a tragedy.
It also makes it rather nice the Aerialbots won't get much else to do in the rest of the comic's life as there won't be anything to really contradict their troubled portrayal here (indeed, the only other proper Aerialbots story in Perchance to Dream continues many of these themes), leaving them with one of the darkest backstories of any of the Marvel characters.
Hill was obviously writing a good deal in advance of seeing some of the American stories this is set after (there really isn't any easy point where Superion and the original three seekers are all about at the same time- the wiki suggests prior to Underbase with this actually being Powermaster Prime, but that doesn't really work with this clearly being an early adventure for the jets), but that's just small potatoes and in any other Annual this would be the highlight of the text stories.
Overlord, Fort Max's dad by the look of him.
But this is the Annual with State Games in it. Hill's masterpiece and, thanks to Furman taking the gladiatorial idea over the Dreamwave and thus onwards to IDW and the aligned stuff, a hugely influential story on the rest of the franchise.
As before it's heavily steeped in continuity, being a prequel to last year's And There Shall Come... A Leader! and as such brings back various characters and ideas from that story (not just the expected by this stage Xaaron but minor council members as well) to show the road that leads to the start of war.
It's a surprisingly grown up take, not many children's Annual stories can have used the events at the Munich Olympics as a starting point as Hill admits to having done here, and is the first place in fiction to have presented a sympathetic origin for the Decepticons. Megatron himself is still a power hungry git, but the bulk of the army he creates at the end of the story are desperate Autobot refuges let down by the system, and the political games played by the leaders of the various city states are as much the cause of their own downfall as anything Megatron himself does.
Indeed, this is a story where the villain is basically waiting until the flaws in those around him create the perfect situation for his rise to power. All he has to do is make himself popular and iconic through the gladiator games, otherwise he plays no part in the bombing of Tarn, nor Iacon's decision not to help in the subsequent small scale war between that city and Vos. It wasn't even down to him that the games which allowed his fame to rise were restarted.
Tellingly Megatron's big moment here is a deliberate choice not to do anything, by letting the ancient Autobot leader Overlord die from lack of energy when he's supposed to be escorting him Megs destroys the last vestige of the old order through simple inaction.
If there is a flaw it's that Prime's presence is fairly superfluous, especially considering the previous Tale of Cybertron did such a good job of fleshing out his origin (which of course included his first meeting with Megatron, contradicted here), but otherwise this is exceptional and also features good work on both Ravage and, of all characters, Tornado.
Interestingly Hill actually pitched a full on comic adaptation of this story to IDW in 2007. This was rejected because they thought Megatron: Origin, a story which rips off large chunks of this tale anyway, was a better bet. This probably says more about everything that was wrong with IDW at the time better than anything else.
As before it's heavily steeped in continuity, being a prequel to last year's And There Shall Come... A Leader! and as such brings back various characters and ideas from that story (not just the expected by this stage Xaaron but minor council members as well) to show the road that leads to the start of war.
It's a surprisingly grown up take, not many children's Annual stories can have used the events at the Munich Olympics as a starting point as Hill admits to having done here, and is the first place in fiction to have presented a sympathetic origin for the Decepticons. Megatron himself is still a power hungry git, but the bulk of the army he creates at the end of the story are desperate Autobot refuges let down by the system, and the political games played by the leaders of the various city states are as much the cause of their own downfall as anything Megatron himself does.
Indeed, this is a story where the villain is basically waiting until the flaws in those around him create the perfect situation for his rise to power. All he has to do is make himself popular and iconic through the gladiator games, otherwise he plays no part in the bombing of Tarn, nor Iacon's decision not to help in the subsequent small scale war between that city and Vos. It wasn't even down to him that the games which allowed his fame to rise were restarted.
Tellingly Megatron's big moment here is a deliberate choice not to do anything, by letting the ancient Autobot leader Overlord die from lack of energy when he's supposed to be escorting him Megs destroys the last vestige of the old order through simple inaction.
If there is a flaw it's that Prime's presence is fairly superfluous, especially considering the previous Tale of Cybertron did such a good job of fleshing out his origin (which of course included his first meeting with Megatron, contradicted here), but otherwise this is exceptional and also features good work on both Ravage and, of all characters, Tornado.
Interestingly Hill actually pitched a full on comic adaptation of this story to IDW in 2007. This was rejected because they thought Megatron: Origin, a story which rips off large chunks of this tale anyway, was a better bet. This probably says more about everything that was wrong with IDW at the time better than anything else.
Ouch.
State Games may be the most influential story in this Annual in the long run, but what everyone remembers is the second comic strip, Victory! Written by Furman, the plot is very simple: Whilst in their post Dinobot Hunt coma Grimlock and friends are suffering from a condition where they can't wake up but are instead stuck in individual dreams where each has a victory that quickly turns to defeat and death, leaving Optimus worried as he needs these troops back (so he can put them in a cupboard for months on end).
The plot doesn't matter a jot though, this is Geoff Senior's show. Throwing you in with a cold open that has Grimlock cutting Megatron down the middle with his sword, this is a story with huge, iconic, unforgettable imagery. Swoop cheerfully carrying Soundwave about like a rag doll; Sludge being zapped by an evil robot double of Joy Meadows; Snarl cutting off Guardian's head with his tail; Slag knocking Shockwave off a cliff... Hell, Senior makes the real world Dinobots just standing there look amazing.
That's not to say the script doesn't have lots of nice little moments, all the dreams are nicely based around the Dinobots' actual character flaws rather than being totally random and the final reveal is well done, but if anyone else drew it this would be a nice bit of fluff. Instead the final result is one of the most beautiful Transformers comics of all time, and rightly often the first stop for any "Best of" collection that needs some representation from the UK comic.
The plot doesn't matter a jot though, this is Geoff Senior's show. Throwing you in with a cold open that has Grimlock cutting Megatron down the middle with his sword, this is a story with huge, iconic, unforgettable imagery. Swoop cheerfully carrying Soundwave about like a rag doll; Sludge being zapped by an evil robot double of Joy Meadows; Snarl cutting off Guardian's head with his tail; Slag knocking Shockwave off a cliff... Hell, Senior makes the real world Dinobots just standing there look amazing.
That's not to say the script doesn't have lots of nice little moments, all the dreams are nicely based around the Dinobots' actual character flaws rather than being totally random and the final reveal is well done, but if anyone else drew it this would be a nice bit of fluff. Instead the final result is one of the most beautiful Transformers comics of all time, and rightly often the first stop for any "Best of" collection that needs some representation from the UK comic.
Smell my finger.
Sadly things end with a bit of a whimper as the final text story, The Mission, brings back to the more World Distributor level of content. By another one-off author in Jamie Delano it sees Jazz and Hoist (with a mouth in the illustrations) mucking about fighting the Constructicons in Alaska.
The only real thing of note in the story is Jazz gets his mind scrambled once again, suggesting someone really has it in for him. Probably one of the many humans he's tried to kill. Otherwise, though this isn't an offensively bad story but equally isn't one you're going to remember 30 seconds after finishing it.
Presumably because of the heavy story content there's surprisingly little in the way of feature pages in this book, other than the aforementioned profiles of Prime and Megatron there's only a quiz and reprints of the Autobot and Decepticon character charts from the weekly.
Despite the weakness of a couple of the stories, there's more than enough good content here to make this Annual worth tracking down. You get one brilliantly bleak story, one stunningly drawn one and the single most influential thing the Annuals ever did. It's also pretty much the perfect capstone to 1986.
Next up, a look at the reprint specials of the year.
ISSUE 93
1986
COMMENT
The only real thing of note in the story is Jazz gets his mind scrambled once again, suggesting someone really has it in for him. Probably one of the many humans he's tried to kill. Otherwise, though this isn't an offensively bad story but equally isn't one you're going to remember 30 seconds after finishing it.
Presumably because of the heavy story content there's surprisingly little in the way of feature pages in this book, other than the aforementioned profiles of Prime and Megatron there's only a quiz and reprints of the Autobot and Decepticon character charts from the weekly.
Despite the weakness of a couple of the stories, there's more than enough good content here to make this Annual worth tracking down. You get one brilliantly bleak story, one stunningly drawn one and the single most influential thing the Annuals ever did. It's also pretty much the perfect capstone to 1986.
Next up, a look at the reprint specials of the year.
ISSUE 93
1986
COMMENT
A sample of the quiz.
