Bits and Pieces, Odds and Bobs, Put Them All Together What a Lovely Job.
Issue 118: Hunters Part 2. 13th June 1987.
I see the time since our last meeting hasn’t altered your line in repartee Galvatron! GNNN... Th-though you seem to have lost your sense of humour!
With blisters on my feet and a fancy hat on my head I have returned from Auto Assembly 2014, another fantastic weekend for which the full video of my thoughts can be seen HERE. I also got to have a very nice chat with James Roberts who was good enough to show me a copy of Classics UK Volume 5, an insanely big and hefty tone that is, as ever, packed full of interesting titbits I will be stealing cheerfully from over the course of this blog and which I heartily recommend to you all. It’s already leaked into some bookshops and The Book Depository whilst Amazon should have them in hand by this coming Tuesday (19th of August for those in the future).
It was also great to meet various people who’ve enjoyed my work here (including Mr. Roberts, ohhhhh feel the clang of that name drop), and chatting in the bar with regular commentator Ryan F about the minutia of various Marvel UK reprints until three o’clock in the morning was quite the experience.
There should also-all going well- be something fairly nice coming up in the next couple of months for this site that will have come out of both Auto Assembly and the Classics reprints, so watch this space.
Inspired by all this, I've updated the Heart of the Pool section to include a more up to date picture and something a few people have asked about over the last two years, a contact email.
I see the time since our last meeting hasn’t altered your line in repartee Galvatron! GNNN... Th-though you seem to have lost your sense of humour!
With blisters on my feet and a fancy hat on my head I have returned from Auto Assembly 2014, another fantastic weekend for which the full video of my thoughts can be seen HERE. I also got to have a very nice chat with James Roberts who was good enough to show me a copy of Classics UK Volume 5, an insanely big and hefty tone that is, as ever, packed full of interesting titbits I will be stealing cheerfully from over the course of this blog and which I heartily recommend to you all. It’s already leaked into some bookshops and The Book Depository whilst Amazon should have them in hand by this coming Tuesday (19th of August for those in the future).
It was also great to meet various people who’ve enjoyed my work here (including Mr. Roberts, ohhhhh feel the clang of that name drop), and chatting in the bar with regular commentator Ryan F about the minutia of various Marvel UK reprints until three o’clock in the morning was quite the experience.
There should also-all going well- be something fairly nice coming up in the next couple of months for this site that will have come out of both Auto Assembly and the Classics reprints, so watch this space.
Inspired by all this, I've updated the Heart of the Pool section to include a more up to date picture and something a few people have asked about over the last two years, a contact email.
Back in 1987, Hunters Part 2 gives us an example of how the passage of time can completely change the context of a scene in a comic. This issue is bookended by pages showing Wreck-Gar shifting through the wreckage of Bumblebee whilst talking to the audience and quoting British television, including Blockbusters and University Challenge.
When published, and indeed even when read in the far flung year of 2007 that Wreck-Gar comes from, this is a cute device that doesn’t completely break the fourth wall (as Wreck-Gar is exactly the sort of character who would assume he’s being watched at all times; the fact he treats the audience as “Viewers” rather than “Readers” help maintain the illusion he’s a guy who thinks his life is television rather than it being a case of the author talking right at you) but leans on it heavily in a jaunty way that handles the mandatory recap in a novel and interesting way.
But then he closes out his opening scene by declaring that “Jim’ll Fix It!” At the time, a reference to a hugely popular and well loved (despite it turning out that apparently everyone in the country though the host was a bit dodgy) children’s TV series where Sir Jimmy Savile- or Jim’ll as every kid ever thought his name actually was- made small children’s dreams come true.
Now though, it’s a reference to one of the most prolific paedophiles, rapists and (seemingly) necrophiliacs in British history. A celebrity who used his position of power and friendship with royalty and the political elite to do terrible things and was part of a seemingly never ending parade of similar national treasures from the period who have turned out to also have abused children, including Rolf Harris and Stewart Hall (as I write this, Sir Cliff Richard is having his house searched on similar charges). This gives the entire sequence an ending that could not even have been imagined when Furman wrote it, rather than being a nice in-character set up for the rebuilding of Bumblebee, it’s suddenly something that takes you out of the story as it reminds you of the sort of things you really wouldn’t want to associate with a children’s comic.
With the BBC themselves no longer repeating the episodes of Top of the Pops Savile hosted and there being a fairly firm effort to remove any of his legacy from popular culture (don’t expect the Doctor Who skit he did to be included on any future reissues of The Two Doctors, whilst Lee and Herring have been told a "Savile is overly fond of corpses" gag from This Morning With Richard, Not Judy will have to be cut before that is released on DVD), it’s likely that if the Classics books were being done by a British company this line would have been removed or changed in the interests of sensitivity. Especially as the book this story was collected in was printed the same year the report on the full extent of Savile’s actions was officially released.
With IDW being American and Savile unknown there outside of a Daily Show gag after the story broke where Jon Stewart played a clip with “How did anyone not think he was a child molester?” commentary, it survived into the most recent 2013 reprinting. This, despite the shock this moment induces outside of its original context, is mostly a good thing, it might create a different reading experience but it is how the original story was presented and with Savile having a TV and radio presence spanning half a century completely obliterating every reference would be pointless. However, don’t be totally surprised if future reprinting or the digital version one day snip the line entirely.
When published, and indeed even when read in the far flung year of 2007 that Wreck-Gar comes from, this is a cute device that doesn’t completely break the fourth wall (as Wreck-Gar is exactly the sort of character who would assume he’s being watched at all times; the fact he treats the audience as “Viewers” rather than “Readers” help maintain the illusion he’s a guy who thinks his life is television rather than it being a case of the author talking right at you) but leans on it heavily in a jaunty way that handles the mandatory recap in a novel and interesting way.
But then he closes out his opening scene by declaring that “Jim’ll Fix It!” At the time, a reference to a hugely popular and well loved (despite it turning out that apparently everyone in the country though the host was a bit dodgy) children’s TV series where Sir Jimmy Savile- or Jim’ll as every kid ever thought his name actually was- made small children’s dreams come true.
Now though, it’s a reference to one of the most prolific paedophiles, rapists and (seemingly) necrophiliacs in British history. A celebrity who used his position of power and friendship with royalty and the political elite to do terrible things and was part of a seemingly never ending parade of similar national treasures from the period who have turned out to also have abused children, including Rolf Harris and Stewart Hall (as I write this, Sir Cliff Richard is having his house searched on similar charges). This gives the entire sequence an ending that could not even have been imagined when Furman wrote it, rather than being a nice in-character set up for the rebuilding of Bumblebee, it’s suddenly something that takes you out of the story as it reminds you of the sort of things you really wouldn’t want to associate with a children’s comic.
With the BBC themselves no longer repeating the episodes of Top of the Pops Savile hosted and there being a fairly firm effort to remove any of his legacy from popular culture (don’t expect the Doctor Who skit he did to be included on any future reissues of The Two Doctors, whilst Lee and Herring have been told a "Savile is overly fond of corpses" gag from This Morning With Richard, Not Judy will have to be cut before that is released on DVD), it’s likely that if the Classics books were being done by a British company this line would have been removed or changed in the interests of sensitivity. Especially as the book this story was collected in was printed the same year the report on the full extent of Savile’s actions was officially released.
With IDW being American and Savile unknown there outside of a Daily Show gag after the story broke where Jon Stewart played a clip with “How did anyone not think he was a child molester?” commentary, it survived into the most recent 2013 reprinting. This, despite the shock this moment induces outside of its original context, is mostly a good thing, it might create a different reading experience but it is how the original story was presented and with Savile having a TV and radio presence spanning half a century completely obliterating every reference would be pointless. However, don’t be totally surprised if future reprinting or the digital version one day snip the line entirely.
In the non-child molesting part of the plot, Rodimus makes a petulant mistake that completely undermines his intent of going into the past so as to prevent mass chaos there. Death’s Head, understandably, wants to complete his body of work and kill Galvatron and take payment. Rodimus tells him to take a hike and that under no circumstances will he be paying for it.
This is ridiculous; Death’s Head is in it for the money and has technically already fulfilled the minimum terms of the job Rodimus was offering anyway by leading the Autobot leader to Galvatron- the poster stipulated “Dead or Alive” after all, there’s no actual need for him to be involved in a fight. If Prime had just agreed to pay up and write the whole thing off on expenses (or however the hell the Cybertronian economy works) Death’s Head would have just left at this point and the battle between the two uncontrolled mad men could have been avoided entirely.
Instead, Prime sets the two up for a massive conflict, but not one that will be happening this week as the plot contrives for Galvatron to have had enough of the whole thing and just shot Death’s Head in the arm. In the original story outline before Geoff Senior got his hands on the character, I suspect this is where the bounty hunter would have died (possibly after a more elaborate fight), his plot value at an end. Instead he shuffles off so repair his arm and allows Furman to keep most of his original plotting intact, before having to rework the grand finale to include him.
Instead we get the first Rodimus/Galvatron fight since the film, but, as said last week this isn’t what the story feels like it has been building to and we get a more impressive one in a fortnight anyway, it’s just making time as so much of this story seems to be doing.
This is ridiculous; Death’s Head is in it for the money and has technically already fulfilled the minimum terms of the job Rodimus was offering anyway by leading the Autobot leader to Galvatron- the poster stipulated “Dead or Alive” after all, there’s no actual need for him to be involved in a fight. If Prime had just agreed to pay up and write the whole thing off on expenses (or however the hell the Cybertronian economy works) Death’s Head would have just left at this point and the battle between the two uncontrolled mad men could have been avoided entirely.
Instead, Prime sets the two up for a massive conflict, but not one that will be happening this week as the plot contrives for Galvatron to have had enough of the whole thing and just shot Death’s Head in the arm. In the original story outline before Geoff Senior got his hands on the character, I suspect this is where the bounty hunter would have died (possibly after a more elaborate fight), his plot value at an end. Instead he shuffles off so repair his arm and allows Furman to keep most of his original plotting intact, before having to rework the grand finale to include him.
Instead we get the first Rodimus/Galvatron fight since the film, but, as said last week this isn’t what the story feels like it has been building to and we get a more impressive one in a fortnight anyway, it’s just making time as so much of this story seems to be doing.
Cindy meanwhile decides to have a complete change of character from the crying and whimpering student to suddenly become a brash sassy lady who comes up with lines like “I really should have listened to my mother when she told me not to mix with strange men!” The stress must be getting to her. She does wake Magnus up, and he does blow something up on the side of Galvatron’s volcano base that upsets him and gives Rodimus the chance to run away and regroup, but this feels like nothing less than a means of extending the plot by another two weeks by ensuing everyone will have to run up the volcano again.
The issue ends back with Wreck-Gar, who is thankfully mute and prepared to let the narration boxes describe his actions before he can go “Can you guess what it is yet?” about his new creation, the rebuilt Bumblebee: Goldbug!
As a replacement for Bumblebee’s recreation in the American G.I. Joe crossover it’s considerably more successful as Wreck-Gar is mad enough for it to seem likely he’d completely change Bumblebee’s look and name for no readily apparent reason (though why Bumblebee would go along with the later is anyone’s guess), and makes for a nice dramatic cliff-hanger.
There’s some lovely dialogue in this story, with the undoubted highlight being Galvatron’s reaction to being bargained over by Rodimus and Death’s Head, setting up a character trait we’ll see again in Enemy Action! However, the same problem that has affected this entire arc continues to rear its ugly head: That there are too many issues and not enough plot to fill them. By this point, it’s hard not to want to scream at the page “Get a bloody move on!”, and this is going to need an almighty brilliant conclusion to not be one of the weakest British storylines in a good long while.
The issue ends back with Wreck-Gar, who is thankfully mute and prepared to let the narration boxes describe his actions before he can go “Can you guess what it is yet?” about his new creation, the rebuilt Bumblebee: Goldbug!
As a replacement for Bumblebee’s recreation in the American G.I. Joe crossover it’s considerably more successful as Wreck-Gar is mad enough for it to seem likely he’d completely change Bumblebee’s look and name for no readily apparent reason (though why Bumblebee would go along with the later is anyone’s guess), and makes for a nice dramatic cliff-hanger.
There’s some lovely dialogue in this story, with the undoubted highlight being Galvatron’s reaction to being bargained over by Rodimus and Death’s Head, setting up a character trait we’ll see again in Enemy Action! However, the same problem that has affected this entire arc continues to rear its ugly head: That there are too many issues and not enough plot to fill them. By this point, it’s hard not to want to scream at the page “Get a bloody move on!”, and this is going to need an almighty brilliant conclusion to not be one of the weakest British storylines in a good long while.
Transformation reveals that Inhumanoids will be taking a break, with the intent it will return in six or seven weeks. Presumably they’d caught up with the American publication schedule (it’s possible, as with Transformers there was going to be a gap between the end of the four issue miniseries and the comic continuing as a monthly) and thought leaving some space for them to get ahead would be advantageous. However, Inhumanoids would never make it to issue 5 and would never be seen again in Transformers.
Unlike Planet Terry (the ending for which it turns out was more heavily reedited for its conclusion in Transformers than I’d realised, in the original those weren’t his parents at all but a trick. Thanks to Ryan F for that bit of info. Did you also know that those “Factual” comics about the Battle of Hastings and Alcatraz were a translation of material originally published in 1960’s and 70’s Tintin magazines? Thank to Ryan again. I basically got him drunk and picked his brain clean) the assumption it would come back removed the chance for the UK team to try and give some sort of closure.
Instead we finish with The Girl One accidentally being turned into a monster as a result of her brother trying to take over the Inhumanoids. To find out what happened next, you’ll need to watch the cartoon.
Of course, if it had come back in six or seven issues, it wouldn’t have been for long as six weeks after that another back up from closer to home will arrive in the book and supersede all others.
In Grim Grams there are two letters this week concerned with the portrayal of Transformers in other media. The first sees Neil Yexley from Stanmore write in about a piece by William Morris of the Daily Mirror who wrote about comics and included an illustration of Desperate Dan “Bashing” Blaster with the caption “Dan shows a mamby-pamby Transformer where to go” (if anyone has a scan of this, I’d love to see it). Of course, if anyone had said in 1987 that there would still be a British Transformers comic in 2014 but The Dandy would be no more, they would have seemed crazy.
The other, from Kevin Wootton of York, is due to a Tyne-Tees TV “Tribute” (presumably a PR fluff documentary made back in ’83?) to Return of the Jedi (shown in connection with its TV broadcast?) that closed with a close up of the poster for Transformers: The Movie rather than the film the show was supposed to be about.
Grimlock is surprisingly mellow about all this, merely offering 10,000 Shanix to any kid who sends in a copy of the Mirror piece so he can make a judgement and pinning the poster mistake on mad Transformers fans at Tyne-Tees (this was presumably broadcast in other regions as well).
The astute will have noticed that the image from the Next Week box is actually a piece of Jeff Anderson art from the forthcoming Annual, the reason for this we’ll be discussing in seven days as I look at the biggest challenge Furman had yet faced in his young editorial career, the issue that very nearly didn’t happen.
ISSUE 117
1987
COMMENT
Unlike Planet Terry (the ending for which it turns out was more heavily reedited for its conclusion in Transformers than I’d realised, in the original those weren’t his parents at all but a trick. Thanks to Ryan F for that bit of info. Did you also know that those “Factual” comics about the Battle of Hastings and Alcatraz were a translation of material originally published in 1960’s and 70’s Tintin magazines? Thank to Ryan again. I basically got him drunk and picked his brain clean) the assumption it would come back removed the chance for the UK team to try and give some sort of closure.
Instead we finish with The Girl One accidentally being turned into a monster as a result of her brother trying to take over the Inhumanoids. To find out what happened next, you’ll need to watch the cartoon.
Of course, if it had come back in six or seven issues, it wouldn’t have been for long as six weeks after that another back up from closer to home will arrive in the book and supersede all others.
In Grim Grams there are two letters this week concerned with the portrayal of Transformers in other media. The first sees Neil Yexley from Stanmore write in about a piece by William Morris of the Daily Mirror who wrote about comics and included an illustration of Desperate Dan “Bashing” Blaster with the caption “Dan shows a mamby-pamby Transformer where to go” (if anyone has a scan of this, I’d love to see it). Of course, if anyone had said in 1987 that there would still be a British Transformers comic in 2014 but The Dandy would be no more, they would have seemed crazy.
The other, from Kevin Wootton of York, is due to a Tyne-Tees TV “Tribute” (presumably a PR fluff documentary made back in ’83?) to Return of the Jedi (shown in connection with its TV broadcast?) that closed with a close up of the poster for Transformers: The Movie rather than the film the show was supposed to be about.
Grimlock is surprisingly mellow about all this, merely offering 10,000 Shanix to any kid who sends in a copy of the Mirror piece so he can make a judgement and pinning the poster mistake on mad Transformers fans at Tyne-Tees (this was presumably broadcast in other regions as well).
The astute will have noticed that the image from the Next Week box is actually a piece of Jeff Anderson art from the forthcoming Annual, the reason for this we’ll be discussing in seven days as I look at the biggest challenge Furman had yet faced in his young editorial career, the issue that very nearly didn’t happen.
ISSUE 117
1987
COMMENT