London Calling.
Issue 125: Ancient Relics! Part 1. 1st August 1987.
I'm on a fool’s errand, I'm wet, cold-uncomfortable... and now I'm attacked by humans? Okay... now I'm really mad!
Ancient Relics! is a story that, by all rights, should be a disaster. The whole idea of crossing over with Action Force was a Hasbro mandated one; something that never brings out the best from Furman; and the Marvel UK team as a whole clearly aren't that enthused about the squadies as we've seen from the general apathy that comes over whenever the book has to mention its younger sister title.
Throw in the fact that Geoff Senior wasn't happy with the final art (due to not being able to ink it himself) and the shorter page count of the original material in Action Force meaning this five week Epic will wind up being slightly shorter than a regular three part story should result in something that is a bit of a mess. I won't be talking about it in huge depth as its time will come towards the end of the comic's life, but the impenetrable nonsense that is the American G.I. Joe crossover is a fine example of how this could have ended up.
The first thing to note about this story is how top heavy it is in favour of Transformers, the intent is very obviously about trying to tempt those who only read the giant robots book to try out the soldiers’ one rather than the other way round. Despite the short page count for the entire adventure, there are two things in this opening installment that are particularly designed to make the next four issues of Action Force unmissable to anyone who wouldn't normally pick it up.
The first is the fission that British readers will get from reading a story set in London, only the third time the comic has played the local excitement card and, perhaps surprisingly, neither Man of Iron or To a Power Unknown! did the obvious "Plonk the Transforms in a famous location" trick. Though equally surprisingly this crossover won't do much more with London than use it as a background, which seems a waste (it'll take until Fleetway's Generation 2 for us to get the London landmark destruction porn this situation feels like it should require). Amazingly, this is also the last story of the entire Marvel run to be set predominantly in the UK, which gives it some extra retrospective weight.
I'm on a fool’s errand, I'm wet, cold-uncomfortable... and now I'm attacked by humans? Okay... now I'm really mad!
Ancient Relics! is a story that, by all rights, should be a disaster. The whole idea of crossing over with Action Force was a Hasbro mandated one; something that never brings out the best from Furman; and the Marvel UK team as a whole clearly aren't that enthused about the squadies as we've seen from the general apathy that comes over whenever the book has to mention its younger sister title.
Throw in the fact that Geoff Senior wasn't happy with the final art (due to not being able to ink it himself) and the shorter page count of the original material in Action Force meaning this five week Epic will wind up being slightly shorter than a regular three part story should result in something that is a bit of a mess. I won't be talking about it in huge depth as its time will come towards the end of the comic's life, but the impenetrable nonsense that is the American G.I. Joe crossover is a fine example of how this could have ended up.
The first thing to note about this story is how top heavy it is in favour of Transformers, the intent is very obviously about trying to tempt those who only read the giant robots book to try out the soldiers’ one rather than the other way round. Despite the short page count for the entire adventure, there are two things in this opening installment that are particularly designed to make the next four issues of Action Force unmissable to anyone who wouldn't normally pick it up.
The first is the fission that British readers will get from reading a story set in London, only the third time the comic has played the local excitement card and, perhaps surprisingly, neither Man of Iron or To a Power Unknown! did the obvious "Plonk the Transforms in a famous location" trick. Though equally surprisingly this crossover won't do much more with London than use it as a background, which seems a waste (it'll take until Fleetway's Generation 2 for us to get the London landmark destruction porn this situation feels like it should require). Amazingly, this is also the last story of the entire Marvel run to be set predominantly in the UK, which gives it some extra retrospective weight.
BOO!
Secondly, it's the return of Megatron, the franchises big main villain who has been completely absent (well, technically, depending on how you count Galvatron) since January. This is of course, a massive event for the book and the bulk of it being portrayed in another title is a very, very canny move on Furman's part.
It's also something of a risk- whilst treating Megatron as dead when his future self is running about is fairly pointless there's always the risk of him returning in the American book in a way that contradicts this and could make the continuity a bit of a mess. After all, despite the name change, Megatron is one of the few Transformers at this point who have had a new toy, if there were ever a third (and ironically G.I. Joe was already well down the road of new toys of popular characters so this would have seemed a more than likely prospect even in 1987) whatever guarantee Budiansky/the American editorial team had given their British counterparts about it being OK to mess with Megatron- and it’s likely they sent a quick message over the Atlantic to double check- would have gone out of the window very quickly.
This is a sign of Furman's growing assurance in making the UK comic its own entity that has the confidence to not be that bothered about the American content, an assurance that will lead to extraordinary things as we approach issue 150. Though ironically, not only will Megatron's eventual American return create all sorts of headaches and muddles for the UK book, it will be Furman himself who is both creating the problem and tasked with trying to fix it.
So compared to that, what’s the lure for Action Force fans that makes this an essential story? Basically: Nothing. Many of their home grown adventures are set in the UK, and the cast used is fairly standard for the title. There are also no particularly huge revelations or changes to the status quo, if not for the somewhat unusual nature of what they’re up against, this would almost be another day in for office for Action Force.
Tellingly, the story is, as we’ll see, tied into the ongoing Transformers plots in a way that could well be off-putting for those that only read the other comic, but Action Force are treated as a blank slate. Not only does this work perfectly as an introduction to them, it would work just as well with entirely new soldier characters, which it may well have if Furman had been able to reintroduce Megatron without the need for a crossover. This is despite the fact most of this adventure will be happening in Action Force’s own book, so you’d think it would be the Cybertronian side of things that would be more carefully introduced as new.
It is basically very clear that the assumption of the creative team is that there are very few Action Force readers who are not also getting Transformers; this is entirely about getting the figures up for a book that is now almost exactly halfway through its year long run and was likely already in quite a bad way.
This opening instalment is largely concerned with soldiers hunting down a sinister silver giant in the London sewers, a plot that suggests that Furman, like anyone who was a small boy in the late ‘60’s, has the Doctor Who story The Invasion burnt into his mind. Or in terms of more direct inspiration- as no one had seen The Invasion in two decades at this point- the 1985 Now That’s What I Call Cybermen greatest hits package that was Attack of the Cybermen.
The opening of both is basically the same (except this manages the impressive feat of having a higher body count that an Eric Saward written teaser) and each involves two disparate groups- one the law and one a grumpy alien- going into the sewers to find out what happened and initially being in conflict before teaming up.
It's also something of a risk- whilst treating Megatron as dead when his future self is running about is fairly pointless there's always the risk of him returning in the American book in a way that contradicts this and could make the continuity a bit of a mess. After all, despite the name change, Megatron is one of the few Transformers at this point who have had a new toy, if there were ever a third (and ironically G.I. Joe was already well down the road of new toys of popular characters so this would have seemed a more than likely prospect even in 1987) whatever guarantee Budiansky/the American editorial team had given their British counterparts about it being OK to mess with Megatron- and it’s likely they sent a quick message over the Atlantic to double check- would have gone out of the window very quickly.
This is a sign of Furman's growing assurance in making the UK comic its own entity that has the confidence to not be that bothered about the American content, an assurance that will lead to extraordinary things as we approach issue 150. Though ironically, not only will Megatron's eventual American return create all sorts of headaches and muddles for the UK book, it will be Furman himself who is both creating the problem and tasked with trying to fix it.
So compared to that, what’s the lure for Action Force fans that makes this an essential story? Basically: Nothing. Many of their home grown adventures are set in the UK, and the cast used is fairly standard for the title. There are also no particularly huge revelations or changes to the status quo, if not for the somewhat unusual nature of what they’re up against, this would almost be another day in for office for Action Force.
Tellingly, the story is, as we’ll see, tied into the ongoing Transformers plots in a way that could well be off-putting for those that only read the other comic, but Action Force are treated as a blank slate. Not only does this work perfectly as an introduction to them, it would work just as well with entirely new soldier characters, which it may well have if Furman had been able to reintroduce Megatron without the need for a crossover. This is despite the fact most of this adventure will be happening in Action Force’s own book, so you’d think it would be the Cybertronian side of things that would be more carefully introduced as new.
It is basically very clear that the assumption of the creative team is that there are very few Action Force readers who are not also getting Transformers; this is entirely about getting the figures up for a book that is now almost exactly halfway through its year long run and was likely already in quite a bad way.
This opening instalment is largely concerned with soldiers hunting down a sinister silver giant in the London sewers, a plot that suggests that Furman, like anyone who was a small boy in the late ‘60’s, has the Doctor Who story The Invasion burnt into his mind. Or in terms of more direct inspiration- as no one had seen The Invasion in two decades at this point- the 1985 Now That’s What I Call Cybermen greatest hits package that was Attack of the Cybermen.
The opening of both is basically the same (except this manages the impressive feat of having a higher body count that an Eric Saward written teaser) and each involves two disparate groups- one the law and one a grumpy alien- going into the sewers to find out what happened and initially being in conflict before teaming up.
Now shown: Arcee crying.
The “Mystery robot kills people visiting the sewers” opening also introduces Susan Hoffman, archaeologist extraordinary, who undergoes a rapid promotion in the (British?) Heritage Society thanks to her elderly boss being crushed to death by a tunnel collapse caused by a mad Megatron.
Last time Furman featured a prominent female character in Cindy I pretty much ripped the way she was written to shreds, and as I insinuated at the time there will be a fuller discussion on his handling of women when we get to Ladies Night. However, credit where it’s due, here he gets it right. She’s not an idiot screamer (even though she’d have every right to be considering a giant monster just killed her friends) and more importantly is the first prominent female introduced by the British comic who isn’t a love interest for an Autobot. Indeed, taking the comic as a whole, rather sadly, Circuit Breaker and a couple of minor news readers are the only previous female characters full stop who haven’t been portrayed as a love interest (or in the case of the female companions surrounding Joey Slick and his gangster chums, straight up whores) for someone.
Hoffman will thankfully avoid all that (and will treat future encounters with the Transformers as an annoying intrusion upon her proper job), being a capable confident character whose gender is basically immaterial to her plot function.
She’s in good company here as one of the main advantages G.I. Joe/Action Force has over Transformers is a surprisingly large number of strong female characters for a boy’s toys franchise. Yes, they virtually all wind up being a girlfriend to one of the blokes, but considering the long running soap opera Larry Hama wrote the core American book as that is at least in keeping with the style rather than being gratuitous and the major ones are well written characters with strong personalities who are not just defined by how they interact with the boys, effectively the sort of thing Arcee looks at and cries.
Last time Furman featured a prominent female character in Cindy I pretty much ripped the way she was written to shreds, and as I insinuated at the time there will be a fuller discussion on his handling of women when we get to Ladies Night. However, credit where it’s due, here he gets it right. She’s not an idiot screamer (even though she’d have every right to be considering a giant monster just killed her friends) and more importantly is the first prominent female introduced by the British comic who isn’t a love interest for an Autobot. Indeed, taking the comic as a whole, rather sadly, Circuit Breaker and a couple of minor news readers are the only previous female characters full stop who haven’t been portrayed as a love interest (or in the case of the female companions surrounding Joey Slick and his gangster chums, straight up whores) for someone.
Hoffman will thankfully avoid all that (and will treat future encounters with the Transformers as an annoying intrusion upon her proper job), being a capable confident character whose gender is basically immaterial to her plot function.
She’s in good company here as one of the main advantages G.I. Joe/Action Force has over Transformers is a surprisingly large number of strong female characters for a boy’s toys franchise. Yes, they virtually all wind up being a girlfriend to one of the blokes, but considering the long running soap opera Larry Hama wrote the core American book as that is at least in keeping with the style rather than being gratuitous and the major ones are well written characters with strong personalities who are not just defined by how they interact with the boys, effectively the sort of thing Arcee looks at and cries.
"Lady Jay was better!"
Basically, Larry Hama never judged the quality of a character by their gender; he judged it by whether or not he could make them a ninja and/or in some way connected to Snake Eyes being disfigured.
So here, Scarlett is very much the second most prominent Forcie behind team leader Flint, throwing credulity on Hoffman’s giant robot story and being the focus of their accidental fight against Blades, whilst Airtight, Barbecue and Bazooka are very much in a supporting role. Again, it’ll be years before we see a female Transformer being so well written in any medium.
Flint is also a great character I’ve always been fond of, even if I only found out relatively recently that he wasn’t actually British in the American series as well. He doesn’t get to show off much in this issue but his calm no nonsense attitude makes for an effective leader.
Blades is actually an interesting choice of the being one of the two main Autobots in this story, as with Gears being Spider-Man’s pal it feels as if this team up is deliberately avoiding the book’s leads (though considering the placement of this issue involving the title’s current default main character of Blaster would have been tricky). However, what could have been underwhelming is instead turned into a virtue as Furman creates a nice borderline psychotic take on Blades that, along with his brief showing in Generation 2 has come to define the character thanks to being his most prominent showing in any fiction.
To a certain extent it feels as if Furman is doing Blaster right with Blades, there’s a similar arrogance, temper and distaste with Grimlock’s leadership but Blades is also capable of pulling back from actually killing all of Action Force when they attack him after running into the Autobot in the sewers in a way I have the terrible feeling Blaster wouldn’t.
That mention of Grimlock brings us to how this ties into the American stories in a most unexpected way. This is the only British story to make great play of the “Leader Grimlock is a Dick” arc (he makes one other UK appearance whilst in charge but his actual leadership is basically incidental there), and this is categorically set in parallel with last week’s issue as Blades is in London trying to track down the two defectors so Grimlock can do terrible things to them.
It feels incredibly strange for Furman to be touching on something he’ll otherwise ignore, especially as part of a crossover. Presumably he was either trying out New Grimlock to see if he could get a handle on it, or really wanted the chance to put the new Autobot leader against the book’s main villain. Either way, Furman actually writes Grimlock pretty well, feeling more likable and funny in his irascibility than when we’ve seen him under Budiansky (Wheeljack’s perfectly timed comedy exasperation helps a lot as well).
So here, Scarlett is very much the second most prominent Forcie behind team leader Flint, throwing credulity on Hoffman’s giant robot story and being the focus of their accidental fight against Blades, whilst Airtight, Barbecue and Bazooka are very much in a supporting role. Again, it’ll be years before we see a female Transformer being so well written in any medium.
Flint is also a great character I’ve always been fond of, even if I only found out relatively recently that he wasn’t actually British in the American series as well. He doesn’t get to show off much in this issue but his calm no nonsense attitude makes for an effective leader.
Blades is actually an interesting choice of the being one of the two main Autobots in this story, as with Gears being Spider-Man’s pal it feels as if this team up is deliberately avoiding the book’s leads (though considering the placement of this issue involving the title’s current default main character of Blaster would have been tricky). However, what could have been underwhelming is instead turned into a virtue as Furman creates a nice borderline psychotic take on Blades that, along with his brief showing in Generation 2 has come to define the character thanks to being his most prominent showing in any fiction.
To a certain extent it feels as if Furman is doing Blaster right with Blades, there’s a similar arrogance, temper and distaste with Grimlock’s leadership but Blades is also capable of pulling back from actually killing all of Action Force when they attack him after running into the Autobot in the sewers in a way I have the terrible feeling Blaster wouldn’t.
That mention of Grimlock brings us to how this ties into the American stories in a most unexpected way. This is the only British story to make great play of the “Leader Grimlock is a Dick” arc (he makes one other UK appearance whilst in charge but his actual leadership is basically incidental there), and this is categorically set in parallel with last week’s issue as Blades is in London trying to track down the two defectors so Grimlock can do terrible things to them.
It feels incredibly strange for Furman to be touching on something he’ll otherwise ignore, especially as part of a crossover. Presumably he was either trying out New Grimlock to see if he could get a handle on it, or really wanted the chance to put the new Autobot leader against the book’s main villain. Either way, Furman actually writes Grimlock pretty well, feeling more likable and funny in his irascibility than when we’ve seen him under Budiansky (Wheeljack’s perfectly timed comedy exasperation helps a lot as well).
Note how Furman/Senior ditches the crown.
The sequence at the Ark establishing why Blades is in London and that Grimlock will be going there as well now he’s detected at least on Transformer life sign there also reintroduces the new Centurion as rebuilt by Wheeljack (which lets him do a Title Drop as the man made robot is an “Ancient Relic” in his eyes). There are all sorts of reasons why this is very odd, but as this isn’t immediately apparent and we’re heading towards a very long entry this week I’ll save this for when he plays a larger part in the story.
Back in the sewers, Action Force’s mistaken attack on Blades is very nicely done in that it firmly establishes their weaponry does little more than annoy him, this creates an added sense of tension when the issue ends with Megatron fully revealing himself as we already know he’s bigger, nastier and stronger than Blades.
Considering the dissatisfaction the people who made it have with this story, this opening (well, the first half to all intents and purposes) is actually good solid fun and is surprisingly packed for just 11 pages- perhaps too much so in the case of Centurion- something that will continue to be the case when we switch over to the other book. Grimlock, Blades, Wheeljack, Flint, Scarlett and Susan are all well defined characters and there’s a great sense of pace and urgency to things.
As for Senior’s art, if this is what the man considers to be a poor day’s work then it’s a sign of how talented he is as an artist. I especially like the slow reveal of bits of Megatron in the opening, whilst the fight with Blades may be brief but still has that pure Senior energy to it.
Back in the sewers, Action Force’s mistaken attack on Blades is very nicely done in that it firmly establishes their weaponry does little more than annoy him, this creates an added sense of tension when the issue ends with Megatron fully revealing himself as we already know he’s bigger, nastier and stronger than Blades.
Considering the dissatisfaction the people who made it have with this story, this opening (well, the first half to all intents and purposes) is actually good solid fun and is surprisingly packed for just 11 pages- perhaps too much so in the case of Centurion- something that will continue to be the case when we switch over to the other book. Grimlock, Blades, Wheeljack, Flint, Scarlett and Susan are all well defined characters and there’s a great sense of pace and urgency to things.
As for Senior’s art, if this is what the man considers to be a poor day’s work then it’s a sign of how talented he is as an artist. I especially like the slow reveal of bits of Megatron in the opening, whilst the fight with Blades may be brief but still has that pure Senior energy to it.
See the bottom of the page for the diorama.
Transformation is of course deeply excited about only one thing this week: The return of Captain Ric! This time the competition involves some cut out figures and a diorama to stick them on, with the most imaginative entry winning an art set.
Grimgrams sees Martyn Walsh from Manchester become the first to point out the massive Decepticon Rodimus cock up from issue 119, whilst Thomas Fowler and Debonken Pal of Huddersfield no doubt make Grimlock/Furman very happy at least one half of the recurring “How can Prime and Megatron die in 1987 but be alive in 2006?” question is dealt with in this week.
Iron Man 2020 climaxes this issue, in what would be a surprising and shocking way if not for the fact that, in the days when it looked as if this story would never be collected in book form, I hunted down these issues on Ebay long before I got the rest of the series and thus read the final first. Stark completely fails in his mission, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway as there was a fault in the timer of the bomb he’d built that meant it blows up early and kills his wife, child and an awful lot of people in the surrounding city.
On the plus side, Spider-Man (who bizarrely uses a pay phone in full costume and whilst surrounded by people, it surely wouldn’t be so hard for anyone interested to call the operator and ask for the last number dialled from that phone?) bums the money he needs for his rent off Future Terrorist’s Dad, so it’s not all bad.
The image of Arno collapsed in anguish in the middle of the giant crater he’s created is a powerful way to end the Annual, but the faulty timer does seem like slight overkill when his failure means it would have exploded anyway. It might have been more effective he he’d gotten the scan of the eye and it looked as if he might succeed before the final reveal. Overall though, this has been a great little story that helped to create a nice cult following for Arno Stark in the UK.
In Robo-Capers, Lew Stringer manages to slip in another proto-Giggly Sister into a gag about a robot washing machine that’s unreliable (why do people still use robot appliances? You’d think they’d have learnt their lesson by now).
Next week, we return to the Scraplets. However, as both comics were originally published on the same day and I’m going to guess with reasonable certainty that kids who did pick up both would have wanted to find out what happened with Megatron first, Wednesday will see me look at issue 24 of Action Force, an arrangement that will continue for the duration of the crossover. Full Force!
ISSUE 124
1987
COMMENT
Grimgrams sees Martyn Walsh from Manchester become the first to point out the massive Decepticon Rodimus cock up from issue 119, whilst Thomas Fowler and Debonken Pal of Huddersfield no doubt make Grimlock/Furman very happy at least one half of the recurring “How can Prime and Megatron die in 1987 but be alive in 2006?” question is dealt with in this week.
Iron Man 2020 climaxes this issue, in what would be a surprising and shocking way if not for the fact that, in the days when it looked as if this story would never be collected in book form, I hunted down these issues on Ebay long before I got the rest of the series and thus read the final first. Stark completely fails in his mission, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway as there was a fault in the timer of the bomb he’d built that meant it blows up early and kills his wife, child and an awful lot of people in the surrounding city.
On the plus side, Spider-Man (who bizarrely uses a pay phone in full costume and whilst surrounded by people, it surely wouldn’t be so hard for anyone interested to call the operator and ask for the last number dialled from that phone?) bums the money he needs for his rent off Future Terrorist’s Dad, so it’s not all bad.
The image of Arno collapsed in anguish in the middle of the giant crater he’s created is a powerful way to end the Annual, but the faulty timer does seem like slight overkill when his failure means it would have exploded anyway. It might have been more effective he he’d gotten the scan of the eye and it looked as if he might succeed before the final reveal. Overall though, this has been a great little story that helped to create a nice cult following for Arno Stark in the UK.
In Robo-Capers, Lew Stringer manages to slip in another proto-Giggly Sister into a gag about a robot washing machine that’s unreliable (why do people still use robot appliances? You’d think they’d have learnt their lesson by now).
Next week, we return to the Scraplets. However, as both comics were originally published on the same day and I’m going to guess with reasonable certainty that kids who did pick up both would have wanted to find out what happened with Megatron first, Wednesday will see me look at issue 24 of Action Force, an arrangement that will continue for the duration of the crossover. Full Force!
ISSUE 124
1987
COMMENT
Make your own Captain Rik fun.
