What Does it Matter to you, When You've got a Job to do, You've Gotta do it Well, You've Gotta give the Other Fellah Hell.
Issue 147: The Legacy of Unicron! Part 2. 2nd January 1988.
You could, of course, be bluffing.
Sadly though I do not wish to be proven wrong.
The cat is out of the bag, Unicron is back and after the surprise reveal at the end of the last issue, coming on the back of the promise of an all new epic story, the reader would be forgiven for expecting a massive balls to the wall action adventure for this part. Instead Furman, with the confidence of an author who knows the big action is coming, actually gives us something very different.
Indeed, instead of the grand scale this issue, bar two brief cutaways to The Planet of Junk, takes place almost exclusively in two rooms and a corridor. It's a strong contender for the most intimate issue of the comic to date, even a simple one parter like Kup's Story! had more diversity in its locations. This is a taunt, claustrophobic instalment that is not without its fight scenes, but they're fight scenes with a bleak, dark edge to them.
The tension is there right from the off in an otherwise straightforward seeming scene of Death's Head delivering the "Dead" bodies of Cyclonus and Scourge to Shockwave and demanding recompense for them buggering up his hit on Rodimus. The undercurrents come not only from the fact we know this is a bluff on Death's Head's part (though not knowing why Unicron is making him do this adds to the tension), but from us seeing Shockwave anticipate this and putting a call through to Soundwave to prepare a test.
You could, of course, be bluffing.
Sadly though I do not wish to be proven wrong.
The cat is out of the bag, Unicron is back and after the surprise reveal at the end of the last issue, coming on the back of the promise of an all new epic story, the reader would be forgiven for expecting a massive balls to the wall action adventure for this part. Instead Furman, with the confidence of an author who knows the big action is coming, actually gives us something very different.
Indeed, instead of the grand scale this issue, bar two brief cutaways to The Planet of Junk, takes place almost exclusively in two rooms and a corridor. It's a strong contender for the most intimate issue of the comic to date, even a simple one parter like Kup's Story! had more diversity in its locations. This is a taunt, claustrophobic instalment that is not without its fight scenes, but they're fight scenes with a bleak, dark edge to them.
The tension is there right from the off in an otherwise straightforward seeming scene of Death's Head delivering the "Dead" bodies of Cyclonus and Scourge to Shockwave and demanding recompense for them buggering up his hit on Rodimus. The undercurrents come not only from the fact we know this is a bluff on Death's Head's part (though not knowing why Unicron is making him do this adds to the tension), but from us seeing Shockwave anticipate this and putting a call through to Soundwave to prepare a test.
Hardcore.
So the small talk and bluster between the two of them is almost irrelevant, and when Death's Head uses Soundwave's mind scan of the room (hey, remember Soundwave has mind powers?) as a distraction to prepare his gun arm it feels as if the dam is about to burst. Which it does as he fires, but Shockwave is already on the move (it has to be said though, if he was really that cautious he'd have been in the other room with Soundwave), and the game of cat and mouse begins as Cyclonus and Scourge- whose comic terror is the only real humour in the issue- try to hold back the entire Decepticon army behind a locked door. Or at least Soundwave and the Stunticons, everyone else was probably at lunch.
It's at this point we have our first jump to the Planet of Junk as Wreck-Gar and his entourage discover Unicron doesn't take two bottles into the shower, just his Head and Shoulders.
This leads us to the centrepiece of the issue as Shockwave and Death’s Head stalk each other through a Decepticon combat training room full of models of famous Autobots. Considering Furman’s love of spy stories this is very likely influenced by The New Avengers episode Target (or The One Everyone Remembers with the faux English training village that was recycled into The Good Bit in the film), and even as long ago as 1988 feels slightly old fashioned, after all at the end of last year Battle Beneath the Ice had featured a similar training room all done with holograms. Indeed, this is likely the last time anyone tried to do a future set game room with actual physical props.
However, in mitigation to Furman no one in the UK at this point had seen Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show that really made virtual entertainment mainstream (Budiansky on the other hand was clearly an early fan and before the year is out will give us a full on holodeck. Not to mention HiQ, who looks suspiciously like a certain respected Shakespearean actor), and the imagery here is incredibly arresting as they duck and dive behind the models in the shadows.
The tension here doesn’t just come from the physical threat, Unicron is giving Death’s Head just enough free will to do his job, but at the same time is still affecting his mind enough to damper his reflexes, resulting in him being tricked into blowing up “Rodimus Prime” before almost being shot. This continues the theme of him being the main character of this story, the hero under mental duress from the villain and bravely doing everything he can to fight it.
It's at this point we have our first jump to the Planet of Junk as Wreck-Gar and his entourage discover Unicron doesn't take two bottles into the shower, just his Head and Shoulders.
This leads us to the centrepiece of the issue as Shockwave and Death’s Head stalk each other through a Decepticon combat training room full of models of famous Autobots. Considering Furman’s love of spy stories this is very likely influenced by The New Avengers episode Target (or The One Everyone Remembers with the faux English training village that was recycled into The Good Bit in the film), and even as long ago as 1988 feels slightly old fashioned, after all at the end of last year Battle Beneath the Ice had featured a similar training room all done with holograms. Indeed, this is likely the last time anyone tried to do a future set game room with actual physical props.
However, in mitigation to Furman no one in the UK at this point had seen Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show that really made virtual entertainment mainstream (Budiansky on the other hand was clearly an early fan and before the year is out will give us a full on holodeck. Not to mention HiQ, who looks suspiciously like a certain respected Shakespearean actor), and the imagery here is incredibly arresting as they duck and dive behind the models in the shadows.
The tension here doesn’t just come from the physical threat, Unicron is giving Death’s Head just enough free will to do his job, but at the same time is still affecting his mind enough to damper his reflexes, resulting in him being tricked into blowing up “Rodimus Prime” before almost being shot. This continues the theme of him being the main character of this story, the hero under mental duress from the villain and bravely doing everything he can to fight it.
He sure had guts.
What happens next though is truly shocking, and a strong contender for the most memorable moment in a story full of memorable moments. Death’s Head- who up to now has actually been pretty much a total failure as a “Freelance Peacekeeping Agent”, everyone he’s been sent specifically to kill is very much alive- gets the drop on Shockwave (and is that Skids he’s hiding behind?), and kills him. Not in a simple way, it takes three shots, the first two of which leave him with his guts hanging out and the third being a direct head shot.
Even that isn’t enough as Death’s Head then reaches into Shockwave’s skull and crushes his brain module (though when I first read this in the reprint I hadn’t encountered brain modules and was confused by this, I somehow got it into my head he was grabbing something to use as the bomb trigger he bluffs with at the end of the issue despite them not looking remotely similar), it’s the nastiest and most brutal moment since Plague of the Insecticons! really messed up Prowl in the first Annual, and is very obviously an attempt to state categorically Shockwave is Dead dead.
This is of course Furman taking advantage of the future setting meaning he can kill anyone he chooses. You also have to wonder if he was aware of the death Budiansky was giving the present day Shockwave (US issue 39 was published in December ’87 so it’s more than likely Furman had seen at least a synopsis by the time he started work on this) and immediately thought he should A: Retcon it and B: Do it better with the 2008 version. It’s arguably another sign of a growing ego, but equally it’s an ego backed up with talent as out of the two Shockwave deaths, this is so far ahead of the other it’s out of sight.
Even that isn’t enough as Death’s Head then reaches into Shockwave’s skull and crushes his brain module (though when I first read this in the reprint I hadn’t encountered brain modules and was confused by this, I somehow got it into my head he was grabbing something to use as the bomb trigger he bluffs with at the end of the issue despite them not looking remotely similar), it’s the nastiest and most brutal moment since Plague of the Insecticons! really messed up Prowl in the first Annual, and is very obviously an attempt to state categorically Shockwave is Dead dead.
This is of course Furman taking advantage of the future setting meaning he can kill anyone he chooses. You also have to wonder if he was aware of the death Budiansky was giving the present day Shockwave (US issue 39 was published in December ’87 so it’s more than likely Furman had seen at least a synopsis by the time he started work on this) and immediately thought he should A: Retcon it and B: Do it better with the 2008 version. It’s arguably another sign of a growing ego, but equally it’s an ego backed up with talent as out of the two Shockwave deaths, this is so far ahead of the other it’s out of sight.
Now that's a poker face.
That is of course the peak of the issue, but the final moments are nearly as good as we get a stand-off between Death’s Head and Soundwave; who was about to have Cyclonus and Scourge executed but is forced to accept them as the new joint Decepticon leaders after Death’s Head claims his sled has a massive bomb in it. The moment where Soundwave considers the whole thing is a bluff before folding in the face of Death’s Head’s poker face is wonderful, and again a perfect example of the mechanoid fulfilling the traditional hero role in the story.
Things end back on the Planet of Junk as Unicron is polite enough to explain his plans out loud and at the top of his voice for any listening Autobots and the penny drops as to what this is all about: Cyclonus and Scourge are going to lead the Decepticons on an insane attack on the Autobots that will leave both sides devastated and ready for his arrival. If this has been a claustrophobic issue, the next is going to be all out war.
This is a fantastic issue with enough nightmare fuel for young minds in how Shockwave’s death is handled to ensure is was indelibly imprinted into the retinas of every reader. This is also the last issue of full art (though they’ll be some inking in a few weeks and a cover early next year) for Geoff Senior before the black and white era. At the time it was likely intended to be his last- plans for the launch of the Marvel UK monthly books for later in the year would have been well underway at this point (I suspect the only real uncertainty from Senior’s point of view would be whether he’d be drawing Death’s Head or the title that would wind up starting first), his star was in ascendance and it must have seemed he had outgrown licensed titles as so many British artists keen to get their foot in the door had before. As indeed the forthcoming new boy Bryan Hitch will do with indecent haste.
The real surprise is not so much that Senior will wind up doing more Transformers after Marvel UK’s home-grown output starts to implode, it’s that Furman isn’t jumping ship with him. He’s going to write 100% of the initial new titles and is clearly the golden boy of the moment, it almost seems ludicrous he’d stay on this silly toy book when greater things are beckoning. It may have been the money, it may have been he was proud of his work and wanted to carry on with it, it may have been that no one else at Marvel UK had a clue about what to do with Transformers and he was asked to stay on their bestselling book as a favour. It stands a chance of being a combination of all three, but either way, it’s brilliant that the author capable of this story won’t be leaving us to chase bigger things.
Things end back on the Planet of Junk as Unicron is polite enough to explain his plans out loud and at the top of his voice for any listening Autobots and the penny drops as to what this is all about: Cyclonus and Scourge are going to lead the Decepticons on an insane attack on the Autobots that will leave both sides devastated and ready for his arrival. If this has been a claustrophobic issue, the next is going to be all out war.
This is a fantastic issue with enough nightmare fuel for young minds in how Shockwave’s death is handled to ensure is was indelibly imprinted into the retinas of every reader. This is also the last issue of full art (though they’ll be some inking in a few weeks and a cover early next year) for Geoff Senior before the black and white era. At the time it was likely intended to be his last- plans for the launch of the Marvel UK monthly books for later in the year would have been well underway at this point (I suspect the only real uncertainty from Senior’s point of view would be whether he’d be drawing Death’s Head or the title that would wind up starting first), his star was in ascendance and it must have seemed he had outgrown licensed titles as so many British artists keen to get their foot in the door had before. As indeed the forthcoming new boy Bryan Hitch will do with indecent haste.
The real surprise is not so much that Senior will wind up doing more Transformers after Marvel UK’s home-grown output starts to implode, it’s that Furman isn’t jumping ship with him. He’s going to write 100% of the initial new titles and is clearly the golden boy of the moment, it almost seems ludicrous he’d stay on this silly toy book when greater things are beckoning. It may have been the money, it may have been he was proud of his work and wanted to carry on with it, it may have been that no one else at Marvel UK had a clue about what to do with Transformers and he was asked to stay on their bestselling book as a favour. It stands a chance of being a combination of all three, but either way, it’s brilliant that the author capable of this story won’t be leaving us to chase bigger things.
How to annoy people on the bus.
There’s a key moment on the Transformation page as Unicron is described as a “Demi-God” for what I believe is the first time. Between this and the letter’s page two weeks ago it’s as if the secondary features of the comic are determined to spoil every single twist of the story beforehand.
We get a good idea of how far in advance the Annuals are put together as opposed to the weekly as on Grimgrams Paul Keogh from Foxrock is told by Grimlock that Robin Smith has just completed his first interior work for the 1988 book and has done such a good job we’ll be seeing him in the regular title very soon. Matt Packer from Farnham is the latest reader with a Unicron theory, as he rather cheekily suggests the character is actually Galactus merged with his big round ship (which long time readers may remember I observed looked rather Unicron-ey when it popped up in the Hercules backup), an idea Grimlock is very quick to quash.
The second part of Iron Man is mainly giving over to recapping past events, as Stark recalls Stratosfire resembles another Roxxon creation he once fought, Sunturion, which leaves him worried history is about to repeat.
Meanwhile Stratosfire is revealed to be really Sandy Vincent, who exposeses with her live in friend “Babs” in the Roxxon penthouse (and there’s certainly a Sapphic undertone here) her back-story as a member of the secretarial pool promoted to superhero as she had the right chromosomes. Babs isn’t a fan of these changes, and we can see why as the shifty Roxxon bosses send Sandy to destroy a rival oil refinery in Costa Gavras for “Peace”, and as they don’t like her attitude they seriously consider activating the “Zed Control”, whatever that is.
Whilst it is all set up and exposition, there’s some nice stuff along the way to stop this being an entirely perfunctory part of the story, and I especially love what would should really be a dull cliff-hanger of tony cutting the queue at a restaurant he’s gone to in order to catch the eye of any Roxxon staff. What a bastard.
Robo-Capers (and for those who read this quickly enough, Lew Stringer is selling the art from issue 116 HERE) sees King Nonose decide to take advantage of the winter to invade Earth, but being defeated by the snow. The strip has basically fallen back into the pattern of stories it was in before his adventures in space and it’s perhaps a good thing we’re only a few weeks away from a very big change.
Next week, war is hell. But first, on Saturday, not a dream, not a hallucination, it’s the James Roberts and Lloyd Young interview on the Classics UK books! I’m a little excited about this.
ISSUE 146
1988
COMMENT
We get a good idea of how far in advance the Annuals are put together as opposed to the weekly as on Grimgrams Paul Keogh from Foxrock is told by Grimlock that Robin Smith has just completed his first interior work for the 1988 book and has done such a good job we’ll be seeing him in the regular title very soon. Matt Packer from Farnham is the latest reader with a Unicron theory, as he rather cheekily suggests the character is actually Galactus merged with his big round ship (which long time readers may remember I observed looked rather Unicron-ey when it popped up in the Hercules backup), an idea Grimlock is very quick to quash.
The second part of Iron Man is mainly giving over to recapping past events, as Stark recalls Stratosfire resembles another Roxxon creation he once fought, Sunturion, which leaves him worried history is about to repeat.
Meanwhile Stratosfire is revealed to be really Sandy Vincent, who exposeses with her live in friend “Babs” in the Roxxon penthouse (and there’s certainly a Sapphic undertone here) her back-story as a member of the secretarial pool promoted to superhero as she had the right chromosomes. Babs isn’t a fan of these changes, and we can see why as the shifty Roxxon bosses send Sandy to destroy a rival oil refinery in Costa Gavras for “Peace”, and as they don’t like her attitude they seriously consider activating the “Zed Control”, whatever that is.
Whilst it is all set up and exposition, there’s some nice stuff along the way to stop this being an entirely perfunctory part of the story, and I especially love what would should really be a dull cliff-hanger of tony cutting the queue at a restaurant he’s gone to in order to catch the eye of any Roxxon staff. What a bastard.
Robo-Capers (and for those who read this quickly enough, Lew Stringer is selling the art from issue 116 HERE) sees King Nonose decide to take advantage of the winter to invade Earth, but being defeated by the snow. The strip has basically fallen back into the pattern of stories it was in before his adventures in space and it’s perhaps a good thing we’re only a few weeks away from a very big change.
Next week, war is hell. But first, on Saturday, not a dream, not a hallucination, it’s the James Roberts and Lloyd Young interview on the Classics UK books! I’m a little excited about this.
ISSUE 146
1988
COMMENT
