Don't Hurt Yourself Anymore.
Issue 201: Time Wars Part 3. 14th January 1989.
We’ve been feelin’ sort’a left out since you Autobots started beatin’ each other up, so we thought we’d join in!
This issue sees the latest in a series of covers that reveal something when seen full size that I’d never noticed when looking at smaller reproductions. For all these years I’d assumed Goldbug’s battered body was simply laying on the ground, but it is in fact being held in Ultra Magnus’ arms, making it somewhat unusual in that it’s a cover from the POV of a character in it.
OK, it’s not as interesting as the Megatron’s shadow thing last week, but they can’t all be winners. And what if I were also to point out that Fortress Maximus is also clearly blowing Rodimus a kiss, to which the future Autobot leader is reacting with an expression of “No chance mate”?
Inside, and let’s make no bones about it, we find what is comfortably the worst issue of this story. My memory (which will hopefully be born out) is that from here on in things improve drastically for the second half, even if it’s too late to save Time Wars as a whole. Part 3 however is little more than rather shoddily put together padding in a story that can’t afford padding.
Venom: This is the best day of my life and I'm sure nothing bad is about to happen.
So let’s deal with the four pages (one of which is a splash) that actually advance the plot. This is far away from the Autobot Vs Autobot action promised by the cover, instead focusing on the oddly absent from the shuttle Sandstorm, Broadside and Inferno. Help has actually arrived from Cybertron in the shape of the Wreckers, but circumstances have forced them into a team up with their Decepticon counterparts: The Mayhem Attack Squad!
It’s slightly unfortunate that we’re introduced to the Wreckers’ arch rivals in the story where they have to work together (and also--SPOILERS—immediately prior to the destruction of both groups) , this would be more affecting and interesting if we’d seen the two teams in action against each other before this. However it does introduce the equivalent to Springer and...err...whoever Springer’s number two is at this point (Roadbuster?) in the shape of Catilla and Carnivac, both of whom will go on to be interesting, key characters in the final days of the UK stories. At the moment they seem rather one dimensional villains, with Carnivac being gleeful that once this mission is over they’ve orders to kill any Wreckers left standing. This will however develop into a storyline that gives them both more layers.
Oddly, despite it having been established last week that the Advanced Surveillance Unit has been in contact with Optimus’ group, the plan isn’t for the new super commando squad to join forces with the local Autobots for a massive assault. Instead they simply...walk into Galvatron’s base. Whilst chatting loudly and with no weapons drawn even if Springer is reasonably sure it’s a trap.
This sequence is widely derided, and not without due reason, even if Galvatron points out it’s the hubris of the two squads that have made them make such a terrible error. Because he reveals that whilst their combined forces might have been enough to beat him if he’d been alone, he has the added strength of Scourge!
No, wait, Scourge isn’t there. Though Broadside and company really should have expected him to be from their surveillance, but everyone still acts surprised at the sight of someone standing next to Galvatron.
It isn’t Ravage either. Who actually built this base anyway? Galvatron doesn’t seem the hands on type. Did Scourge have to get the scaffolding out and do it himself? Was this the real reason for recruiting Megatron? Is this why we only saw Galvatron twice in the main comic in 1988, he was getting planning permission? Surely it would have made more sense for him to be holed up in the old Decepticon base in Wyoming, both in terms of it being close to where Skids fell down a hole and as a nice bit of symmetry with Shockwave using the other old abandoned base?
Yes, in the final full splash page of the issue, Megatron has teamed up with Galvatron! Not the most shocking of reveals for those who’ve read the Annual, but it’s a great image (love the fact Galvatron has spiked soles on his feet) despite the illogic leading up to this and even the most cynical of readers would have been excited about the chance to see these two titans take on Venom.
It’s slightly unfortunate that we’re introduced to the Wreckers’ arch rivals in the story where they have to work together (and also--SPOILERS—immediately prior to the destruction of both groups) , this would be more affecting and interesting if we’d seen the two teams in action against each other before this. However it does introduce the equivalent to Springer and...err...whoever Springer’s number two is at this point (Roadbuster?) in the shape of Catilla and Carnivac, both of whom will go on to be interesting, key characters in the final days of the UK stories. At the moment they seem rather one dimensional villains, with Carnivac being gleeful that once this mission is over they’ve orders to kill any Wreckers left standing. This will however develop into a storyline that gives them both more layers.
Oddly, despite it having been established last week that the Advanced Surveillance Unit has been in contact with Optimus’ group, the plan isn’t for the new super commando squad to join forces with the local Autobots for a massive assault. Instead they simply...walk into Galvatron’s base. Whilst chatting loudly and with no weapons drawn even if Springer is reasonably sure it’s a trap.
This sequence is widely derided, and not without due reason, even if Galvatron points out it’s the hubris of the two squads that have made them make such a terrible error. Because he reveals that whilst their combined forces might have been enough to beat him if he’d been alone, he has the added strength of Scourge!
No, wait, Scourge isn’t there. Though Broadside and company really should have expected him to be from their surveillance, but everyone still acts surprised at the sight of someone standing next to Galvatron.
It isn’t Ravage either. Who actually built this base anyway? Galvatron doesn’t seem the hands on type. Did Scourge have to get the scaffolding out and do it himself? Was this the real reason for recruiting Megatron? Is this why we only saw Galvatron twice in the main comic in 1988, he was getting planning permission? Surely it would have made more sense for him to be holed up in the old Decepticon base in Wyoming, both in terms of it being close to where Skids fell down a hole and as a nice bit of symmetry with Shockwave using the other old abandoned base?
Yes, in the final full splash page of the issue, Megatron has teamed up with Galvatron! Not the most shocking of reveals for those who’ve read the Annual, but it’s a great image (love the fact Galvatron has spiked soles on his feet) despite the illogic leading up to this and even the most cynical of readers would have been excited about the chance to see these two titans take on Venom.
"And for the love of God, where is the loo?"
Having looked at the flimsy plot related sequence of the comic, let’s now cast our eyes over to the actual good part of the issue. This takes up a page and a half, and weirdly ties into—and effectively ends forever as it will never come up again—one of the more irrelevant plot-lines in Scorponok’s head. Gloriously, whilst the cover fight is going on the Decepticons (led by Misfire rather than the usual Mindwipe. He must still be nursing a headache from the Annual) have become as bored as the rest of us and shoot Goldbug just for the hell of it. They could just as easily grabbed the head and run at this point, but they just hate Goldbug that much.
What follows is genuinely funny as Misfire oversees the ceremony of reuniting the head and shoulders of their leader. Rather than Lord Zarak desperately rushing off to the toilet, the first thing he wants to do is kill Highbrow. And in what could almost be a gloriously meta commentary on just how random the insertion of this storyline has been, when told Highbrow has vanished and offered the chance to kill Future Magnus instead, Scorponok just replies with a cheerful “I’m not fussy!”. It’s almost a shame that six of his troops now vanish to make way for the 2009 Decepticons as a Scorponok/Misfire double act might have livened things up.
Which, after much dancing around it, leaves us with the main action of the issue, the Autobot Vs Autobot fight. We’ve touched upon a lot of the problems with this in the build up to it: The fact time displacement should be a familiar thing to the 1989 Autobots and that Rodimus’ team includes troops they know. But here, for the whole thing to work, Fortress Maximus has to act like a complete and utter out of character idiot. You remember Fortress Maximus right? The principled reluctant warrior who was so committed to his pacifist principles he gave up his head FOR PEACE? Well Simon Furman seems not to have heard of him and instead writes him as a snarling thug who’s desperate to twat someone. His opening like of “Murdering scum!” whilst throwing a punch is utterly wrong and it only gets worse from there.
The comedic highlight of this silliness is when, after Rodimus manages to briefly calm Fort Max down and even offer him a hand, he makes the mistake of referring to himself as “Prime”, causing Maximus to kick-off again for Rodimus daring to have “Usurped” their leader. Was Spike on holiday so some local wino was having to fill in for him? It would make much more sense for Grimlock—as the belligerent thick member of the command team—to be doing this and it really does leave you baffled as to how it can seem Furman has never read a comic with Maximus in it before.
What follows is genuinely funny as Misfire oversees the ceremony of reuniting the head and shoulders of their leader. Rather than Lord Zarak desperately rushing off to the toilet, the first thing he wants to do is kill Highbrow. And in what could almost be a gloriously meta commentary on just how random the insertion of this storyline has been, when told Highbrow has vanished and offered the chance to kill Future Magnus instead, Scorponok just replies with a cheerful “I’m not fussy!”. It’s almost a shame that six of his troops now vanish to make way for the 2009 Decepticons as a Scorponok/Misfire double act might have livened things up.
Which, after much dancing around it, leaves us with the main action of the issue, the Autobot Vs Autobot fight. We’ve touched upon a lot of the problems with this in the build up to it: The fact time displacement should be a familiar thing to the 1989 Autobots and that Rodimus’ team includes troops they know. But here, for the whole thing to work, Fortress Maximus has to act like a complete and utter out of character idiot. You remember Fortress Maximus right? The principled reluctant warrior who was so committed to his pacifist principles he gave up his head FOR PEACE? Well Simon Furman seems not to have heard of him and instead writes him as a snarling thug who’s desperate to twat someone. His opening like of “Murdering scum!” whilst throwing a punch is utterly wrong and it only gets worse from there.
The comedic highlight of this silliness is when, after Rodimus manages to briefly calm Fort Max down and even offer him a hand, he makes the mistake of referring to himself as “Prime”, causing Maximus to kick-off again for Rodimus daring to have “Usurped” their leader. Was Spike on holiday so some local wino was having to fill in for him? It would make much more sense for Grimlock—as the belligerent thick member of the command team—to be doing this and it really does leave you baffled as to how it can seem Furman has never read a comic with Maximus in it before.
"You also look a bit too much like Hot Rod and I really dislike Hot Rod!"
It doesn’t help that the fight between the troops is quite dull. Despite the fact the future Autobots should be outnumbered (though the more 1989 characters join in the more chance Kup will run into Kup) it becomes a pedestrian one on one affair with some rather static action poses. And frankly no one who has been waiting for the resolution to this storyline for over two years had an Arcee Vs. Dinobots fight on their wish list of things to see in the conclusion.
Thankfully, the injury to Goldbug (which moves about his body from panel to panel) brings everyone to their senses as Ultra Magnus parades his broken body in front of Maximus and Rodimus, with the latter joining in on the guilt trip even though all of this is entirely the former’s fault.
By the by, Goldbug’s variable injury is the closest we have yet come to the significant carnage and death this story was sold on by the Transformation page when it started. This is about to change (albeit mostly for non-speaking characters we’ve not met before), but it’s something of a shame that Furman doesn’t take advantage of the fact that we don’t see every single 1984-86 Autobot die on panel in the forthcoming Budiansky massacre. At least a couple of them—Wheeljack and Ironhide—are present here and if they and some others had been killed off during the course of this adventure it would have given it the extra weight it’s so desperately reaching for and wouldn’t have affected any of the American stories.
With Goldbug having made everyone pals, Rodimus is able to use the Matrix to give Maximus what he wants an show Optimus is still alive by getting on the phone to limbo (it’s lucky it turns out Optimus knows how to overcome the influence of the mind parasites. God knows how Maximus would have reacted to the sight of his leader with a green snot monster on his face. Or maybe Optimus never managed to defeat the parasite and this and the rest of the series only happens in the torment of his dying mind?) and call up a hologram of his predecessor. It says a lot for Prime’s oratory skills that a few simple words from him manages to get everyone—even the watching 2009 Soundwave—paying attention. Frankly his troops don’t deserve him.
As noted in the opening, this is a mess of an issue that collapses under the weight of an uninteresting and padded out action scene that has nothing to do with anything. Robin Smith does OK on art—despite an sever colouring error on the first page that makes everything G2 Neon—but it’s not nearly enough to salvage things. The only way can be up from here.
Thankfully, the injury to Goldbug (which moves about his body from panel to panel) brings everyone to their senses as Ultra Magnus parades his broken body in front of Maximus and Rodimus, with the latter joining in on the guilt trip even though all of this is entirely the former’s fault.
By the by, Goldbug’s variable injury is the closest we have yet come to the significant carnage and death this story was sold on by the Transformation page when it started. This is about to change (albeit mostly for non-speaking characters we’ve not met before), but it’s something of a shame that Furman doesn’t take advantage of the fact that we don’t see every single 1984-86 Autobot die on panel in the forthcoming Budiansky massacre. At least a couple of them—Wheeljack and Ironhide—are present here and if they and some others had been killed off during the course of this adventure it would have given it the extra weight it’s so desperately reaching for and wouldn’t have affected any of the American stories.
With Goldbug having made everyone pals, Rodimus is able to use the Matrix to give Maximus what he wants an show Optimus is still alive by getting on the phone to limbo (it’s lucky it turns out Optimus knows how to overcome the influence of the mind parasites. God knows how Maximus would have reacted to the sight of his leader with a green snot monster on his face. Or maybe Optimus never managed to defeat the parasite and this and the rest of the series only happens in the torment of his dying mind?) and call up a hologram of his predecessor. It says a lot for Prime’s oratory skills that a few simple words from him manages to get everyone—even the watching 2009 Soundwave—paying attention. Frankly his troops don’t deserve him.
As noted in the opening, this is a mess of an issue that collapses under the weight of an uninteresting and padded out action scene that has nothing to do with anything. Robin Smith does OK on art—despite an sever colouring error on the first page that makes everything G2 Neon—but it’s not nearly enough to salvage things. The only way can be up from here.
This gym has poor health and safety standards.
Transformation adds to the sense of anti-climax by being unusually apologetic over the fact this isn’t also a free gift adorned issue and virtually begs the reader to stick with the book. This is the first real time the fact the title is teetering on cancelation has come across within the pages, and in retrospect is a rather stark reminder of how close we are to the desperate life saving format change.
After close to five months of one Decepticon Powermaster on the letters page, we finally get the other represented as Darkwing (and Throttle) send in some questions. Dreadwind himself is somewhat sceptical as he doubts even his idiot partner would need to know if Powermasters can drive or fly without their Nebulon. But living in Ayrshire can have a funny affect on you.
Hush Job resumes for Action Force after a week’s break and sees Storm Shadow infiltrate the consulate through the sewers (with a pleasingly brutal sequence of him hacking two EELS to death in a casual way as they try and swim up on him) and Scarlett disguises herself as a cleaner; all whilst Snake Eyes’ traumatic memories are played out by the brainwave scanner for Dr. Mindbender. As with the opening, the absence of dialogue makes it a faster than usual read, but the narrative and action still work.
Combat Colin has to deal with a mysterious object in Wallytown (is that the first time his home has been named?) Park. It turns out to be a teleport device which delivers him into the clutches of one of my favourite villains from this series, the magnificently named Professor Madprof. Who, in modern terms, looks like Kenny from South Park had a love child with Mr. Spock.
Next week, things look up as Megatron and Galvatron play together.
ADDENDUM 15
1989
COMMENT
After close to five months of one Decepticon Powermaster on the letters page, we finally get the other represented as Darkwing (and Throttle) send in some questions. Dreadwind himself is somewhat sceptical as he doubts even his idiot partner would need to know if Powermasters can drive or fly without their Nebulon. But living in Ayrshire can have a funny affect on you.
Hush Job resumes for Action Force after a week’s break and sees Storm Shadow infiltrate the consulate through the sewers (with a pleasingly brutal sequence of him hacking two EELS to death in a casual way as they try and swim up on him) and Scarlett disguises herself as a cleaner; all whilst Snake Eyes’ traumatic memories are played out by the brainwave scanner for Dr. Mindbender. As with the opening, the absence of dialogue makes it a faster than usual read, but the narrative and action still work.
Combat Colin has to deal with a mysterious object in Wallytown (is that the first time his home has been named?) Park. It turns out to be a teleport device which delivers him into the clutches of one of my favourite villains from this series, the magnificently named Professor Madprof. Who, in modern terms, looks like Kenny from South Park had a love child with Mr. Spock.
Next week, things look up as Megatron and Galvatron play together.
ADDENDUM 15
1989
COMMENT
The page with the printing error.
