Back in my youth, publishers of comics and teen-oriented magazines habitually
ended the year with a hardbacked book featuring either retrospectives or -
frequently, in the case of the comics - some wholly
new material. In those days, I would always get such annuals for
Christmas, and amassed quite a selection over the years, from
The Beano to The Eagle (shared with my sister) to
TransFormers, all of which ended up in the loft at my parents' place.
Cut to just before Christmas 2021, and my mother mentioned that she
wanted to do a massive clear-out of the loft. Earlier this month, I
popped over there a little earlier than I normally would when attending a
local computer club, and assisted with the sorting effort. While most
of my time was spent identifying toys/toy parts and grouping them together by
type, we did find a couple of bags of annuals, so I grabbed the four
TransFormers ones just for fun...
But then I figured I may as well take the opportunity to write about
them, as they're as much a piece of TransFormers history as the toys. Here's
the first...
As mentioned, the annuals are all hardbound books, as
opposed to the Marvel paperback reprint 'Collected Comics' that were published
around the same time. This annual has an excellent painting by John B. Higgins on both the front and back covers. It depicts Optimus Prime in the
foreground, Jazz and Sunstreaker standing behind him, with Starscream and
Thundercracker flying off in the background. The style is
very toy-accurate, though the proportions of Jazz and
Sunstreaker are somewhat improved over their plastic counterparts. Overall, it
compares very favourably to other contemporary annuals, and the binding is
clearly good quality, since it survived multiple readings at the time, and
probably about 30 years of storage in my parents' loft - I had several others
that weren't quite so lucky.
Comic Book Stories
Plague of the Insecticons:
The introductory tale, written by Simon Furman, is one of the few TransFormers
stories that has the Autobots
actively trying to contact and work with the US Government. In this
case, the story is based around a meeting between Optimus Prime - accompanied
by Prowl (which makes sense) and Warpath (which really doesn't, not
least in that he's initially depicted in tank form,
barely larger than Prowl's Nissan Fairlady vehicle mode) - and... US
President Ronald Reagan. Despite tension amongst the human soldiers in
attendance, the meeting - on the White House lawn - gets off to a
humorous start, with Reagan stating that "I find the prospect of
holding a conversation with a lorry a little disconcerting!" (one of the more
obvious signs that this was written by a Brit, since they're referred
to as 'trucks' in the States, not 'lorries'. However, Optimus
Prime has barely transformed to introduce himself before the Insecticons
arrive, seemingly bursting from the ground, with Bombshell giving a cry of
"Kill the humans!". So far, so obvious... but then he adds
"In the name of the Autobots, kill them all!".
This leads to a short flashback sequence, where Optimus Prime tries to
work out how the Decepticons learned of their plan to meet the
President, with the revelation - to the reader - that a single
unscrambled call between two human officials was picked up by Soundwave,
leading Megatron to awaken the Insecticons.
Back in the present day, the Insecticons are destroying military vehicles and
personnel, while Prime, Prowl and (a miscoloured, green) Warpath - the
latter still in vehicle mode - are trying to shoot them out
of the sky. Bombshell pauses his assault and, as if in response to an unspoken command, announces that he and the other Insecticons will move into the city and
leave the Autobots to "finish off the soldiers." Angry and incredulous, the
Autobots realise that the plan was to disrupt the meeting and tarnish their
reputation, while Warpath (again miscoloured, and now grey/silver)
observes that the plan was successful, since the military personnel are now
turning their sights on them. As mortars fire, Prime orders Prowl
and Warpath to take on the Insecticons, as he
believes another enemy lurks nearby.
While the meeting with the President appears to have been scheduled for the middle of the night, Prowl and Warpath - now back to his familiar burgundy colour - arrive in the city in broad daylight, to a scene of absolute devastation. The individual Insecticons are finally introduced by name, while Prowl transforms and readies himself for battle... just in time for the story to break for about thirty pages!
When the story picks up, Optimus Prime narrates his theory - that the
Insecticons are not wholly in control of their own actions, but are simply
being put through their paces by a hidden fourth Decepticon. After
this, we cut straight back to Prowl as he fires on Kickback, but then
comes under fire from Shrapnel. The mystery operator is revealed in a single
frame featuring a robotic paw operating a small, portable computer, and
there's a full-page image of Prowl getting hit by shrapnel from one of
Shrapnel's grenades, at which point Warpath very dramatically charges
in and fires upon his enemy.
Then we cut back to Optimus Prime, just in time for him to bring Roller
out of his trailer (which - conspicuously - has not simply
vanished and is still parked back at the White House) and into play, escaping
from the soldiers and heading off to support Prowl and Warpath while
Prime bursts into 'Municipal Park'. The mystery antagonist realises that he's
been located and brings Bombshell out of the main battle to take care of
Prime, while Warpath struggles to take out Shrapnel. The Insecticon is then
hit, seemingly from behind, and Warpath sees Roller, the barrel of his
mounted gun smoking, but doesn't seem to understand how Optimus Prime
can be there in the form of Roller. His confusion is echoed by Ravage -
finally fully revealed as the Insecticons' controller - who turns from
his screen to see Optimus Prime standing behind him in person. He sneakily
commands Bombshell to attack and use one of his Cerebro Shells to turn Prime
into a puppet, but the command is so strong that Kickback also picks up
on it,
and interprets it as a kill order on Prime, in the form of Roller, back at
the main battle scene. As Bombshell swoops down, Prime is doubled over in pain by the destruction
of Roller by Kickback, causing Bombshell to miss his intended target...
Instead, his Cerebro Shell is injected into Ravage... Since Ravage was
controlling the three Insecticons,
but is now under the control of one of them, a sort of
feedback loop is created, whereby all of them are instantly rendered mindless and
inert.
The story concludes with Warpath and Prime heading back to base, while
soldiers are attending to the clean-up of the ruined city. It's revealed that
the President himself allowed them to escape the battle but, since the
Autobots didn't return to explain themselves, he now considers them to be
enemies after all.
Overall, it's an interesting story and the art is solid apart from a couple of
colouring issues. It's most interesting because it has always
been very rare for TransFormers media to show these giant alien robots
trying to directly confer with official US Government agencies, let alone
the President. Sector 7, from the first live action movie, was very much off-the-books,
the N.E.S.T task force from RotF seemed to be similarly covert, and the
connection to the President in DotM appeared to be somewhat
reluctant and indirect. The idea of the Autobots seeking to meet
directly with the President somehow seems less far-fetched that
the convoluted setup of the Bayverse. That said, while I can understand
Prowl accompanying Prime,
the idea of an undersized, burgundy tank trundling up to the White House
does seem pretty ludicrous. It's also littered with Furmanisms, like dialogue being echoed
between characters in different locations. For example, once Prowl is knocked
out by Shrapnel, Warpath shouts "Curse you! Curse you all!" then,
in the next panel, Prime is saying "Curse me for a fool!". There's a surfeit of exclamation
marks and loads of onomatopoeic flashes, oddly eloquent exclamations and it all moves along like it was written by someone with a bad case of ADHD.
I've always favoured the early, UK-specific comics because their
artists drew the robots like the toys until Marvel US sent them the artwork
bible,
with all the ugly, simplified character models based on the animated TV
show. Here, the artwork by Mike Collins and Jeff Anderson is a
little inconsistent, and certainly not the most detailed,
but it's a far better representation of the toys than the stuff that came
out of the US. The colouring, credited to Gina Hart, seems rather haphazard, with
the Insecticons depicted in a mixture of their TransFormers
and Diaclone colourschemes (possibly from photographic reference
before those toys were officially available under the TransFormers
brand?), Optimus Prime and Soundwave's battlemasks in blue rather than
silver, Megatron in gold, and Warpath appearing as burgundy,
then green, then white, before reverting to burgundy. One
puzzling aspect of the art is that while Prime, Prowl and the Insecticons are
shown in both forms repeatedly, Warpath is depicted in his robot mode
in just one panel in the entire story.
The geography of the story is as muddy as one might expect from a
British crew attempting to set a story in a location they've never been
to, probably without much by way of reference, but there are a couple
of little easter eggs in the initial battle scene -
Rimmer's Oopticians (sic) and Furman's Weight Watchers,
referring to Marvel UK writers Ian Rimmer and Simon Furman, respectively. The
White House is recognisable, but Washington D.C. looks like
a fairly small US town, apart from its two skyscrapers, and the
park from which Ravage is operating
is literally named 'Municipal Park'... I'm sure,
even in the pre-public internet days of the 1980s, it would have been reasonably easy to look up a specific park name -
Washington isn't exactly short of parks. While I hardly expect
accuracy from a perfunctory 'digital' map in a story like this, it
could be that Ravage is stationed in the gardens surrounding the US
Capitol or in Logan Circle... though neither are fenced off in
the way depicted in the story.
The idea of Ravage controlling the Insecticons remotely is an
intriguing one... but I can't shake the feeling that it's wholly without
context, precedent or subsequent instances,
and was contrived simply to facilitate the desired denouement for the
story. It's also strange how Prime's ability to split his consciousness between
himself and Roller appears to be unknown and surprising both to Warpath
and Ravage. All the more strange considering
Ravage has been splitting his own consciousness between himself and the
three Insecticons throughout the story!
Probably the biggest mystery is what happened to Prowl... he's last
seen sprawled on the ground, riddled with shrapnel, and does not appear on the road
alongside Prime and Warpath as they're retreating at the end.
He's not even mentioned in the caption!
Nice one, Furman.
Tales of Cybertron/And There Shall Come... A Leader!:
It's kind of fitting that I've rediscovered this story as the War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline draws to a close, since it deals with a decisive moment in the
conflict on Cybertron... But it's really quite strange. Another
story by Simon Furman, it presents the Autobots' efforts in the conflict as
being stymied by their own high council. Emirate Xaaron
argues with High Councillor Traachon that they'd be better off if a single
warrior was calling all the shots. This introduces us to Optimus Prime, who
uses the rest of the page to issue a couple of orders that are
basically damage control in a battle that clearly isn't going well. We're treated to a swift recap of the war, occupying about 2/3 of the next
page, followed by an Autobot elder named Tomaandi (Furman clearly likes names with double-a in them, though the latter feels
like a reference to something or someone) opining that the Autobots have been defeated. Xaaron
objects, reiterating that their soldiers need to be allowed
to operate without the council's oversight.
We then cut back to Optimus Prime bemoaning the state of the battle, and
wondering where a couple of his soldiers are. After this single panel, we
follow the fortunes of those soldiers - Bluestreak and Fusion - as they
attempt to return to base with their precious cargo. Fusion is acting as rear
gunner (amusing, considering Bluestreak's function according to his G1 Tech Specs
is 'Gunner', yet here he's acting as courier, carrying bombs back to the
Autobots). Fusion describes himself as "expendable", then blows one of the pursuing
Decepticons out of the sky, just as Bluestreak notes that the road ahead of
them now has a huge chunk missing. He's able to jump it, but Fusion appears to
stop short, giving the Decepticons the opportunity to even the score, and
Bluestreak the opportunity for that all-important, dramatic
"No! Noooo!" moment.
Cutting back to the Autobot base, Optimus Prime storms in
demanding a report... which turns out to be notification that Emirate Xaaron
is calling. He assures Prime that he how has full control of the
Autobot army, after which Prime enquires after Bluestreak and Fusion. He
learns that the latter "didn't make it", but that they're unloading the
bombs.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Iacon, Megatron is gloating. He asks
Soundwave for a report, from which he decides that it's the perfect time to
strike Iacon Central, crying out that "No-one can stop us now!". Of course, the needs of drama require that he's instantly stopped, and he runs straight into Optimus Prime, who... demands his surrender.
The very thought of this angers Megatron so much that he
basically orders a slaughter, and a pitched battle commences. At this point,
it's revealed that this battle is occurring on a bridge of some kind
and, far below, a small group of Autobots are making use of the
bombs Bluestreak delivered, attaching them to the bridge support columns
which, apparently, the Autobots have been systematically weakening
for quite some time, without the Council's approval.
We then switch back to the battle, and Megatron has the upper hand.
Optimus Prime makes one last effort, leaping at his enemy, but Megatron shoots
him right in the chest. Prime commands the remaining Autobots to retreat and,
just as Megatron prepares to fire a fatal shot at Prime's head, the
bombs below explode, collapsing the bridge section where the battle had been
taking place, taking the Decepticons - and the Autobot leader - with
it.
In a rare instance of Windcharger actually using his magnetic powers
(more common in the UK comics than anywhere else, but even then it only
happened about twice!), he plucks Optimus Prime out of the rubble. As he and another Autobot take
Prime to the med-bay, they wonder if they've seen the last of Megatron.
Naturally, the moment they decide nothing could have survived the destruction
of the bridge, Megatron emerges from the rubble, swearing revenge...
...Then, the final panel offers glowing praise to Optimus Prime, emphasising
his commitment to the responsibilities of leadership.
It's a curious story, and I'm a little confused about its depiction of
Optimus Prime... He's clearly champing at the bit, frustrated by the
Council's reluctance to authorise some frankly dodgy military tactics,
and has been working behind their backs to prepare a trap for the
Decepticons. Sure, it's presented as the right move in the story, but the whole
situation of the Autobots' war efforts being hampered by some ridiculous 'High
Council' seems unlikely, and nothing in the story really shows
why Emirate Xaaron feels that Optimus Prime can be trusted to control
the entire Autobot military without oversight. Prime's grand plan is to
lure as many Decepticons as possible onto a single bridge,
sacrifice a load of Autobots distracting them, then blow the bridge
up... That doesn't sound like the sort of tactic we should expect from the
leader of the Heroic Autobots...
though perhaps Furman was predicting the Bayverse..?
As with Plague of the Insecticons, the artwork - by John Stokes and
coloured once again by Gina Hart - is closer to being toy-accurate than 'toon
accurate, with a few notable exceptions
and an awful lot of inconsistencies. As well as paying homage to issue
one of the Marvel comics series in terms of certain specific frames, there are
several robots who are lifted directly from that source. One of the
background robots on the opening page, for example, comes from the
first splash page in the first issue, and a cropped close-up of
one of the Decepticons pursuing Bluestreak and Fusion is lifted from
the very same page. Fusion himself appears to have been based
upon Frank Springer's design for Optimus Prime's battle wagon vehicle mode.
Megatron's pose when he first encounters Optimus Prime on the bridge to Iacon
is taken from the frame in the Marvel comic where he first calls for a strike
against the Autobots, while Prime's pose in the next panel is taken
from his reintroduction after the Autobots' revival on Earth. Probably the
most curious thing is that,
while the likes of Megatron and Windcharger are drawn to more closely
resemble the appearance of the toys, Gears - the Autobot overseeing the placement of the bombs below the bridge
- is drawn pretty much exactly according to his first appearance in the
Marvel comics, with the Y-shaped slit in an otherwise
featureless silver face. A lot of the other bots seem to be
mix-and-match - Xaaron has always looked like a Megatron knock-off, one
of the Autobot elders, seen from behind, could just as easily be a
miscoloured Optimus Prime, while another appears to exhibit elements of
both the Prowl and Sideswipe body types, and another -
seen in the background, next to Tomaandi - looks much like the
Ratchet/Ironhide animation model. The Autobot who delivers his report to Prime
uses Ironhide's cartoon head design, the character named as Soundwave
appears to have Mirage's head design, and one of the Autobots falling off the
expressway during the battle looks like Megatron's animation model
in Optimus Prime's colourscheme. At the very end, Windcharger - one of
the Mini-Autobots - is shown cradling Optimus Prime, showing that
scale wasn't much of a concern.
Being set on Cybertron, the geography of the story gets a bit more
leeway than a story set on Earth would, but the whole framing of the story -
with Megatron and his troops marching on Iacon, on foot, and via one
specific bridge
- just doesn't make any tactical sense, not least because all the Decepticons
depicted on previous pages have been in vehicle mode and flying.
That the whole plan hinges on a significant number of enemy troops -
and their leader - being not just on that specific bridge, but
at a specific point on that bridge really stretches credulity. If
nothing else, the Decepticons could just as easily strike from the
skies, so destroying the bridge wouldn't even be a
symbolic victory for the Autobots, and certainly does nothing to protect Iacon.
My main gripe on this score, though, is that
it's not immediately apparent that they're even on a bridge. When
Optimus Prime first challenges Megatron, they're at what appears to be ground
level, with the Decepticons cresting a hill. When it turns out to be a raised
expressway, it's held up by a row of single columns, but the ground
below is so clear, there's no obvious reason why it's a
raised expressway. Its width also seems to vary from panel to panel,
giving the impression that
the setting wasn't adequately communicated to the artist. It's
also made to look as if all the roads on Cybertron are raised
expressways... Making Bluestreak's decision to drive the bombs back to
Autobot headquarters something of a tactical error, since it makes him
more prone to attack from airborne Decepticons. Nevertheless, the
variety of buildings in the background ensures it all looks
interesting... and is just about distracting enough that the nonsensical
roadways shouldn't be foremost on the younger readers' minds.
Tales From Cybertron/And There Shall Come... A Leader! serves as ample
evidence that writing stories about the early days of the conflict on
Cybertron is difficult to do well. Like the other comic book story,
it's full of Furman's usual onomatopoeic flashes, the characteristic surfeit
of exclamation marks, and there's quite a lot of overblown dialogue. It
also highlights that, back in the early days of the brand, there
was no established continuity for the name/title 'Optimus Prime' and
that Marvel's offices didn't communicate especially well across the
Atlantic. According to this story, 'Optimus Prime' appears to have been
his name all along, where it was later decided that he was
previously Orion Pax (in the cartoon and most other continuities since) or Optronix (Dreamwave) and the title Optimus Prime was conferred on him along with the
Matrix of Leadership... Or at least after his wreckage
was rebuilt by Alpha Trion (again, in the cartoon).
Overall, the idea behind the story is promising, but could have done
with another round or two of editorial assistance to bang it into shape -
widening the scope of Megatron's assault on Iacon, at the very least.
Where it could have come across as a powerful tale of a leadership out of
touch with its people and inadequate to the needs of the war effort, while a
young leader emerges to turn the tide of the war, it ends up being a very
basic "Stoopid High Council... Hoorah for Optimus Prime!" sort of thing,
with a terrible plan, executed badly, and precious little
context to support what little action is depicted.
Prose Stories
Missing In Action:
It's strange to think that, by and large, the actual
impact that the presence of
giant alien robots in disguise has on humanity wasn't really explored
back in the early days of the comics, or the animated TV show... Even
more recent shows like TransFormers Prime placed the bulk of the story
either in the Autobot/Decepticon bases or over
vast, barren and largely unoccupied areas of land (largely due to production budgets). The only show that has had any focus on this impact, thusfar,
is TransFormers Animated. And so, when you read a small, focussed story
like Missing In Action, it feels strangely out of place in ways that it
really shouldn't.
To summarise briefly, Tracks is heavily damaged in combat with Rumble, and
essentially goes into what later became known as 'stasis lock' in vehicle mode
(much like Bumblebee in his solo live-action movie). The Autobots -
expecting him to address a 'council of war' - only
briefly wonder where he is, with Mirage offering the (apparently quite credible) opinion that he's
"probably wasting time driving around Greater Portland's streets, exploring
the town and showing himself off". Nevertheless, Optimus Prime despatches Jazz to look for him.
In fact, Tracks' inert form gets commandeered by a young criminal,
named only as 'J.D.' who's been on the lookout for a getaway car for he and
his parter in crime, Mark. After bumping off a convenience store in Greater
Portland, J.D. decides to head to New York... for no apparent reason other
than to put some distance between them and this latest robbery, after
he "accidently" fired the gun while "waving" it. It seems a
little excessive to drive from northern Oregon, basically on the border
with (west coast) Washington,
almost three thousand miles by road, to New York, on the
east coast... I mean,
that's the best part of the distance between New York and the UK. Then
again, I gather lots of visitors to the United States believe they can
drive as quickly and as easily from one coast to the other as they can in the UK...
The story then cuts to a week later, and explains that more Autobots
have been despatched to look for Tracks. Optimus Prime -
"a large cable connected his chest to the Ark's main computer terminal"
- seems quite despondent until Cosmos rocks up and
casually mentions that he's been monitoring human law enforcement and
"there have been a number of robberies committed recently in the city known
as New York. The description of the youths involved matches that of two
young men who are wanted in connection with a hold-up in Greater Portland.
The get-away car they are using is a Corvette Stingray - and it bears more
than a passing resemblance to Tracks!". Based on this lead, Prime despatches Inferno, Grapple and Hoist -
that is to say, a firetruck, a crane and a tow truck - to recover him.
At this point, the story takes a bizarre detour to introduce Danny
Phillips, who believes the rumours about giant alien robots in our midst. It
casually mentions that Danny's father died
"in an accident, while testing an experimental rocket ship for N.A.S.A."
(he's described as "a good man, if a little careless", which somehow
doesn't sound like the kind of person N.A.S.A. would employ
to test experimental rocket ships). Danny wanders into town and
stumbles upon two men climbing out of a blue Corvette Stingray to walk into a
bank, then notices a familiar symbol on the car's bonnet - it's the
symbol he's seen in news items about the robots. Excited, Danny enters the
bank to speak to the owners of the car, only to realise he'd walked into a
robbery in progress. His response is to say "Oh".
When Danny's arrival distracts J.D., one of the cashiers hits the alarm
button, and things quickly start to go pear-shaped. Mark panics, but
J.D. assures him that the police won't storm the building if they know there
are hostages on-site.
He also reveals that he's been carrying a bomb all along.
We then cut to Inferno, Grapple and Hoist, arriving
"several miles away" from the scene. They've been monitoring the police
frequencies and have learned that the two humans Cosmos had referred to are in
the bank, surrounded by police, and Tracks is sat outside. Seemingly
oblivious to what's going on -
despite it having been established that they should be well aware -
they transform into robot mode and approach Tracks. J.D. somehow sees
this from inside the bank, panics, and knocks his bomb off the table
he'd left it on, setting it off.
The Autobots are knocked back by the explosion which destroys the front of the
bank, and leaves the rest of the building in flames. A random police officer
announces that the hostages are still inside, and Inferno instructs his
companions to get Tracks away. Contrary to this instruction, Grapple
uses his crane to bring people down from the roof, while Hoist
"used his incredible strength to hold up the ceiling of the bank's ground
floor while Inferno, also in robotic form, pulled unconscious victims to
safety."
After ten minutes, the Autobots believe they've rescued everyone,
but a random bystander announces that a young boy had entered the bank
during the robbery, and she can't see him. Inferno volunteers to brave the... er... inferno, and walks in
brandishing - but not using - his extinguisher rifle. Shortly
thereafter, the building collapses, and neither the giant robot nor the
boy he was trying to rescue can be seen. Minutes later, Inferno rises
from the rubble, cradling Danny, who is - miraculously - still alive.
The story wraps up with the two robbers in custody, and Hoist lugging Tracks
back to Oregon in their vehicle modes. Once there,
and after Tracks has been repaired, he has a chat with Optimus Prime.
Tracks suggests that humans who behave like J.D. and Mike are surely just as
bad as the Decepticons, but Prime states his belief that the wrongdoings of
humans to each other are very different to the evils of the Decepticons, and
that
"there are also countless honest humans, and it is they we are sworn to
protect!".
I like the idea of Missing In Action, but it's all a load of
nonsense, clearly written by someone who had had very little
if any contact with TransFormers -
either the toys or the other associated fiction - when they put this
together. Aside from the bizarre notion that a couple of
small-time crooks from Portland, Oregon would take a road trip to New
York, only to start robbing banks there makes little enough sense, but
for one of them to be so incompetent that they accidentally fire
their gun while waving it about presents him as a
pathologically stupid criminal who has fallen victim to the
Dunning-Kruger effect. For that same person to suddenly reveal that they
brought a bomb along with them is a case of insane escalation...
and where did he get the bomb?
But it's the handling of the explosion that really strains the whole
suspension of disbelief in this story. The Autobots rock up to the bank,
transform into robot mode, indirectly cause an explosion that -
somehow - causes no fatalities, either inside the bank or around
its perimeter, yet is powerful enough to bring the building down.
Inferno and Hoist tackle the situation in robot mode, when it surely
would have made more sense to have Inferno tackle the fire in vehicle
mode, using his ladder to assist those on the roof to escape, while
Grapple and Hoist assist with evacuations on the ground floor... But then, how
did anyone get to the roof after the explosion?
How did anyone inside the bank survive the explosion? And then, how
small is Inferno - a robot that transforms into a fire truck - that he
can walk into a structure built to human scale and get covered by
rubble as the building then collapses around him?
But the real kicker here, before any of that, is this line, the absolute pinnacle of its nonsense:
"The Autobots nodded to each other. They transformed into their robotic
modes and ignoring the police cordon and the shocked stares of the
onlookers, they strode toward Tracks."
Ignore the terrible grammar for a moment, and let's be clear: the
Autobots nodded to each other before transforming into robot
mode.
A fire truck, a construction vehicle and a tow truck... nodded to each
other.
Even before all this, I find it baffling that the Autobots have
no way of tracking each other's location, and had to rely on
human news broadcasts to trace Tracks' location by, apparently,
intuiting it from a pattern of robberies and the presence of a
similar-looking car. Considering Danny sees the Autobot insignia on
Tracks' bonnet, were they not even able to identify that?
The formatting of the story - broken up into short 'chapters' with
pithy headings - is much like the average children's picture book of the time,
and the quality of writing is probably about that level as well... Really
not great.
The author of this story is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not credited.
On the artwork front, the handful of pictures used to break up the text
are generally pretty good, though the opening shot shows Rumble
towering over Tracks in an alleyway. Going by the relative size of the
nearby bins, Tracks is not a great deal taller than a fairly tall
human, but Rumble is colossal - somewhere between ten and
fifteen feet tall, at a guess.
Hunted!:
Something about this story reminded me of those early episodes of the
TV show, where the Decepticons start mining 'ruby crystals' as a means of
generating Energon. Probably the bit where it's revealed that the
Decepticons are
"mining for rare crystals, as yet undetected by the humans."
At which point, we cut to Bumblebee, whining about how bored he is, spending
time with Prowl, in the Ark, monitoring news broadcasts via a cable from the
computer plugged into his chest (and some screens), while the rest of the
Autobots are
"on a mission, a mission that would undoubtedly bring them into conflict
with the Decepticons. It was a mission that Bumblebee had been purposely
excluded from."
Prowl interrupts his complaints by calling his attention to one of the news
broadcasts... in which he's somehow able to see a tiny fragment
of metal in the background
while the picture is focused on a frail, unshaven man being led to a
jeep. Bumblebee is unimpressed, and suspects that the pressure has affected
Prowl's logic circuits.
Ever-astute, Bumblebee realises that this means the Decepticons are in South
America, and Prowl agrees. He tries to contact Optimus Prime, but can't get
through, receiving nothing but static. At this point,
"Rage swelled within him and he tore the audio link from his chest in an
uncharacteristic fit of anger. A shower of sparks was sent across the
room."
As Prowl makes to leave the room, Bumblebee asks what they should do. Prowl
insists there's nothing they can do, but Bumblebee responds that they
should go to South America to investigate. Prowl vetos this, but Bumblebee
adds that the Jumpstarters - Topspin and Twin Twist - are lurking around the
Ark and are sure to be willing to help. Prowl insists that they are
not going to South America.
Nevertheless, in the very next paragraph, Prowl is wondering how he
ever let Bumblebee talk him into coming to South America, considering them
unprepared to face whatever Decepticon forces they may encounter, even
with the Jumpstarters. They come upon some sort of military checkpoint on a
short stretch of dirt track, and while Prowl feels it's time to return to the
Ark, Topspin is hungry for action, and suggests they simply run the blockade,
and charges ahead. The Autobots are fired upon, but easily evade the humans
when they give chase in their jeeps.
Soon after, back in the jungle, Twin Twist's drills have cleared a path
to the point where John Butler was found. Prowl transforms and locates
the metal chip he'd seen on the monitor back at the Ark, and confirms that
it's a piece of Ravage. Topspin is not impressed, and wants to know where the
rest of Ravage is, but Prowl asserts that
"the Decepticons emit a chemical into the atmosphere when they burn their
fuel and if we're lucky we'll be able to track Ravage by following the trail
left by this chemical."
The trail leads into the deeper jungle, and Bumblebee finds himself left
behind. Apparently they've all stayed in robot mode, rather than relying on
Twin Twist to cut through the foliage, as Bumblebee finds that
"mud threatened to clog his joints and he was convinced that the damp
atmosphere was doing untold damage to his delicate circuits." However, this is the least of his concerns, as he's suddenly
beset by a boa constrictor. Somehow, this flesh-and-bone creature is
willing and able to damage the alien robot but, thankfully, it's shown
the error of its ways by Topspin and his electric blaster.
Back on the trail, the Autobots soon find themselves entering a valley in
which "an unearthly structure towered into the jungle sky." This turns
out to be "an exact replica of Megatron's fortress on Cybertron",
located in front of a mine shaft. At this point, the Autobots see Megatron and
Ravage exit the fortress and head toward the mind. Topspin immediately sees
red, but Bumblebee cautions him to silence, saying that he might be able to
hear their conversation. Fifteen minutes of eavesdropping later, and Bumblebee
relates that they're mining those aforementioned mystery crystals... but,
rather than using them for Energon, Megatron apparently plans
"to imbue the crystals with artificial intelligence", and thereby
create a new army of Decepticons.
Apparently sensing an errant plot thread, Prowl asks how this connects
to the expedition involving Doctor Butler. Bumblebee explains that they simply
happened upon the Decepticons and got imprisoned. Butler escaped,
Ravage was sent after him...
but there's no explanation of how he came to fail, it's simply stated
that he did. The Autobots agree that they must destroy the mine, but
Prowl insists on calling reinforcements. While they're discussing tactics,
Bumblebee storms in... An explosion awakens the other Autobots to the fact
that Bumblebee has wandered off,
and they're surprised to see him dodging missiles as Starscream and Thrust
buzz him from above.
As the Autobots consider their next move, a sonic boom from Thrust causes the
valley walls to collapse on them, but not even that can stop them.
Bumblebee tunnels out first, to see Decepticons fleeing. Megatron emerges and
Bumblebee moves to intercept... But he's brought to a stop when Megatron
sneeringly informs him that he's planted a bomb
in his own fortress to cover his escape. Instead of pursuing the
Decepticon leader, Bumblebee heads into the fortress to free the captured
humans, escaping just as the fortress explodes and his comrades pull
themselves free of the landslide... Bumblebee, for some reason, feels
ashamed for acting so rashly... but is glad to have rescued the humans,
and knows Megatron will be back.
There's an awful lot of WTF? moments in this one... From Prowl's
miraculous turn as CSI: Cybertron, to the random
'expedition to South America', Butler's seemingly impossible -
and unexplained - escape from Ravage, the smash-cut from Prowl
insisting they're not going to South America, to Prowl and co.
being in South America. The random military checkpoint
in the middle of the jungle seems pointless, goes nowhere and adds no
excitement to the tale. The concept that Ravage - the Decepticons' master of stealth - could be tracked by his chemical emissions is utterly laughable. The Decepticons' double-whammy of
a towering fortress and a mine of mysterious plot-crystals, and
the idea that they can be somehow
imbued with artificial intelligence is sci-fi hokum at its most
Saturday morning cartoon ridiculous. That the Autobots so easily lose
track of Bumblebee, repeatedly, is somewhat true to the
dumbly recurrent idea that Bumblebee is overlooked and
underestimated... but that runs contrary to Bob Budiansky's idea of the
character as 'daring to go where others can't or wont'. Also, the idea
of him worrying that the damp jungle atmosphere is causing him damage is
laughable when one considers that he's able to
"go underwater for reconnaissance and salvage missions". The story
also plays up his physical weakness versus a boa constrictor, but then
refers to him freeing the expedition team
"with his extraordinary strength". Make up your mind!
Prowl comes across as a total arsehole - the table-flipping of the IDW
version is pretty much telegraphed here - and the use of the Jumpstarters
seems just plain bizarre, under the circumstances. There are also
several glaring flaws related to the piece of Ravage that ends up on
the jungle floor. First and foremost,
how does a branch knock a piece of metal off an alien robot? Then, how
does Prowl see this piece of metal
in the background of a standard human news broadcast? And just how does he
identify this random piece of metal as
a part of one specific Decepticon?
Scratch that - how does he identify the metal even as being of
Cybertronian origin...
via an enhanced picture taken from the background of the aforementioned
human news broadcast?
Then there's the way the Decepticons are so easily routed... Dirge
despatched easily moments after his arrival, Starscream seemingly
destroyed along with the mine, and the rest slinking off with Megatron
bringing up the rear. Thrust seems to escape unscathed, as he's not
mentioned after causing the rockfall that buries the Autobots... but
it's Thundercracker who's known for his sonic booms, Thrust is just
loud.
What frustrates me the most about this story, though, is the reference
to an expedition to South America, Decepticons
in South America and the Autobots suddenly -
and instantly, it would seem - finding themselves
in South America. South America is a continent, not a fucking
village. According to Wikipedia, it measures
17.84 million square kilometres. It's huge, and a large
proportion of it is jungle. The Amazon rainforest accounts for about 40
percent - over seven million square kilometres. How does an expedition
to an unspecified part of "South America" just
'happen upon' exactly the same area of "South America"
where the Decepticons have built a tower in a valley and started excavating
mystery crystals?
The woolly geography of Washington D.C. in
Plague of the Insecticons was bad enough, this is just plain
insulting, even in what is effectively a children's picture book
reformatted into a chunk of an annual.
As with the other prose story, Hunted! does not feature an author's
credit.
The artwork is also very much sub-par for the most part, even in the
context of this specific book. The opening image of Ravage pouncing on Doctor
Butler is awesome -
classic British comics art with detailed characters and a beautiful
background
- but the image of Prowl at the computer on the following page is dire,
Bumblebee's battle with the boa constrictor is nicely painted
but horribly drawn, and the single image of the battle between
the Autobots and Decepticons looks stiff and awkward, showing
precious little of the scenery described in the narrative. You'd never
know there was a tower, a mine, or even a valley.
Extras/Games
Roughly in the middle of a book is a double page spread set aside for a
simple board game, and the only activity in the book printed in full colour -
Hexagonal Attack On Castle Decepticon - for which players must roll a
die and move in the direction indicated in the instructions. The idea is to
get from the starting point,
just to the left of the middle of the spread, to Castle Decepticon -
a distinctly Fantasy-looking structure in the top right corner of the
map. Probably good for half an hour or so, on a Christmas afternoon when it's
too cold/wet to go out, and no-one can be bothered playing a
proper board game.
Oddities
While the small selection of seven Decepticons introduced across pages 4/5 use
the toys' box art images, the Autobots' spread across the following two pages
reuses the big, introductory image from Issue 1 of the
original Marvel-published TransFormers comic - both its
(inaccurate) art and the original text - accommodating
eighteen characters. While it certainly covers more bases, the
disparity in the artwork -
and the layout of the Decepticon spread, generally - looks strange and
amateurish.
On a similar note, the monochrome puzzle pages feature some
especially bad art. It's a mixture of tracings of toy box art
and linework derived from the Marvel Design Bible: Megatron is depicted with
his earliest design, rather than the bucket-head used in the
cartoon and later comics, and one of the puzzles expects the reader to discern
the difference between Thundercracker and Starscream
from the angle of their cropped headshot. Meanwhile, where the
alternate head designs for the Seekers were conjured from, for the previously
mentioned 'Decepticon Match-Up!' puzzle is anyone's guess... Two of the
jets depicted aren't even F-15s, and the cassette forms,
ostensibly for Ravage and Laserbeak, and basic as they are, are clearly
both of the condor variety.
There are also signs throughout of either ink spillages or spots on the colour
plates - most often the Cyan - though this is probably only obvious to
me because I've worked in print for about 25 years.
Overall
I'll have to dig out some of my other annuals for comparison, but the
organisation of this book is generally pretty terrible. Aside from the
aesthetic disparities between the Autobot and Decepticon intro pages at
the start, the opening story runs from page 8 to page 13, at which point it
gets interrupted by a puzzle page. The story picks up on page 15 and
then breaks again at page 18. Missing In Action then starts on page 20, following
another puzzle page, and breaks on page 24 ahead of another.
Tales of Cybertron/And There Shall Come... A Leader! starts on page 27,
after another puzzle, gets interrupted by the conclusion of
Missing In Action across pages 30/31, picks up on page 32 and concludes
on p38 ahead of another puzzle. This is followed by
Hexagonal Attack On Castle Decepticon across pages 40/41, then
Hunted! starts on page 42, breaks for a puzzle on page 46 and then
concludes on page 49. There's another puzzle ahead of the conclusion of
Plague of the Insecticons, - which is thankfully unbroken till the final puzzle page. The book ends with
the solutions page (featuring a typo, placing one of the puzzles on page 41 instead of 14) facing the inside back cover. Whoever set up the flatplan for this
publication created an absolute travesty... I wish I could figure out
what they were thinking - I'd have had some strongly-worded questions
to answer if I'd ever presented something like this page structure:
 |
| The flatplan according to the published annual. |
 |
| My own very quick reworking of the flatplan. The story pages are grouped the same, the running order is much the same, but each individual story is continuous, broken only by puzzle pages. This took me maybe 20 minutes, most of which was setting up the template. |
Terrible though much of this book is, the Annual was a real
institution in the UK, and I always looked forward to receiving them at
Christmas. At the time, I don't think it really mattered to me that the
writing was pretty inept and the artwork was of such
variable quality... though I did note - to myself, it would seem, and sadling in ballpoint pen - that the image of Megatron on the inside back
cover was "Nothing like the toy".
I'd also be curious to know what sort of time constraints these things
were produced under... The comic was initially fortnightly in the UK, turning weekly later on, but
monthly in the States, so Marvel UK were already producing lots
of filler material... and fitting more into a schedule running up to
Christmas would always tend to be a nightmare. I wonder how much of
this was Marvel material, and how much was Grandreams. The latter produced
annuals for all kinds of fandoms, from movies to soap operas to pop
stars, and I think the puzzle pages were pretty much a staple of
their output.
Whether something like this is worth tracking down now, I can't say... It's certainly easily - and cheaply - available on the secondary market, often with little if any increase in its cost. This specific book probably isn't worth buying except as a historical curiosity, or for the brand completist. The content is ugly, jumbled, and mostly poorly written, but some of the artwork is decent.
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