Return to Pern: Introduction

Back in 2007, a friend of my mother's offered me any books I wanted from the collection of her late brother. I made off with sixteen books that interested me, which I read over the next two years.

The very first one I read was an omnibus hardcover of the so-called "original" Dragonriders of Pern trilogy by Anne McCaffrey. The Pern novels, if you don't know, draw on some fantasy tropes but are actually science fiction: they take place on an Earth colony called Pern, which every two centuries is threatened for fifty years by the "Thread," alien spores that devour all life. Without advanced technology, the Pernese use flying fire-breathing lizards to fight it off; dragonriders telepathically bond to individual dragons. While I wouldn't claim that I loved it, it did intrigue me, especially the world that McCaffrey had built around the dragons and the threat of the Thread, so I resolved to keep my eyes open for more installments.

The whole series had been a favorite of Hayley's when she was younger; she and a friend had read a Pern short story in a school textbook and loved it and tracked down everything McCaffrey had written about Pern from the library. Hayley had even participated in a Pern MUD, purely text-based role-playing, more like collectively written stories where each person is responsible for a specific character.

That opportunity actually came along just a couple months later, when another friend of my mother invited me to pick through the books of her husband. (Not dead in this case, just downsizing.) He had owned both Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern and Dragonsdawn, two prequels to the original trilogy, so I grabbed them. A couple years later, I was also gifted the "Harper Hall" trilogy, a set of YA Pern novels, by Hayley. (I think specifically because I had I asked for them, as the Masterharper, Robinton, was my favorite character in the original trilogy.)

Well, as is typical of my reading list, I finally got to the Pern novels this year, a mere sixteen years after reading Dragonriders! Talking with Hayley and my friend Christiana, I decided to supplement my reading of the five I had with five more that interested me. I of course wanted to read The Masterhaper of Pern, a prequel about Robinton; Moreta had a companion book called Nerilka's Story that sounded interesting. Hayley suggested that if I was going to read Dragonsdawn, I ought to also read The Chronicles of Pern, a set of short stories set in the same era, and Christiana said she always liked Dragonseye (also called Red Star Rising), another book set in early Pern history.

There are twenty-eight Pern books altogether; no one recommended the various ones written or cowritten by McCaffrey's children. I did want to know what happened after the original trilogy, though; everything I had picked was set concurrent to it or in an earlier "Pass." McCaffrey wrote four novels after the original trilogy set during the Ninth Pass, but discussing them with Hayley and Christiana and reading reviews made it clear it was a matter of diminishing returns as the series went on. As a girl in the 1990s, Hayley of course loved The Dolphins of Pern, but I was less keen as an adult man in the 2020s. I ended up deciding to pick up just one more Ninth Pass book, All the Weyrs of Pern, as a capstone to the whole series.

That then left the question of what order to read them all in. McCaffrey jumped all over the timeline, but I ended up deciding to mix publication and chronology. Basically, I would read all the books in a pass in the order they were published, and sequence the Passes in the order the first installment of that Pass was published (if that makes sense). This would give me rough publication order, but also mean I didn't jump around too much chronologically.

The exception was that I decided to save All the Weyrs for last, so my endpoint wouldn't be a prequel, but rather, the latest chronologically.

So here's the sequence I'll be following:

• Ninth Pass
• Dragonsong (1976)
• Dragonsinger (1977)
• Dragondrums (1979)
• The Masterharper of Pern (1998)
• Sixth Pass
• Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern (1983)
• Nerilka's Story (1986)
• First and Second Passes
• Dragonsdawn (1988)
• The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall (1993)
• Dragonseye (1996)
• Ninth Pass
• All the Weyrs of Pern (1991)

Since my copies of everything except the Harper Hall trilogy were already hardcover, I've been hunting down used hardcovers of the five books I didn't already own to match. This makes an okay-looking set; I was a bit careless and ended up with some ex-library copies, so I need to get those ugly stickers off the spines!

(Some of the covers are not great, but some are beautiful, especially the Michael Whelan painting on All the Weyrs. Inexplicably, modern editions crop it to a tiny detail.)

My first post reviewing the series will cover both Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, and will appear this coming Monday; the rest should follow over the next couple months.

Hugos Side-Step: The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume One

The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume One: Beyond Lies the Wub
by Philip K. Dick

So when I enjoy a book by a winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, I tend to seek out other work by the same writer; that led to me supplementing the winner for 1963, The Man in the High Castle, with twelve other novels by Philip K. Dick. My feeling was at that point that I had probably read all of Dick's worthy novels... but I remained curious about his short fiction, of which I had read very little. Conveniently, all of his stories are available in five cheap mass-market paperbacks from Gollancz, so I decided to add them on as occasional supplements to my Hugo journey, timing things so that I would read the collection with "Faith of the Fathers," which was a finalist for Best Novelette in 1967, alongside the 1967 winner for Best Novel. So that means I started last year with the first volume of The Collected Short Stories, which contains Dick's short fiction originally published from 1952 to 1954, sorted in order of original composition. The Gollancz edition titles this volume Beyond Lies the Wub, but (mostly) the same set of stories have been released by other publishers under the titles The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford, Paycheck, and The King of the Elves. (It's not at all confusing.)

Collection published: 1999
Contents originally published: 1952-54
Acquired: October 2022
Read: November 2022

There's a lot in here: twenty-five stories across almost four hundred pages in not very large print. If you've read Philip K. Dick before, you have some idea of what to expect, but this material isn't consistently like the weirdness of his 1960s novels. It's not atypical 1950s science fiction: weird ideas explored, but too often the weird idea itself seems to be the point, and the story doesn't have much of interest to say. The very first story, "Stability," is a good example of this. On the other hand, I think the stories—once you get past the first few, which are perhaps a little on the bumpy side—are always fairly well told, in Dick's typical sharp but matter-of-fact prose style that pulls you in. "The Crystal Crypt" is one of these: it's a kind of Campbellian/Asimovian puzzle story, but it's a good one. Or, say, "The Preserving Machine": a weird idea explained, then undermined at the last moment. Some might make you roll your eyes a bit, like the twist endings of "The Builder" or "Prize Ship," but you know, Dick can still make it work. I did have good fun with "The Indefatigable Frog," where a group of scientists test Zeno's paradox by shrinking themselves smaller and smaller as they try to cross through a tube.

There's a lot more people zipping around interstellar space on starships than you would expect from Dick's most famous novels, which tend to be his Earthbound (or at least solar systembound) ones. "Mr. Spaceship," about living spaceships trying to find an end to war, is like this. "The Infinities," about hyper-evolving humans is a cheeseball example of an idea that doesn't really make any scientific sense. But at its best, the interstellar backdrop is just a backstory, largely irrelevant, for whatever weird story Dick wants to tell in the foreground, such as in "Colony," about people going paranoid as their objects are seemingly plotting against them.

Though there are occasional glimpses of it, we don't get much of what Dick's best novels reveal as his strength: people dealing with the bullshit and the weirdness of seemingly ordinary life. But there are fragments of this theme in stories like "The Little Movement" (about living toys) and "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (about living shoes). I liked "Nanny," about mechanical nannies who fight each other, and the only choice you have as a parent is just to buy a bigger and stronger mechanical nanny than the other families, so that yours can win any fights! I also liked "The King of the Elves" a lot, about an ordinary guy who becomes just what the title promises.

There's a lot of time travel here, often dealing with predestination paradoxes or some other kind of twist, the kind of stuff that these days you perhaps can't move without running into, especially post–Steven Moffat's Doctor Who, but in those days must have been much more original. "Meddler," where people go into the future to find out why humanity is doomed and thus doom humanity, is a good example of this, and so is "The Skull," about a man who travels back in time to kill a dissident but discovers something unexpected about him, but the best of them is surely "Paycheck," where a man quits his job, loses his memory, and then receives the exact seven items he needs to carry out a plan he doesn't remember devising; all of the items seem like worthless junk, but each one proves handy at the exact right moment.

There are a number of stories about apocalypses, on both Earth and elsewhere: "The Great C," "The Gun," and so on. The one that stuck out to me the most, though, was "The Defenders," about people living in underground bunkers because the surface of the Earth has been rendered uninhabitable... only there's a bit of a twist that will be familiar to anyone who's ever seen the 1967-68 Doctor Who serial The Enemy of the World! Dick expanded "The Defenders" into the novel The Penultimate Truth in 1964, and I have to imagine David Whittaker had read it. Hopefully whoever does the Doctor Who Magazine "Fact of Fiction" for Enemy of the World doesn't miss this.

Dick at his best is both dark and humorous; I enjoyed "Beyond Lies the Wub," about a space crew who brings an animal on board to eat... only to discover that it's sapient, and even more besides.

I read an old winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel every year, plus other Hugo-related books that interest me. Next up in sequence: The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber

Black Panther: A Hero No More! by Peter B. Gillis, Denys Cowan, Sam DeLaRosa, et al.

from The Invincible Iron Man Annual vol. 1 #5

After the cancellation of Black Panther vol. 1, Black Panther popped up here and there across the Marvel universe. One of those places was "War and Remembrance!", an issue of Iron Man where Iron Man/Tony Stark comes to Wakanda to set up some kind of tech deal, but at the same time who should return but... Killmonger! Keen to begin his takeover all over again, he defeats T'Challa and takes over the country, but of course we soon learn he killed only a convenient Life Model Decoy. Then at the end we learn that Iron Man foe the Mandarin was somehow responsible for Killmonger's resurrection.

It's nice to see McGregor's run back in play after it was ignored during Kirby's, but this story is just fine. Like, it is not bad but I am not sure it has much going for it either. It is much more a Black Panther story than an Iron Man one, though, so I can see why it was included in one of the Black Panther collections I was able to access on Hoopla.

Black Panther finally got his own title again in 1988, nine years after the cancellation of Black Panther vol. 1. (In my post title here, I've called it "A Hero No More!" after a blurb on the cover of issue #1, but it has no official title as far as I can tell.) This was a four-issue miniseries, bringing in real social issues: a rebellion against apartheid is brewing in the fictional country of Azania, and many Azanians think their neighbors in Wakanda should aid them—and many Wakandans agree. But T'Challa does not, which leads to a challenge to his right to rule Wakanda, and then he is attacked by a group of white supremacist superheroes from Azania... and the panther-god himself!

from Black Panther vol. 2 #4

It's a bit all over the place, and some of it works and some of it does not. I like the art of Denys Cowan and Sam DeLaRosa, though I don't really get the wisdom of giving Black Panther cat eyes in and out of costume. They do a great job with the fight scenes, particularly the showdown with the panther-god, and it's neat to see T'Challa tested in such a way.

On the other hand, seeing his right to rule challenged is not so interesting; so far, we've had Killmonger's attempted takeover in Jungle Action, T'Challa's half-brother's military coup in Black Panther vol. 1, Killmonger's seeming assassination in "War and Remembrance!", and now this. That's four time across five runs on the character! It's a natural enough well to go to when your protagonist is the ruler of a country, but if everyone goes to that well, it makes that ruler seem a pretty ineffective one.

from Black Panther vol. 2 #2

The Supremacists are a bit dopey. Which, I guess is the point, they are white supremacists, but I think the story wants me to take them seriously as opponents for the Black Panther. On the other hand, embroiling T'Challa in real-seeming politics worked well in Jungle Action, and it's decent-enough ground here, and the ending worked pretty well, as real change comes to Azania.

Again, the politics of Wakanda here don't benefit from the fact that nothing seems to carry over from previous runs on the character: no one from McGregor or Kirby appears here as far as I can tell.

"War and Remembrance!" originally appeared in issue #5 of The Invincible Iron Man Annual vol. 1 (Nov. 1982). The story was scripted and co-plotted by Peter Gillis, co-plotted by Ralph Macchio, pencilled by Jerry Bingham, inked by Dan Green, lettered by Diana Albers, colored by Beth Firmin, and edited by Mark Gruenwald. It was reprinted in Marvel-Verse: Black Panther (2020), which was edited by Jennifer Grünwald.

Black Panther vol. 2 originally appeared in four issues (July-Oct. 1988). The story was written by Peter B. Gillis, pencilled by Denys Cowan, inked by Sam DeLaRosa, lettered by Rick Parker, colored by Bob Sharen (#1-3) and "Max" Scheele (#4), and edited by Mark Gruenwald. 

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

I Spy, with My Little Eye... the Tampa Children's Museum!

Son One proudly displays his rainbow dinosaur puppet.

This year, the director of Son One's daycare enrolled his class in a program called "iSpy Tampa Bay," which resulted in him obtaining free passes to the Florida Aquarium, the Lowry Park Zoo, and the Glazer Children's Museum... free passes that admit four or five people at a time! (Also it came with a variety of investigative tools like binoculars and magnifying glasses and a notebook to record observations in.) We made a little use of them during the school year, but now that it's summer, we've been trying to use them a lot. A few weeks ago I took the kids to the aquarium; recently, I took the kids (along with my sister, visiting) to the Children's Museum.

The Children's Museum is pretty great; you can spend a whole day there and your kids will never get bored. There's a water area with boats to play with and a series of cranes simulating a working port, a toddler area with various toys, a huge climbing structure, a pretend pizza place and ice cream parlor and grocery store, a theatre for kids to put on shows, a craft area, and much more. We went back in March, and I was happy to note that when we came back three months later, stuff had been changed a little so that it wasn't all the same old.

Son Two assembles Big John for himself.

The big selling point of the museum this time was the addition of Big John the triceratops to their collection, the largest known triceratops skeleton. This is owned by a local businessman, who loaned it to the museum for display for three years. There's a lot of dinosaur-themed stuff to go with it, too, including a thing where kids can color pictures of dinosaurs and scan them in, where they get displayed on a screen as moving 3D models! Son One colored probably ten dinosaurs with his aunt. Unfortunately, you know kids, they were less into the actual skeleton than all the flashy stuff around it, but I had a good time looking at it and talked a bit to the staff member there.

Our zoo pass already expired, but we have until the end of the month to use our aquarium and Children's Museum ones, so we will have to return a few more times very quickly! I think the kids will be up for it; Son One asked to go back to the Children's Museum the very next day.

Hugos Side-Step: City by Clifford D. Simak

City by Clifford D. Simak

As I read through the Hugo Award for Best Novel winners, I often supplement by reading significant books that were written by winning authors, but did not win themselves. So, after enjoying Way Station by Clifford Simak, I decided to pick up his City. City is a fix-up: it was originally published as a series of short stories chronicling a future history, mostly in Astounding, from 1944 to 1951. In 1952, Simak collected them in a book, adding introductions to each story written by some scholar from the far far future, making it into a work that exists in the future history. Simak wrote one extra City story in 1973, which was incorporated into editions of the book published in 1981 onward, including my 2011 Gollancz edition.

Collection originally published: 1952
Contents originally published: 1944-73
Acquired and read: October 2022

It's certainly of its era: I feel like a lot of sf writers in this period wrote series of short stories covering vast swathes of human history. In that sense, City reminded me of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and especially Cordwainer Smith. But what is different than those other future histories is the scope of City: while Asimov, Heinlein, and even Smith chronicle the history of humanity, Simak considers what comes after humanity... and then what comes after that. The only person who really matches Simak for scope is Wells. This is a series of vignettes, linked by some common characters and some related ones, that take us from the abandonment of the cities to the abandonment of the planet Earth itself.

Simak's futurism isn't always right, but the futurism isn't the point, so it doesn't matter. There's a lot to like here, but my favorite was "Hobbies," which I've already written about here. The story focuses on the dogs and robots left on Earth by humanity. Both were created to serve humanity; even though dogs have been raised to sapience, that's still what a dog is. There are also a last few humans. But all of these beings have no work to do—there is nothing left but the "hobbies" of the title. Simak is often praised for his pastoral style, and this thoughtful story is it at its moving best. The last couple stories point toward the fact that things never stop developing. Watch out for the ants!

I also really enjoyed the introductions to each story, written by the dog scholars of the far future attempting to put each story into its original context... but they are from so far in the future that they are not convinced any such creature as man actually existed. Surely he is just part of a creation myth? I'm often a sucker for this kind of faux apparatus, and this is a good example of it, extending the distance between the world of the text and ours.

I read an old winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel every year, plus other Hugo-related books that interest me. Next up in sequence: The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume One

Transformers UK #255–89: ...Perchance to Dream and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 49)

And here, my journey through Marvel UK's Transformers strip comes to an end—as does my journey through the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and adjacent material. This won't be all I have to say on either topic, however. Eventually I plan to reread the 1980s Marvel Transformers comic integrating US and UK material in chronological order, and I also plan to do a couple posts summing up my thoughts on the DWM strip as a whole.

A wise man once said, "It's over... finished!" but he was even wiser when he uttered these words: "It never ends!"

from Transformers #258

...Perchance to Dream, from Transformers #255-60 (3 Feb.–10 Mar. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman; art by Andy Wildman, Staz, and John Stokes; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

The last (by titling convention, anyway) multi-part story of the UK comic strip begins the transition into what would be known as Earthforce. Many pixels have been spilled on this topic, but basically Simon Furman decided to stop having the UK strip tie into the US one at all, not even the sense of the UK one having small side stories to the bigger US stories like he'd been doing since issue #240 or so. Instead, he would split the characters up: since the US strip was focused on Optimus Prime and company in space, the UK strip would follow a set of different characters back on Earth.

This story sets that up by reviving five classic off-line characters so that they can star in the new strip. Galvatron is infesting their dreams, so we get five parts of flashback adventures, and then in part six they all wake up and defeat him. It's a fine enough set of vignettes, but Galvatron is defeated absurdly easily for someone who had once been a powerhouse of the strip.

from Transformers #261

"Starting Over!" / "Two Steps Back!" / "Break-Away!" / "Desert Island Risks!" / "Once upon a Time..." / "Life in the Slow Lane" / "Snow Fun!", from Transformers #261-67 (17 Mar.–28 Apr. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Staz, Andy Wildman, Pete Knifton & Pete Venters, and Jeff Anderson; letters by Stuart Bartlett, Peri Godbold, and Glib

 

This is a fun set of strips that moves us into the Earthforce format, but also demonstrates its power. First we get a fun adventure where the characters revived in ...Perchance to Dream have to stop Megatron from destroying Earth's atmosphere. Why? I don't know, but it doesn't bother me, nor does the fact that according to the US strip at this time, Megatron can't even be here doing this. It's all worth it for the bits where the characters themselves complain about how gimmicky Transformers has gotten. "Probably some Microheadtargetmaster with a Pretender shell!" And then a fun ending where everyone just charges Megatron. Then we get a fun story about Grimlock versus Shockwave and his minions and then the whole premise is put into place: Optimus delegates Grimlock to run things on Earth.

 

I know some people love Grimlock, but for me a little bit of Grimlock goes a long way... there's only so much I can read about how he's "different" from the other Autobots. But Earthforce, it turns out, is the exact right amount of Grimlock. Like many loose cannon characters, he's best with a straight man, and here he's essentially got a whole team of them. Some of the stories here are bad silly (e.g., "Desert Island Risks" is improbably contrived) but many of them are good silly; any Transformers story where Grimlock's own Dinobots trick him by building a snowman of Shockwave is my kind of Transformers story. I like the serious, epic, angsty Transformers all right, but I also like the silly stuff that leavens it, and here we get a deliciously concentrated dose of it.

from Transformers #268

"Flashkcab!", from Transformers #268 (5 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by John Marshall, inks by Stephen Baskerville, letters by Glib

 

What's that, Megatron has a time machine and is attempting to rewrite the events of the Underbase saga? Okay, sure. With five pages per story, Furman can't waste time on setting things up... or ever using these concepts ever again! This one is maybe overdoing the exciting standalone adventure thing, but it's fine.

 

"Mystery!", from Transformers #269 (12 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton, inks by Pete Venters, letters by Glib

 

An Autobot arrives at the Earthforce base and discovers something terrible has happened to Wheeljack... only to realize it's all an incredibly complicated misunderstanding. Goofy fun.

from Transformers #270

"The Bad Guy's Ball!", from Transformers #270 (19 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton, inks by Michael Eve, letters by Glib

 

There's been a Decepticon Civil War brewing, Shockwave versus Megatron, so the Decpticons call an "enclave" (should be "conclave," surely?) to settle who should be in charge. One of my favorite stories in this run: the whole idea of a Decepticon cease-fire social meet is a delight, and then the Autobots show up to cause problems in secret, preventing the two sides from reaching an accord. The only thing I don't like is I feel like this could be a premise for a whole twenty-page issue! Imagine this in the hands of James Roberts.

"The Living Nightlights!", from Transformers #271 (26 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by John Marshall, inks by Stephen Baskerville, letters by Helen Stone

 

Dumb, contrived story about Decepticon-made evil toys. Okay, not every "goofy fun" story is a winner... but you know, it's only five pages long at worst!

 

from Transformers #274

"Cry Wolf!" / "Wolf in the Fold!" / "Where Wolf?", from Transformers #272-74 (2-16 June 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Staz, and Jeff Anderson; inks by Michael Eve, Staz, and Stephen Baskerville; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

 

This three-part tale returns attention to the "Survivors," the group of Autobots and Decepticons who struck out on their own. In this one, ex-Decepticon Carnivac decides to revenge himself on the Mayhem Attack Squad; it's a fun story about Carnivac doing his own thing while working alongside the Autobots, and how he humiliates Bludgeon by not killing him. All of the Survivors tales have been good, and this one is no exception; the story also links up the Survivors with Earthforce. 

 

"Secrets" / "Bugged!" / "Internal Affairs!", from Transformers #275-77 (23 June–7 July 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Jeff Anderson, and Simon Coleby; inks by Pete Venters and Michael Eve; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

 

These three stories shift the focus to the Decepticons, and they are all pretty fun. First, it turns out Soundwave is spying on Megatron for Shockwave, but he plays on a fellow Decepticon's paranoia to throw suspicion off himself in a masterful move. Then Starscream makes his own play, uniting with Soundwave to depose both Megatron and Shockwave. It's so complicated you've got to love it.

 

from Transformers #280

"The House That Wheeljack Built!" / "Divide and Conquer!" / "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!" / "Makin' Tracks!", from Transformers #278-81 (14 July–4 Aug. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Staz, and Jeff Anderson; inks by Michael Eve and Jeff Anderson; letters by Glib, Stuart Bartlett, and Sophie Heath

 

More goofy fun in "The House That Wheeljack Built": Wheeljack shows off the new Earthbase's automated defense systems... only everyone is outside the base, and you can only deactivate them from the inside, meaning everyone has to battle their way in! I also enjoyed "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!", where Optimus comes on an inspection tour at the same time Slag develops one of his periodic compulsions to murder everyone he knows(!), so Grimlock has to distract Optimus in the foreground while the other Dinobots keep subduing Slag in the background. Low farce, surely.

 

On the other hand, "Makin' Tracks" is similar but didn't work for me. In this case, the dead Tracks is being revived... but Grimlock hates Tracks so much he tries to kill him off again. I feel like this one went a bit too far... also, who the hell is Tracks? I don't even remember this guy or his beef with Grimlock. Plus the small art of these Titan digests made it hard to understand what was going on at the climax.

 

from Transformers #282

"Shut Up!"/ "Manoeuvres!", from Transformers #282-83 (11-18 Aug. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz and Pete Knifton & Pete Venters, letters by Gary Gilbert and Sophie Heath

 

"Shut Up!" is another great story, one that could pretty much only work as a five-pager: the Mayhem Attack Squad intimidate Red Alert into letting them out of the cell on Earthbase by not talking! "Manouvres!" is one that made little impression, on the other hand.

 

"Assassins" / "External Forces!" / "The Lesser Evil!", from Transformers #284-86 (25 Aug.–8 Sept. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Jeff Anderson, Pete Knifton, and John Marshall; inks by Michael Eve, Pete Venters, and Jeff Anderson; letters by Stuart Bartlett, Julie Hughes, and Peri Godbold

 

More on the complicated shenanigans of the Decepticon civil war. Shockwave and Megatron team up to assassinate Starscream, making it look like Soundwave is responsible; the Mayhem Attack Squad attempts to kill Starscream and Soundwave; the Autobats have to save Starscream because they need a transfusion from him to defeat an illness Snarl has (we saw this illness in a flash-forward story in the 1990 annual). Enjoyable, but alas this is end of this plotline as the book itself is almost over. Shame, because I think there was a lot of mileage in it.

 

from Transformers #287

"Inside Story!" / "Front Line!" / "End of the Road!", from Transformers #287-89 (15-29 Sept. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton and Staz, inks by Pete Venters and Staz letters by Stuart Bartlett and Gary Gilbert

And here it all comes to an end, with honestly a pretty mediocre set of stories about a journalist trying to write a story about the Transformers. You'd think the giant robots tearing up the Earth would be bigger news than this story implies.

It's a shame this was it, because 1) these stories were boring, and 2) the Earthforce premise could clearly have gone on forever. I enjoyed it a lot on the whole. Sure, no big epics any more, but lots of character stuff and lots of jokes. I think this run was just as influential on James Roberts in its own way as the earlier, more epic, UK storylines.

from Transformers Annual 1991

"The Magnificent Six!", from Transformers Annual [1991]

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, art by Louise Cassell

 

The 1991 annual only contained one original story, so it wasn't worth buying (as I did the 1990 edition), but I realized you could get the story on the Internet Archive. This text story has six Autobots sent on a mission to Cybertron, only for five of them it's a return to the site of their greatest failure. This is an above-average text story about the traumas of war; it also felt to me like there was a straight line from this to Last Stand of the Wreckers; Megadeath is surely a proto-Overlord. 

(This mostly features the set of characters resurrected in ...Perchance to Dream; I would suggest it goes after that story, before they are deployed to Earth in "Starting Over!")

 

"Another Time & Place", from Transformers Annual [1992], reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Staz, inks by Lesley Dalton, colour by Caroline Steeden

 

The last UK-original story is another text piece, this one set years after the end of the US strip. It's certainly the best text story the UK annuals ever did, with a mournful Optimus and a Grimlock keen to recapture old glories. So many have died, so many have changed. How can you make peace work? Again, it's hard to not see IDW's run foreshadowed here; this is the kind of think we saw explored a lot in Robots in Disguise and More than Meets the Eye. I liked this a surprising amount; I look forward to reading it someday with the full context of the US stories it follows up on.

 

This post is the forty-ninth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Cybermen: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
42. The Phantom Piper
43. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2
44. The Clockwise War
45. Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War
46. Skywatch-7
47. Mistress of Chaos
48. Transformers: Aspects of Evil! and Other Stories
    

Reading Speedy in Oz Aloud to My Son

Speedy in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by John R. Neill

There's a game you can play when you read a Ruth Plumly Thompson Oz novel: which L. Frank Baum book did she reread before writing it? In some cases this is very obvious: she must have reread The Marvelous Land of Oz before writing Lost King and Patchwork Girl before writing Ojo in Oz. In other cases, it's not so obvious but you can make a good argument for it: some small details in Pirates in Oz, for example, make it seem as though Thompson had recently reread Rinkitink in Oz.

Originally published: 1934
Acquired: April 2023
Read aloud: May–June 2023

Along those lines, I would like to suggest that before writing Speedy in Oz, Thompson must have read not an Oz book, but one by L. Frank Baum nonetheless: Sky Island. The obvious link is that both novels largely take place on floating islands. But I would argue it goes beyond this: Speedy in Oz does something that I think is unique in the annals of Thompson's Oz novels, and almost unique in terms of Oz stories more broadly... it all takes place in a single location! This is a Thompson novel without a single "irrelevant enclave"; like Sky Island, the novel is about our protagonists being in a particular place and needing to solve the problems of that place in order to solve their own problems. I don't think there's any other Oz novel like it, though I can think of some that come close, albeit none of them by Thompson (e.g., Ozma of Oz, Scarecrow of Oz, Glinda of Oz).

But let's set the stage. Speedy in Oz (which surely ought to have been called something like The Umbrella Island of Oz, let's be honest) brings back Speedy, the boy protagonist from Yellow Knight, who my four-year-old son did not even remember even though we read it only six months / four books ago, but that didn't really matter. Speedy comes across a dinosaur skeleton in Yellowstone, which has been excavated by a paleontologist. Speedy and his inventor uncle reassemble it... right on top of a geyser! When the geyser erupts, Speedy and the skeleton are thrown into the air, and the force of the blast fuses the bones of the skeleton back together... and grants it life!? They fly through the air for hours before finally landing on Umbrella Island. My wife was listening as I read this bit aloud and she expressed her disbelief. There's no explanation given as to why something seemingly magical would take place, and indeed, later the characters seem fairly certain that if the dinosaur (who gets named Terrybubble) returned to America, its life would cease again. I think by this point Thompson had kind of given up on putting thought into how people got to Oz; to write an Oz book, you have to get some young American there fairly promptly and your audience knows and expects that, so why waste time explaining it too much? And you've got to have some kind of living animal or other grotesque, so why put too much work into explaining that either? (It hangs better together than in Giant Horse, where a living statue in America falls through the ground and somehow ends up in the Munchkin country.)

Umbrella Island, however, has been having problem. Asleep at the wheel, King Sizzeroo crashed it into the giant Loxo the Lucky, and Loxo has demanded Sizzeroo's daughter (who he thinks is a boy), the princess Gureeda (as in "go read a book," since that's all she does), in recompense; the island has six months to cough her up, and Loxo has a magic magnet that can pull the island back to him no matter where it flees. But when Speedy lands on the island, one of Sizzeroo's advisors notices that if dressed in similar clothes, Speedy could pass for Gureeda... so why not convince him to live on the island and hand him over instead? So Speedy and Terrybubble begin to integrate themselves into life on the island but there's this undercurrent of threat in the background.

It all works brilliantly, I would say. Thompson loves her small kingdoms with childlike rulers and comedy advisors (sometimes good and sometimes evil; see Pumperdink, Mudge, Ragbad, Kimbaloo, Rash, Patch, and many many more), but setting a whole novel in the same one lets her flesh out its dimensions and characters, none is wholly good or wholly bad, and certainly my son was able to keep track of the various advisors for one of the first times (with the occasional nudge). Terrybubble is a great animal character; he's a giant dinosaur skeleton... but all he wants to be is Speedy's loyal dog! There's some good problem-solving, something Thompson sometimes neglects in her novels; here, Umbrella Island crash-lands in the Nonestic Ocean and the steering mechanism seizes up... with Umbrella Island stuck right between the warring islands of Roaraway and Norroway. So it's up to Speedy to come up with a way to save the island, not knowing that even if he does, the islanders will do him in. Pansy the Watchcat is another of Thompson's fun rhyming animal characters. (Shades of Sky Island's rhyming parrot, actually!) There's even an undercurrent of romance to the whole thing, as Speedy is falling for Gureeda, but also frustrated with her bookish ways.

In the end, Terrybubble overhears the king and his advisor discussing the plan, and steals away with Speedy and Gureeda in the night, only to inadvertently land right on Big Enough Mountain, home of Loxo. My one complaint is that Speedy plays little role in the climax of the book bearing his name, but maybe his moment of heroism with Roarway is enough to counteract that.

The whole thing has a very different tone and feel to other Thompson novels, and both me and my son really enjoyed it. In fact, it was Thompson's favorite of her own books; I think my favorite is probably still Kabumpo, but this would come in second.

Certainly our enjoyment was enhanced by the edition we read being an International Wizard of Oz Club facsimile of the original Reilly & Lee; this was far better than the SeaWolfs and Del Reys we've been reading for most Thompson. Excellent color plates as always from John R. Neill, and when reproduced at proper size, his black-and-white illustrations add so much liveliness to the world of the text. My son was so happy to have color pictures for the first time in a long while, and we spent a bit of time flipping back and forth through them. The Oz Club is out of copies of Speedy, but I found it pretty easy to get a reasonably priced used copy on the secondary market. Alas, I think we have just one Oz book with color pictures to go (the Oz Club's edition of Wishing Horse), because starting with Captain Salt, the originals were black and white to begin with.

It ends on a melancholy note: Speedy would be welcome to stay on Umbrella Island, but feels he has to return home to hand over the schematics of Roaraway's water gun to his inventor uncle. It is, after all, 1934 and there is a war coming. If I've got my sums right, Speedy would be about eighteen when war actually does break out (for America, anyway) in 1941 and thus eligible to join the Navy as he desires here. I understand there's an Oziana short story about Speedy returning to Umbrella Island, but I find myself curious about what kind of adventures he might have had in the real world as an adult.

But, the narrator tells us that Umbrella Island flies into the outside world sometimes, Terrybubble leaning over the edge to see if he can find Speedy once again, rope ladder lowered so he can climb aboard. It's a bit sad to imagine Terrybubble forever pining for his lost master, but the narrator says probably Speedy will return and become king one day. However, the narrator says that if you see the island float over your house one night, then you should climb right up the rope ladder. 

"Dad!" my son exclaimed upon hearing this, "Oz is real!"

And indeed, in Speedy, it really does feel like it is.

Next up in sequence: The Wishing Horse of Oz

Temeraire by Naomi Novik, Books 1-3: His Majesty's Dragon / Throne of Jade / Black Powder War

Temeraire: In the Service of the King: His Majesty's Dragon / Throne of Jade / Black Powder War
by Naomi Novik

I've been intrigued by the idea of the Temeraire series ever since I first heard of it—the Napoleonic War with dragons!—but never got around to reading it. I think I even checked the first couple out of the library when I was in college but had to return them before I read them. Having subsequently read and enjoyed Naomi Novik's Scholomance books and Spinning Silver, I wanted to read them even more. I was given a Temeraire book for Christmas... somewhat inexplicably, book nine of nine! So looking to fill in the rest of the series first, I discovered there was an omnibus of the first three novels from the late, lamented Science Fiction Book Club with a beautiful painted wraparound dustjacket by Todd Lockwood, and I picked it up.

Published: 2006
Acquired and read: March 2023

Periodically when reading these books, I would turn to my wife and make a remark along the lines of, "These were made for me." I have long been a fan of the Horatio Hornblower television show and novels as well as the Master and Commander film (haven't gotten around to those novels yet). It would be impossible to overstate how absolutely perfect Novik is at capturing the vibe of Napoleonic naval fiction—only, you know, it's got dragons in it. The worldbuilding totally convinces because everything totally convinces. Even before you get to dragons, the series utterly captures that world of duty and obligation and cruelty. Every time some new wrinkle was introduced, I thought to myself, "Yes, if there really were dragons during the Napoleonic Wars, that's exactly how it would be," such as when she explores the rivalry between aviators and sailors in the second book, Throne of Jade. The idea that dragons would require whole crews, not just single riders, is clever and makes for a lot of interesting dynamics.

The first book is strong, mostly serving to set up the world, characters, and situation: Will Laurence is captain of HMS Reliant, but circumstances mean he ends up bonded to a newly hatched dragon, Temeraire, and so he must give up the career he has spent his entire life in and discover an entirely different way of living. We discover the world of dragons and aviators through the eyes of Laurence, and we also experience the developing bond between aviator and dragon. I was genuinely moved by a passage where Laurence and Temeraire are almost tricked into giving each other up Laurence ends up telling Temeraire, "I would rather have you than any ship in the Navy."

It would be easy for a series like this to just be formulaic adventures. I expected it to be nine volumes of fighting Bonaparte, even if I also expected it to be good. But the series impresses in two ways as it develops across the first three books, and I imagine it will continue to go further in both areas. The first is that Novik broadens the canvas: the second novel sees Laureance and Temeraire journey to China on a British dragon transport, so we see what China and bits of the British Empire are like in the world; the third has them travel overland from China to Turkey, and then into continental Europe, expanding the world even more. The other is that many dragonrider fictions* make their dragons sentient... and then just have them happily serve their masters without complaint. The Temeraire books actually explore this, as Temeraire has a growing awareness across these three books of the ways in which he is not free, and in which he and his people are given little in the way of choice. Why should a human make a choice but a dragon be constrained? But at the same time the exigencies of war press heavily upon Captain Laurence. How can dragons make a push for freedom when all of Europe is in peril?

I enjoyed all three books collected here. As I already said, His Majesty's Dragon is a solid series opener. The long journey to China in Throne of Jade was fascinating, and the navigating of Chinese politics pulled together a lot of stuff in a clever way. The overland journey in Black Powder War was tense, and I really enjoyed the novel's second half, as Laurence, Temeraire, and crew are swept up in a series of devastating battles in continental Europe was utterly gripping, compelling reading. I am taking a bit of a break before going onto book four, but I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Every ten months I read an installment of Temeraire. Next up in sequence: Empire of Ivory

* I keep meaning to figure this out: who was it who invented the idea of the dragonrider. Was it Anne McCaffrey in Pern, or did it have some kind of predecessor I'm unaware of?

Doctor Who: Royal Blood by Una McCormack

Doctor Who: The Glamour Chronicles: Royal Blood
by Una McCormack

I've been reading my way through the VNAs* and EDAs,† plus related novels, which have mostly been ones featuring Bernice Summerfield. That brought me to the NSA‡ Big Bang Generation because it guest-starred Benny. It dawned on me while reading it that Big Bang Generation was the second installment in the Glamour Chronicles trilogy, and that I'd quite like to read the first one as well because it was by Una McCormack, so I added Royal Blood to my list. Properly I ought to have read it before Big Bang Generation (I think, anyway), but too late now.

Published: 2015
Acquired and read: April 2023

Royal Blood feels more like a novella than a novel. Not so much in terms of length (it is probably on the short end for an NSA but not overly so) but in terms of structure. It just doesn't have the kind of complicated structure one might expect from a novel. Instead, the Doctor and Clara kind of turn up, observe what's happening, slightly get involved, and then things come to an end. There are not significant turns in the plot. That's not a criticism per se, it just requires you to calibrate your expectations: this would probably work a bit better in a volume of short fiction than as a $10 book. It's an elegaic story about the end of civilizations and the clash of colonizer and colonized and holding true to one's values.

McCormack is generally quite good at exploring this kind of thing, but though I enjoyed the book, I didn't think this was one of her stronger ones. Specifically, the guest characters mostly felt like types rather than people. I wanted to like them, but there just wasn't enough to them, unfortunately. Did we not spend enough time in their heads? Did the short length of the book mean they just didn't have enough to do? I am not sure, but I found them less successful than similar characters in some other McCormack books. I wonder if cutting this down even further would have the answer, make it into a punchy novella in terms of length, and then the level of characterization would feel slightly more appropriate.

What the Glamour is and how it works doesn't really seem to have anything to do with how it was in Big Bang Generation, but this is much more interesting, so I am willing to make that a knock against Gary Russell, not Una McCormack. There is some neat stuff here, the story is of course well told, and it reads quickly. A good NSA, but it's by Una, so I know it could have been a great one.

I read a post–New Doctor Who Adventures novel every three months. Next up in sequence: Bernice Summerfield: True Stories

* Virgin New Adventures
† Eighth Doctor Adventures
‡ New Series Adventures

New Publication: Review of Trixy by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Northwestern University Press, 2019)

Last year, I took on two book reviews; the second, though it has a 2022 publication date, came out this April, though it took me some time to remember to mention it here.

I was approached by the book reviews editor of Legacy: A Journal of American Woman Writers to review a new edition of Trixy, a 1904 antivivisection novel by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, from Northwestern University Press, with introduction and notes by Emily E. VanDette, as well as some contextual material.

Like many antivivisection novels, it's not a great book but it is an intensely interesting one; I found myself wishing it had been written by a Brit so I could use it in the antivivisection chapter of my book. As it is, I will have to slip in a footnote! The novel's scientist character dissects the brains of fifty dogs searching for love... but since he never finds it in them, he concludes love does not exist!

In grad school, one of my friends—who specializes in American women's writing—used to make fun of me by claiming I hated all books by women... so I was kind of smug that I actually got invited to review a book for a journal of American women's writing! If you're interested in science and literature, women's activism, or animal studies in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, it's a very well-timed new edition of a potentially useful old book.

Here's how my review begins:

Originally published in 1904, Trixy is an antivivisection novel by the activist Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Aside from print-on-demand editions, this is the first publication of the novel since 1905. In this new edition, editor Emily E. VanDette reprints the complete text with a forty-page introduction, seven pages of endnotes, and contextual materials.

Trixy is of a piece with other antivivisection novels of the era, pitting a sympathetic female protagonist against a harsh male vivisector and strongly emphasizing dogs in particular as a victim of vivisection. In this case, the sympathetic Miriam Lauriat is wooed by the accomplished young doctor Olin Steele, who, unbeknownst to her, is a vivisector. At the same time, Miriam makes the acquaintance of a young man named Dan and his performing dog, Trixy, who is snatched in order to be made an experimental subject in Steele's laboratory.

Like many other antivivisection novels Trixy associates the danger of vivisection with a danger to women. The threat Steele poses to Miriam is not physical danger but, rather, his possessive attitude toward women. Although as a young trainee he could not bear to see an animal experimented upon, he has by the novel's present time dissected the brains of fifty dogs in his search for the physiological cause of love and concluded that love doesn't exist. He believes that the weak must be sacrificed to the strong and that women must therefore be gained by force. Steele loves Miriam, but his clinical training has destroyed his capacity to understand his feelings. Phelps's novel thus argues that vivisection is dangerous because of the harm it causes not only to innocent animals but also to the vivisector. While this argument is not uncommon, Phelps's emphasis on misogyny and her exploration of the continuity between the animal and the human distinguish her approach within the convention. As a result, the republication of Trixy will be of interest to scholars of feminist activism as well as scientific ethics.

Legacy is a paywalled journal, but if you have access to Project MUSE, you can read the full review here.

Transformers UK #215–18, 223–27, 235–54: Aspects of Evil! and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 48)

I had thought that I would intersperse my Titan reprints of Marvel UK's Transformers comics among my Doctor Who Magazine graphic novels. I knew I wouldn't read them at quite the same rate... but I did not anticipate just how long it would take me to read them all, because I did not realize how difficult they would be to track down!

It took me almost six months to my hands on a copy of Aspects of Evil! First, I almost ordered the wrong book, because the Transformers wiki gives the wrong ISBN for Aspects of Evil!; I actually bought and paid for a copy of Fallen Star, but (thankfully, I guess) the Amazon seller was a scammer who didn't actually have the book (and did refund me when confronted). But then when I put the correct ISBN into Bookfinder... I couldn't find it anywhere! It wasn't that the book was going for insanely high prices, it was that it just wasn't being sold anywhere at all on the whole Internet.

After a few months, my saved search on eBay finally paid off, but I was outbid at the last moment. I began considering other options, like posting a desperate plea on the Transformers trading subreddit or actually paying the insane prices to import the Hachette collections of the relevant issues, when finally Aspects of Evil! was posted on eBay again, this time as a pair with Fallen Star, which I actually did need. I think this helped me win, as I was willing to pay a decent price with the knowledge that I would end up with two different books; someone tried to snipe me at the last minute, but didn't beat the maximum bid I had set.

from Transformers #216

So, after a huge delay, I was finally able to finish off Marvel UK's original Transformers comics. These all come from the era when the strip had moved into shorter, black-and-white strips, but I was able to supplement a bit with some recent collections from IDW that took a couple of these strips and colorize them. This post covers the first half of that black-and-white run, though it jumps around a bit and overlaps with my previous post on it (see #28 in the long list at the bottom of this post).

Race with the Devil, from Transformers #215-18 (29 Apr.–20 May 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Glib and Hel

This story is okay. A group of Autobots called the Triggerbots is assigned to shadow some Decepticon mercenaries, Darwking and Dreadwind; it turns out that the mercenaries are trying to recover Starscream's corpse, since it contains the Underbase, the collected knowledge of the Transformer race. (This is all due to the Underbase saga, from the US book.) Starscream kind of becomes a zombie and the Triggerbots stop him and save some humans. I guess if I ever could remember who the Triggerbots were, I might have cared about this more.

from Transformers #223

Aspects of Evil!, from Transformers #223-27 (24 June–22 July 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Jeff Anderson, Art Wetherell, Andy Wildman, Lee Sullivan, and Simon Coleby; inks by Jeff Anderson, Simon Coleby, Andy Wildman, Lee Sullivan, and Cam Smith; letters by Helen Stone and Glib

 

We're back in the future timeline of Transformers, but in a different way. This five-part story is a set of five vignettes, framed by a dying Rodimus Prime in the year 2356 telling stories of various evils he has encountered to a student eager to learn of Unicron, but on the way, Rodimus tells him of Scorponok in 1991, Galvatron in 2009, Shockwave in 2004, and Megatron in 1990. Thus, we get glimpses all up an down the future timeline (which itself has been rewritten, thanks to the Time Wars) with tales set both before and after the 1986 film (set in 2006).

 

I found this fairly effective. Up until this point, the short black-and-white stories had clearly been scripted for the original longer format and then had their installments cut in half. Here, writer Simon Furman is figuring out the format that drive the book from here on out, telling small but sharp stories. I liked how Scorponock manipulated Rodimus's morality to his advantage during a Decepticon civil war; I liked the brutality of Megatron dealing with a traitor. The only one that didn't work was the last one... you can't cram Unicron into a five-page tale and convince me that he is the ultimate evil!

from Transformers #235

 

Deathbringer, from Transformers #235-36 (16-23 Sept. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior and Staz, letters by Glib, colors by John-Paul Bove

 

Another okay story, one that doesn't use the format as well as Aspects of Evil! Basically, the Autobots encounter a mechanoid animated by a fragment of the Matrix (which was lost in space back when Optimus died), and Optimus angsts about it. I never care much for angsty Optimus, and this story is no exception.

from Transformers #238

"Way of the Warrior" / "Survival Run" / "A Savage Place!", from Transformers #237-39 (30 Sept.–15 Oct. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Simon Coleby, Lee Sullivan, and Geoff Senior; letters by Glib and Helen Stone

 

This follows up on the Survivors, the group of Autobots, along with the Decepticons Catilla and Carnivac, who struck out on their own when cut off from Autobot High Command. The Mayhem Attack Squad is trying to hunt down and punish the two Deception traitors; the story mostly focuses on Carnivac, who refuses to recognize Autobot authority but also begrudgingly finds himself doing the right thing and in a desperate stand for his own survival. Decepticon-turned-"good" is one of my favorite Transformers tropes, and this is a good example of it. The middle installment illustrated by Lee Sullivan, with Carnivac crawling through the desert, is particularly effective.

from Transformers #240

 

"Out to Lunch!", from Transformers #240 (21 Oct. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Annie Halfacree

 

This is a good example of the vignette-focused approach of this era of the UK strip. Back in Race with the Devil, Dreadwind and Darkwing were working for Megatron, but he had (kind of) died, so this follows up on what they get up to next now that Thunderwing is in charge of the Decepticons. Here, they're hanging out in a bar on Cybertron, but it's attacked by Mecannibals... only they're too drunk and self-pitying to notice! So the story cuts between them and the desperate attempts of an Autobot agent to stop the Mecannibals from eating everyone. Fun stuff, exactly what you should do in a five-page Transformers comic, I reckon.

 

"Rage! / "Assault on the Ark!", from Transformers #241-42 (28 Oct.–4 Nov. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Stuart Bartlett

 

These two tales jump back a bit to explain more of how Thunderwing ascended to power, following up on The Big Shutdown! They're fine but I kind of didn't really care. 

 

"Mind Games", from Transformers #243 (11 Nov. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, letters by Annie Halfacree

 

It's hard to talk about this story without getting into the weeds on continuity. Basically, when Simon Furman took over the US book, he decided he wanted to recurrect Megatron. But Megatron had already been resurrected in the UK book. He didn't want to alienate US readers by suddenly revealing Megatron had already been resurrected, so he wrote a story for the UK strip explaining that what everyone had thought was a resurrected Megatron was actually a clone of Megatron created by Straxus. (Chronologically, this goes before most of what I've reviewed above; see the note at the end of this post.) Anyway, not much happens here; it's mostly to set up the next story.

 

from Transformers #244

"Two Megatrons!", from Transformers #244 (18 Nov. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior; letters by Glib, colored by John-Paul Bove

 

The "real" Megatron and the clone Megatron battle it out. Transformers fans have written whole dissertations on how this causes more problems than it solves, continuity-wise, but if you ignore all that, this is a great story with a perfect climax. Megatron is dead, love live Megatron!

 

"Underworld!" / "Demons!" / "Dawn of Darkness", from Transformers #245-47 (25 Nov.–9 Dec. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Jeff Anderson and Geoff Senior; letters by Helen Stone, Annie Halfacree, and Glib

 

To be honest, I completely forgot about this story until I went to write it up right now. I guess some Transformers battle robot zombies in sewers? Not really my thing.

from Transformers #248

"Fallen Star!", from Transformers #248 (16 Dec. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Helen Stone

 

Another vignette, this one focused on Starscream who, thanks to events in the US book, has been brought back to life... but is feeling like he's lost his mojo in the process. But then he realizes that maybe after all, he's still got it. Told in the first person, this is a fun story of Starscream at his best. (Well, worst.) Nicely done.

 

from Transformers #249

"Whose Lifeforce Is It Anway?" / "The Greatest Gift of All!", from Transformers #249-50 (23-30 Dec. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, letters by Stuart Bartlett and Helen Stone

 

Two linked stories, both pretty okay. Not as forgettable as some of these, but not the best either. In the first, we see an Autobot walrus robot named Longtooth. Long enough, Optimus Prime bequeathed a fragment of the Matrix to him to use to save a dying comrade... but the cowardly Longtooth kept it for himself. Guilt has since made him suicidal in battle, but all his fellow Autobots think he's just very brave. This I think is a good set-up for a story, but really all that happens is he just suddenly decides to send the Matrix fragment (anonymously) back to Earth so Optimus can make use of it. Not much of a story. In the second one, Optimus thinks about using the fragment to bring back some dead Autobots, but ends up using it to revitalize a part of Earth damaged ecologically by the Transformers' war. It's fine, you know. More Optimus angst.

from Transformers Annual 1990

"The Quest!" / "Destiny of the Dinobots!" / "Trigger-Happy!" / "Dreadwing Down!" / "The Chain Gang!", from The Transformers Annual [1990]

stories by Steve Alan (with Steve White), Ian Rimmer, Simon Furman, and Dan Abnett; art by Andy Wildman, Art Wetherell, Stephen Baskerville, and Dan Reed; colour by Steve White and Euan Peters; letters by Glib; dinosaur consultation by Steve White

 

The 1990 Transformers Annual (by which I mean the one published in 1989) contains, as they usually do, a mix of comic and prose stories. The UK produced two more after this, but this was the last one with a substantive amount of original content. "The Quest!" is a dull text story designed to recap Transformers history, but most of what's left is decent stuff. "Destiny of the Dinobots!" is a tragic glimpse of the future of the Dinobots (seemingly set after the "Earthforce" run I'll discuss in my next Transformers post); "Dreadwing Down!" and "The Chain Gang!" are two decent action-focused tales. I also enjoyed "Trigger-Happy!", a two-part text story about Backstreet, an Autobot who screws up so much he goes on the run rather than be punished by Optimus... but thankfully it's all a big misunderstanding.

from Transformers #254

"The Void!" / "Edge of Impact" / "Shadow of Evil", from Transformers #251-53 (6-20 Jan. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Staz and Cam S; letters by Glib and Annie Halfacree

 

These are the first three installments of the last-ever future timeline story, detailing what Rodimus, Arcee, and Kup do after their defeat by Galvatron back in Aspects of Evil! It's all very moody, as some kind of enemy is stalking the Autobots on their escape vessel... but to be honest, I don't particularly care for how downbeat the future stories have become. The future was never cheery per se, but since the Autobots defeated Unicron, it feels like it's just fallback after fallback, and Rodimus Prime deserves better.

"White Fire", from Transformers #254 (27 Jan. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Best of Hot Road #1 (IDW, May 2022)

script by Simon Furman, art by Cam Smith, letters by Stuart Bartlett, colors by John-Paul Bove

 

And finally the future timeline comes to an end here, in a story where Rodimus almost defeats Unicron... but Kup screws things up so that the Matrix will be eternally corrupted. Good job, heroes! I don't like the direction the future stories were going in, so I am glad it all got cut off here, to be honest.

 

A Quick Note on Chronology

from Transformers #241

Suffice it to say that this era of the strip is very confusing chronologically, with the UK stories jumping around a lot relative to the US stories and even themselves. I'll make a post later with more details, but here's how the above stories go chronologically, by my reckoning anyway. I've included US stories and UK stories not covered in this post for context; stories actually discussed here are in bold. I've omitted the future timeline stories from this list.

1. US #53: "Recipe for Disaster!"
2. UK #215-18: Race with the Devil
3. UK #219-22, 229, 232-33: Survivors! / "The Hunting Party!" / A Small War!
4. UK #243-44: "Mind Games" / "Two Megatrons!"
5. UK #230-31: The Big Shutdown!
6. UK #241-42: "Rage!" / "Assault on the Ark!"
7. US #54: "King Con!"
8. UK #235-36: Deathbringer!
9. US #55: "The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship!"
10. UK #228: "[Double] Deal of the Century!"
11. UK #237-39: "Way of the Warrior" / "Survival Run" / "A Savage Place!"
12. US #56-59: "Back from the Dead" / "The Resurrection Gambit!" / "All the Familiar Faces!" / "Skin Deep"
13. UK #240, 245-48: "Out to Lunch!" / "Underworld!" / "Demons!" / "Dawn of Darkness" / "Fallen Star!"
14. US #60-61: "Yesterday's Heroes!" / "The Primal Scream"
15. UK #249-50: "Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?" / "The Greatest Gift of All"
16. Annual 1990: "The Chain Gang!"
17. US #62-66: Matrix Quest
    

This post is the forty-eighth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers issues #255–89 of Transformers UK. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
42. The Phantom Piper
43. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2
44. The Clockwise War
45. Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War
46. Skywatch-7
47. Mistress of Chaos