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27 October 2026

Marvel's The Transformers Year Four, Part I: Enemy Action! (US #37-39 / UK #130-31, 142-45, & 151-59)

Here, we come to the end of the Headmasters miniseries. Even though #4 came out before #37 of the regular series, I place it afterwards because that's where it goes chronologically.

My other big change in this sequence is the placement of Worlds Apart!, a UK story from issues #130-31. In the UK, this was run to hype up the Headmasters (I think because the Headmasters miniseries wasn't ready yet); it's a standalone story about the Headmasters on Nebulos. Chronologically, though, it probably goes during Headmasters #4 (though it's not a perfect fit), so I read it after finishing that issue, around 25 issues out of sequence in UK terms!

The Legacy of Unicron!, Part 6 / Enemy Action! / "Toy Soldiers!" / "Brothers in Armor!!" / Worlds Apart!, from The Transformers US #37 (Feb. 1988) and Headmasters #4 (Jan. 1988) / The Transformers UK #130-31 (12-19 Sept. 1987), 142-45 (5-26 Dec. 1987), & 150-55 (6 Feb.–5 Mar. 1988); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
scripts by Simon Furman and Bob Budiansky; pencils by Bryan Hitch, Jeff Anderson, José Delbo, Frank Springer, and Will Simpson; inking by Bryan Hitch (with Geoff Senior), Baskerville, Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, and Tim Perkins; letters by Starkings, Glib, Bill Oakley, Jack Morelli, Annie H; colour by Steve White, Nel Yomtov
 
from The Transformers UK #151
The Legacy of Unicron has an okay finish; like I said in my comments on parts 1-5, it feels like kind of a mistake if Death's Head is functionally the protagonist of your Transformers story. Rodimus does some stuff here... but mostly because Death's Head tells him to! But that problem will never happen again, because the story ends with Death's Head, Cyclonus, and Scourge falling through a time portal. Death's Head will never appear in a Transformers story again, because the portal takes him to the Doctor Who universe, where he meets the Doctor in the DWM story The Crossroads of Time.
 
Cyclonus and Scourge travel to Cybertron in the past, neatly explaining how in the US Headmasters stories they are part of the Decepticon contingent under Scorponok's command in 19680s while in the UK stories (which followed the lead of the movie) they weren't even created until 2006. It's kind of a bummer, though, because I enjoyed their characters in the future-set stories, and now they're just two among many Targetmasters.
 
from The Transformers UK #152
This is followed by Enemy Action!, a UK story about Galvatron attacking the Decepticons' underwater base in an effort to seize command. The best part of the story is the tension between Galvatron and the current leader of the Decepticons' Earth forces, Shockwave; the worst part of it is it's clearly one of those stories designed to incorporate a bunch of new toys into the comics at once, and so it features like a dozen new characters all at the same time, most of whom I suspect we'll never hear from again.
 
Then we get a set of stories all about the Headmasters. It begins with a prologue where I.I.I., the US intelligence organization, tries to execute a group of captured Autobots. This is stymied when Walter Barnett is capable of removing their brain modules and installing them in remote control toy cars! It beggars belief even for Trasformers, but what's worse, is that it means the Autobots are pretty much bystanders in their own story. The story ends with Goldbug sending a distress signal, which is picked up by the Autobots on Nebulos, allowing us to transition into Headmasters #4. This is a very rushed story that both has to feature the debut of the Targetmasters (Transformers where Nebulans transform into their weapons) and both the Autobots and Decepticons leaving Nebulos for Earth. The former part is dumb, like every other aspect of the Head/Targetmasters concept, but the latter is decent. Galen and Lord Zarak essentially agree to throw Earth under the bus to let Nebulos live in peace!
 
from The Transformers UK #131
Like I noted above, I read Worlds Apart! here because that's where it goes chronologically. It's not a perfect fit. Even though it, like all Headmasters stories, inherently has too many characters, you can see Furman trying to make something of the premise in a way that I think Bob Budiansky never quite managed: he really focuses on how the "binary bonding" process in some cases pairs Nebulans and Transformers with very different philosophies.
 
"The Final Conflict", from The Transformers Annual [1987], reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
[written by Ian Rimmer]

This is the last text story retelling the events of the Headmasters miniseries for a UK annual. The first two of these (see post #13 in the list below) were clearly written by someone who had an outline of the events of issues #1-2; the details weren't always right, but the broad strokes were. This story is completely different than Headmasters #4: while the comic ends with the Nebulan Decepticons following the Autobots to Earth, this has the Nebulan Autobots following the Decepticons to Earth! Also, instead of actual Nebulans transforming into the weapons of the Targetmasters, here we have Nebulan engrams being copied into robots that transform into weapons. (I actually find this more plausible, to be honest.) Perhaps because the anonymous writer (probably Ian Rimmer) had to come up with his own plot here, it's less character-focused than the first two parts were, and thus less enjoyable.
 
"Trial by Fire!" / "The Desert Island of Space!", from The Transformers US #38-39 (Mar.-Apr 1988) / The Transformers UK #156-59 (12 Mar.–2 Apr. 1988), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, penciled by José Delbo, inked by Dave Hunt, lettered by Bill Oakley, colored by Nel Yomtov
 
from The Transformers US #38
US issue #38 begins with the Headmasters making it to Earth. The story introduces changes clearly designed to bring the comics in closer alignment to the broader Transformers brand. First, in the Headmasters miniseries, Galen transformed into the head of Fortress Maximus. But I guess the toy worked differently, so now Galen transforms into the head of an Autobot named Cerebros, who then transforms into the head of Fortress Maximus. This is one of those ideas that I'm sure makes for a cool toy, but saddles the comics with unneeded extra characters. I don't think Cerebros even ever says anything. Where did he come from? Why would anyone design this?
 
The other consistency problem was that in the comics, we had Buster Witwicky... but the cartoon, it was Spike Witwicky, and Spike became the head of Cerebros. So here, three years into this comic, we suddenly learn Buster has a previously unmentioned older brother named Spike, who's been away at college! And Buster and his father Sparkplug have apparently neither seen nor talked to him for three years! In short order, Galen (who we spent four whole issues getting to know) is killed off and Spike replaces him as the head of Cerebros.
 
from The Transformers US #39
Obviously, the downside of the narrative consistency of any Transformers story is that it always exists to sell toys and nothing else, but this is a pretty egregious example.
 
Still, there's some fun bits here, mostly in the second part, where Shockwave and Ratbat need to keep Buster alive as a hostage, and the Decepticons' island base turns out to be a rocket ship. But overall, it feels like what Bob Budiansky made work for the first couple years of the comic is slowing being drained out of it.
 
This is the fifteenth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issue #40 and UK issues #160-73. Previous installments are listed below:
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