13 October 2026

Marvel's The Transformers Year Three, Part IV: Grudge Match! (US #31 / UK #128-29 & 132-38)

As I did in my previous post with Headmasters #1, I've placed issue #2 of the miniseries by release order, so before issue #32 of the regular US series. In the UK, the events of the miniseries were retold in the 1987 annual in a series of a three prose stories; the Til All Are One compendia place them all in volume four with the out-of-continuity annual stories. I'm choosing to read them alongside the stories they retell, so I read the first two after Headmasters #2.

Other than that, my tweaks to the compendium's sequence were small. Like me, the compendium puts "Ark Duty" from the 1987 annual between "Kup's Story" and Headhunt. My quibble is that it puts another 1987 annual story, "What's in a Name?", after Grudge Match!, when it clearly reads better before Grudge Match. Sure, it takes place during part one of Grudge Match, but it provides backstory for it!

"Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom" / "Kup's Story" / "Ark Duty" / Headhunt / "What's in a Name?" / Grudge Match! / Ladies' Night / "Broken Glass!", from The Transformers US #31 (Aug. 1987) & Headmasters #2 (Sept. 1987) / The Transformers UK #128-29 & 132-38 (29 Aug.–5 Sept. & 26 Sept.–7 Nov. 1987) and The Transformers Annual [1987]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, Simon Furman[, and Ian Rimmer]; breakdowns/pencils by Don Perlin, Dan Reed, [Will Simpson,] Geoff Senior, Jeff Anderson, and Frank Springer; finishes/inks by Jim Fern, Dan Reed, Geoff Senior, Elliot, Baskerville, and Ian Akin & Brian Garvey; lettered by Rick Parker, Annie Halfacree, Starkings, and Pat Brosseau; colored by Nel Yomtov, Steve White, Euan Peters, and Abadzis

from The Transformers US #31
On the one hand, "Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom" is a terrible story. This is quite obviously the point where Bob Budiansky has run out of ideas and is no longer worried if things make sense or not. The Decepticon plan is to send across the spacebridge from Cybertron machines that look like carwashes but actually mind-control their users into driving their cars to G. B. Blackrock's fuel depot, where their extra gas is unloaded so the Decepticons can convert it into energon. If you can mind-control G. B. Blackrock, owner of an enormous national fuel company, surely there is a better way to obtain fuel than through such a convoluted workaround!

On the other hand, Uncle Bob is always at his best when doing the stuff with the human characters, and this is a great showcase for Buster, Jesse, and Sparkplug; it feels like a while since we've last seen them in action, particularly Jesse. So while the story totally falls apart if you think about it for a second, it's an enjoyable read from moment to moment. And though the series is becoming more overcrowded with new Transformer characters with every issue, Decepticon fuel auditor Ratbat is one of Budianky's most inspired creations.

Next, we have three stories focused on the movie cast, particularly Kup and Rodimus Prime nee Hot Rod: "Kup's Story" shows us how they first met centuries ago, "Ark Duty" shows us the two of them between the present day and the events of the movie (when Autobot City is under construction), and Headhunt has Rodimus battling Death's Head in the post-movie era. I'm very fond of both of these characters, and these stories make a surprisingly effective trilogy about Hot Rod's growing sense of responsibility and Kup's role in encouraging it. (It is kind of weird that in Headhunt, we get an explanation for why Hot Rod's Nebulan partner is no longer around... but we haven't even gotten to the introduction of Hot Rod's Nebulan partner in the Headmasters stories yet!)

from The Transformers UK #137
"What's in a Name?" and Grudge Match make a decent Dinobots story; Ladies' Night is kind of silly (Simon Furman brings together three human women side characters from different stories), but clearly important to the ongoing plot. I do like the idea that both Autobots and Decepticons recognize that Galvatron must be destroyed at all costs.

Lastly, we have the second issue of Headmasters. The whole setup is clearly so ridiculously contrived to make the toys work that I can never believe in it. Look, I know this is part and parcel of The Transformers as a concept, but Headmasters is just a bridge too far for me. (Like a lot of bad Transformers concepts, such as combiners, it overloads the story with characters; in this case, every Headmaster must have both an Autobot and a Nebulan, and neither gets much focus.) 

"Doomsday for Nebulos" / "Stylor's Story", from The Transformers Annual [1987], reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
[written by Ian Rimmer]

from The Transformers Annual [1987]
To my surprise, these turned out to be pretty good. These two text stories retell the events of Headmasters #2 (with the events of issue #1 briefly recapped), though they read like they were written by someone going from memory or a vague outline, not from the actual published stories. They're uncredited, but Ian Rimmer later claimed credit for the writing in an interview. Rimmer's smart move is to bring out character: the first story is largely told from the third-person perspective of villain Lord Zarak and the second from the first-person perspective of Stylor, one of the first Headmasters. The basic idea of the Headmasters is still dumb (and seems even more obviously contrived in prose than in comics form) but Rimmer does his best to get you to swallow it.

This is the thirteenth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #32 & 35-36 and UK issues #138-50. Previous installments are listed below:
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