Marvel's The Transformers Year One, Part II: Raiders of the Last Ark (US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30)

Here, we have the last of the UK stories that supposedly take place during the original four-issue US miniseries, letting us finally wrap up that sequence of stories and then move onto a four-issue run of US stories that is pretty continuous. We then segue into the first UK story that was actually written to fit smoothly into the US continuity. Unlike the kind of jumbled storytelling I covered in the first post in this series, this very much feels like it all goes together; everything is starting to pull in the same direction.

Raiders of the Last Ark / "The Last Stand" / "The New Order" / "The Worse of Two Evils!" / "Warrior School!" / "Repeat Performance!" / Decepticon Dam-Busters!, from The Transformers US #4-8 (Mar.-Sept. 1985) / The Transformers UK #7-8 & 18-30 (15-28 Dec. 1984 & 18 May–12 Oct. 1985); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

scripts by Simon Furman, Jim Salicrup, and Bob Budiansky; pencils by Mike Collins, Frank Springer, Alan Kupperberg, William Johnson, and John Stokes; inks by Jeff Anderson, Akin & Garvey, Alan Kupperberg, Kyle Baker, and John Stokes; letters by Starkings, Aldrich, John Workman, and Rick Parker; colour by Gina Hart, John-Paul Bove, Nel Yomtov, and Steve Whitaker

from The Transformers UK #21

Raiders of the Last Ark is the last of the UK stories that supposedly takes place during the original four-issue run; in this one, the Decepticons invade the Ark, but a malfunction in the Ark's computer, "Auntie" (mentioned but not seen in the US stories), means she turn on the Autobots, forcing Optimus and Megatron to team up to take her down. This one has some good moments, but is very jumpy, like Simon Furman thought he was going to get twice as many pages as he did. The best part is when Megatron accesses his inner black hole, a totally badass power I think was on his tech specs but never used in the US stories... though UK writers who later worked on the IDW comics remembered it, presumably because they read this story. I did think it was clever that at the end the Autobots discovered that the Decepticons scrawled "WE'LL BE BACK" into the walls of the Ark, setting up the fact that the very next story chronologically would also feature the Decepticons invading the Ark.

That story is the last issue of the US miniseries, where it seems like the Decepticons have triumphed... but then they all fall over, because Sparkplug Witwicky put a poison in the fuel he created for him. (It's impossible to imagine that all those UK stories somehow take place between issues #3 and 4 of the US series because of this.) My favorite part was the flashbacks to Sparkplug's time in Korea, a surprisingly dark direction for a kid's comic! You can tell that even from the scripting stage it was known this comic was going to become an ongoing, because even though the Autobots kind of win, the whole issue is spent setting up new threads: it ends on a cliffhanger with Shockwave arriving to defeat the Autobots, but also sets up the key to Shockwave's eventual defeat with the Dinobots.

The next four issues see Bob Budiansky debut as writer, and I very much enjoyed this stuff. My eternal bugaboo with Transformers stories is that there's just too many characters a lot of the time, so anything that strips down the cast a bit is always a good move in my book. Here, every Autobot bar Ratchet is offline, so the Autobots' gentle doctor must find a way to overcome the Decepticons and their new leader Shockwave on his own... which means a trip to the Savage Land to find the Dinobots and striking a deal with Megatron, his only ally being a human boy, Buster Witwicky. I like seeing this emphasis on clever thinking and character dilemmas as opposed to Giant Robot Battles, though I did find the way Ratchet ultimately defeats Megatron a little underwhelming—more due to art than writing, though, I expect.

from The Transformers UK #30

This leads into a final story where, as Ratchet and the Dinobots make their way back to the Ark, Ratchet tells them a story about the Decepticons trying to destroy a dam, yet another story somehow crammed into the timespan of the original US miniseries (apparently the same gap as Man of Iron, in the middle of issue #3). It is a very boring action-focused story, but I enjoyed the frame. 

This is the second in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #9-12 and UK issues #31-41. Previous installments are listed below:

1. US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)

Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters by Dennis Hopeless, John Warner, Stever Gerber, Juan Doe, Mike Vosburg, Sal Buscema, Val Mayerik, Alan Kupperberg, et al.

Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 1975-2012
Acquired and read: November 2023

Writers: Dennis Hopeless, John Warner & Stever Gerber with Christopher Yost, Rick Spears & Faith Erin Hicks

Pencilers: Juan Doe, Mike Vosburg, Sonny Trinidad, John Buscema, Bob Brown, Sal Buscema, Val Mayerik & Alan Kupperberg with Joh James, James Callahan & Faith Erin Hicks [and Pat Boyette*]

Inkers: Juan Doe, Bob McLeod, Sonny Trinidad, Rudy Nebres & Bob Wiacek with Victor Olazaba, James Callahan, Faith Erin Hicks, Rod Santiago & Rudy Mesina

Colorists: Wil Quintana, Diane Buscema & George Roussos with Ulises Arreola, Nathan Fairbairn & Cris Peter

Letterers: Dave Lanphear, Dave Sharpe, Tom Orzechowski, Sonny Trinidad & Jim Novak with Faith Erin Hicks & co. [and Pat Boyette]

Having at last finished my journey through Justice Society comics, I can finally read something else! I am next turning my attention to Elsa Bloodstone, a character with an interesting, complicated legacy—which is, of course, one of my favorite things about superhero comics.

Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters collects all of the original 1970s appearances of her father, Ulysses Bloodstone, plus a few one-shots featuring her, and a four-part miniseries, Legion of Monsters. It does not collect, despite what the solicitation indicated, the 2001-02 miniseries that introduced Elsa and indeed, remains inexplicably uncollected. But more on that in a future post. The stories are put in a somewhat weird order here (though I can see the logic), but I will go through them in publication order.

I don't know why "dopey but loyal actor" and "camp film director" are key recurring characters in this series, but I am here for it.
from Marvel Presents #1 (script by John Warner, art by Pat Boyette)

The earliest issues are nine featuring Ulysses Bloodstone. Ulysses made his debut in Marvel Presents #1, appeared again in the second issue of that title, and then transferred over to the black-and-white series Rampaging Hulk, appearing in seven of its first eight issues. Ulysses is an immortal; ten thousand years ago, he was present when the magical bloodstone was shattered, and a bit of it was embedded in his chest, granting him immortal life. He's spent his time tracking down other fragments, stopping those who misuse them—especially rampaging kaijuesque giant monsters. There's a core of a good idea here, but I didn't find it to be terribly well executed. The first two issues, in particular, are very choppy; writer John Warner clearly thought he was setting up a long epic when he wrote Marvel Presents #1, and then issue #2 has to hastily wrap up and explain everything, and completely ignores some key aspects of issue #1 in the process!

To be honest, I don't really know why this is happening but it looks good, so I am here for it.
from Rampaging Hulk vol. 1 #2 (script by John Warner, art by Bob Brown & Rudy Nebres)

His six issues of Rampaging Hulk are fine; mostly the high point is the beautiful black-and-white artwork. I did like Bloodstone's supporting cast, a lackadaisical actor turned assistant monster hunter and a crusading journalist, but the actual stories focused too much on the tedious machinations of a globe-spanning conspiracy, and never seemed to really go anywhere. Bloodstone was always on the backfoot, bizarre twists were being piled on top of bizarre twists, new complications being introduced at random. And again, it all gets abruptly cut short, this time in a one-issue conclusion by writer Stever Gerber that somewhat tastelessly discards the characters you've spent six issues getting to know. So what was the point?

That was (spoiler) the end of Ulysses Bloodstone, and as far as I know, he's stayed dead. I did pause reading the collection at this point to read the 2001-02 miniseries, but I'll cover that in another post. The short version, though, is that Ulysses's somewhat overcomplicated backstory was played down; no more mention of the bloodstone fragments or the conspiracy, he just became a flamboyant hunter of monsters of all sorts and his mantle passed on to his daughter, Elsa. The omission of this miniseries from this collection is, frankly, obnoxious and inexplicable. Elsa was then reinvented with a somewhat different backstory in the miniseries Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., which I haven't read yet but will next. I can see why this isn't here (it's twelve issues long and not all about Elsa) but the retooling of a retooling is jarring.

Now, this is my preferred way of doing a retcon.
from Astonishing Tales: Boom-Boom and Elsa #1 (script by Rick Spears, art by James Callahan)

It's this retooled Elsa who is the focal character of three short comics from 2009-10, reprinted from Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular #2, Astonishing Tales: Boom-Boom and Elsa #1, and Girl Comics #2. The first is kind of meh, but the other two are fun stories about her overdramatic, overviolent life and her friendship with Tabitha "Boom-Boom" Sparks. You can never go wrong with some Faith Erin Hicks.

Using one's powers for... sandwich making.
from Girl Comics vol. 2 #2 (script & art by Faith Erin Hicks)

Lastly, there's Legion of Monsters (2011-12), a miniseries where Elsa has to work with some monsters, helping defend an enclave of ostensibly peaceful monsters from an attack via plague. The art is nice to look at, dark and moody, and I certainly appreciate any superhero comic that attempts to do something different, but I found both art and writing difficult to follow and ultimately got a bit lost in the contortions of it all; I think the story assumes a deeper familiarity with Marvel's bench of monster characters than I actually possess.

Not the naïf she seems.
from Legion of Monsters vol. 2 #1 (script by Dennis Hopeless, art by Juan Doe)

So overall, it's not the best Bloodstone collection that could have been published. If I hadn't read the 2001-02 miniseries in the middle, I don't think it would have been coherent at all; as it is, it seems to be about two characters related in nothing other than their name and the vague concept of monster hunting.

This is the first post in a series about Elsa Bloodstone. The next installment covers the 2001-02 Bloodstone miniseries.

* Pat Boyette illustrated the second half of Marvel Presents #1, as indicated in that issue's credits, but is omitted from the collection's credit page.

Review: The Transformers Classics, Vol. 4 by Bob Budiansky, Jose Delbo, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, 296 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 1988-89)
Acquired August 2014
Read May 2016

The Transformers Classics, Vol. 4

Written by Bob Budiansky, Ralph Macchio
Pencils by Jose Delbo, Alan Kupperberg, Frank Springer
Inks by Dave Hunt & Don Hudson, Danny Bulanadi, Dave Elliott
Letters by Bill Oakley, Kurt Hathaway, Rick Parker
Colors by Nel Yomtov

At this point, you either love Bob Budiansky's approach to Transformers, or you don't. I don't. Characters with ill-defined gimmicks are just piled on again and again. I know this isn't all his fault, but I still have to read it, and I don't like doing so. The one bright spot for most of this book is Ratbat, Decepticon fuel auditor, the only evil leader awesome enough to gloat about his account books:

If I were a Decepticon, I would clearly be Ratbat. I gotta get me a Ratbat toy.
from The Transformers #41 (script by Bob Budiansky, art by Jose Delbo & Danny Bulanadi)

But the Headmasters clog up an already overcrowded book, and there's not too much to inspire here, until the very end. The four-part "The Underbase Saga" starts off kind of dumb when Jesse infiltrates a Decepticon base disguised as a beach to rescue Buster, who has become a total waste of a character by this point. (I think he spends this whole volume as a hostage.) How the Decepticons could get away with this strains belief, even in this comic.

What does she even get out of a relationship with Buster, anyway?
from The Transformers #47 (script by Bob Budiansky, art by Jose Delbo & Dave Hunt)

It all becomes worth it, though, for Starscream ascending to ultimate power. Previously, he's been a big nonentity in this series, but I always enjoy a good supervillain-on-the-way-to-godhood rant.

If enjoying this is wrong, I don't want to be right.
from The Transformers #50 (script by Bob Budiansky, art by Jose Delbo & Dave Hunt)

It's not Bob Budiansky's best story, but it is his best in a long while, and a fitting subject for the climax of fifty issues of The Transformers.

In Two Weeks: Though there are three more volumes of The Transformers Classics, that was the last in the IDW Humble Bundle, so I'm skipping ahead quite a bit-- to what happens after the war in Regeneration One!