Here, I have one last bit of jumping around between volumes 2 and 4 of the Til All Are One compendia, before things finally settle down and I just do the stories in the order they're presented... for a bit anyway. As I have been doing, I've incorporated the issues of Transformers Universe and G.I.Joe and the Transformers in publication order relative to the US stories.
from Transformers Universe #4
Steeljaw – Windsweeper & Arblus – Wreck-Gar, from Transformers Universe #4 (Mar. 1987), plus other issues; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, illustrated by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, lettered by Brenda Mings, colored by Nel Yomtov
The last set of Transformers Universe profiles is mostly notable because it contains the ones for characters from The Transformers: The Movie. I was mostly surprised to realize that the robots from Lithone (the planet Unicron devours at the beginning of the movie to prove the situation is serious) have detailed personalities and bios given they just get killed off!
"Funeral for a Friend!", from The Transformers US #26 (Mar. 1987) / Transformers UK #109-10 (18-25 Apr. 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, penciled by Don Perlin, inked by Brett Breeding, lettered by Janice Chiang, colored by Nel Yomtov
I want to like this issue, which focuses on one my favorite Autobots, Ratchet. But one has the feeling the Budiansky has lost interest in and control of his characters, and this story in particular is very contrived. Some random two-bit human crook called "The Mechanic" manages to take over Ratchet and gain access to the Ark while all the Autobots are away at Optimus Prime's funeral. It feels like Uncle Bob isn't really trying on this one.
from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #4
"...All Fall Down!", from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #4 (Apr. 1987) / Transformers UK #277-81 (7 July–4 Aug. 1990), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by Michael Higgins, penciled by Herb Trimpe, inked by Vince Colletta, lettered by Joe Rosen, colored by Nel Yomtov
At this point, I have lost all interest in this crossover. So too, it seems, has everyone involved in the regular Transformers book; earlier, there was sort of a sop that this could be taking place at the same time as it, but I don't see how this possibly fits it or around the events of "Funeral for a Friend" at all. Well, at least it's all over... though the UK version of the G.I.Joe crossover is coming up, so I haven't escaped yet.
"King of the Hill!" / Wanted: Galvatron, Dead or Alive / Burning Sky! / Hunters, from The Transformers US #27 (Apr. 1987) / Transformers UK #111-8 (2 May–20 June 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky and Simon Furman; penciled by Don Perlin, Geoff Senior, Will Simpson, Dan Reed, and Jeff Anderson; inked by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, Geoff Senior, Tim Perkins, Dan Reed, and Stephen Baskerville; lettered by Janice Chiang, Annie Halfacree, Starkings, and Mike Scott; colored by Nel Yomtov and Steve White
from The Transformers US #27
This sequence of stories starts with one US one, another one showing the fallout from the death of Optimus Prime. In this case: who will command the Autobots now that Optimus is dead? Unfortunately, the Autobots have no plan of succession, which seems pretty dumb for what is supposedly a military unit of some kind. This is especially dumb if you're reading this story in the context of the UK stories, because it's the third time in recent memory Optimus has "died" (see also Target: 2006 in post #7 below and Prey! in #9), leaving his subordinates in chaos. Like, c'mon dude, leave them directions, even if they're just "Prowl is in charge now"! It gets even dumber, though, when Grimlock declares his intention to become leader, they reject him, and then in a contrived series of events, they decide Grimlock will make a good leader anyway. I think the idea of Grimlock as leader is potentially fun, but it has to be handled much more convincingly than this!
from The Transformers UK #115
Wisely, then, the next UK storyline largely avoids anything that's going on in the US books. For the first time, we pop back into the future world of Target: 2006 (though Galvatron did jump back to the present day in Fallen Angel, some ten issues ago): Rodimus Prime wants to take care of Galvatron, but is too busy mopping up the remaining Decepticons on Cybertron, so he puts a bounty on Galvatron's head. This bounty is taken up by Death's Head, who travels back in time to 1987... and then Rodimus follows him, when he realizes what a bad idea Galvatron fighting Death's Head in the 1980s is. Meanwhile, Ultra Magnus (the 1980s one) gets entangled in events and Bumblebee is killed!
from The Transformers UK #118
The story isn't done yet so I can't completely judge it, but it's enjoyable so far, particularly the first appearance of Death's Head, who basically emerges fully formed by Simon Furman and Geoff Senior. In classic Marvel UK fashion, the 66 pages here have four different pencilers, but of course Senior's work is the best. Some other points:
Target: 2006 was eleven parts long. Someone must have decided that was a bad idea and shouldn't be repeated, because this story is nine parts long but divided into five separate "stories" of mostly two parts.
How can Ultra Magnus be wandering around the American countryside for months without finding the Ark? Is he stupid?
Kup is always portrayed as one of the longest-serving Autobots... yet whenever 2007 Kup travels back in time to 1987, none of the 1987 Autobots know who he is. So where did he serve and who with?
This is the eleventh in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #28-30 and UK issues #119-27 & 130-33. Previous installments are listed below:
In the US comic, Bumblebee was killed off and reborn as Goldbug in the four-issue crossover, G.I.Joe and the Tranformers, which ran concurrently with issues #24-27. However, this story was not used in the UK comic, I believe because the reprinting of G.I.Joe in the UK was not far along enough for this story to make sense. In the UK, Bumblebee's death and rebirth was instead told in a totally different fashion in the stories Wanted: Galvatron, Dead or Alive (#113-5) and Hunters (#117-8). (That said, three years later, when the ailing UK Transformers comic was desperate for content, they reprinted the G.I.Joe crossover anyway, just with a note saying it wasn't in continuity!)
The Til All Are One compendia include the UK version in their reading order in volume two, and relegate G.I.Joe and the Transformers to volume four, with the out-of-continuity tales. I assume they made this call because the UK stories were a vital part of its ongoing saga, whereas I don't think G.I.Joe/Transformers was ever referred to again in the US, aside from the Bumblebee/Goldbug thing. (For some reason, IDW's The Transformers Classics reprinted the story in their final volume, instead of where it goes chronologically, meaning Bumblebee was suddenly Goldbug, and also meaning that I never read it, as I only read the first four volumes.)
But I am doing my best to read all the US and UK stories in an integrated reading order, and so I'm reading it concurrently with the US issues it overlaps with, even though that means I'll go through two totally different origins for Goldbug in quick succession. I'm also continuing to read the profiles from Transformers Universe, placed by release date relative to the US stories. Note that in early 1987 there were four comics featuring the Transformers being published concurrently by Marvel US: the main ongoing, the G.I.Joe crossover, Universe, and the adaptation of the movie. The Transformers was at its height!
from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #1
"Blood on the Tracks" / Groove – Ramjet, from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #1 (Jan. 1987) / Transformers UK #265-8 (14 Apr.–5 May 1990) and Transformers Universe #2 (Jan. 1987), plus other issues; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by Michael Higgins and Bob Budiansky, illustrated by Herb Trimpe and Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, inked by Vince Colletta, lettered by Joe Rosen and Brenda Mings, colored by Nel Yomtov
G.I.Joe and the Transformers was written by Michael Higgins, who was neither regular writer on G.I.Joe nor The Transformers. Even by the standards of 1980s toy tie-in comics, I found this awkwardly written. Not that Bob Budiansky or any of the other Transformers writers have ever been kings of dialogue, but the Transformers here felt awkward and overly expositional and slightly out of character.
Once again, reading the Transformers Universe profiles left me with a feeling of lost opportunity. Especially for the Decepticons: there are a lot of them with interesting character hooks and backstories, but most of the times in the actual comics, they are all just interchangeable subordinates for Megatron or whoever happens to be leader at the time. The other lost opportunity highlighted here is that this issue contains a lot of profiles of Autobots who were important early in the comics, but who were superseded over time through the eternal influx of new characters. I miss these guys, I wish more had been done with them.
from The Transformers US #24
"Afterdeath!", from The Transformers US #24 (Jan. 1987) / Transformers UK #105-6 (21-28 Mar. 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, penciled by Don Perlin, inked by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, lettered by Janice Chiang, colored by Nel Yomtov
This, infamously, is the story where Optimus Prime willingly kills himself because he lets a videogame NPC die. It doesn't really make very much sense as a premise, and poor Don Perlin struggles to communicate the very-important-to-the-story videogame realm. What a way to go! Still, I appreciate that Bob Budiansky was never content to stop innovating. Two years in: kill off the beloved leader of one of your factions, why not? (Although, I guess this was right around the same time as The Transformers: The Movie, which killed off Optimus Prime. Was it just a Hasbro mandate?)
from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #2
"Power Struggle" / Rampage – Swindle, from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #2 (Feb. 1987) / Transformers UK #269-72 (12 May–2 June 1990) and Transformers Universe #3 (Feb. 1987), plus other issues; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by Michael Higgins and Bob Budiansky, illustrated by Herb Trimpe and Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, inked by Vince Colletta, lettered by Joe Rosen and Brenda Mings, colored by Nel Yomtov
To be honest, I just find G.I.Joe inherently uninteresting. I don't know if I could articulate why this 1980s toy advertisement is less interesting than the ones I do enjoy, but nothing I have ever read of it has ever made me want to read more of it. Which, admittedly, is entirely Transformers crossovers... but not even the utter genius of Tom Scioli had me thinking "Give me some G.I.Joe!" Unfortunately, this crossover seems to have a lot more G.I.Joe in it than Transformers. What Transformers there is, is pretty inconsistent: in this story, Shockwave says he no longer desires to take power from Megatron, while in the main book storyline that occurs simultaneous to this, he is doing exactly that!
As for the profiles, my main thing to note here is that 53 pages here just cover two letters of the alphabet! I had never before noticed how many Transformers have names beginning with R and S.
from The Transformers US #25
"Gone but Not Forgotten!", from The Transformers US #25 (Feb. 1987) / Transformers UK #107-8 (4-11 Apr. 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, penciled by Don Perlin, inked by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, lettered by Janice Chiang, colored by Nel Yomtov
If the death of Optimus Prime is contrived, then the death of Megatron is Bob Budiansky at his best, and the strength of this story kind of justifies the weakness of its predecessor. Megatron is upset because Optimus Prime is dead... and it was not he who killed him. He grows increasingly paranoid and obsessed across the course of this issue, culminating in his final decision to kill himself rather than let Optimus get the better of him by dying! Great stuff, though the contrivance that Predacons were sent to assasinate Megatron two times is kind of hard to swallow... on the other hand, Megatron vs. Predaking is great, so why not?
from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #3
"Ashes, Ashes...", from G.I.Joe and the Transformers #3 (Mar. 1987) / Transformers UK #273-6 (9-30 June 1990), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by Michael Higgins, illustrated by Herb Trimpe, inked by Vince Colletta, lettered by Joe Rosen, colored by Nel Yomtov
There are two problems I have. One: isn't it weird that we have two simultaneous storylines about the Decepticons acquiring a human energy technology that barely acknowledge each other? Why do they need Power Station Alpha if they have the thermocline (or vice versa)? Two: the whole thing between the G.I.Joe general and the US senator who are in love in six seconds and then she turns out to be working with Cobra is pretty dumb.
Finally we come to the end of the the first Til All Are One Compendium! Its pages aren't numbered, but the PDF copy included with the Kickstarter runs 1,234 pages including covers and stuff. I started reading it back in January, so it took me just about five months. If that rate continues, I guess I can expect to finish the whole Marvel run sometime in the middle of 2027. But for now, it's on to volume two!
I did read "The Gift" (UK issue #93) after "Decepticon Graffiti!" (UK issues #94-95), which is out of publication sequence, because this is where the compendium places it. It doesn't really make a difference, as "The Gift" and "Decepticon Graffiti!" have no characters in common and thus can take place simultaneously. (Well, except
that "Decepticon Graffiti!" has a summer setting. Oops! But "The Gift"
definitely goes here, because it refers to the events of "Heavy
Traffic!" as being recent.)
Like many of the stories from the annuals, "The Return of the Transformers" isn't (according to the fine folks at the Transformers wiki,
anyway) a perfect fit for continuity, and thus placed in compendium
four. However, I read it in, essentially, publication order, right after the 1986 UK Christmas story (since the annuals were
given as Christmas presents).
This worked well. Like "The Gift," it has a winter setting; also like
"The Gift," it focuses on Jetfire and his anxieties. "The Return of the Transformers" is actually
a sequel to a previous annual story, "Missing in Action" (see item #5
in the list below), and it also smooths out a continuity error: in the UK story Crisis of Command! (see #4 below), Optimus decided he wouldn't use the Creation Matrix to make special Autobots on Earth, but in Second Generation! (see #6 below) and "Aerialbots over America!" (see #8 below) he went ahead and did that anyway! "The Return of the Transformers" retroactively explains why. So it's clear that even if there are errors, writer James Hill saw it and its predecessor as being part of the regular comics continuity.
from The Transformers US #23
"Decepticon Graffiti!" / "The Gift", from The Transformers US #23 (Dec. 1986) / The Transformers UK #93-95 (27 Dec. 1986.–10 Jan. 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky and James Hill, penciled by Don Perlin and Martin Griffiths, inked by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey and Tim Perkins, lettered by Janice Chiang and Robin Riggs, colored by Nel Yomtov and Steve White
When I think of "bad late period Bob Budiansky stories," "Decepticon Graffiti!" is exactly what springs to mind; when I reviewed these stories before, I wrote, "This isn't great comics; it's not even great hokum." Yet... I kind of liked them this time? There's a certain charm to the idea that a pair of newly arrived Decepticons on Earth, ordered by Megatron to deliver a message to Optimus Prime, decide instead to follow a random human family around writing insults on U.S. monuments. And the stuff here with Circuit Breaker and Robot Master is probably the best either character has ever been. This was cute. Give me more Runabout and Runamuck, please.
"The Gift" is this year's Christmas story. Buster helps Jetfire deal with a crisis of confidence. It's fine. Martin Griffiths draws Buster as so jacked; maybe this explains what Jesse sees in him.
from The Transformers Annual [1986]
"The Return of the Transformers", from The Transformers Annual [1986], reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by James Hill, art by John Stokes
This story brings back Danny, the kid who also appeared in the previous year's annual, in "Missing in Action." Here he's become obsessed with the Transformers, and his grades and slipping and his relationship with his mother is falling apart. Meanwhile, Optimus Prime is worried about the Aerialbots' performance, so he puts them under the command of Jetfire. They perform poorly in battle, even worse when they combine into Superion—but they can't admit this to Optimus. The story ends with everyone dispirited, disconnected, and depressed. Wow! Probably the best thing James Hill ever wrote for Transformers.
Prey! / "...the Harder They Die!" / "Under Fire!" / "Distant Thunder!" / Fallen Angel / Resurrection!, from The Transformers UK #96-104 (17 Jan.–14 Mar. 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)
scripts by Simon Furman; pencils by Will Simpson, Jeff Anderson, and Geoff Senior; inks by Tim Perkins, Jeff Anderson, Geoff Senior, and Will Simpson; letters by Annie Halfacree; colour by Steve White
Here we have a solid nine-issue run of UK stories, set between US issues #23 and 24. In these, worried about how the Autobots performed when they thought he was dead during Target: 2006, Optimus elects to... fake his death and see how they do? I am not sure why he thinks this is a good plan; he already knows how they did, they did badly. Surely he should do some training or something to enable them to perform better and then fake his death?
from The Transformers UK #96
In any case, Optimus battles Megatron only for the two to accidentally cross the Decepticon spacebridge to Cybertron. On Cybertron, Megatron puts out rumors that the Decepticons are trying to infiltrate the Autobots in the form of Optimus, so when Optimus meets up with Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers, he gets attacked by them, and only Outback believes him. I really liked all this stuff: Outback is a great character, no hero, but determined to do the right thing anyway. The flashback to what Optimus was up to in the void during Target: 2006 is kind of random and unneeded, but the end of this strand, where Optimus finally proves himself to the Cybertron Autobots by sticking by Outback (who nearly dies for his belief in Optimus) is great stuff, probably the best the character has ever been written. I think Will Simpson is probably my least favorite UK penciler, but thankfully there's some Geoff Senior art in this arc, and Jeff Anderson is decent enough. We also get a return for Galvatron and Ultra Magnus on Earth, but those are more setups for future stories than stories in themselves, so we'll see where it goes. Man, I love Ultra Magnus, though.
Here we wrap up the UK's Target: 2006, and thus can jump back into the story that my reading order wraps around it, the Transformers: The Movie comic adaptation. From there we then go back into the regular US book for the first time in a long while... but then my order sees us take another detour, as I'm reading installments of Transformers Universe by their publication dates relative to the US stories.
Target: 2006, Parts 7–9 & Epilogue / "Judgement Day" (part 2) / "The Final Battle!" / "Aerialbots over America!" / "Heavy Traffic!", from The Transformers US #21-22 (Oct.-Nov. 1986) / The Transformers UK #85-92 (1 Nov.–20 Dec. 1986) and Transformers: The Movie #2-3 (Jan.-Feb. 1987), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)
scripts by Simon Furman, Ralph Macchio, and Bob Budiansky; pencils by Will Simpson, Geoff Senior, Anderson, and Don Perlin; inks by Tim Perkins, Geoff Senior, Anderson, and Ian Akin & Brian Garvey; letters by Starkings, Annie Halfacree, Janice Chiang, and Hans IV; colour by Jozwiak, Gina Hart, and Nel Yomtov
from The Transformers UK #85
Obviously the highlight of the closing portion of Target: 2006 is the Galvatron-versus-Ultra-Magnus battle. This is good stuff, of course, and thank goodness most of it is drawn by Geoff Senior! But overall I found the resolution to Target: 2006 very disappointing.
It's cleverly conceived: Galvatron has come back in time of 1986 to build a giant gun to destroy Unicron with; he can't do this in his own time of 2006 because there he's under Unicron's control. (Quite how Galvatron can nonchalantly jump through time is never explained.) But this entire plan is contingent on the idea that Galvatron is not changing history: it needs to be a predestination paradox, otherwise there won't be a big gun waiting for Galvatron in the year 2006. (Why Galvatron needs to build this gun on the future site of Autobot City, or why the Autobots would somehow let this gun sit there undisturbed for twenty years, are also not explained.) This means that Galvatron has to be very careful when in the past: if anyone who is alive in 2006 is killed in 1986, then the future Galvatron comes from will not come to pass.
Galvatron is followed to 1986 by three Autobots from 2006, Hot Rod, Kup, and Blurr. (One of the underwhelming aspects of reading Target: 2006 in the middle of the movie comic adaptation, by the way, is that Kup and Blurr barely feature in its first issue, so when they pop up in 1986, it's less "oh it's those guys!" and more "who are those guys?") Their plan to stop Galvatron is to trick him into thinking that he's created a divergent timeline: they manipulate him into thinking he's killed Starscream. Since Starscream killed Megatron in 2006, leading to his rebirth as Galvatron, this means Galvatron must have created a new timeline, and therefore burying a gun in this 1986 won't accomplish anything in his 2006, so he gives up and returns to the future.
from The Transformers UK #88
This is clever... but it's basically all communicated after it happens. The entire resolution is dependent on rules for time travel that haven't been clearly communicated to the reader! Thus it all comes across as arbitrary. If even just once, Galvatron had gone, "oh i must be careful not to kill x otherwise i will create a divergent timeline and undermine my whole purpose in the past," then the resolution would have come across as way less of an ass-pull.
I also didn't like that it turns out that the three 2006 Autobots had been sent back in time by Unicron and were secretly being manipulated by him. I mean, on the one hand, I get why Furman did this: it's ever weirded to believe the Autobots have this technology than to believe that Galvatron has it, and it kind of beggars belief that these characters could run off to have this adventure in the middle of the movie. But on the other hand, it gives Unicron a knowledge base and a power set that exceeds anything we see him use in the movie, and makes it hard to believe that he could actually be defeated if he can mind control his enemies this way!
So, as the first of Furman's "Furmanist" epics, this is enjoyable enough... but it leaves much to be desired. Hopefully future iterations are stronger.
from Transformers: The Movie #3
From Target: 2006 I jumped back to p. 5 of issue #2 of the movie adaptation. My main note on reading this is that the way scripter Ralph Macchio cut down the film is very inconsistent and ruins a lot of the gags and arcs of the film. For example, Kup's bit about always saying places remind him of other places he's been is down just to two iterations: one in issue #2 where that characters react to it like he's done it a bunch already, and then once in #3 where the joke is that for once it's something that doesn't remind him of anything... but this pay-off doesn't work at all if we've only seen him do it one other time. Similarly, the joke about the "universal greeting" actually working doesn't make any sense if we didn't see the characters try to use it and fail.
This is probably worst, though, with Hot Rod's character arc. Not that it's an incredibly complex one, but "young hothead learns to be responsible and becomes the destined leader" really only works if we saw him be a young hothead... and those scenes were largely cut from issue #1!
Still, I thought the art was strong; I think Don Perlin has very much bedded in as a Transformers penciller at this point, and Ian Akin and Brian Garvey match him well on inks every time.
It's very weird to go from the Furmanist style of Target: 2006 and the movie to the Budianskian approach of "Aerialbots over America!" Suddenly it's wacky hijinks at Hoover Dam. In particular, Megatron disguises himself in his gun mode... and a dam employee just walks into work holding him, right past a security guard! I guess the pre-9/11 world was a different one entirely. Also, I think we're at the point where the never-ending need to introduce new characters and concepts begins to escape Budiansky's control: so many new characters so quickly. I really do hate anything involving combiners.
Early in the compendium, they sometimes included the UK edits to the US stories to make it all stick together, but as of this point, they seem to have stopped bothering. You would never know reading US issues #21 and 22 that, according to the UK issues, Optimus had just spent a bunch of time trapped in a limbo dimension!
Afterburner – Grimlock, from Transformers Universe #1 (Dec. 1986), plus other issues; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, art by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, colored by Nel Yomtov, lettered by Brenda Mings
I want to read more about debbie downer Dreadwind. from Transformers US #74
Transformers Universe was a four-issue guidebook to Transformers characters published by Marvel US: each page featured a drawing of a Transformer (usually in both robot and vehicle mode), a paragraph-long description of the robot's personality, and a brief description of its abilities and weaknesses. Annoyingly, these are uncredited in this compendium and on the Transformers wiki, but I think Bob Budiansky wrote the words and Ian Akin and Brian Garvey did the art. After the series's original four-issue run, further profiles were included as backmatter in issues of the US comic; this reprinting intersperses those alphabetically. (This stretches the issue's original 24 pages out to 58!)
The character portraits are solid stuff, nicely done. I usually skipped "abilities" and "weaknesses" but enjoyed the bios well enough. These profiles very much show up one of the big weaknesses of the Marvel Transformers comic, which is that there just wasn't enough space for most of these personalities to ever manifest in it. Too many new characters being added all the time for anyone to get an interesting moment.
I bet I would have loved this stuff when I was eight, though. Which is really the target audience for Transformers, not sad forty-year-olds.
This is the eighth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issue #23 and UK issues #93-104. Previous installments are listed below:
Sometimes you happen to read the two right things around the same time to realize there's a connection between them.
I like to think that I mix my "lowbrow" reading with "highbrow" reading. So, on the one hand, long excavations of mediocre comics from the 1980s; on the other hand, literary critical theory. Such a coincidence happened earlier this semester, when I was reading my way through Marvel's 1980s Transformers comics and rereading bits of Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy for a couple different projects I have been working on. (More on those anon, I'm sure.)
Something I've been thinking about a lot during this rereading of the Transformers canon, and occasionally reference in my posts on it, is the essay "Budianskian and Furmanist: A New Model of Storytelling Analysis" by the poster only known as "Broadside" (it's totally possible she gives her real name somewhere, actually, I dunno) on the blog of the Transformers wiki. In this essay, Broadside posits that there are essentially only two form of Transformers storytelling, Budianskian and Furmanist.
from The Transformers US #20 (script by Bob Budiansky, art by Herb Trimpe and Ian Akin & Brian Garvey)
The modes are named after the two biggest writers on the G1 Transformers comics. Bob Budiansky was the editor for the US comic's first few issues, and then with issue #5 became the writer; he was the man who developed a lot of the major elements of the G1 mythos, including the names of almost every character. As Broadside says, "Budiansky believed that the most interesting thing about the entire Transformers setup was that the Transformers were on Earth. The vast majority of his stories revolved around ideas of culture clash and worlds colliding; Bob’s Autobots would be perplexed and fascinated by human behaviours, from small-town life to professional wrestling."
from The Transformers: Robots in Disguise Annual 2012 (script by James Barber, art by Guido Guidi)
Simon Furman became the primary writer of the UK Transformers comic after its first few installments, and took over for Budiansky on the US comic after he moved on. As Broadside says, Furman's approach "looks at Cybertronians from an internal perspective; it’s concerned with how they interact with each other, and the lore and history and substance of their own world. The point of the robots as characters isn’t to contrast with the human experience, but to be a stand-in for them."
Example of the Furmanist mode include the 1986 Transformers film, Beast Wars and Beast Machines, and More than Meets the Eye and Lost Light from IDW.
Broadside herself points out that each writer was totally capable of working in the other mode. When Furman returned to Transformers in the 2000s for IDW, the story he wrote was Budianskian; I would argue that the very first Furmanist Transformers story was Return to Cybertron, which was by Bob Budiansky. (My claim is that Furman's first true Furmanist story was Target: 2006, which comes after this, and is obviously inspired by it.)
Broadside claims neither of these approaches is better than the other, it comes down to your preference—but that often Transformers stories succeed best when they realize what mode they ought to be working in. I haven't seen the two shows she uses as examples, but she says "[the Furmanist show] Cyberverse flourished when it got out from under its vestigial Budianskian trappings, [the Budianskian] EarthSpark gets bogged down when it delves into the Furmanist lore of the Thirteen..." She is definitely partial to the Budianskian mode.
from The Transformers: Infiltration #5 (script by Simon Furman, art by E. J. Su)
I myself prefer the Furmanist one; my two favorite Transformers stories are Beast Wars / Beast Machines and More than Meets the Eye / Lost Light, both of which feature no human characters. Some of my least favorite Transformers stories are Budianskian, such as the G1 cartoon and the Michael Bay films. All other things being equal, I clearly have a preference. But I can still enjoy a Budianskian story: Furman's original IDW arc is excellent, and it's all told from a human perspective, while one of my favorite-ever Transformers stories is "Showdown!", a G1 comic by Budiansky about the relationship between Skids the Autobot and Wyoming grocery store cashier named Charlene who dreams of being a cowgirl.
And Furmanist storytelling definitely has a failure mode: what I like about the Furmanist style is how it allows the Transformers characters to pop, but all too often, Furmanist stories can turn into tedious expositions of lore. (James Barber wrote some great Furmanist stories about the state of postwar Cybertron for IDW, but also wrote some really tedious ones about complicated machinations by Shockwave that mostly seemed to be there to resolve continuity issues.) As I quoted Broadside above, in a Furmanist story, "[t]he point of the robots as characters isn’t to contrast with the human experience, but to be a stand-in for them." When the stories spend too much time diving into the "lore," this aspect gets lost.
Like any good literary theory, this isn't just a tool for classification, but one of better understanding: I think I am appreciating Budiansky's G1 comics more on this reread with this insight to use as a lens.
from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (story by L. Frank Baum, art by W. W. Denslow)
Such a thing is also true of Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy. I think about Mendlesohn's classification of fantasy a lot, because it doesn't just allow you to put fantasy into different buckets, but it also it creates a better understanding of what it's doing. Mendlesohn breaks fantasy down into four categories, based on the relationship between the the viewpoint of the reader and the fantastic. In "the portal-quest fantasy," for example, the viewpoint of the reader is with a character who travels into a new-to-them fantastic world: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is probably the most obvious examples of this, we travel into a new world with Dorothy, and we discover it alongside her.
The two that are relevant here, though, are what Mendlesohn calls the "intrusion fantasy" and the "immersive fantasy." In the intrusion fantasy, we are in a "real" world, our viewpoint is aligned with characters who do not know the fantastic until in intrudes in their world. From my own recent reading, I would say that Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Sam Swicegood's The Wizards on Walnut Street are good examples of this. This, surely, is the Budianskian mode! In this style of storytelling, the reader and the character have to work together to understand the fantastic.
The immersive fantasy, on the other hand, is one where our viewpoint is aligned with a character who does know the fantastic, even though we do not. This is your built-up secondary world fantasy, where we are in a complex magical world and need to work to figure it out. Indeed, the pleasure is in coming to understand this fantastic world that the characters already get but you do not; from my recent reading, I would categorize Robert Jackson Bennett's The Tainted Cup and Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms as good examples. What is Furmanist storytelling but immersive fantasy?
(Sort of a side note, but it's worth pointing out that stories can operate in multiple rhetorics under Mendlesohn's system. The Lord of the Rings, for example, is a portal-quest fantasy, because even though the entire thing takes place in a secondary world, we move from the "normal" world of the Shire to the wider magical world of Middle-earth with viewpoint characters who do not understand the latter. Or you have Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown, which starts as an immersive fantasy—we are in the magical land of Damar—then becomes an intrusion fantasy—Damar is threatened by magic from another realm—and finally a portal-quest fantasy—the character travels into that realm to stop it.)
It's probably little surprise, then, that I enjoy Furmanist stories more than Budianskian ones on the whole, because I also tend to prefer immersive fantasies to intrusion ones. Writing my last few paragraphs, it was easy for me to think of immersive fantasies; it was much harder to think of intrusion ones. I like that sense (to paraphrase Jo Walton for the umpteenth time) that the world itself is a mystery we must solve, and you very much get that from the immersive fantasy.
But that also makes the origin of what I think of as the failure mode of Furmanist stories clear. Surely one of the foremost writers of the immersive fantasy in our time is Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson often writes stories that seem like they ought to be portal-quest fantasies, or are engaged with thinking about the parameters of the portal-quest fantasy, but are not portal-quest fantasies; the first Mistborn novel, The Final Empire, is a good example of this. I spent much of the beginning of the book thinking the characters were going to go on a quest, but this never happens; eventually you discover the state of the world is due to someone who did go on a quest in the distant past. But like a bad Furmanist story, Sanderson often becomes interested in "lore" for its own sake; to quote my own review of the third book:
I've always been interested in the people and the politics of this series; the godlike entities have never interested me for their own sake. This volume, however, seems to think I'll find vast cosmic entities interesting just, uh, because? This might be what other people read fantasy fiction for, but I just can't get into it. Instead of paying off character and thematic threads from the first two books, the book seems more interested in paying off mysteries of backstory that I didn't even know were mysteries! Like, one of the big reveals of this book is "where did the kandra and koloss come from." I didn't know that the kandra and koloss were supposed to come from anywhere! They're weird fantasy creatures, this is a fantasy novel, why would I think they come from anywhere any more than a dog comes from somewhere in a piece of mimetic fiction? But there's an explanation that ties it into the novel's "magic system." So many things get explained that I never wanted an explanation for.
This is sort of the equivalent of telling me about Primus or the Fallen or the origins of the Matrix of Leadership in a Transformers comic. These things don't matter in and of themselves, they only matter if they tell us something about the characters. (I make a related point in my review of the sixth Mistborn book, The Bands of Mourning, but I haven't posted that yet, so only click the link if it's after June 3rd.)
What was particularly striking, though, as I mapped Mendlesohn's theory onto Broadside's is that Transformers doesn't have an obvious equivalent to the portal-quest fantasy. Where is the story about a human character who travels to Cybertron, where the human is the viewpoint character throughout? This seems like such an obvious good idea that I can't believe it hasn't been done... but there's so much Transformers out there that surely someone has and I just don't know about it! But if not, please give me a call, Skybound, and I'll write it for you.
This is a side post to a series about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #21-22 and UK issues #85-92. Previous installments are listed below:
(I want to note that the greatest film series of our time, Marvel's Thor, did cover all three of these Mendlesohn rhetorics across its first three films. The first Thor movie is an intrusion fantasy (Thor comes to our world), The Dark World is a portal-quest fantasy (Jane goes to Asgard), and Ragnarok is immersive (it's all about what's going on the fantasy world). If only Transformers could reach such heights!)
"To a Power Unknown!" is another one of those stories from the UK annuals that, due to continuity issues, the Til All Are One compendia choose to place in volume four with the other out-of-continuity stories. However, my practice is to try to read them as close to where they could fit if they did fit. For "To a Power Unknown!", that seems to be somewhere between UK issues #65 and 71, as the story has Megatron and Shockwave in joint command over the Decepticons. Given that, I suggest it reads best between Second Generation! and Return to Cybertron, as the latter story leads straight into "Command Performances!", where Shockwave cedes sole leadership to Megatron.
from The Transformers UK #65
Second Generation! Parts Two & 3, from The Transformers UK #64-65 (7-14 June 1986), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)
written by Simon Furman, penciled by Kitson and Jeff Anderson, inked by Perkins and Jeff Anderson, letters by Scott and Annie Halfacree, colours by W&P and T. Jozwiak
Surely this is the most "meh" of all the UK-original storylines thus far. Part two of Second Generation! is mostly a dream sequences, as Optimus Prime and Buster Witwicky see a vision of the future of the Transformers, expanding on "The Special Teams Have Arrived" from ten issues back. At that point, Furman runs out of story, so part 3 is on a totally different topic, the struggle between Megatron and Shockwave for control of the Deceptions, which resolves with them adopting joint leadership. Fine, whatever.
"To a Power Unknown!", from The Transformers Annual [1986], reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)
script by Ian Mennell & Wilf Prigmore, art by Will Simpson, letters by Annie Halfacree, colours by Josie Firmin
from The Transformers Annual [1986]
My kids have watched a decent amount of toy tie-in tv over the years. Seeing things like PAW Patrol and the Hot Wheels show have made me realize that's while it's certainly not high art, we got lucky with Transformers. Its creators took it seriously enough. Every now and again, though, you get a Transformers work by someone who plainly did not take it seriously. Such is true of "To a Power Unknown!", which has a stupid premise and risible dialogue. In another world, it could have all been like this, though, so we should count our blessings. This is kiddie stuff in the sense that it's written by people who think they can get away with crap if it's for kids... which very much jars with the fact that this is the story where the Autobots accidentally kill an innocent human being with a heat-seeking missile! Is this the only human death in Marvel's Transformers? So weird.
Return to Cybertron / "Command Performances!" / "Showdown!" / "The Mission" / In the National Interest, Part 1, from The Transformers US #17-20 (June-Sept. 1986) / The Transformers UK #66-74 (21 June–16 Aug. 1986) and The Transformers Annual [1986]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)
written by Bob Budiansky, Jamie Delano, and Simon Furman; penciled by Don Perlin, Herb Trimpe, and Will Simpson; inked by Keith Williams (with Vince Colletta), Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, and Will Simpson; lettered by Janice Chiang and Annie Halfacree; colored by Nel Yomtov and John Burns
from The Transformers US #17
I am a big fan of Transfan "Broadside"'s analysis of Transformers storytelling as falling into two modes: Budianskian and Furmanist. Named after the two primary writers of the G1 comics, Budianskian stories place the Transformers in a human context, Furmanist ones don't see the necessity of that. (I lean more Furmanist than Budianskian in my tastes, personally; my two favorite pieces of Transformers media, Beast Wars/Machines and More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light are both Furmanist.) As Broadside points out, each man was capable of adopting the other mode, however; Furman's approach in IDW's continuity was Budianskian, while Budiansky's Return to Cybetron arc collected here is Furmanist. Each writer actually excels in the other mode—Return to Cyberton remains one of my favorite G1 comic stories. For the first time, we find out what's been happening on Cybertron in the millions of years since Optimus Prime and the Ark left the planet; it's become an apocalyptic hellhole ruled by the Decepticons. We follow the beleaguered Autobot resistance, particularly Blaster and Scrounge, as they work against Lord Straxus of Darkmount. It's dark stuff, which works well here, and Blaster and Scrounge are both great characters. Poor Scrounge! I might go so far as to suggest that Furman's own "Furmanist" stories (such as the imminent Target: 2006) actually take their cues from it, meaning that both modes of Transformers storytelling are actually Budianskian!
After four US issues of mediocre wheel-spinning, this is actually a very solid run of US comics overall. "Command Performances!" features an amazing sequence where the newly built Autobot warrior Omega Supreme lays the smackdown on the Decepticons, but the other highlight is "Showdown!" If Return to Cybetron features Budiansky at his most Furmanist, then "Showdown!" represents the peak of Budiansky's Budianskian mode. Skids has been damaged and isolated from the rest of the Autobots; he's found a grocery store cashier named Charlene in rural Wyoming, who dreams of bigger and better things. Skids enjoys the respite from centuries of war (he was originally an anthropologist), while Charlene enjoys the attentions of someone who validates her dreams of adventure. But real "adventure" finds them when Ravage tracks Skids down, and Skids must go back to war to defend his innocent friends while Charlene must learn to enjoy the life she has. As I said above, I prefer Furmanist storytelling on the whole (though it certainly has its failure modes), but this shows the real potential of the Budianskian approach. It's a lot like Russell T Davies'sapproach to Doctor Who, actually: these exciting things only matter inasmuh as they affect ordinary people.
from The Transformers Annual [1986]
After this, we get a decent UK text story, "The Mission," about Hoist and Jazz on a desperate mission in the Alaskan wilderness. It's intense stuff! And then the first part of In the National Interest, which promises good stuff; Furman always does well by the Dinobots. I didn't expect Professor Morris from The Icarus Theory (UK issues #45-46) to come back! We'll see how this goes in future installments.
This is the sixth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers UK issues #75-84. Previous installments are listed below:
Sometimes you happen to read the two right things around the same time to realize there's a connection between them.
