Marvel's The Transformers Year Two, Part III: Return to Cybertron (US #17-20 / UK #64-74)

"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's approach 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:

1. US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)
2. US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30 (1984-85) 
3. US #9-12 / UK #31-41 (1985-86) 
4. US #13-14 / UK #42-54 (1985-86) 
5. US #15-16 / UK #54-63 (1985-86)

The World Shapers (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 8)

Collection published: 2008
Contents originally published: 1986-87
Acquired: September 2008
Read: January 2021

The World Shapers: Collected Comic Strips from the Pages of  Doctor Who Magazine
by John Ridgway, Grant Morrison, Jamie Delano, et al.

The Tides of Time gave us the strip's first run with a consistent writer but different artists for each story; The World Shapers gives us the reverse, in that John Ridgway illustrates the whole volume (with some inks from Tim Perkins here and there), but no two sequential stories share writers. The result is a somewhat odd feeling collection, without a consistent tone or ethos. Ridgway does his best to make it all hang together, I reckon, but I did often feel like no two writers had quite the same idea of Frobisher, for example. You can, of course, make this kind of thing work in Doctor Who, but I'm not persuaded this volume does...

Exodus / Revelation! / Genesis!, from Doctor Who Magazine #108-10 (Jan.-Mar. 1986)
script by Alan McKenzie & John Ridgway, art by John Ridgway, letters by Annie Halfacree

Alan McKenzie's short run on the DWM strips comes to an end with a story that feels all too typical of his work. Exodus actually gets off to a good start; the TARDIS accidentally materializes around a refugee spaceship, and Peri and Frobisher have to talk the Doctor into helping them out. It's a slight but charming story, and would be perfectly enjoyable... except it leads into the last two parts. These, like a lot of Alan McKenzie stories, give the impression of having been completely made up until he ran out of pages, and don't really deliver on their promises. There's some attempt at a murder mystery, but the culprit is introduced so late in the game one barely remembers who he is! The Cybermen are in it, but don't really amount to much. I'm not sure I've really enjoyed any of the DWM stories based around tv monsters thus far, actually.

The end has this weird little stinger where Frobisher reveals he has mono-morphia. It's just two panels, and I found it kind of awkward, but it does finally make explicit something that only implied by Steve Parkhouse in Voyager. Frobisher says, "It's been coming on for a while," presumably to explain why he could shape-shift in some of the earlier Alan McKenzie stories.

from Doctor Who Magazine #111

Nature of the Beast! / Time Bomb / Salad Daze, from Doctor Who Magazine #111-17 (Apr.-Oct. 1986)
scripts by Simon Furman and Jamie Delano, art by John Ridgway, letters by Annie Halfacree

Here we have three stories that I struggle to say much about. Nature of the Beast! is a plodding werewolf runaround with little sparkle; it's interesting because at the same time he wrote his two stories here, Simon Furman was coming into his own as the primary writer of Marvel UK's The Transformers comic, but there's little sign here of the personality-based writing he used so effectively over there. (At the time this came out, Furman's stories "Robot Buster!", "Devastation Derby!", and "Second Generation!" were being released in The Transformers;* these aren't works of high art, but they're more interesting than this.) Jamie Delano's Time Bomb was also a struggle; there was some neat stuff like the Doctor and Frobisher running around on primordial Earth, but really what was this story even about? I can't really say. Furman's last contribution (in this volume) is a one-part story about Peri imagining she's in an Alice in Wonderland scenario. Furman seems to have grokked that Ridgway can sell the surreal like few others on the basis of Voyager and Once Upon a Time-Lord, but this is boring surreal, not interesting surreal.

from Doctor Who Magazine #118

Changes, from Doctor Who Magazine #118-19 (Nov.-Dec. 1986)
script by Grant Morrison, art by John Ridgway, letters by Annie Halfacree

This, I think, isn't a particularly great story. It would be a bottle episode if this was a Star Trek show: a shapeshifter is loose on the ship and attacking the crew. But of course, this is a comic so it doesn't mean anything to save on sets and casting, and this is Doctor Who, so the TARDIS interior is in fact very extravagant. But Grant Morrison and Ridgway work well together to capture the sense of whimsy and wonder that go with the TARDIS interior. Is Grant Morrison a Doctor Who fan? I always had the impression of "not actually, really" but isn't the trick the Doctor pulls at the end how he gets into Chronotis's TARDIS in Shada? That seems like a bit of a deep cut for 1987. One of the nice touches that keeps this kind of generic story interesting (aside from a Ridgway TARDIS interior) is that he has a very good handle on the voices of the TARDIS crew; the Doctor's bit about "van Gogh" was spot on. (It's not necessarily a quality one needs from the DWM strip, but it's nice when it happens.)

from Doctor Who Magazine #128

Profits of Doom!, from Doctor Who Magazine #120-22 (Jan.-Mar. 1987)
script by Mike Collins, pencils by John Ridgway, inks by Tim Perkins, letters by Annie Halfacree

In his intro to Voyager, John Ridgway complained that once Steve Parkhouse left the strip, it became much more like the tv show. This, I think, is not actually a complaint you can level at the work of Alan McKenzie, who often seemed to be trying to do something interesting even if I never particularly enjoyed reading what he actually did. The script by Mike Collins (who still works on the strip to this day!), though, does seem like one that could have aired on tv. Maybe because of that, though, I found it the most enjoyable story in this volume thus far. I think if I outlined the plot you wouldn't be wowed: what works is that Collins has a good sense of the whole TARDIS team, and the world he builds feels real and lived-in, in a way true of much 1980s sf film... but not really the glossy sci-fi stuff they gave us on the BBC. Like Morrison, he has some good Colin Baker bits, and he even remembers Peri is a botanist, and both his Peri and Frobisher are pretty smart and resourceful, and I liked the story's only real significant guest character, Kara McAllista.

from Doctor Who Magazine #123

The Gift, from Doctor Who Magazine #123-26 (Apr.-July 1987)
script by Jamie Delano, pencils by John Ridgway, inks by Tim Perkins, letters by Richard Starkings

This, though, was my favorite of the book. It's pretty nuts. The Doctor, Peri, and Frobisher go the planet Zazz looking for a party; instead they find a mad scientist trying to build a volcano-powered rocket ship. He gives them a gift for his brother, the Lorduke of Zazz; they attend an all-night party with the Lorduke (the Doctor is a great dancer), and when they open the present, it turns out to be a self-replicating robot. The Doctor must investigate the robots origins while a seemingly hungover Frobisher gets the scientist to help them and the Lorduke-- who models their whole society after the 1920s-- holds Peri hostage and forces her to sing. It's bonkers, none of this should go together, but it's a delight to read, because for the first time in a long time this feels like the madness of Doctor Who the comic strip, not Doctor Who the tv show. Profits of Doom! might have worked by hewing closely to the tv show, but this works by being nothing like it. It has a sense of humor, for one thing! One of my favorite bits is how the Doctor uncovers the history of Zazz's moon in a series of short hops through history, essentially watching it on fast forward.

from Doctor Who Magazine #127

The World Shapers, from Doctor Who Magazine #127-29 (Aug.-Oct. 1987)
script by Grant Morrison, pencils by John Ridgway, inks by Tim Perkins, letters by Richard Starkings

The sixth Doctor bows out of DWM with this atmospheric but ultimately pointless tale. Grant Morrison takes the opportunity to explain a throwaway line from The Invasion and tie the Cybermen together with the alien Voord from The Keys of Marinus. This is, I think, based on them having handlebar heads, which I actually kinda buy. It's vaguely clever and has some neat bits (such as the role of the Time Lords, and the dead Time Lord's TARDIS... though I didn't care for it talking)... but why? The actual story is just that the Doctor hears a bunch of exposition, and then Jamie dies. I dunno, I found this weird. It's going for epic, I guess, but it ends up being just kind of a jumble of possibly interesting ideas where nothing interesting is done with them.

Stray Observations:

• Genesis! gives the writer credits as "SCRIPT: ALAN McKENZIE (ADAPTED BY JOHN RIDGWAY)," while the table of contents labels the whole story how I did above. In the introduction to Voyager, Ridgway explained that he rewrote the script as he drew it, putting the Cybermen in it more because the editor felt the magazine was wasting the money it had paid to use them with how little McKenzie had actually used them, and it was also Ridgway who added in the first explicit confirmation of Frobisher's mono-morphia.​
• Peri is not in Time Bomb, except for one panel at the very end; Salad Daze came out between parts one and two of The Trial of a Time Lord and debuts the new look she had in that serial.​
• Mel debuted as the Doctor's companion in The Trial of a Time Lord Part Nine, broadcast 1 Nov. 1986, between issues #118 and 119 of DWM. Peri, however, continues as the companion in the strip all the way to issue #129, released some ten months after she was written out of the show.​
• Changes establishes that the TARDIS's occasionally-mentioned state of temporal grace only applies when the TARDIS is in temporal flight: when the engines are off, so is it. I am too lazy to go back and see if this matches up with the way it was used on the show.​
• The ending of Profits of Doom! seems to set up Seth as a recurring villain, but unless it's not mentioned on the Tardis wiki, he never appeared again. Mike Collins has illustrated many, many Star Trek stories-- but written just one Trek tale, and it struck me that like this, it features a group of rapacious capitalist scavengers as the villains!​
  
• Speaking of whom, I usually do little "what did they go on to do?" summaries when someone who is famous for subsequent work (e.g., Dave Gibbons) makes their last contribution to DWM. I cannot do this for Mike Collins because he has never not worked on DWM! Last year's Mistress of Chaos graphic novel featuring the thirteenth Doctor includes strips drawn by him; he has worked on seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth Doctor comics! But on the side, he has carved out a career in American comics, illustrating much of DC's The Darkstars, as well as Star Trek comics for DC, Marvel (especially Early Voyages), and Wildstorm. He also did the covers for over eighty Star Trek ebooks, including the S.C.E. series. And he worked as a storyboard artist on the Doctor Who tv show during the Moffat years!
• These are Jamie Delano's only Doctor Who stories, I think; he is best known as the first writer of the Hellblazer comic book, a spin-off of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.
  
• Richard Starkings makes his Doctor Who debut here, lettering the last two stories. He is still lettering Doctor Who comics thirty-plus years later, working most recently on Titan's new Doctor Who Comic this year!​
• Steve Moffat would actually reference The World Shapers on screen in World Enough and Time, as one of the multiple Cyberman origins the Doctor has experienced. I think I yelped when I heard that; even before reading The World Shapers, I knew the significance of the reference.
  

* All of these are collected in The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two; see below. My parallel reading is not quite in sync.

This post is the eighth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four. 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