Marvel's The Transformers Year Two, Part IV: Target: 2006 Part One (UK #75-84)

So here we hit the tie-ins to The Transformers: The Movie. In the US, this was a three-issue adaptation of the movie, which I haven't actually read before, as IDW's Transformers Classics reprints included it in volume 7, not in the volume it would have fit in by publication order, and I only read the first four volumes. In the UK, this was the storyline Target: 2006, where a set of film characters travelled back in time to the present during the events of the film.

I certainly wouldn't recommend this for a new-to-this-material reader, but I decided to read chronologically. Which is to say, for the film characters, Target: 2006 probably takes place after Galvatron says, "Decepticons, to Earth" on p. 5 of issue #2 of the film adaption, so I read the film adaptation up to that panel, then jumped to the beginning of Target: 2006, read all of it, then returned to p. 5 of issue #2 of the film. The Til All Are One compendium, much more sensibly, places the film adaptation in its entirerty after the last part of Target: 2006.

I also read a story from the 1986 annual here, which would have been released around this time, though the compendium places it much earlier. "State Games" is a text story that serves as a prequel to "A There Shall Come... a Leader!" from the 1985 annual, but I like reading it here because it includes Emirate Xaaron, who appears in the present day in Target: 2006, nicely setting up our return to Cybertron in that story arc. (The very short text feature "Cybertron: The Middle Years!", included in UK issue #83, bridges the gap between the long-ago Cybertron of "State Games" and "There Shall Come..." and the present-day Cybertron of Return to Cybertron and Target: 2006.)

That makes this my first batch of Marvel Transformers stories to include no regular issues of the US comic. 

In the National Interest, Parts 2–4 / "State Games: A Tale from Cybertron" / "The Planet-Eater!" / "Judgment Day!" (part 1) / Target: 2006, Prologue & Parts 1–6, from The Transformers UK #75-84 (23 Aug.–25 Oct. 1986), The Transformers Annual [1986], and The Transformers: The Movie #1-2 (Dec. 1986–Jan. 1987); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

stories by Simon Furman, James Hill, and Ralph Macchio; pencils by Will Simpson, Johns Stokes, Don Perlin, Jeff Anderson, Ron Smith, and Geoff Senior; inks by Dave Hine, Tim Perkins (with Andrew Leary), Will Simpson, Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, Jeff Anderson, Ron Smith, and Geoff Senior; letters by Annie Halfacree, Janice Chiang, and Starkings; colours by John Burns, Gina Hart, Tony Jozwiak, Nel Yomtov, and John Burns

from The Transformers UK #74*

In the National Interest is fine. It has to balance out one thing that I enjoy and one thing I don't, in that I do like the Dinobots, especially the ongoing subplot about Sludge's crush on human reporter Joy Meadows, but on the other hand, the convoluted clandestine machinations of the Intelligence and Information Institute (Triple-I!) rapidly get tedious. Whenever secret organizations get involved in Transformers stories, I tune out; they really shift things away from the core appeal of Budianskian storytelling, I think. Still, good showing for the Dinobots.

 

"State Games" is a decent text story, showing how the war between the Autobots and Decepticons came about. It packs in a lot of exposition and thus gets a bit overwhelming, but it has some interesting ideas; the kernel of the idea that was explored in great detail in the IDW continuity, that Megatron and his comrades had legitimate grievances, comes from this story. It's not as nuanced as it would be later on... but it is pretty nuanced for a 1980s kids comic! Note that in this story, "Optimus Prime" is just a guy's name, not some kind of title, even though it came out a month after The Transformers: The Movie, where we learned there was a mythical significance to "Prime." Not a criticism of the story, but it shows you how much the Transformers mythos was being made up as it went along.

 

from The Transformers: The Movie #1

The first half of the comics adaptation of the movie is fine; it's a bit jumpy and narration heavy, and I wonder how much it would make sense to someone who hadn't actually seen the film. The death of Optimus Prime seems kind of crammed in... on the other hand, the capture of Megatron by Unicron and subsequent transformation into Galvatron is very well done. Mostly reading it made me aware of how much work the film's soundtrack and editing did in making the events seem grandiose.

 

As mentioned above, I directly segued from page 5 of issue #2 of the comic into Target: 2006. In this story, Galvatron attempts to escape Unicron's control by travelling back in time to 1986. (The actual movie was set in 2005, as was the comic adaptation; in the UK comic, the movie's events were set in 2006, and the UK printing of the comic adaptation edited it to be consistent with that, but the compendium doesn't include those edits.) However, this isn't very clear at first: Target: 2006 is designed to be someone's introduction to the movie mythos, and so these things are very gradually revealed to the 1986 characters (and thus the reader) across the course of the story's first seven parts. 

 

Thus, reading it with the added context of already having read/seen the movie undermines it a bit... but to be honest, is probably also helpful, because there is a lot going on here. When Galvatron and his minions come back in time, three Autobots including Optimus Prime disappear, so they are disarray; this means that back on Cybetron, the Autobot resistance becomes aware that something has snuffed out the Creation Matrix, and so Ultra Magnus travels to Earth to find out what, even though he's a key part of a planned attack by the Wreckers on the Decepticon elite that can't be adjusted. So we're not just following Galvatron's machinations but also Ultra Magnus's adventures and what's going on back on Cybertron! Plus, Furman jumps around a lot chronologically; each installment almost always begins a bit after the previous one ended and then fills in some, if not all, of its events retrospectively. I admire his structural ambition, but I very often got lost and some key details of the story eluded me (I was very surprised when Starscream woke up in the Ark... totally missed where he was brought back to it).

 

from The Transformers UK #82

Still, the ambition of the story is admirable. This is surely Furman's first go at what we would now recognize as "Furmanist" storytelling: using the mythos of Transformers to its own end, rather than tying it into human characters, extrapolating from the much more "space opera" mode of the movie. I always like Ultra Magnus, and this is a good showing for him. I do think one of the story's big weaknesses is that not every comic book artist is cut out for drawing Transformers; you can probably get away with this in a story with a lot of human characters, but in a Furmanist story with only robots, you have to be good at drawing robots. Unfortunately, Will Simpson is not. It's a breath of fresh air when Geoff Senior turns up to do the last two installments reviewed here.

 

The other weird thing about reading in this sequence is that Kup and Blurr were pretty much completely cut out of the comics adaptation of the film, despite being prominent in the actual film, so when they appear with Hot Rod at the end of part six, you're very much like, "Who are those guys?" It's also jarring to have Target: 2006 heavily revolve around the comics version of the Matrix, where it's the "Creation Matrix," a computer program in Optimus's mind (than can be mentally transferred between people, even into a human being), when the story it ties into has the very different "Matrix of Leadership," a physical object in Optimus's chest.

 

This is the seventh in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #21-22 and UK issues #85-92. (See also a side post analyzing the "Budianskian"/"Furmanist" framing.) 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)
6. US #17-20 / UK #64-74 (1986) 

* Yes, I know this scan comes from an issue not reviewed in this post... but I like it too much to omit! 

Marvel's The Transformers Year Two, Part II: Devastation Derby! (US #15-16 / UK #54-63)

In the Til All Are One compendia, the two prose stories from the 1985 UK annual are placed in volume four, with the stuff that doesn't fit. Since I'm trying to read these stories in a hybrid chronological/publication order, I wanted to read them among the 1985/86 stories. The Transformers Wiki will tell you that the lineups in these stories pretty much preclude them from fitting anywhere in the main US/UK comics continuity, but it does say that most of the characters in "Missing in Action" were introduced in UK issue #53, and that the sequel to "Missing in Action" in the 1986 annual ("The Return of the Transformers") references the events of UK issue #65, so I've placed "Missing in Action" in between those two points; there's a continuity gap between UK issues #58 and 59, so that works nicely. "Hunted!" pretty much doesn't fit anywhere according to the wiki, so I just read it alongside "Missing in Action." In retrospect, since it includes Megatron as Decepticon leader, I think it would read better in the nebulous, nonexistent gap during the original US miniseries where other early UK stories take place.

"I, Robot-Master!" / "Plight of the Bumblebee!", from The Transformers US #15-16 (Apr.-May 1986) / The Transformers UK #55-58 (5-26 Apr. 1986); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

written by Bob Budiansky and Len Kaminski, penciled by Don Perlin and Graham Nolan, inked by Keith Williams and Tom Morgan, lettered by Janice Chiang and Bill Oakley, colored by Nel Yomtov

from The Transformers US #15

I have bad memories of the US stories from when I previously read them on their own; these are certainly the kind of stories that explain why. Like many recent US stories, "I, Robot-Master!" seems to indicate Bob Budiansky has lost interest in the Transformers themselves, as this focuses almost entirely on humans trying to cover up the existence of Giant Alien Robots from Space on the earth. This isn't a bad premise per se, but the way it's carried out here isn't particularly interesting, either: the Intelligence and Information Institute of the US government recruits a comic book writer to pretend to be a human terrorist masterminding the Transformers, though by the story's end, he's working for the Decepticons. There are some decent jokes (I liked the gag about Donny's cigarette) but it goes on too long compared to how interesting it is (Donny is just not interesting enough as a person to sustain this). Also, this is the debut of Don Perlin, who I think becomes better later on, but at this point is just not very good at drawing giant robots.

 

The story that follows this, though, is worse: Shockwave decides to disable Bumblebee, calling him the weakest of the Autobots... completely coincidentally at a time when Bumblebee leaves the Ark on his own because he's feeling down. Bumblebee ends up falling in with a pair of two-bit crooks and helping them do crimes. Like... why? Again, you could probably tell a good story with these ingredients—one where Bumblebee gets a sense of belonging from these guys, but then realizes they're toxic—but instead it more feels like he passively sits there and lets them do stuff until he doesn't. The end.

 

"Missing in Action" / "Hunted!", from The Transformers Annual [1985]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)

written by James Hill, illustrated by John Stokes

from The Transformers Annual [1985]

These two prose stories from the 1985 UK annual were apparently written to focus on characters who hadn't yet made it into the main comic. In "Missing in Action," Tracks falls in with a pair of two-bit crooks and helping them do crimes... why was this a thing? The best part of the story is the appearance of a kid, Danny Phillips, who is a strong viewpoint character in the tradition of Buster and Man of Iron's Sammy. The other story, "Hunted!", has the Autobots discovering a nefarious plot by Megatron in South America. It's fine. In both cases, the selling point is clearly the John Stokes art; in particular, catch that beautiful title page image of Ravage in "Hunted!" That said, given the point of these stories is to highlight toys, it's weird there aren't more images of actual Transformers in these stories. A lot of the pictures are just of humans doing human things!

 

Robot Buster! / Devastation Derby! / Second Generation! Part 1 / "The Special Teams Have Arrived", from The Transformers UK #54 & 59-63 (29 Mar. & 3-31 May 1986); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

stories by Simon Furman; plot idea by Barry Kitson; pencils by Barry Kitson, Will Simpson, and John Stokes; inks by Barry Kitson, Tim Perkins, Will Simpson, and John Stokes; colours by Josie Firmin, T. M. Cooks, and John Burns; letters by Annie Halfacree and Mike Scott

This run of UK stories focuses on Buster, first as he attempts to augment his abilities so he can hang out with the Autobots and then as it's discovered the Creation Matrix being installed in his mind has had lingering effects. The idea of Buster getting a robot suit to fight alongside the Autobots is a bit silly, to be honest, and I did not find this to be among Furman's better work on the title so far. Of particular note is how the stories attempt to integrate the new Combiner toys (the "Special Teams") into continuity. They would not appear until much later in the US stories, but Hasbro needed them to be in the UK comic earlier as the toys were on the shelves. So that their eventual debut in the comic would not be contradicted, Furman solved this dilemma by having Buster dream about the impending characters! This happens in the Second Generation! story in issues #63-65; a three-page preview of the story was published in issue #54. This preview works on its own fine as a regular (if incomplete) tale, but if you read it in the context of Second Generation! is cleverly revealed as a fragment of Buster's dreams. (The compendium places it before part 1 of Second Generation!, but I think it reads better between parts 1 and 2.)

from The Transformers UK #54

Anyway, so this might be clever from a storytelling construction standpoint... but I hate combiners. They are good toys (I assume: I wouldn't know, I've never owned any), but bad as characters in actual stories, since you suddenly add a half dozen new robots whose main function is to not have distinct personalities. Making your combiners just dream characters makes it all even worse because they're not even real!

This is the fifth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #17-20 and UK issues #64-74. 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) 

Marvel's The Transformers Year One, Part III: The Next Best Thing to Being There! (US #9-12 / UK #31-41)

The Image Til All Are One compendia are arranged in a story order that, like my own, tries to balance chronology and publication in order to make a readable experience. They don't always make the same choice that I have made, but I find their choices defensible.

One place where we differ is with the stories from the UK annuals. Some of these stories were written to fit into the continuity of the weekly title, and do so quite well, but others clearly were not written with the weekly in mind. (In fact, this was done purposefully, as the annual stories often highlighted characters who had not made it into the regular series.) The compendia take the stories that don't fit well into continuity and place them all in volume four, presumably so they don't disrupt the experience of reading the main US/UK series. I didn't want to do that, though, so my approach has been to either 1) read them somewhere near where they kinda fit even if it's not perfect, or 2) if there's no such place, around the time the annual stories would have been read. (Annuals are usually released in the fall, but are thought of as Christmas gifts.)

With this week's post, I hit two stories from the 1985 annual. One is a flashback to Cybertron in the early days of the Autobot/Decepticon war; the compendia place this (along with a 1986 story with a similar setting) before the first UK story from the regular comic as a sort of prelude. The other is set during the time the Transformers' war came to Earth, but it has some continuity issues (most notably, it features the Insecticons, who would later be introduced in a completely different way in a US story) so the compendia place it in volume four. Following my system, I read them both after the 1985 Christmas story from UK issue #41.

For the first, "And Then There Shall Come... a Leader!", this worked well; it actually is referred to directly in the very next UK story, Crisis of Command! from issues #42-44. Now that I've reread it, I would actually recommend reading the other, "Plague of the Insecticons!", much earlier, around the same time as Man of Iron and The Enemy Within!, between US issues #3 and 4. Presence of the Insecticons aside, we have Megatron still leading the Decepticons, and both sides are obviously recently arrived on Earth.

"The Wrath of Guardian!" / "The Wrath of Grimlock!" / "Dis-Integrated Circuits!" / "The Next Best Thing to Being There!" / "Brainstorm!" / "Prime Time!" / "Christmas Breaker!" / "And There Shall Come... a Leader!", from The Transformers US #9-12 (Oct. 1985–Jan. 1986) / The Transformers UK #31-41 (19 Oct.–28 Dec. 1985) and The Transformers Annual [1985]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

scripts by Simon Furman, Bob Budiansky, and James Hill; pencils by Barry Kitson, Mike Manley, Ricardo Villamonte, Herb Trimpe, William Simpson, and John Stokes; inks by Barry Kitson, M. Hands, Brad Joyce, Tom Palmer, Al Gordon, William Simpson, and John Stokes; colours by Gina Hart, Whitaker/Place, and Nel Yomtov; letters by A. Halfacree, Mike Scott, Rick Parker, Janice Chiang, Diana Albers, and Starkings

from The Transformers UK #32

This sequence of stories mostly concerns the rise of Circuit Breaker, the whereabouts of the Creation Matrix, the Autobots' deal with G. B. Blackrock, and the defeat of Shockwave. At the end of the previous arc, Ratchet and the Dinobots headed off for the Ark, where their deactivated comrades were stored. Here, the stories cover Ratchet and the Dinobots regaining access to the Ark (Shockwave reprogrammed the Autobot Guardian droid), Buster Witwicky struggling with realizing that he has the secret of Autobot power in his mind, and Josie Beller remaking herself into a supervillain, all while the Autobots struggle with the fact that Optimus is literally headless.

I found a lot to like in this sequence. There's some good comedy in the Dinobot stuff, especially with Grimlock. I like the kinda dumb Grimlock of the cartoon, but the smarter-but-still-hotheaded one of the comic is good too, especially his interplay with the other Autobots. Furman's story are small but usually have good character focus and one interesting formalistic technique per issue.

 

from The Transformers US #11

I kind of remember not having a lot of time for the Witwickys reading the US stories before, but I enjoyed them this time out, especially Buster's indecision over whether to tell his father about having the Creation Matrix, and Sparkplug's eventual realization that Buster is trying to do what's right—and there's nothing a father wants more than that. I think Budiansky's instinct that Transformers needed to be grounded in the human is a good one, even if it doesn't always work out in practice... but that's more later. 

 

The resolution to the whole Shockwave subplot is also a good one: the way Optimus finally returns and unleashes his full power is really well done. I will say, though, I though the art on many of the US stories in this run was rough. It felt like they were scrambling from artist to artist who didn't quite know how to deal with drawing giant robots on a monthly basis. Which, fair enough, does seem to be a specialized skill.

 

from The Transformers UK #41

The Christmas story is decent, but would be better if half of it wasn't recapping the arc you just read. Did they think a bunch of new readers would jump on at Christmas and need catching up? 

 

Lastly, I thought "And There Shall Come... a Leader!" was fine. Like a lot of early UK stories, the art is a bit stiff, but this story gives us Emirate Xaaron and a lot of other key facts about the early Autobot/Decepticon war on Cybertron... though notably not what a "Prime" is; Optimus Prime here is just some guy promoted to battle commander, not the leader of the Autobots by name. 

 

"Plague of the Insections!", from The Transformers Annual [1985]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)

script by Furman, art by Collins/Anderson, letters by Starkings, colours by Hart

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Melodramatic, but solid. Clearly not high art, but good at tone and very visceral. As a one-off, it's basically everything you could want.

This is the third in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #13-14 and UK issues #42-54. 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) 

JLA: Year One by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, Barry Kitson, et al.

JLA: Year One: The Deluxe Edition

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 1998-99
Acquired and read: July 2025

Writers: Mark Waid & Brian Augustyn

Penciller: Barry Kitson

Inkers: Michael Bair, Barry Kitson, Mark Propst, John Stokes

Colorist: Pat Garrahy

Letterers: Ken Lopez

Like the previous installment of this series (see below), this one covers a story that is arguably pretty tangential to the Blackhawks. But I couldn't see how I wouldn't like this book, so I really wanted an excuse to buy it and read it sooner rather than later.

This book comes from a (somewhat odd, in retrospect) period of DC history where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman were not founding members of the Justice League, thanks to various changes in continuity introduced following Crisis on Infinite Earths. Thus, the main characters are the Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Black Canary (Dinah Laurel Lance), Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter. The story chronicles the first year of the JLA, picking up from them fighting off an alien invasion. They organize as a group, face various crises, discover that the alien invasion they fought off is not quite over, try (and fail) to recruit Superman, and learn about each other and themselves and how to work as a team.

I loved it. This is, as far as I am concerned, perfect superhero comics. This should be of little surprise to anyone familiar with the other work of the creative team; Mark Waid is, in my opinion, one of the all-time greats, able to unite continuity with characterization in really compelling ways. I haven't read much by his frequent collaborator Brian Augustyn, but Waid sings his praises in the intro, so clearly they are simpatico. Definitely also simpatico is Barry Kitson; Kitson came out of the UK comics scene (specifically, of course, Transformers), but really won himself over to me with his amazing five-year run on L.E.G.I.O.N., where he went from pencilling the title to plotting it and then scripting it. That was, I believe, where he first worked with Waid, who scripted the title for a year. After JLA: Year One, the two would work together on the excellent Legion of Super-Heroes "threeboot".

I understand why Batman and Wonder Woman couldn't be founding members of the JLA in the post-Crisis continuity—Batman was supposedly an "urban legend" in the post–Batman: Year One comics, which would hardly be true if he was giving Justice League press conferences, and George Pérez's Wonder Woman reboot moved her origins up to the present day—and I can also see why the editors of the Superman titles might not want him in the JLA in the present day—presumably they didn't want his actions in that book to constrain what they were doing in theirs—but it's not clear to me why Superman couldn't have been a past member of the JLA. But I guess it worked out; I don't think this story would have been anywhere near as good if these five characters were outclassed by a hero of Superman's power and narrative significance.
from JLA: Year One #7 (art by Barry Kitson & Michael Bair)

When I was a young comics fan, I used to make fun of Aquaman. This book made me feel bad for that.
from JLA: Year One #3 (art by Barry Kitson)

All of this is to say, I think this creative team was entirely on the same page, and what was on that page is beautiful. I like my superhero comics to be character-driven and fun, and this is undoubtedly both. One of the benefits of this odd team is that they have a lot of good hooks for characterization, especially early in their superheroic careers. Aquaman is trying to adjust to living on the surface world, where he feels like an alien of sorts; I liked the idea that he mumbles compared to people from the surface because of how sound propagates more loudly underwater. 

I think Hal is probably the one who gets the fewest character moments, actually, but he's fine, even if the playboy thing is laid on a bit thick. (I do, however, think the decision to call Tom Kalmaku "Pie" was not really any better than "Pieface" surely.)

Black Canary is a real highlight of the book, which as a Dinah Laurel Lance stan I very much appreciated. Post-Crisis, Black Canary was split into two characters: Dinah Drake (later Dinah Drake Lance), who was the Justice Society's Black Canary, and Dinah Laurel Lance, her daughter. But in most of the comics I've read, this is a fact of backstory, not something dealt with in the narrative; one of the benefits of going back to Black Canary's origin is actually seeing how she relates to her mother. The elder Dinah wants to mold the younger into her own image, but the younger Dinah must find her own path. There is a lot of good JSA stuff in the book; Dinah is often comparing her new colleagues to the heroes she grew up alongside, but also she discovers that those heroes weren't so perfect, as Waid and Augustyn make good use of the revelation from Starman that the elder Dinah had an affair with Ted Knight, the original Starman.

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical about going back over this ground, but the story did a great job with it.
from JLA: Year One #4 (art by Barry Kitson & Michael Bair)

I think Barry Allen's thread is less involved than either Black Canary's or Martian Manhunter's, but Waid and Augustyn and Kitson do well by him. (Which I guess makes sense, as they cowrote an acclaimed and long run on The Flash, even if it was about Wally West.)

Reading this book made me think I really must get around to reading some actual Martian Manhunter comics someday.
from JLA: Year One #1 (art by Barry Kitson)

The other real highlight is Martian Manhunter, even more of an outsider than Aquaman, but also able to pass thanks to his shapeshifting and telepathy. His discomfort at seeing the way his teammates treat the aliens they fight, his need to better understand them that goes places that violate their privacy, his belief that they and humanity can do better, they're all very well done.

What really makes the characterization sing, though, is the interactions. There are lots of moments between them all: John and Aquaman, Hal and Barry, Barry and Dinah, and so on, all the permutations you can think of, perfectly rendered. This is a team of people, in their highs and their lows; you understand why the team (briefly) turns on Martian Manhunter, but the moment where he needs to tune himself telepathically into an alien device, and the whole team comes together to help him do it is a genuine punch-the-air moment, I loved it.

Awww...
from JLA: Year One #12 (art by Barry Kitson & Michael Bair)

Beyond that, the book is just fun and inventive, taking those old Silver Age stories and filtering them through a modern perspective without being either overly nostalgic or cynical. (Weird to think, actually, that this book is now thirty years old, which is about how old the original Justice League stuff was when this was written.) We see Vandal Savage, we see the Doom Patrol, we see Snapper Carr, we get cameos from Oliver Queen and Maxwell Lord. At the end of the book, the invading aliens trap every superhero on Earth in a prison, which gives the JLA its chance to shine—but also means that once the JLA liberates the others, we get glimpses of all the superheroes of the Earth at this time. (In some cases, I suspect the continuity timing doesn't add up, but who cares.) I found that each issue of this series just flew by, perfect superhero comics. 

Lots of characters in this image who should be dead!
from JLA: Year One #2 (art by Barry Kitson)

As for the Blackhawks? Well, I'm saving a discussion of their post-Crisis continuity for a future post, but this story very much doesn't seem to care about it, nor does it even sit very well with their Silver Age continuity. Their role in the story is small but significant. In an early issue, we see them in their 1970s red-and-green uniforms, and Blackhawk suggests they need to update with the times. But then in a later issue, they're all in their superhero gear from the "Junk-Heap Heroes" era (see item #6 in the list below), and they decide they all look ridiculous and go back to how they were. Additionally, Blackhawk Island is the site of the prison where the aliens put the Earth's superheroes.

You might see this as massaging how their superheroic career could fit into their new post-Crisis history... except that all the characters who got killed off during the Rick Burchett run (see #10 and 11) are there! Additionally, so is Lady Blackhawk, but we were told in Guy Gardner (see #12) that she was plucked out of time at some point in the past and brought to the present thanks to the Crisis in Time. But this isn't a complaint or anything, just observations. The joke about how they look terrible as superheroes is probably worth everything else! (It is shooting fish in a barrel, though.)

Chuck's face just screams, "Blackhawk, you promised me this outfit looked cool."
from JLA: Year One #8 (art by Barry Kitson & Michael Bair)

This is the thirteenth in a series of posts about the Blackhawks. The next installment covers Guns of the Dragon. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Blackhawk Archives, Volume 1 (1941-42)
2. Military Comics #18-43 / Modern Comics #44-46 / Blackhawk #9 & 50 (1943-52)
3. Showcase Presents Blackhawk, Volume One (1957-58) 
4. Blackhawk vol. 1 #151-95 (1960-64) 
5. Blackhawk vol. 1 #196-227 (1964-66)
6. Blackhawk vol. 1 #228-43 (1967-68)
7. Blackhawk vol. 1 #244-50 / The Brave and the Bold #167 (1976-80)
8. Blackhawk (1982) 
9. Blackhawk vol. 1 #251-73 / DC Comics Presents #69 (1982-84) 
• Pre-Crisis Continuity 
10. Blackhawk: Blood & Iron (1987-89)
11. Blackhawk vol. 3 (1989-92) 
12. Guy Gardner: Warrior #24, 29, 36, 38-43 / Annual #1 (1994-96)

Transformers UK #255–89: ...Perchance to Dream and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 49)

And here, my journey through Marvel UK's Transformers strip comes to an end—as does my journey through the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and adjacent material. This won't be all I have to say on either topic, however. Eventually I plan to reread the 1980s Marvel Transformers comic integrating US and UK material in chronological order, and I also plan to do a couple posts summing up my thoughts on the DWM strip as a whole.

A wise man once said, "It's over... finished!" but he was even wiser when he uttered these words: "It never ends!"

from Transformers #258

...Perchance to Dream, from Transformers #255-60 (3 Feb.–10 Mar. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman; art by Andy Wildman, Staz, and John Stokes; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

The last (by titling convention, anyway) multi-part story of the UK comic strip begins the transition into what would be known as Earthforce. Many pixels have been spilled on this topic, but basically Simon Furman decided to stop having the UK strip tie into the US one at all, not even the sense of the UK one having small side stories to the bigger US stories like he'd been doing since issue #240 or so. Instead, he would split the characters up: since the US strip was focused on Optimus Prime and company in space, the UK strip would follow a set of different characters back on Earth.

This story sets that up by reviving five classic off-line characters so that they can star in the new strip. Galvatron is infesting their dreams, so we get five parts of flashback adventures, and then in part six they all wake up and defeat him. It's a fine enough set of vignettes, but Galvatron is defeated absurdly easily for someone who had once been a powerhouse of the strip.

from Transformers #261

"Starting Over!" / "Two Steps Back!" / "Break-Away!" / "Desert Island Risks!" / "Once upon a Time..." / "Life in the Slow Lane" / "Snow Fun!", from Transformers #261-67 (17 Mar.–28 Apr. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Staz, Andy Wildman, Pete Knifton & Pete Venters, and Jeff Anderson; letters by Stuart Bartlett, Peri Godbold, and Glib

 

This is a fun set of strips that moves us into the Earthforce format, but also demonstrates its power. First we get a fun adventure where the characters revived in ...Perchance to Dream have to stop Megatron from destroying Earth's atmosphere. Why? I don't know, but it doesn't bother me, nor does the fact that according to the US strip at this time, Megatron can't even be here doing this. It's all worth it for the bits where the characters themselves complain about how gimmicky Transformers has gotten. "Probably some Microheadtargetmaster with a Pretender shell!" And then a fun ending where everyone just charges Megatron. Then we get a fun story about Grimlock versus Shockwave and his minions and then the whole premise is put into place: Optimus delegates Grimlock to run things on Earth.

 

I know some people love Grimlock, but for me a little bit of Grimlock goes a long way... there's only so much I can read about how he's "different" from the other Autobots. But Earthforce, it turns out, is the exact right amount of Grimlock. Like many loose cannon characters, he's best with a straight man, and here he's essentially got a whole team of them. Some of the stories here are bad silly (e.g., "Desert Island Risks" is improbably contrived) but many of them are good silly; any Transformers story where Grimlock's own Dinobots trick him by building a snowman of Shockwave is my kind of Transformers story. I like the serious, epic, angsty Transformers all right, but I also like the silly stuff that leavens it, and here we get a deliciously concentrated dose of it.

from Transformers #268

"Flashkcab!", from Transformers #268 (5 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by John Marshall, inks by Stephen Baskerville, letters by Glib

 

What's that, Megatron has a time machine and is attempting to rewrite the events of the Underbase saga? Okay, sure. With five pages per story, Furman can't waste time on setting things up... or ever using these concepts ever again! This one is maybe overdoing the exciting standalone adventure thing, but it's fine.

 

"Mystery!", from Transformers #269 (12 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton, inks by Pete Venters, letters by Glib

 

An Autobot arrives at the Earthforce base and discovers something terrible has happened to Wheeljack... only to realize it's all an incredibly complicated misunderstanding. Goofy fun.

from Transformers #270

"The Bad Guy's Ball!", from Transformers #270 (19 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton, inks by Michael Eve, letters by Glib

 

There's been a Decepticon Civil War brewing, Shockwave versus Megatron, so the Decpticons call an "enclave" (should be "conclave," surely?) to settle who should be in charge. One of my favorite stories in this run: the whole idea of a Decepticon cease-fire social meet is a delight, and then the Autobots show up to cause problems in secret, preventing the two sides from reaching an accord. The only thing I don't like is I feel like this could be a premise for a whole twenty-page issue! Imagine this in the hands of James Roberts.

"The Living Nightlights!", from Transformers #271 (26 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by John Marshall, inks by Stephen Baskerville, letters by Helen Stone

 

Dumb, contrived story about Decepticon-made evil toys. Okay, not every "goofy fun" story is a winner... but you know, it's only five pages long at worst!

 

from Transformers #274

"Cry Wolf!" / "Wolf in the Fold!" / "Where Wolf?", from Transformers #272-74 (2-16 June 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Staz, and Jeff Anderson; inks by Michael Eve, Staz, and Stephen Baskerville; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

 

This three-part tale returns attention to the "Survivors," the group of Autobots and Decepticons who struck out on their own. In this one, ex-Decepticon Carnivac decides to revenge himself on the Mayhem Attack Squad; it's a fun story about Carnivac doing his own thing while working alongside the Autobots, and how he humiliates Bludgeon by not killing him. All of the Survivors tales have been good, and this one is no exception; the story also links up the Survivors with Earthforce. 

 

"Secrets" / "Bugged!" / "Internal Affairs!", from Transformers #275-77 (23 June–7 July 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Jeff Anderson, and Simon Coleby; inks by Pete Venters and Michael Eve; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

 

These three stories shift the focus to the Decepticons, and they are all pretty fun. First, it turns out Soundwave is spying on Megatron for Shockwave, but he plays on a fellow Decepticon's paranoia to throw suspicion off himself in a masterful move. Then Starscream makes his own play, uniting with Soundwave to depose both Megatron and Shockwave. It's so complicated you've got to love it.

 

from Transformers #280

"The House That Wheeljack Built!" / "Divide and Conquer!" / "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!" / "Makin' Tracks!", from Transformers #278-81 (14 July–4 Aug. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Staz, and Jeff Anderson; inks by Michael Eve and Jeff Anderson; letters by Glib, Stuart Bartlett, and Sophie Heath

 

More goofy fun in "The House That Wheeljack Built": Wheeljack shows off the new Earthbase's automated defense systems... only everyone is outside the base, and you can only deactivate them from the inside, meaning everyone has to battle their way in! I also enjoyed "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!", where Optimus comes on an inspection tour at the same time Slag develops one of his periodic compulsions to murder everyone he knows(!), so Grimlock has to distract Optimus in the foreground while the other Dinobots keep subduing Slag in the background. Low farce, surely.

 

On the other hand, "Makin' Tracks" is similar but didn't work for me. In this case, the dead Tracks is being revived... but Grimlock hates Tracks so much he tries to kill him off again. I feel like this one went a bit too far... also, who the hell is Tracks? I don't even remember this guy or his beef with Grimlock. Plus the small art of these Titan digests made it hard to understand what was going on at the climax.

 

from Transformers #282

"Shut Up!"/ "Manoeuvres!", from Transformers #282-83 (11-18 Aug. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz and Pete Knifton & Pete Venters, letters by Gary Gilbert and Sophie Heath

 

"Shut Up!" is another great story, one that could pretty much only work as a five-pager: the Mayhem Attack Squad intimidate Red Alert into letting them out of the cell on Earthbase by not talking! "Manouvres!" is one that made little impression, on the other hand.

 

"Assassins" / "External Forces!" / "The Lesser Evil!", from Transformers #284-86 (25 Aug.–8 Sept. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Jeff Anderson, Pete Knifton, and John Marshall; inks by Michael Eve, Pete Venters, and Jeff Anderson; letters by Stuart Bartlett, Julie Hughes, and Peri Godbold

 

More on the complicated shenanigans of the Decepticon civil war. Shockwave and Megatron team up to assassinate Starscream, making it look like Soundwave is responsible; the Mayhem Attack Squad attempts to kill Starscream and Soundwave; the Autobats have to save Starscream because they need a transfusion from him to defeat an illness Snarl has (we saw this illness in a flash-forward story in the 1990 annual). Enjoyable, but alas this is end of this plotline as the book itself is almost over. Shame, because I think there was a lot of mileage in it.

 

from Transformers #287

"Inside Story!" / "Front Line!" / "End of the Road!", from Transformers #287-89 (15-29 Sept. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton and Staz, inks by Pete Venters and Staz letters by Stuart Bartlett and Gary Gilbert

And here it all comes to an end, with honestly a pretty mediocre set of stories about a journalist trying to write a story about the Transformers. You'd think the giant robots tearing up the Earth would be bigger news than this story implies.

It's a shame this was it, because 1) these stories were boring, and 2) the Earthforce premise could clearly have gone on forever. I enjoyed it a lot on the whole. Sure, no big epics any more, but lots of character stuff and lots of jokes. I think this run was just as influential on James Roberts in its own way as the earlier, more epic, UK storylines.

from Transformers Annual 1991

"The Magnificent Six!", from Transformers Annual [1991]

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, art by Louise Cassell

 

The 1991 annual only contained one original story, so it wasn't worth buying (as I did the 1990 edition), but I realized you could get the story on the Internet Archive. This text story has six Autobots sent on a mission to Cybertron, only for five of them it's a return to the site of their greatest failure. This is an above-average text story about the traumas of war; it also felt to me like there was a straight line from this to Last Stand of the Wreckers; Megadeath is surely a proto-Overlord. 

(This mostly features the set of characters resurrected in ...Perchance to Dream; I would suggest it goes after that story, before they are deployed to Earth in "Starting Over!")

 

"Another Time & Place", from Transformers Annual [1992], reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Staz, inks by Lesley Dalton, colour by Caroline Steeden

 

The last UK-original story is another text piece, this one set years after the end of the US strip. It's certainly the best text story the UK annuals ever did, with a mournful Optimus and a Grimlock keen to recapture old glories. So many have died, so many have changed. How can you make peace work? Again, it's hard to not see IDW's run foreshadowed here; this is the kind of think we saw explored a lot in Robots in Disguise and More than Meets the Eye. I liked this a surprising amount; I look forward to reading it someday with the full context of the US stories it follows up on.

 

This post is the forty-ninth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Cybermen: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection. 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
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
42. The Phantom Piper
43. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2
44. The Clockwise War
45. Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War
46. Skywatch-7
47. Mistress of Chaos
48. Transformers: Aspects of Evil! and Other Stories