Transformers
Transformers Universe Reviewed – In Poetic Form
The Universe line is pretty brill,
Each new release gives me a thrill.
Now sit back and have a great time,
As I review these figures in the medium of rhyme.
Galvatron
“Arise Galvatron!” The dark god Unicron cried,
Had had he seen this he may well have sighed.
A purple, fragile work of art,
Touch him and he’ll fall apart.
Transformer UK Comics – Space Pirates
I must confess that this was probably the collection I was looking least forward to reviewing, but upon re-reading it found that it contained some of the strongest stories in the UK run, the highlight of course, being ‘Salvage’. With a pair of short stories set in the present day continuing the Galvatron plot, and then the main event, Space Pirates, there are plenty of touches to keep even the most hardened cynic happy.
Salvage begins with two Mechanoids being dredged from the River Thames – namely Megatron and Centurion (how they got there is covered in the Transformers / Action Force crossover, and I have a feeling rights issues means it can’t be reprinted, sadly enough). Hilariously enough though, it is a certain Richard Branson doing the dredging. Bless him and his little smile!
Of course, Shockwave has other plans. Looking for a weapon he can use against Galvatron, he steals back Megatron himself and has a psychoprobe attempt to snap him out of his cataconic state, a task involving sending Megatron into his own nightmares, facing both Prime and Straxus. › Continue reading
I Love Transformers: Armada Toys
I’m starting with a controversial title, and I’ll continue it here. Armada has been one of the most unfairly maligned Transformer lines in recent years. It came after the Robots In Disguise line, that was low on gimmicks but big on realism and posability. Armada meanwhile was the opposite and was low on realism and posability but high on the fun factor. And fans hated it.
Yet kids loved it. Huh, toys being made for kids, go figure.
Of course, I’m an adult (or I like to think so) and yet these guys line my shelves. I personally think Armada was one of the most solid Transformer lines to date, really exciting, vibrant and fun. And so I’m going to pick out some of my favourites and hopefully pressure you into thinking the same!
Hot Shot
I’ll admit it. Hot Shot is probably the worst of the Armada line easily. He is very flat, his arms are truly atrocious and can only flap up and down weakly, and he is forever staring upwards with a pained, agonizing look on his face › Continue reading
Transformer UK Comics – The Legacy Of Unicron
Now I shall gear up into exploring another of the Titan Transformer trades, in this case The Legacy Of Unicron which collects two storylines set in the future, and two smaller stories set in the present that continue the tale of Galvatron
The Legacy Of Unicron
We kick off with Headhunt, a very cool two-parter set in the future and featuring everyone’s favourite homicidal killing machine, Death’s Head! Last we saw him, Rodimus Prime forcibly transported him back to the future to prevent him killing Galvatron, but more importantly in Death’s Head’s eyes, cheating him out of his bounty. Death’s Head is a robot, so I’m not really sure what he spends all this money on, but I would like to think that it is on cheap whores. Or hoovers, whatever the robot equivilant is. › Continue reading
Transformers Animated Fruit Snacks
So that I could concentrate on important matters such as completing Lego Batman, I asked a good friend Andrew Osmond, who plays my fake internet robot brother to help me out. “Okay Matt!” he said. “When my wife is out the house, I will whip out my camera and take photos of jelly sweets.” Luckily he was not caught taking photographs of inanimate objects as feared, and his relationship remains intact!
So behold reader, as Andrew shows you all about Transformer sweets! Now I’m going back to chasing Two-Face in the lego Batmobile!
Ever wanted to eat your Transformer toy, but always choked on the delicious but unchewable plastic? Now, your dreams have come true with ‘limited edition’ Transformers Animated Fruit Snacks by Betty Crocker!
Today you’re in for a real treat! Oh you lucky people, I’ve stuffed Matt in a box and have taken over his site to bring you news of delicious likenesses of your favourite Transformers Animated characters. Don’t worry, I put an air hole in the box, he’ll probably chew his way out by the time you’re done reading this article.
So, here we have the insidiously brightly-coloured box you may have seen in your local supermarket next to the boring, non-transformers themed fruit snacks. See how it taunts us with it’s amazing picture of Optimus Prime reaching out, as is to grab your mother and strangle her until she buys you a cart FULL of these amazing fruit snacks? › Continue reading
Transformers UK Comics – Fallen Angel
So we continue this whistlestop tour of some of the best Transformers collections with one of my favourites – Fallen Angel, which collects the return of Galvatron and the Fire On High storyline. And of course, the introduction of Death’s Head!
Fallen Angel
On a similar note, I absolutely love the cover art for this trade paperback. Remember, these things are larger than usual graphic novels because in the UK comics were A4 sized, so it looks really really nice.
Galvatron, at the end of Transformers the Movie, is hurled into space by Rodimus Prime. And thats where the comic and the cartoon diverge (the UK never really got the third season, you see). In the comic, he has kept his time travel device from Target: 2006 and uses it to travel back in time to present day Earth (and crash landing at high speed). › Continue reading
Transformers UK Comics – Prey
It seems I got a decently positive reaction from my last piece, so I’ll continue by looking at Prey. Now in an attempt to encourage people to buy the trades, I’ll look at the other story in the Prey TPB as well, Grudge Match.
Both of these were favourites when I was little. And one of the best things was that coming back to them as an adult (and a postgraduate student in English literature) was how fantastically well they were written, how well Furman can write both touching characterisation and epic plots interwoven in the same story, with just a tiny page count to do it in.
Aren’t I nice to you all!
So, without further ado…
Prey
We open with Optimus Prime reviewing the events of Target:2006, and worrying quite profusely. Namely that the first thing the Autobots did without him to let Megatron lead them, which given that he is commander of the Decepticons probably wasn’t the sanest thing do to. And now there is the added crisis of the Decepticon’s fully-operational spacebridge sending constant reenforcements. And shoud he die, what will the Autobots do then?
So he sets upon a… rather macabre plan – he will get Wheeljack to create a duplicate of himself so he can pretend to be dead and see how the Autobots will react, and at the same time as everyone believes he is dead, destroy the Decepticon’s spacebridge. Prime, you scally, its almost like reality TV! › Continue reading
TransPORNers
The world is a wonderful place, right? The sun shines, the flowers glow… but wait, what’s that dark cloud on the horizon? Yes – it’s the dark cloud… of porn. Filthy old men in dirty overcoats, peddling their wares on street corners… but there is an even more… sinister side. More fiendish than weird Japanese tentacle fetishes, more insidious than German… TV. No, today the lid shall be blown wide open on…
Transformers Porn
(Don’t worry, this article is strictly PG rated. No, wait, don’t go!)
The internet was once a pure medium, a repository for those interested in films, games and bomb-making to pool their knowledge. But no more! My first inkling of a sickening, twisted underworld came when my good friend (no longer!) Neal, found, via portalofevil.com, a weird, strange site. Sadly he was in a very public place when he did this, and so shouting “Hey Matt, come look at what I’ve found” probably wasn’t the best course of action. But what had he found? Two robots – Transformers – doing… stuff.
Yeah, I know
What I really want to know is who would spend valuable seconds of their life drawing stuff like that, as opposed to infinitely more constructive activities, such as sleeping, or typing pathetically unfunny articles on some third-rate website. There was only one person to investigate – only one hard-nosed reporter with the courage and bravery to pull through!
Sadly he was busy, so it had to be me. › Continue reading
Transformers UK Comics – Target: 2006
Recently there has been a surge of interest in Transformer comics generally, from the ill-fated Dreamwave era, to the steady IDW era. But how did it all start? What about the ones in the eighties? Surely they were just for little kids, and not worthy of a read by serious comic readers? Here, I plan to show you guys some of the best Transformers comics, and heck, comics period, that I have read. Prepare to be educated.
One of the defining points of my childhood was this thing. A little bit of background though first. The US Transformer comic was… mediocre at best. But when it came to porting it over to the UK there came a problem. UK comics were half the size pagewise of the US versions, but came out weekly (and boy, do I miss those days). So someone had to write more tales. Enter Simon Furman
Mr Furman didn’t just write filler stories to tread water until the US tales came out. He wrote massive, sweeping epics, small personal tales, which more importantly, didn’t contradict the US comics but made a massive universe. It actually became a story about this huge civil war fought by gigantic robots. And since they were robots, Marvel UK didn’t really care what he did. Some of my childhood nightmares were full of beheadings, eye-gougings and that one issue where the Autobot Micromaster military patrol were captured and dissected alive. Little Matty-Boy didn’t sleep much that week. › Continue reading
To Be There
The Transformers: Mosaic project is a fan-based project to get artists and writers working together to create fancomics.
Below is my piece, entitled ‘To Be There’ all about Astrotrain! This was part of a series set around the time of the IDW miniseries Megatron: Origin. I tried to make it self-contained and make sense even if you hadn’t read the mini. Did I succeed? Well, its up to you. Writing by me, Art by a rather fantastic artist I met over the internet, and colours by my buddy Mark.
Click the image for the big version!
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