#marveltransformers

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Marvel Transformers UK #64

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: Barry Kitson, Tim Perkins

Colors: Steve Whitaker, Stuart Place

Letters: Mike Scott

Cover: Geoff Senior

Editor: Ian Rimmer

Lmao, the one dude facing away in the background.

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My first exposure to Blades was Transformers Rescue Bots.

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Thats rough buddy.

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This is a tad painful.

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That head stomp is brutal. Although the following is a bit...

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It twas all just a dream~

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Oh.

This was definitely one of the more toy-pushed issues, one right after another plus the fact it conflicts with Optimus vehemently not wanting to "pervert the Matrix". We will see more of the Special Teams more naturally later and get to know them, and as a whole this won't 100% fit to the "future".

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Marvel Transformers UK #63

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: John Stokes

Colors: Josie Firmin

Letters: Mike Scott

Cover: Alan Stevens

Editor: Ian Rimmer

I thought it was strange that it took so long to bring back the Constructions, mentioned previously, but its especially strange that they did this just before introducing their new combiner teams, ie the Protectobots/Defensor and the Stunticons/Menasor. Though Furman defends this by saying that "Devastator is the slightly more lumbering, brainless version of the Special Teams, and he's also the catalyst for Buster having this feverish dream of the next generation" and also continues elevating Soundwaves presence as a "key player'.

Similar to the Annual '85, artist John Stokes continues to use and adapt poses and panel-staging from previous issues. Such as the battle between the Aerialbot's and Stunticon's, and when Optimus kneels before the humans.

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Still a dream btw

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I wasn't going to say it, cause it seemed like it might step a line, but Buster looks very… feminine throughout the issue.

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I didn't realize that was Meg's for a moment and he still has mostly the same body frame. Also that dumb ass scraping by somehow.

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Marvel Transformers UK #62

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: Will Simpson

Colors: John Burns

Letters: Mike Scott

Cover: Robin Smith

Editor: Ian Rimmer

Coming from #61 where I talk about my thoughts - this is an example of 'heroes and villains on adventures'. There's not even much to say about most of these.

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Such perty lips

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The hell's going on?

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???

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Then why did you leave then???

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Marvel Transformers UK #61

I feel like there's a collage of this cover type.

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: Will Simpson

Colors: John Burns

Letters: Mike Scott

Cover: Will Simpson

Editor: Ian Rimmer

I was going through my sources again as I was prepping the post for #62 and I came across this interesting tidbit from the TF UK Classics interview section about the covers, but before going into that, I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the US and UK runs through focusing on the points of the overall interview section within this collection:

UK versus the US came up often, the idea that the UK was this big massive upgrade. This makes no sense to me because Budiansky is a good writer; even when dealing with having to force new toys into stories, it feels like an alien civilization with their own lifestyle still. I would say most of the time Furman writes the characters more like heroes and villains going on adventures with the occasional war-esc story. The UK also got more space to tell its story compared to the US and so even when Furman occasionally had to do the Obvious Product Placement, it wasn't the majority of what he was doing (in another post I mention how Hasbro was mostly off-hands with the UK team), so it feels a little unfair. I think really, the only thing the UK had solidly of the US run was the art, Nel is a good artist but the limitation of how the US branch did color separation vs the UK's full paintings at times was noticeable.

Brought up Target 2006 a lot, which I found a little much for what I read, not bad but not pages of pages of singing its praises.

And obviously: Simon Furman. I can recognize that Furman did a lot (I personally love the Primus addition), many of his stories are beloved, and teammates talk about the trust they have and vice versa (ex; there's a point where Ian Rimmer talks about how in terms of editing and direction, Ian didn't worry much and his role diminished over time) but its all brought up so frequently (often alongside the 'UK run was so fantastic' bits) that it edges on glory hounding in the case of other people heaping praises on the person at the expense of others rather than the person seeking it out. Personally, I think Furman is an okay writer -- at the point of this post I've read up to #133 and a decent chunk of Phase 1 of IDW but you can seem my comments above about my preference for Budiansky. It also feels like when this came out it was with the impression of Furman being this big legend for Transformers, and in some way's he is, I dont want to diminish his contributions -- but going in years later with many other writers coming to the table across mediums, and especially after that massive Arcee fumble, plus the UK is superior plot thread (basically) conflicts with that I like the US stuff just fine, this comes off as a bit of a miss so it makes reading the collection a bit of a slog despite how interesting the behind the scenes stuff is.

But back to the covers tidbit:

It in part continues on from the coloring discussion previously, this page within this part of the interview is all about color, US material vs UK material, and a bit of the team behind it.

When deciding what to have for the cover they would rotate each week for immediate recognition on newsstands that there was a new issue (close up, combat, or a particular element of a story).

Hours would be spent on agonizing over cover lines: 'The Final Battle' apparently became such a running gag that Tomlinson used it as Simon's leaving card when Simon went freelance.

- Its wild that it took so long for the Constructicon/Devastator to reappear, having not been around since UK #35, since they are a rather big legacy character--they are one of the few characters that don't have their name shared across wildly different characters.

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Oh we're just moving on? Okay then.

Idk but looking at this suddenly reminded me of Zathura and that random incest plot.

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Im laughing but I'm also confused. What did Smokescreen do??

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She surely is.

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Marvel Transformers UK #60

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: Barry Kitson

Inks: Tim Perkins

Colors: "Tim Cooks"

Letters: Annie Halfacree

Cover: Barry Kitson

Editor: Ian Rimmer

Not much to add, but it is worth mentioning Marvel UK's first attempt at using the mechanical color separation's that American comics did. The team wasn't happy with it, which is why this issue has T.M.Cooks (Too Many Cooks) accredited for color, and didn't use mechanical separation until #93 onwards when they had a better handle on it.

And yes, the 1980s also had the "let them cook"/"what homeboy cooking". Sure its more like a hotpot reference but the same slang is the same slang.

Home Alone tricks do not work on Soundwave for he is not Harry and Marv.

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Despite the story being here mostly to keep Kitson interested, it does take time to fill in holes left in the US series due to the constraints Budiansky faced.

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Yaknow they don't show how the bots know how to find Buster - I can only assume the suit had a tracker but also why would there be one?

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Transformers UK #59

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: Barry Kitson

Inks: Tim Perkins

Colors: Josie Firmin

Letters: Annie Halfacree

Cover: Geoff Senior

Editor: Ian Rimmer

This tale is assisted plot-wise by artist Barry Kitson, who appeared first in UK #8 for covers and #31 for interiors. And while he didn't do much for the series, it seems he was very much wanted in the offices as this two-parter was made solely to keep Kitson interested by involving him in story planning, which didn't seem to work.

Grabbing from classics, since original scans are rather dim and slightly fuzzy.

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Is the decepticon fortress trying to be Castlevania?

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Dude lived through a 5 million years war, I think you should revaluate here bud.

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Oh shit how has Frenzy lived this long. Not like Buster has a swath of combat experience.

To be honest, I think the art really sells the story; the plot itself is pretty meh.

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Marvel Transformers UK - Special Teams Have Arrived

Writer: Simon Furman

Art: John Stokes

Inks:

Colors:

Letters:

Cover:

Editor:

We take a moment to look at the Special Teams Have Arrived, an issue that came at the insistence of Hasbro to promote the Special Teams toys. The instance would cause a bit of continuity problems and the #63 issue, Second Generation, would help to patch that over with Special Teams being a sort of "Trailer". Apparently expanding from The Special Teams Have Arrived. It's placement seems to come from the fact it was packaged with #54 and should be read anywhere from there to #63. Since I was following Wadapan's list order, at the point I read this (i've moved to RabidYak's later), imma read it now.

Regarding the name Special Teams, I'll refer to this post by Nevermore on the TF2005 form - it goes into detail, but to summarize here: Special Teams was going to be the branding name for all these Gestalt teams like Aerialbots in the same way Seekers was, but eventually Hasbro dropped it, likely late in development, as the name still appears in marketing, toy catalogues and obvs a few issues like this one.

There's more to be said about this issue than presenting what's in it, but here's my real time response as I read:

O-okay Just right in then (This is the first 3 panels)

Hurrh?

That was all?

The show did it better lmao.

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Marvel Transformers UK #58

Writer: Len Kaminski

Art: Graham Nolan

Inks: Tom Morgan

Colors: Nelson Yomtov

Letters: Bill Oakley

Cover: Herb Trimpe

Editor: Mike Carlin, Jim Shooter (EIC)

This feels like a bad Herbie plot.

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Hm

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I guess Im sad? Idk, these last few issues man...

Oh

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My first Soundwaves! While these have been apart of the comics for a while, none of the scans I found included them until now.

Something about this seems really cute