Simon FurmanBesprekingen
Auteur van Annihilation Book 2
Besprekingen
This collection opens with a set of stories that slot in and around what was happening in the US strip at the time they were published.
Race with the Devil
This story is okay. A group of Autobots called the Triggerbots is assigned to shadow some Decepticon mercenaries, Darwking and Dreadwind; it turns out that the mercenaries are trying to recover Starscream's corpse, since it contains the Underbase, the collected knowledge of the Transformer race. (This is all due to the Underbase saga, from the US book.) Starscream kind of becomes a zombie and the Triggerbots stop him and save some humans. I guess if I ever could remember who the Triggerbots were, I might have cared about this more.
"Fallen Star!"
This vignette is focused on Starscream who, thanks to events in the US book, has been brought back to life... but is feeling like he's lost his mojo in the process. But then he realizes that maybe after all, he's still got it. Told in the first person, this is a fun story of Starscream at his best. (Well, worst.) Nicely done.
"Mind Games"
It's hard to talk about this story without getting into the weeds on continuity. Basically, when Simon Furman took over the US book, he decided he wanted to recurrect Megatron. But Megatron had already been resurrected in the UK book. He didn't want to alienate US readers by suddenly revealing Megatron had already been resurrected, so he wrote a story for the UK strip explaining that what everyone had thought was a resurrected Megatron was actually a clone of Megatron created by Straxus. Anyway, not much happens here; it's mostly to set up the next story.
"Two Megatrons!"
The "real" Megatron and the clone Megatron battle it out. Transformers fans have written whole dissertations on how this causes more problems than it solves, continuity-wise, but if you ignore all that, this is a great story with a perfect climax. Megatron is dead, love live Megatron!
After this, the collection suddenly jumps ahead to a set of Decepticon-focused stories from the "Earthforce" era, when the UK strip abandoned continuity with the US one. I wish Titan had just collected the era in publication order, but as they're the only publisher to collect it at all, I have to take what I can get.
"Flashkcab!"
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 (which became standard in the Earthforce era), but it's fine.
"The Bad Guy's Ball!"
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.
"Secrets" / "Bugged!" / "Internal Affairs!"
These three stories continue this collection's focus on 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.
"Assassins" / "External Forces!" / "The Lesser Evil!"
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 series itself is almost over. Shame, because I think there was a lot of mileage in it.
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Survivors! / "The Hunting Party"
After Time Wars, the UK Transformers comic changed gears, going small scale—and black and white! Survivors! picks up from the end of Time Wars, chronicling the Wreckers, who haven't been given new orders since those events. They end up teaming up with some former members of the Decepticon Mayhem Attack Squad, Carnivac and Catilla, to take down the deranged Skids. All the characters, all feeling like abandoned warriors, join up together at the end. I'm curious to see where this goes, as "The Hunting Party!" indicates that the new Mayhem Attack Squad has orders to hunt down Carnivac and Catilla for going AWOL. Bad Transformers who become good Transformers is probably one of my favorite tropes (see Dinobot, Blackarachnia, MtMtE Megatron), so this has some real potential.
"Way of the Warrior" / "Survival Run" / "A Savage Place!"
This follows up on the Survivors. The Mayhem Attack Squad is trying to hunt down and punish the two Deception traitors; the story mostly focuses on Carnivac, who refuses to recognize Autobot authority but also begrudgingly finds himself doing the right thing and in a desperate stand for his own survival. Decepticon-turned-"good" is one of my favorite Transformers tropes, and this is a good example of it. The middle installment illustrated by Lee Sullivan, with Carnivac crawling through the desert, is particularly effective.
"Cry Wolf!" / "Wolf in the Fold!" / "Where Wolf?"
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.
"Shut Up!"/ "Manoeuvres!"
"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.
"Whose Lifeforce Is It Anway?" / "The Greatest Gift of All!"
Two linked stories, both pretty okay. Not as forgettable as some of the other pre-Earthforce stories, but not the best either. In the first, we see an Autobot walrus robot named Longtooth. Long enough, Optimus Prime bequeathed a fragment of the Matrix to him to use to save a dying comrade... but the cowardly Longtooth kept it for himself. Guilt has since made him suicidal in battle, but all his fellow Autobots think he's just very brave. This I think is a good set-up for a story, but really all that happens is he just suddenly decides to send the Matrix fragment (anonymously) back to Earth so Optimus can make use of it. Not much of a story. In the second one, Optimus thinks about using the fragment to bring back some dead Autobots, but ends up using it to revitalize a part of Earth damaged ecologically by the Transformers' war. It's fine, you know. More Optimus angst.
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"[Double] Deal of the Century!" / "Prime's Rib!"
Here we have two small standalone tales. "[Double] Deal of the Century!" introduces Double-Dealer, the Transformer who plays both sides; to be honest, I was thoroughly confused by it because I'm often bad at recognizing Transformers, and that's even harder when they're in black-and-white. "Prime's Rib!" is a random future story, set in 1995 (so about halfway between the 1980s "present" and the 2005+ "future") explaining how there can be a girl Transformer in Arcee if Transformers don't have gender. Optimus Prime had her built to appease angry feminists on Earth! Hilarious if you can take it ironically, I guess. But also pretty stupid.
"Starting Over!" / "Two Steps Back!" / "Break-Away!" / "Desert Island Risks!" / "Once upon a Time..." / "Life in the Slow Lane" / "Snow Fun!"
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.
"Mystery!"
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.
"The Living Nightlights!"
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!
"The House That Wheeljack Built!" / "Divide and Conquer!" / "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!" / "Makin' Tracks!"
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.
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Aspects of Evil!
We're back in the future timeline of Transformers, but in a different way from usual. This five-part story is a set of five vignettes, framed by a dying Rodimus Prime in the year 2356 telling stories of various evils he has encountered to a student eager to learn of Unicron, but on the way, Rodimus tells him of Scorponok in 1991, Galvatron in 2009, Shockwave in 2004, and Megatron in 1990. Thus, we get glimpses all up an down the future timeline (which itself has been rewritten, thanks to the Time Wars) with tales set both before and after the 1986 film (set in 2006).
I found this fairly effective. Up until this point, the short black-and-white stories had clearly been scripted for the original longer format and then had their installments cut in half. Here, writer Simon Furman is figuring out the format that drive the book from here on out, telling small but sharp stories. I liked how Scorponock manipulated Rodimus's morality to his advantage during a Decepticon civil war; I liked the brutality of Megatron dealing with a traitor. The only one that didn't work was the last one... you can't cram Unicron into a five-page tale and convince me that he is the ultimate evil!
"The Void!" / "Edge of Impact" / "Shadow of Evil"
These are the first three installments of the last-ever future timeline story, detailing what Rodimus, Arcee, and Kup do after their defeat by Galvatron back in Aspects of Evil! It's all very moody, as some kind of enemy is stalking the Autobots on their escape vessel... but to be honest, I don't particularly care for how downbeat the future stories have become. The future was never cheery per se, but since the Autobots defeated Unicron, it feels like it's just fallback after fallback, and Rodimus Prime deserves better.
"White Fire"
And finally the future timeline comes to an end here, in a story where Rodimus almost defeats Unicron... but Kup screws things up so that the Matrix will be eternally corrupted. Good job, heroes! I don't like the direction the future stories were going in, so I am glad it all got cut off here, to be honest.
Deathbringer
Another okay story, one that doesn't use the format as well as Aspects of Evil! Basically, the Autobots encounter a mechanoid animated by a fragment of the Matrix (which was lost in space back when Optimus died), and Optimus angsts about it. I never care much for angsty Optimus, and this story is no exception.
"Out to Lunch!"
This is a good example of the vignette-focused approach of this era of the UK strip. Back in Race with the Devil, Dreadwind and Darkwing were working for Megatron, but he had (kind of) died, so this follows up on what they get up to next now that Thunderwing is in charge of the Decepticons. Here, they're hanging out in a bar on Cybertron, but it's attacked by Mecannibals... only they're too drunk and self-pitying to notice! So the story cuts between them and the desperate attempts of an Autobot agent to stop the Mecannibals from eating everyone. Fun stuff, exactly what you should do in a five-page Transformers comic, I reckon.
"Underworld!" / "Demons!" / "Dawn of Darkness"
To be honest, I completely forgot about this story until I went to write it up. I guess some Transformers battle robot zombies in sewers? Not really my thing.
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The 1990 Transformers Annual (by which I mean the one published in 1989) contains, as they usually do, a mix of comic and prose stories. The UK produced two more after this, but this was the last one with a substantive amount of original content. "The Quest!" is a dull text story designed to recap Transformers history, but most of what's left is decent stuff. "Destiny of the Dinobots!" is a tragic glimpse of the future of the Dinobots (seemingly set after the "Earthforce" run); "Dreadwing Down!" and "The Chain Gang!" are two decent action-focused tales. I also enjoyed "Trigger-Happy!", a two-part text story about Backstreet, an Autobot who screws up so much he goes on the run rather than be punished by Optimus... but thankfully it's all a big misunderstanding.
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The highlights for me though are really Spotlight:Kup and Ramjet. The Ramjet special is just really amusing, the Kup issue though, wow, Nick Roche is just really good at everything to do with the franchise.
The rest is okay, but pales in comparison to Roche's issue and the Barber, Roberts series that would come much later in the continuity.
I could live without the New Avengers/Transformers crossover--the only thing it points out is how boring the superheros are in comparison.
The rest of the Furman arc is also criminally underappreciated. Even I remembered them as interesting but nothing special. I was wrong. He had a lot going on that was unfortunately cut short when IDW went in a dramatically different direction. Still, it's a visionary take by Furman. One that really tried to do something different and let him put a final innovative spin on the franchise that he built in this medium.
This is a couple smaller stories, and then another big Transformers epic. Most of the small stories lead into the epic Time Wars, aside from one about the Wreckers battling a fire creature. There's Shockwave using the resurrected Megatron as a weapon against his future self, Galvatron, with the aid of Cyclonus and Scourge, also from the future, and then a Galvatron/Megatron showdown... which turns into an alliance, truly a delightful thing. I guess the one about Scorponok also leads into Time Wars, but it feel disposable.
Anyway, it all leads into the cross-time epic of Time Wars, which honestly I don't think makes sense even by Transformers time travel standards. A bit too much noise and fury, and not enough for someone to actually grab onto, once again, though it has its moments.
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Already reviewed as part of a different collection here.
The Big Broadcast of 2006 / Space Pirates!
You can read a version of the below that includes illustrations here.
"The Big Broadcast of 2006" was actually a US story (reprinted in Classics, Vol. 4), set in the future era of The Transformers: The Movie. But while the US comic never did anything with the future era other than this story and the movie adaptation, the UK comic had by this point depicted a robust and detailed future history—which was completely contradicted by this tale. UK writer Simon Furman solved this problem by writing a two-page frame to "Big Broadcast" that established it was a story being told by Wreck-Gar, full of lies to mislead his Quintesson interrogators: "Wreck-Gar's whole account is full of absurdities and contradictions." As the Quintessons point out, by this point in the UK continuity, Galvatron, Cyclonus, and Scourge were all in the 1980s, not the future. And besides, the UK continuity was up to 2008, not 2006. It's a clever conceit, though I imagine it will have more impact if I ever read it where it "goes"; this just reprints the two UK pages.
It leads into the next UK future epic, Space Pirates!, one of those future stories that actually doesn't intersect with the present-day timeline. I wasn't really convinced this one held together, to be honest; the maguffin that everyone is chasing after didn't make a ton of sense to me, and the story requires seasoned warriors to make dumb decisions for everything to hang together. I do like a bit of Rodimus angst, but I feel like such angst was done much better in IDW's original continuity two decades later. Now, arguably a lot of Simon Furman epics probably wouldn't make sense if you delved into them, but this one didn't grab me the way some of those others did, so I'm less apt to forgive it its mistakes.
"Ark Duty"
Already reviewed as part of a different collection here.
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A fine package for one of the classic transformers time travel epics. Whilst the art is pretty shonky by today's standards there are some fantastic images here and some great moments. The drama moves along nicely, with action bits and quiet bits fitting together nicely. Also includes some American G1 stories from the same time that aren't as good but still have some good bits. Please don't ever mention Skids' off switch again.
Collects the stories Devastation, two volumes of Spotlights featuring characters ranging from Soundwave to Wheelie, and the concluding Revelations stories.
For strengthening forearm muscles, or getting the full story of the Transformers' "IDW-verse," look no further than the Transformers: Premiere Edition. At just over 500 pages of non-stop 'bot action, if you only buy one Transformers book, ever, this is the one you need! Journey from Cybertron to Earth and back as the Transformers' legendary war spans the galaxy in a quest to return peace to their home planet, and restore harmony between all mechanoids. But while the noble Autobots seek their freedom, the Decepticons await with treacherous plans of their own.
This collection includes Infiltration, Stormbringer, a collection of Spotlights (Shockwave, Nightbeat, Hot Rod, Sixshot, Ultra Magnus), and the latest addition, Escalation.
I had always intended to follow Death's Head out of A Cold Day in Hell! and into his solo series. If I had been smart, though, I would have picked up Panini's two-volume collection of his adventures; since Panini has (had?) the UK reprint rights to both Marvel and Doctor Who, they could include both Death's Head stories with Doctor Who elements and ones with Marvel elements. Alas, I did not, and that collection is now prohibitively expensive and/or just unavailable. Instead, I picked up this Marvel collection, which has to skip over, for example, Death's Head #8 because both the Doctor and Josiah W. Dogbolter appear in it.
So: in the Transformers storyline "The Legacy of Unicron!", Death's Head was lost in a time portal; in the Doctor Who Magazine story The Crossroads of Time, he emerged in the Doctor Who universe. At the end of that story, the Doctor sent him to Earth in the year 8162, setting up his appearances here. That means all the stories in the first half take place in the Doctor Who universe, and thus also Marvel UK's Dragon's Claws series must take place in the Who universe, though neither Lars Pearson's Ahistory nor the Tardis wiki seem to buy this argument. As I discussed in my review of A Cold Day in Hell!, the fact that Dragon's Claws is set in the 82nd century is actually what allows us to date a significant number of DWM stories: Dreamers of Death, The Free-Fall Warriors, The Moderator, The Shape Shifter, Polly the Glot, War-Game, the Kane's Story sequence, A Cold Day in Hell!, Redemption!, and many I haven't gotten to yet must take place in the 82nd century because Death's Head #8 established that Dogbolter was from the same era as Dragon's Claws. Yet, as far as I know, we never see Earth in DWM during what Lars Pearson calls "the Mazuma Era"; the status of humanity's homeworld in this time is only fleshed out in Dragon's Claws and in Death's Head #1-8. (I think? It may have appeared in passing in the Kane's Story sequence now that I think about it.)
Okay, okay, enough context, what about the stories? Reading this, at first I wondered if Death's Head could actually work as a solo character. What made him fun in The Transformers was the way he was above it all-- or rather, beneath it all. Here's this vast cosmic war happening, and especially in the 2006-set stories he originated in, it features titans of the universe. But Death's Head doesn't give a crap: he just cares about money, and if someone is going to call him a "bounty hunter" instead of a "freelance peacekeeping agent." The fun derives from the fact that Death's Head is basically operating in a totally different story to that of our usual protagonists and antagonists. But can that be maintained when he becomes the star of the show?
Most of the time, Simon Furman seemingly can't figure out how to do it. At first, this title really struggles because of Dragon's Claws. The first issue collected here is Dragon's Claws #5, and the story drops you right in, with no context for who these people are or why you should care about them. Which, okay, to be fair, it was their series and Death's Head was a guest star. Why should they be explained? But Death's Head was the breakout star of Marvel UK, and surely Death's Head fans followed him from The Transformers into this without picking up issues #1-4? Yet no concession is made for them. This is also true of some of the individual issues of the actual solo series once it gets started, especially #2, which really strongly assumes I understand who all these characters are and what they are doing when I just don't.
In issues #3-7, the series moves into its short-lived status quo, where Death's Head with his assistant Spratt set up a business in the Los Angeles Resettlement. There are two I particularly liked, two that make the format work. The first is #5, which brings back self-interested space trash Keepsake from the Doctor Who Magazine story Keepsake. Now, when I saw this, my reaction was, "uh, really?" because Keepsake wasn't exactly a noteworthy story where I was thinking, "let's bring back that guy." But when I read it, I finally saw what this series was doing and could do. In this one, Keepsake returns to L.A. to meet up with an old partner; between the two of them, they have a complete map to a buried treasure. Only Keepsake-- who now has a new girlfriend in tow-- ran out on his wife so that she wouldn't get part of his half, and so the wife hires Death's Head to get Keepsake. The result of this is a confusing panoply of Keepsake vs. ex-partner and Keepsake vs. ex-wife. But just like the Autobot/Decepticon war, Death's Head doesn't give a hoot, he just wants a payday. It's dumb, and it's fun because Death's Head agrees with us that it's dumb, and doesn't give the interpersonal dynamics any real thought if he gets his money.
Similarly, #7 is about Death's Head and Spratt chasing a mark-- but what they don't know is that two different bounty hunters are chasing down Death's Head. So these two bounty hunters are trying to kill him, which he doesn't know, and also trying to kill each other so that the other one doesn't get the credit. Again, this sense that Death's Head attitude means that he's just above it all is where these stories are the most fun.
But when they expect you to take these things seriously, they don't work, because much of the time, they are impossible to: a lot of macho early 1990s stuff, even though it's still the late 1980s. Too many stories are dependent on action, which I don't care about, or keeping track of a bunch of interchangeable nobodies. There are occasional flashes of wit and color, but overall the effect is drab.
(I did also like #1, where we get a series of flashbacks each of which ends with Death's Head laying down one of his principles of being a freelance peacekeeping agent.)
Still, I think the comic was getting somewhere and figuring itself out, which is why it's a bummer that #8 totally shifted the direction of the comic, though I'm sure there were good sales-related reasons for this. Due to rights issues, though, issue #8 can't be printed in this collection! Suffice it to say that the Doctor takes Death's Head out of the Doctor Who universe in 8162 and plops him in the Marvel universe in the present day; I will eventually read it when I pick up The Incomplete Death's Head. So now Death's Head is in his third universe thus far!
Issue #9 picks up with Death's Head on the roof of Four Freedoms Plaza, where the Fantastic Four live. At first they fight, of course, but then they must team up the Fantastic Four's security system goes haywire. At the end of this issue, the Fantastic Four try to send Death's Head back to 8162 (I guess no one knows he's in the wrong universe), but when Reed Richards realizes he's a paid killer, he switches it off, which ejects Death's Head in the far-off year of, um, 2020. (Iron Man 2020 had been a feature of some Marvel comics, so this was an established setting.) The set-up is a bit confusing, as Death's Head is already established, and trying to find money to fix up his spaceship... which didn't come with him... and which doesn't appear in 2020 until the issue's end!
These two issues are basically fine. There's some fun interplay between Death's Head and the FF, and the Iron Man 2020 has some great Death's Head moments, but on the other hand falls foul of the dull convolutions that bedevilled a number of the pre-time-jump stories. Overall though, one can sense a comic frantically searching for a new direction... and getting cancelled abruptly, as an obviously hastily final two pages in #10 sum up a lot.
After this, Death's Head doesn't have a status quo. The graphic novel The Body in Question (which has three parts; book one is set between the antepenultimate and penultimate pages of #10, and then books two and three after #10) makes the mistake of delving into the history of Death's Head, though it does reunite him with his supporting cast from his ongoing. No one cares about where Death's Head came from; what makes him interesting is what he does. Unfortunately this story gives us very little of that, instead spending time on a lot of cod mysticism. There is one good joke, though.
I don't know why Furman bothered bringing the supporting cast back, because they never appear again. We next follow Death's Head into Fantastic Four #338, when he's starting freelancing for the Time Variance Authority. This is not much of a Death's Head story; it's just a Fantastic Four one he happens to be in. Better use is made of him in Sensational She-Hulk #24; he's back in New York 2020... but in a grave for some reason. (He still has his TVA time-bike, though, because he never returned it.) The story is goofy, but enjoyable, and actually makes good use of the 2020 setting in that something She-Hulk does in 1991 has repercussions thirty years later... and vice versa. Then in 2011, he's being hired by aliens to fight on their behalf (against the Hulk, as Earth's champion). (I assume because of time travel again, but I don't think anyone says.) Each of these is probably fine as a guest appearance, but it is a pretty disappointing way for the character to go out. He's brought into the Marvel universe... and promptly amounts to nothing!
Part of the reason was that in 1992, he was killed off and replaced by Death's Head II, an "extreme" 1990s character. So Death's Head makes it into a new universe, and is killed off for his troubles. Simon Furman got the opportunity to kind of undo this in an issue of What If..., which has him uniting a team of 1992 superheroes to take down a villain in 2020. It probably would have been much more interesting if I was familiar with the story it was rewriting... but I also can't imagine I would enjoy reading that story either! Geoff Senior's usually solid art seems compromised in pursuit of the mediocre 1990s aesthetic, to boot.
So, I wish Furman had left Death's Head in Los Angeles 8162 and perfected that set-up instead. This was a pretty dismal way for a once-great character to go out. (Though, in my marathon at least, there is more Death's Head to come.)
(Also it seems like a bummer that this doesn't contain the 2011 Revolutionary War: Death's Head one-shot... I haven't read it, though, so maybe there's a good reason for that.)
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This is the first DWM graphic novel (in strip order) that has bonus features beyond an archival interview; it contains a new introduction by Richard Starkings (the strip's editor for much of this era) and a set of interviews with the writers and artists put together by John Freeman (the magazine's editor for much of this era). This means I have more insight into the production decisions behind the strip than in previous eras.
The big difference between this run and previous ones is that it has neither a consistent writer (as the strip did from #1 to #110) nor a consistent artist (as the strip did from #1 to 69 and #88 to 133). Starkings explains the decision: "it had often occurred to me that the strip should reflect the series and feature a different writer and director for each story" (p. 6). But I think this neglects a way in which television is a different medium than tv. On screen, the writer and director might always change, but the performance stays the same. Every episode has got Sylvester McCoy in. But in a comic, the artist isn't just the director, they're also every actor. This means that even when the strips are good, there's no throughline, and the lack of consistency leaves it all feeling like less than the sum of its parts. From #70 to 87, you had a consistent tone and style from Steve Parkhouse even if the art was always different; from #111 to 133 you had a consistent tone and style from John Ridgway even if the writing was always different. Here you have neither. And no companion! (The strip was last companion free from #49 to 77.) I cannot think of any other ongoing non-anthology comic that took an approach like this.
Now, this might all be rubbish, because I read this all in one go, whereas it would have come out across two years. Maybe it reads fine when you have a month gap every time the creative team changes? But this is how I read it!
A Cold Day in Hell! / Redemption!
These two strips transition out of the trappings of the sixth Doctor era: Frobisher departs the Doctor; when he leaves, new companion Olla is introduced, but she's gone within one more strip herself! The actual stories here are so-so, the Doctor running around after Ice Warriors and such, and doing a lot of goofy stuff that makes you suspect all Simon Furman had to go off was the script for Time and the Rani. Frobisher's writing-out is pretty perfunctory, as is Olla's.
The Crossroads of Time
So I've been reading the Marvel UK Transformers comics in parallel with the DWM strips, all because here they collide. At the end of the Transformers story "The Legacy of Unicron!" (in Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five), the robot mercenary Death's Head is tossed into a malfunctioning time portal; here we find out where he went, as he emerges in the Doctor Who universe. I don't object to this on principle; indeed, it strikes me as one of the USPs of reading the strip, and I was curious to see how this whole crossover thing would shake out.
Alas, in practice, it's freaking terrible. Death's Head, who in Transformers was a "principled" freelance peacekeeping agent in that he killed for money-- and not for pleasure-- here attacks the Doctor for no real good reason, just an accidental collision in the Time Vortex. The Doctor fights him with lethal force! It doesn't kill Death's Head, but he doesn't know that; I get that Death's Head had to be shrunk down to human scale if he was going to interact with other Marvel UK characters, but maybe the Doctor could have done it on purpose? And then the Doctor sends this homicidal bounty hunter to Earth in the year 8162 and is just like, "Ah, oh well, I'm sure it'll be fine." I think there could have been a great story about a clash of values between the Doctor and Death's Head... but this is manifestly not it. I can only hope that Death's Head's solo feature, which I plan on following him into, is better than this.
Claws of the Klathi!
This is a decent piece of Victoriana by stalwart DWM contributor Michael Collins. It feels to me like it has a bit too much going for its three parts: a freakshow escapee, a pair of alien refugees, a giant robot, a gathering of men of science, and the Crystal Palace struggle for space. The men of science, for example, kind of feel pointless. But it's certainly the best story in this volume thus far, and Kev Hopgood is one of DWM's better post-Ridgway artists.
Culture Shock! / Keepsake / Planet of the Dead / Echoes of the Mogor! / Time and Tide
This run of strips reminded me a lot of Steve Moore and Steve Parkhouse's run from #46 to 60 (back in Dragon's Claws): it's all one- and two-part stories, often hinging on some kind of highbrow science fictional concept taken to a depressing conclusion. In Culture Shock!, the Doctor discovers a sentient race of bacteria who need his help; in Keepsake he (accidentally?) bullies a mercenary into helping him out; in Echoes of the Mogor!, he finds a long-dead species who embody their memories in crystal; in Time and Tide, he comes upon a dying species on a water planet. They are all varying degrees of fine, and the artists all have varying degrees of command over Sylvester McCoy's likeness. Culture Shock! had a cool hook, but I didn't really buy the Doctor's depression; I liked the idea of Keepsake but thought the humor didn't quite come off; Time and Tide was crazy depressing, and am not convinced it really fits the character of the Doctor. (There's a lot of standing around watching people die!)
Planet of the Dead has the Doctor encountering first dead companions, and then his own previous selves. I didn't think John Freeman really captured the voices of the companions and Doctors enough to pull this off, but Lee Sullivan was an excellent choice for illustrating it.
Follow That TARDIS!
The Doctor is forced by the Sleeze Brothers, a pair of private investigators, to chase the Monk's TARDIS throughout a series of historical disasters. I am convinced this could be funny, but I did not think the joke actually came off.
Invaders from Gantac!
Going into this, I was like, "Oh no... another comedy story." But it turned out to be the best story in the whole volume! The Doctor lands on Earth in the far future year of 1992 to find out that it's been taken over by aliens, and his only ally is a homeless man named Leapy. In its mix of big events and light comedy, it very much felt like something I could imagine Russell T Davies putting on screen as a big, bright two-parter in the Aliens of London/Rise of the Cybermen/Daleks Take Manhattan/The Sontaran Stratagem slot. There's some good comedy, but also a serious edge: more than any other story, I could imagine McCoy doing this on screen. It's pacey and twisty, and the only thing I didn't like was the kind of perfunctory ending. That said, Griffiths and Smith don't exactly nail McCoy's likeness. (But then, who does!?)
Stray Observations:
- If you were a hypothetical reader who never watched the show, I think you would imagine that after The World Shapers, the sixth Doctor, Frobisher, and Peri all went on an adventure where Peri left with Yrcanos and the Doctor regenerated. There's no indication here that, say, Frobisher was dropped off or anything.
- I read The Age of Chaos, even though it was written many years later, between The World Shapers and A Cold Day in Hell! Doing so revealed an inconsistency; the way Frobisher mopes over Peri in Cold Day makes it clear he hasn't been visiting her and her descendants as Age of Chaos established, and wound of her departure is obviously quite raw. But if you wanted to get quite convoluted, I think you could solve it by imagining that for Frobisher, Age of Chaos takes place after A Cold Day in Hell!! The sixth Doctor and Peri drop off Frobisher and experience the events of Trial of a Time Lord. Frobisher is then picked up by the seventh Doctor, who tells him what happened, and then he gets dropped off again on A-Lux. Then he gets picked up by the sixth Doctor, who takes him to Krontep and meet Peri again, along with the kids. Easy!
- Poor Olla: I am reasonably sure she is the only DWM-original companion to never appear or even be mentioned again. The Doctor doesn't call her up for help in The Stockbridge Showdown!
- I did notice that in A Cold Day in Hell!, Furman did something he also does in his Transformers strips: so that reading the recap isn't dull, it usually also includes new information. But that means if you only skim the recap, you might miss the new information! However, I am used to it now, and it doesn't throw me as much.
- Richard Starkings says the first thing he did when taking over as editor was fire John Ridgway because he cost so much... but back in the introduction to Voyager, Ridgway said he quit when the strip switched to McCoy so that he could focus on the steadier income from drawing DC's Hellblazer.
- Fun fact: In The Crossroads of Time, the Doctor sends Death's Head to the year 8162. This is because that was the setting of Marvel UK's Dragon's Claws series, but because Dogbolter showed up in the Death's Head solo series that span out of Dragon's Claws, that means a significant chunk of the DWM mythos must also date to the 82nd century. If that's when Dogbolter is from, it must also be when Frobisher is from; we know the Free-Fall Warriors are from the same era as Dogbolter; and we know Ivan Asimoff is also from that era. It also seems likely that Olla is from the era. Abel's Story and War-Game also go in this era. Much much later, The Stockbridge Showdown would place Sharon's new home era in the same time as all the others as well. All because Marvel UK wanted to spin Death's Head into his own series! Plus, this means Dragon's Claws takes place in the Doctor Who universe...
- Claws of the Klathi! commits one of my neo-Victorian pet peeves: there is no way a man of means who dabbled in science would call himself a "scientist" in 1851 as the gentlemen do here. It sounds like a job one might have!
- Culture Shock! was the last Doctor Who Magazine contribution from Grant Morrison, who is arguably the most famous person to have worked on the strip other than Dave Gibbons. (Alan Moore only wrote for the back-ups.) He would write creator-owned stuff like We3 (Homeward Bound with killer cyborgs) later on, but I know him best as a prolific DC contributor, writing things like JLA, Seven Soldiers of Victory, All-Star Superman, 52, Final Crisis, and The Multiversity.
- Bryan Hitch illustrates just one strip, but still gets cover credit; he would do some genre-redefining work in the 2000s on The Ultimates for Marvel and The Authority for Wildstorm.
- Doctor Who tie-ins often like to do a thing where the Doctor remembers his companions who died while travelling with him, but are hamstrung in this by the fact that on screen, that amounts to unmemorable and/or terrible ones like Katarina, Sara, and Adric. So DWM gains a slight boost from the events of The World Shapers in that stories like Planet of the Dead can now use Jamie, a dead companion who is both good and memorable.
- Echoes of the Mogor! is the first story to establish that the Doctor is trying to get to the planet Maruthea; in Invaders from Gantac! we learn he's attempting to attend the birthday of someone called Bonjaxx, but he doesn't make it within the confines of this volume.
- It also introduces the Foreign Hazard Duty team, a sort of future space police; evidently we will see them in future volumes.
- "Richard Alan" is a pseudonym for strip editor Richard Starkings; so is "Zed."
- Follow That TARDIS! is, I believe, the only DWM contribution of Andy Lanning, who would become a prolific contributor to Marvel and DC in the 2000s. My favorite work of his is a run on Legion of Super-Heroes, but he also contributes to basically every DC event, including Infinite Crisis, 52, and Flashpoint. He strikes me as one of those guys who is capable of great work, but will also happily contribute to drek if that's what you need.
- So far the Master has never appeared in a DWM strip; the Meddling Monk has appeared twice. Who is the real Time Lord nemesis of the Doctor?
- This volume contains the only Doctor Who Magazine contributions of Kev Hopgood, but he must have made a good impression on someone for his Sylvester McCoy likeness, as twenty-five years later he returned to Doctor Who to illustrate the seventh Doctor segment of Prisoners of Time! I liked his art here, but in my review of that volume I called it "stiff."
- The Sleeze Brothers went on to have their own comic series from Marvel. The Tardis wiki doesn't count it as part of the Doctor Who universe, but who knows why. Their rules for "inclusion" are typically pretty asinine, anyway. You can get it pretty cheap on the secondary market, but I am not sure I am motivated to do so...
- Alan Grant never contributed to DWM again, and hilariously he doesn't even remember that he did this strip. I know him best as the co-writer of L.E.G.I.O.N. from DC, with fellow Marvel UK contributor Barry Kitson. But of course his greatest contribution to comics was the seminal and influential Bob the Galactic Bum.
- Yes, that's a lot of "where are they now?" updates in this one! If your comic collection has twenty-one individual contributors (not counting letterers), I guess odds are a lot of them will go on to be famous.
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elahrairah | Aug 10, 2021 |
elahrairah | Aug 10, 2021 | 
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...Perchance to Dream
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.
The Big Shutdown! / A Small War!
These two stories are united in being about Thunderwing, who is rising to power as Decepticon leader on Cybertron. (I think there is a power vacuum because of the events of Two Megatrons!, which was actually published later!) The Big Shutdown! is a delightful hardboiled pastiche, as the Autobot detective Nightbeat must stop Thunderwing from committing a series of murders on Earth as part of a test being administered by the Decepticon leadership back on Cybertron. The end confused me, but I greatly enjoyed the rest of it, and I hope we get more Nightbeat in this series.
A Small War! jumps ahead to when Thunderwing does lead the Cybertronian Decepticon forces, and it introduces the Micromasters, a group of Autobots who are tiny (i.e., human-sized). The Micromasters get captured, but escape anyhow—only the Decepticons, led by Thunderwing, now also have the secret of their construction. This is fine; it mostly seems to exist to set up the Micromasters' first US appearance in a story I haven't read yet. (It appears in Classics, Vol. 5, but I've only read up through vol. 4.)
"Rage! / "Assault on the Ark!"
These two tales jump back a bit to explain more of how Thunderwing ascended to power, following up on The Big Shutdown! They're fine but I kind of didn't really care.
"Inside Story!" / "Front Line!" / "End of the Road!"
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.
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