Zobovor
2024-12-15 23:49:34 UTC
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Permalinkon March 28, 1989, with a pull date of July 1989. It includes the
introduction of the Micromasters, the first toys from the 1989 product
year to be showcased. The front cover (by Jose Delbo and Danny
Bulanadi) prominently features Pretender Iguanus, scaling the Empire
State Building with a woman in his clutches, as the Autobot Race Car
Patrol looks on in dismay. It's too bad there wasn't a gorilla-type
Pretender on the Decepticon side of things to do a proper King Kong
homage! This issue was written by Bob Budiansky, illustrated by José
Delbo (pencils) and Danny Bulanadi (inks), lettered by Jim Massara, and
colored by Nel Yomtov.
In New Jersey, a group of hunters is searching for a mysterious creature
who has been sighted in the swamps. They're expecting to find a bear or
something, but it turns out to be something much bigger—Iguanus, who
growls at them menacingly. Their bullets bounce off harmlessly, and
they flee as he fires back with his hurricane air blaster. They escape
with their lives, but without having learned anything. This is sort of
the only thing the Decepticon Pretenders can do while operating on
Earth—pretend to be big, scary monsters instead of being big, scary
robots. It arguably doesn't do them a lot of good.
Elsewhere, at an abandoned gas station, Powermaster Optimus Prime and Hi
Q await the arrival of Autobot reinforcements from Cybertron. They
appear through a trans-dimensional warp, new and untested technology
that has apparently replaced the space bridge. Through the warp appear
eight small vehicles. They're the Autobot Off-Road Patrol (Mudslinger,
Powertrain, Highjump, and Tote) and the Autobot Race Car Patrol
(Roadhandler, Freewheeler, Swindler [not to be confused with Swindle],
and Tailspin).
By this point, there were probably no animation model sheets readily
available from Sunbow at this late stage. The Micromasters did appear
in animated form for Hasbro toy commercials, which seemed to be the
source from which Marvel must have received their animation designs in
the past. But, for whatever reason, Marvel artists were referring to
the toys themselves as well as Hasbro packaging artwork as a resource on
how to draw the characters. And, José Delbo being the sort of artist
that he was, he would often reproduce those illustrations pretty much
exactly. So, anyone familiar with the toy packaging for the Off-Road
Patrol or the Race Car Patrol will instantly recognize the drawings of
the Micromasters from this issue as being cribbed from their Hasbro box
art. They're in the same exact pose and everything.
Oddly enough, the only Micromasters that ever appeared in Marvel Comics
would be the four-member Patrols, the opening price point in the toy
assortment. I assume Hasbro would be wanting to promote their
big-ticket toys, but the larger and more expensive Micromaster playsets
and bases like Countdown or Skystalker would never make appearances in
the comic at all. (Also, as a point of interest, the Autobot Battle
Patrol was the only 1989 team who didn't appear in the U.S. comic,
though they did make an appearance in the UK stories.)
Optimus Prime explains that he summoned the Micromasters as a result of
the Autobot forces being severely decimated in the wake of the assault
of the Underbase-powered Starscream. He also gives lip service to
Landmine and Cloudburst's attempts to secure parts to repair their
fallen warriors, as seen in issue #52 and #53. The Micromasters,
however, are hardly model soldiers. They're rebellious and dismissive
and rude, mentioning how their commanders on Cybertron were only too
happy to get rid of them. In the interim since we last saw Cybertron,
the Transformers as a whole have evidently downsized in an effort to
conserve precious energy, hence their diminutive forms. Indeed, they
consider full-sized Transformers like Optimus Prime to be oversized
gas-guzzlers by comparison. (This is interesting, in that it echoes the
opinion of the Maximals and Predacons from Beast Wars, who, like the
Micromasters, are also much smaller than conventional Transformers.
But, it's possible that the active online fandom might have put a bug
in the ear of the Beast Wars story editors and suggested to them the
inherent similarity between the Micromasters and the Maximals/Predacons.
In any event, it's fun to think that the Maximals and Predacons were
descended from Micromasters, explaining both their small size and their
shared contempt for larger, more fuel-consumptive Transformers.)
There's an odd discrepancy between the idea of the Micromasters being
unusually tiny and the way they're actually depicted. They apparently
transform into full-sized cars, who have installed decoy mannequin
drivers to avoid detection at the suggestion of Optimus Prime. The
mannequins are presumably the size of regular people. The Micromasters
can also accept full-sized human passengers, so it would follow that
their car modes are the same size as regular Transformers like Prowl or
Nightbeat. But, in robot mode they seemingly shrink, because they stand
only slightly taller than humans. So, it's kind of funny how Budiansky
didn't want to write stories about size-changing Pretenders
(regular-sized Transformers who shrank down to human-sized disguised
forms) but he had no problem with writing about size-changing
Micromasters, which kind of defeats the point of them being so small.
The Micromaster toys themselves were probably only introduced by Hasbro
in an effort to combat flagging toy sales. The Micro Machines toys by
Galoob had grown enormously popular, and it's almost certain that Hasbro
was attempting to copy that in order to capitalize off their success.
The toy commercials for the Micromasters even bragged that they were
"the only Micros that transform!" and emulated the same play pattern of
little playsets that could connect together to form entire cities,
something the Galoob toys also did.
I feel like the Micromaster concept was the natural extension of what
Hasbro had already done with the Headmasters, Targetmasters, and
Powermasters. Instead of having a little man who could turn into a
larger robot's head or gun or engine, this time, the little man could
himself turn into a tiny vehicle. The copy on the back of the packaging
even indicates that the Micromasters were "commissioned by the
Powermasters," suggesting a connection between the two. It follows,
then, that the Micromasters should have been presented, in fiction, as
Nebulans who could fold up into little vehicles, instead of the heads or
guns or engines belonging to various Transformers. The Micromaster toys
were the exact same height as a 1987 Headmaster or Targetmaster or a
1988 Powermaster partner, so the design of the toys certainly supports
this idea. However, instead they were presented simply as itty-bitty
Transformer robots, with no connection to the Nebulans at all, despite
the implication that there's some kind of connection due to the
"-master" name. Headmasters and Targetmasters and Powermasters all had
Nebulan partners, so Micromasters should have been Nebulans as well.
When Optimus Prime informs the Micromasters that mysterious weather
patterns have appeared over New York and New Jersey, and that a strange
creature has also been sighted in Jersey, he concludes it is almost
certainly Decepticon activity. So, even being Pretenders who are
disguised as monsters doesn't hide what's really going on here. The
Micromasters waste no further time listening to him, electing to deal
with the problem themselves.
Elsewhere, Cecilia Santiago, reporter for a local news station, and her
crew are hoping to find footage of the creature that was spotted in the
swamps. Unbeknownst to them, the Decepticons have set up a new base
closeby, planning to use a storm maker machine to generate lightning and
then harvest its power and convert it to energon. Scorponok has
enlisted most of the Decepticon Pretenders for this mission, assigning
various tasks to each of them—but not to Skullgrin, who has been ordered
to simply stay behind and stand guard. Iguanus surmises that
Skullgrin's dalliance with the humans when he inadvertantly became a
movie star (issue #45) has damaged Scorponok's trust in Skullgrin, and
it's a reasonable assertion. (There's no sign of Snarler or Carnivac,
who are also Decepticon Pretenders.) Curiously, Scorponok orders the
Decepticon Pretenders to "move out," not "roll out" as is typical for
the comic book. Maybe Budiansky finally gave up on trying to shoehorn
the popular phrase from the cartoon into the comics, which was almost
certainly at Hasbro's request.
Cecilia is searching through the swamp when she stumbles upon the
Decepticon Pretenders, who are setting up the storm maker station.
Iguanus spots her and grabs her, and wants to kill her immediately.
Skullgrin, who may be more sympathetic towards her, insists that
Iguanus turn her over and he promises to guard her until the mission is
over. It's pretty clear his intention is to befriend her like he did
with movie actress Carissa Carr, if given a chance. The two Decepticons
get into a brawl (no, not THAT Brawl), which is eventually interrupted
when Mudslinger shows up and immediately attacks. Apparently, rapidly
rotating his shoulder-mounted tire on Skullgrin's foot is enough to
disable him, if only momentarily. In the fracas (no, not THAT Fracas),
they drop Cecilia and she runs to safety. Iguanus abandons Skullgrin to
deal with the Autobot Micromasters on his own, leaving to complete the
next phase of the Decepticons' plan.
Cecilia makes her way out of the swamp and bumps into the Autobot Race
Car Patrol. She's startled at first when she realizes the mannequin
inside Roadhandler is fake. Roadhandler demands information from her,
but once he gets what he wants out of her, he's ready to ditch her. Not
very Autobot-like! When they approach the Lincoln Tunnel and
Roadhandler has no idea how to pay the fare to get through, Cecilia
lends a hand and gets them through. Roadhandler begins to question
whether refusing to accept anybody's help is actually a good idea or
not. When the Micromasters get stuck in traffic, their solution is to
simply drive on the sidewalk until they arrive at their destination.
They spot Iguanus scaling the Empire State Building and attempt to give
chase, but they are blocked by police officers who believe they're
wearing robot costumes.
Back in the swamps, the Off-Road Patrol tangles with Skullgrin and
eventually destroys the storm maker device. However, by this point, the
storm is already in full effect and there's no way to stop it. Inside
the Empire State Building, the Micromasters make their way to the top
("those humans were very agreeable," Swindler says of the police,
"especially after we suspended them from the lamp pole"). Cecilia
points them to the elevator to get to the top, but once inside, they
have no idea how to operate it. ("I think it's a binary code," Tailspin
says as he looks at the elevator buttons. "Try talking to it,"
Freewheeler suggests. All Autobots turn into idiots when confronted
with Earth technology for the first time. It's been consistently
befuddling Autobots since issue #1!)
Cecilia makes it to the top but she is accosted by Iguanus, who will not
allow her to ruin his plans. The Autobot Micromasters see now that
Iguanus means to plant an electrostator device on the top of the
building, enabling it to act as a gigantic lightning rod to channel the
energy from the storm to the Decepticon collection point. It feels like
this entire story was put together just to give Iguanus a chance to play
the role of King Kong. Transformers already did this once in the
cartoon, in the second season episode "City of Steel" from 1985, so the
comic book was four years behind. I realize it's just a throwaway
moment, but it would have been great if they'd used Apeface or somebody
instead, just because he's a gorilla. It would have worked a bit
better.
With the device now activated, it's gathering energy from the storm.
The flying Pretenders (Bugly and Bomb-Burst) must act quickly, as per
Scorponok's plan, and only have a short time to recover Iguanus. When
Roadhandler knocks the electrostator off the building, however, Iguanus
attempts to catch it and is zapped by the energy. The other Decepticons
abandon him as he falls, and he lands hard and smashes to pieces on the
pavement. 'Twas asphalt killed the beast. (Or not, as it turns out.
Shockingly, Iguanus survives this turn of events, at least in the Simon
Furman stories, even though this moment was very clearly written by
Budiansky to be his death scene.)
Optimus Prime arrives to collect the Micromasters and rush them away,
but rather than listen to him and retreat, the youthful rebels once
again defy his orders. How typical. Kids! What's the matter with kids
today? Kids! Who can understand anything they say? They're content to
remain in the city with Cecilia, finally recognizing both her help and
her friendship.
The next issue is the rather infamous "Micromaster wrestling" story,
introducing the Decepticon Micromasters. That story also marks the
final Marvel issue written by the beleagured Bob Budiansky, who had
finally had it with writing about those wacky robots in disguise. Let's
talk about that one next month!
Zob (Walmart has gotten really busy of late, and I suspect somebody may
have let it slip that Christmas is coming)