Alright! It's time to return to reviewing comics I got as a kid! I started collecting comics in 1993 when I was 8 years of age. It was a magical time. I would go to a used book store near our house called the Second Page Bookstore (which is a really good name for a used book store). It was a great store that sold Charlie Brown books! and Garfield! and Calvin and Hobbes! and Bloom County! and Wizard of Id! and B.C.! It sold other humor books but those were the only ones I had interest in. They also sold comic books. I had recently gotten three Spider Man comics that changed my life and made me an addict to Four Color Fun for the rest of my life. Thanks mom and dad! At least it wasn't crack in my Christmas stocking! Anyway any little bit of money I got to spend went to these things. And a lot of my mother's money because she had more than I did! I don't know how I got these random Transformers issues but I did! They were awesome because Transformers were awesome. I think this started my weird life long affair with the Dinobots. They were Dinosaur Robots! I never owned them as a kid because I was born in 1985 and did not own many Transformers. I only ever saw the cartoon in reruns. Yep. Another big blast of text from CLAWXBLOG that starts off a review.
One thing I miss from new comic book covers is the character speaking. Like there are no text boxes on new comic book covers. In the past it would be a dramatic scene that would happen (sometimes very very very very very loosely) within the comic. They were always a bit more eye catching. I dunno. I just had to say that I miss them. I would want to have text boxes on the cover if I ever got to write for Marvel Comics! Anyway, in the old reviews I would talk about a creative person who worked on the comics I reviewed. I stopped doing that and I don't know why, so I'm bringing it back. I already talked about the writer of this comic when I did a review of a Sleepwalker comic. This time I will talk about Kyle Baker who inked these issues. Kyle Baker was born on December 31st, 1965! The last day of the year and his momma had to be at the hospital! He was inspired by things like Mad magazine, Disney cartoons and the Sunday funnies (Like Charlie Brown and B.C.!) and when he was still a teenager he became an intern at Marvel which got him art stuff to do because Marvel literally was publishing like 8520 comics then. They somehow publish more these days. It's wild. Some of his first work were these Transformers comics! His most famous comic Why I Hate Saturn came out in 1990! He also did animation work for places like BET and THE LOONEY TUNES?!? I really should talk more about the Looney Tunes shouldn't I port? He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of fame just this year! 2025! Woo Kyle!
Issue #6 starts out with Shockwave, the cool purple guy with one yellow eye in his Gun form getting ready to take over some kind of Oil drilling thing in the ocean. You know what I'm talking about. I don't know the actual name for it and don't even act surprised that I don't. You know what I'm like! G.B. BLACKROCK which is like the best name for an oil tycoon tries to send out weapons against Shockwave. It does not work and he pretty much destroys the entire Oil Platform doohickey thing. G.B. Blackrock saves a woman named Josie who was electrocuted in her "weapons area" she was the one sending out all the weapons. The platform is destroyed and Shockwave tells them to go home and warn everyone that the world will be taken over by the Decepticons! We then see Megatron tied up with some kind of giant comic book machinery wires. He declares that he will have revenge on all the traitors who joined up with Shockwave. We then get a scene with Optimus Prime's HEAD TALKING TO BUSTER WHITWICKY. holy shit what the hell? I really need to sit down and re-read all of these Transformers comics. He ends up getting Buster to Mindlink with him by taking two wires off his head and putting them near his head. This causes Buster to pass out.
Shockwave talks to Megatron and tells him to go to the Oil Rig (That's the word! Yay!) where all the other Decepticons are. Also Decepticons is like the best name for a group of bad guy robots like ever. You gotta hand it to Bob Budinansky. He picked the best names for these characters! Anyway Buster wakes up and tells Ratchet, the Ambulance Autobot that Optimus Prime is a prisoner and all of the other Autobots are DEAD. Then Megatron not even waiting a second after getting released pretty much comes up and shoots Shockwave. This causes Shockwave to get thrown out of the mountain and across the town! They have an awesome fight but Shockwave wins because Megatron was still not at full strength and the dopey idiot should have waited! Anyway Shockwave lets Megatron live and humiliates him in front of every other Decepticon. Shockwave is cold as ice! Shockwave and the rest of the Decepticons leave for the new Oil Rig base and leave Megatron here on the Ark.
The next issue starts with Ratchet knocking down a tree where a bunch of College kids were partying in the woods. Drinkin booze. Doing drugs. having sex. All the stuff that you can't actually show in a you know Transformers comics from the 1980s. Anyway they are scared shitless of Ratchet because not everyone has seen a Transformer in this world yet. They have a discussion and Ratchet transforms into a Ambulance. Buster has a freakout because of the Mindlink from issue 6 and the college kids say they will get him home. Ratchet tries to say he'll take Buster home because he does not want to do what he has to do. You see Ratchet is a healer but he's also the last Autobot left to fight the Decepticons. I mean him and Optimus Prime's head. Now we turn to a random Oil rig worker bringing in a boom box that he assumes someone left there. That's not a good idea man! We all know where this is going it is clearly SOUNDWAVE and LASERBEAK. They want to take over this place too! G.B. Blackrock is gonna be really pissed off. G.B. Blackrock says he isn't beaten yet and the Rustbuckets better watch out! We then go to see Josie from Issue six in the hospital. She's not doing or saying anything so not a good look!
Ratchet then goes into the Ark and sees all the Autobots hanging from wires like this was some kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. It's actually kinda eerie really. Anyway (I'm sure this is the word I use the most in this blog and I will not stop) Ratchet finds Optimus Prime's head (still weird) and Optimus Prime gets him amped up to try and stop the Decepticons! He's still not sure about it but he doesn't have much say in the matter as Megatron shows up and they start a fight. I like that he tries to just shoot weird liquids at Megatron. They don't really do anything! Then Shockwave comes on the cool computer phone thing and tells Megatron to get ready to transport Optimus Prime's head. Ratchet then tells Megatron that he can help him stop Shockwave. He tells him about how the Dinobots stopped Ratchet like 562042890 million years ago. Megatron and Ratchet agree to a CYBERTRONIC BOND which is when they put both of their oil into a alien canister thing and set it on fire! Neither can forfeit or they give up their LIFE! Ratchet now has to find the Dinobots or DIE!
They were for some reason putting the Transformers in the actual Marvel Universe. Spider Man showed up in issue #3 and in this issue, Ratchet goes to the Savage Land. I love the Savage Land. It's full of Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs are always ALWAYS awesome and even portnoyd can't disagree with that, but he will try because he is a NUISCANE. While traveling down the river he gets attacked by a snake which he sends off with a small hit of a laser and then he thinks about the previous issue. Pretty much every single comic book did this for like decades. Just a page recap of what happened last issue in case you missed it or picked up this issue randomly at a book store in like 1996 or whenever. It's charming to see it. I'd say they should try to do it these days but the stories today are just differently made. Not bad or anything, just different. Megatron and Shockwave talk and Megatron is like SO FUCKING PISSED he has to listen to Shockwave even for a minute. Ratchet then finds Slag the Triceratops. My favorite dinosaur might be the Stegosaurus but I will always change my mind. Dinosaurs are cool. I will keep repeating this until you realize that I am a seven year old child in a man's body. DINOSAURS WOO! Slag is covered in tar and not working so DOCTOR RATCHET TO THE RESCUE. Ratchet is watching how the whole thing went down how Shockwave was stopped. A mountain fell on all of them and caused them to be trapped. Slag wakes up and tries to attack Ratchet until he shows him that he is a Autobot just like him!
We get some pages about Josie and GB Blackrock. They will come to a head in issue 9! So no need to really get into them but man I miss oh shit look whats waiting in the wings for the Transformers/Spider-Man/Luke Cage/Tiny Tim/Portnoyd little sub plot pages. Man I realize they take so much out of comics these days. It's like an entirely new world! Ratchet then sends Megatron video from four million years ago and he thinks that the Dinobots have destroyed Shockwave. He and Megatron meet up in some Ski Resort and Megatron then says he wasn't going to hold up his side of the bargain and that Ratchet isn't a true warrior! Ratchet's response is to have the DINOBOTS COME OUT OF NOWHERE AND ATTACK MEGATRON! However Megatron ends up kicking their asses, however he's close to the edge of a cliff and Ratchet tries to knock him off. It does not end the way he wanted too. Megatron then talks about how he will destroy them all but not before the little bit of Ice cliff he was standing on breaks off and he transforms into his Gun mode and then gets stuck in the ice! We then get Ratchet and teh Dinobots going back to help the other Autobots. The story ends with Josie getting all circuitry-d up and being able to shoot blasts from her fingers! Oh shit! Next issue is gonna be wild! However I have talked about Transformers enough for one day. We will probably come back to this series again as I had a lot of fun revisiting these comics.
FINAL THOUGHTS: These comics were a lot of fun to read. I really have nothing else to say about that. I just enjoyed them. Dinosaurs are cool.
There was something magical about cartoon series comic books like this and GI Joe. It's like "Wait, the cartoon I love that has toys I play with all the time has a COMIC BOOK TOO?!" Yeah I get it that stuff like GI Joe was essentially Larry Hama's baby (he is a very GOOD and FUN and NICE person to meet, also Larry > Bob Budinansky) so of course there would be a comic but still. Really cool. And it wasn't too much like it is now, where the cartoon has like a social media account or something.
ReplyDeleteSleepwalker is so bad, it made you forget about a PATENTED CLAWBLOG ASPECT. This is what you get for reviewing shitty gerbage comics. At least Sleepwalker is better than Darkhawk, but both blow.
What kind of animation did BET do
Oil rig however if I was president, I would make an EXECUTIVE ORDER renaming them to oil platform doohickey thing. It'd be better than most of the executive orders done now. hashtag toyotaendsnow
I am going to need a CLAWBLOG post about how Optimus became just a head. It's weird.
Unlike this blog, me in a comic book does not make it better. Unless it's a comic about your crappy blog.
This sounded like a fun read, definitely ENJOYABLE. I look forward to the Optimus head story.