 |
| Seriously, the naked chick wearing the tin foil costume is the best thing about this issue. I'm not joking. |
As mentioned last time, the TF comics
were kind of sucking. Around this time I had started to return to my
old school. Even though I was back to familiar territory, I never
felt 'accepted' back, y'know? Of course, this was a thirteen year old
talking, so you know... Every kid felt like an outsider. (Let's not
even mention how uncomfortable I was around girls. I'm not the suave
flirtationeer I am now. =P ) But as far as the Transformers go, my
reading of the comics books had expanded to other comics. You might
remember me mentioning how I was attempting to make my own stories...
Well, about this time, I started to expand into other comics too,
outside of Transformers and Superman. (I always had a love for the
'Big Blue S'.) My collection expanded into Blue Devil, Power Girl,
Firestorm and Captain Atom. It was like Transformers... It wasn't
huge and imposing. It was a more intimate fanbase. It's almost like
when people like a band when they're “indy” and complain when it
goes mainstream. I felt like the creators were writing the stories
for me personally, even though in actuality, a single creator never
knew even of me. And with the cartoon gone, the Transformers comics
were dwindling in sales. It was another comic that was forming an
intimate fanbase. (I underlined that for a reason. Keep that
in mind for part four of this retrospective.) But it had dwindling
sales because the book just wasn't very good. Sure, we look back on
those stories with nostalgic glee, but it's much the same way we'd
look back as comics of chauvinist Reed Richards talking down to Sue
Storm, saying science is no deed for a woman, or Batman with
extremely questionable tendencies toward a young boy in short green
trunks. They were bad and we knew it.
Every TF comic consisted of the
following: New character (i.e. toy) is introduced, there's a brief
skirmish that ends with the new character at least half-victorious
and they head off to join their larger team to never be heard from
again. This was the plot to almost two years worth of the comic. Not
to mention, during this time, they had a silly amount of filler
issues, which consisted of adaptations from the cartoon show or
imported British comic stories, and it's not like they'd place these
filler stories in there at the end of a story arc... It'd be right on
a cliffhanger, and we wouldn't get a resolution for it for three
months or so. And when we did return to the story, it was focusing on
another new character. This was frustrating for a reader, so it's no
surprise when we found out years later that the writer himself was
getting burnt out like you wouldn’t believe. I was ready to drop
the book, as I had developed newer comic interests that honestly was
more appealing to me. Then the 'Underbase Saga' began. Now without
getting into details for those who have no idea what that is, it's
essentially the big storyarc that the entire comic seemed to have
been heading toward for some time. Those of you who saw the first
live action Transformers movie? (You know, the good one?) Well, it
was basically that story, in a nutshell. And actual interesting
things were happening, thus I was interested. (Made sense, yes?)
Right when I was ready to leave, boom. The book got good. So I stuck
with it. And it came to a rather cataclysmic conclusion with issue
#50. Just like the animated movie, things seriously changed...
But unlike either of the movies, it
wasn't good.
You see, here's the thing. During the
story, Starscream got the ultimate power. (As is par for the course
with the backstabber.) And he unleashed it on the Transformers. Now
of course, just about every character that wasn't a Headmaster,
Powermaster or a Pretender was killed. Yes, that means any of the
older characters you liked were now dead. This was a big deal. You
see, in the animated movie, sure we lost a lot of characters, but we
still had Bumblebee and Soundwave and the Aerialbots and the
Combaticons and a bunch of guys who even though we never seen them
again, like Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker we had no problem
assuming that they were just stationed elsewhere and survived and
lived happily ever after. Actually some later stories confirmed that.
But here, they were killed... And confirmed as destroyed... And
quickly, in a small panel no less. Not only was this a bunch of the
older guys we liked that were killed, but even guys like Blaster,
Goldbug and Grimlock, who not only just a few issues ago were
basically the MAIN CHARACTERS of the comic! This is like killing
Wolverine, Cyclops and Beast like a few issues after Professor X
comes back from the dead, with no intention of resurrection.
(Seriously, if not for the fact that they got new toys later on, we
could easily assume that they stayed dead.) It's like “Hey, the old
guys are dead, but look at the shiny new guys!” It was the first
time, I felt cheated by a comic book like this. (DC Nu52 critics
knows when I say it wouldn't be the last!) I was pissed. I paid
attention to the follow-up issues, in hope that there would be
something to resolve this problem. And I was utterly disappointed
that the stories just fell right back into the old routines. New
characters get introduced and never heard from again.
At this point in time, I was buying the
book out of routine. Then the most insulting issue came, where after
the introductions of the Micromasters (kinda cool guys, but nothing
to write home about) we were given an issue where the leader of the
Micromasters joins... A human wrestling league. To me, this was the
last straw. I was finishing eight grade, the other comics I was
reading were dealing with some interesting and mature subject
matters. Joker just killed Jason Todd, Power Girl was trying to
figure out her place in a new universe that's not her own, and
Spider-Man was dealing with Kraven's Last Hunt and G.I. Joe was
dealing with a seriously epic confrontation that had been years in
development, with the Cobra Island Civil War... And Transformers had
them join a wrestling team. This was when I quit. I was content to
let it go and just write it off as a silly toy comic. (Much like the
ALF comic.) My purchasing of the toys had dwindled down to a tiny
number... I just didn't care anymore. That emotional feeling I had
with the animated movie was going to be relegated to just memories. I
was growing up, so I let it go.
One month later, I was at the corner
store with my mom, and she had an appointment to go to, so I bought a
couple of comics to tide me over in the waiting room. Just out of
instinct I picked up Transformers Issue #56. I wasn't planning on it. (You Transformers fans
are chuckling right now, I know.) A new writer quietly came on
board... And shit started to happen within this single issue.
Megatron, who had been dead for 30 issues was back. We found out that
several characters like Ratchet and Soundwave were still alive, and
we go the return of Bumblebee, Jazz, Grimlock and even Starscream.
There was ramifications, real dangers, ACTUAL STORIES going on. And
GOOD stories! Real epic ones too. In the few issues the new writer,
Simon Furman, had been on the book, he turned it from a forgettable
formulaic tripe to an actually well written, engaging story. Once
again, as I was leaving... It picked up. Characters died and returned
and wasn't dictated by what new toys were out. (Mostly.) And then the
writer brought on a pair of artists named Geoff Senior and Andrew
Wildman... And to this wannabe artist, it was something different
from the heroes in spandex. It was dynamic, which was something we
fans just weren't used to in this franchise. It was, in a word...
Inspiring. And Senior and Wildman really had a great style to learn
from. Anyone can draw a person standing there, but these guys could
draw these robotic character and make them come to life.
The story in the comic started
building, and even though there were other bigger and more high
profile comics to read at the time, like the Mark Texiera on Ghost
Rider, and Todd McFarlane on Adjective-less Spider-Man book... For
twenty issues, Transformers was building up to something bigger and
badder: Unicron the planet eater. A new origin that threw aside the
cartoon's origin was fashioned, much more grand in scale, cosmic and
epic, talking about the foundations of the universe, order vs.
chaos... It was real hardcore Jack Kirby-like storytelling and I
loved it! And I was not alone. It had surpassed that feeling I had as
a kid about the old movie. It built up to a massive conflict which
ended with serious consequences and unlike ever before, I was truly
interested in what was to come. The mythos was built up on a level
that the old cartoon show could only dream to achieve.
And then the comic ended. Low sales.
But unlike before, it ended on note that all Transformers have come
to know by heart: “It never ends.”
And it didn't. Not for me. It left off
on a great note. That I believe is the key to great success, when it
wraps stuff up, but leaves you wanting more.
 |
| The 1990s were weird. |
A few years passed, and I moved onto
other stuff. Jim Lee's X-Men, Peter David's X-Factor, and eventually
Knightfall and the Death of Superman story. (Which while overblown
comic events, the Reign of the Supermen was actually a fun story.) A
bunch of Dark Horse independent books were bought by me too, as well
as my introduction to what would be the Vertigo line with Sandman and
Shade the Changing Man. And in time, the Image Comics boom hit us
too. Being an aspiring comic book artist in the 1990s was... a real
zeitgeist sort of thing for us. It was the greatest time in the
world, and the absolute worst. It was the best because the energy and
enthusiasm that came from the industry was at an all time high, and I
have yet to ever see it come close to that since. We dreamt big, and
hoped bigger. We all had big elaborate comic ideas that we were
hoping could be picked up by Image comics and be the next Spawn or
Savage Dragon… Or if you drew a little funky, The Maxx. Very
rendered and often detailed artwork that quite frankly made most up
and coming artists feel somewhat impotent. We mock the 1990’s…
But you need to understand, we were told we needed to draw like that.
Sure you can say "no one made you draw like that" and it’s
easy to make fun of now, but it’s like trying to explain living in
the Cold War to someone born in the late 80’s. This was DRILLED
INTO OUR HEADS that if you weren’t at least as good as the big
popular artists in the Wizard Top Ten List… Don’t bother trying!
Sure, they always ‘encouraged’ you, but you know what they were
really saying: “You suck, draw more like me.” But it was the
worst, because when you realized how the industry worked, you got
crushed and crushed big time… It’s easy to mock artist that still
seem stuck in the 1990s, but they went several years being beaten
down, told they needed to draw like this, just to find out that the
person who told them that, was full of it. (I remember seeing this
one artist standing in line with us at a con, and his artwork was
soooo damn good. He had a beautiful style, that I can only describe
like Marc Silverstri inked by Kevin Nowlan. And he got rejected like
he was just some putz learning how to draw with a crayon. I always
wonder what happened to him.) I could really go off on this topic for
a long ass time, but long story short... This era was a complete
contradiction of the energy and creativity that I spent years
adoring. And every time I hear someone make fun of the art on some
obscure comic book from the 90's, I feel sorry for the artist.
Now around this time, was summer 1993
when Transformers Generation 2 hit the shelves. Same writer, but a
now more “intense” art style. And it hit with a thud. I was
expecting a continuation of the old stories I grew up with, and
instead... I got something that was just... An “extreme!” version
of the franchise I was interested in. And in the early 90's... This
sucked. (For the record, I've not been impressed with the
ReGeneration One book put out recently. It's far too dark for my
tastes.) The writing was bad, the characters were unlikable, and the
art was... Well... It was the 1990s. It was awful. A few months
later, during Christmas of that year, Batman: Mad Love came out, and
it ended up being THE greatest source of inspiration for me ever. And
I couldn't help but to feel like I felt during the end of the
Underbase Saga, like I was let down. It felt like a retread of that
same story as well, except you know... “Extreme!” It felt...
Stupid. Like I was plowing through old textbooks I didn't want to
read. And this was the same writer who wrote the good stuff form
before! What happened? (This is when I discovered that just because
you like a creator, doesn't mean they always crap gold.) I'll be
honest, when I hear fans today defending Generation 2, I never really
understood why. It was God awful, at a time when comics were God
awful. I can only assume there was some nostalgia going on, like when
Power Rangers fans praise the early seasons of Mighty Morphin' Power
Rangers, when in reality it didn't really start kicking ass until the
Ninja Megazord and Zeo era.
So, I dropped the book. I knew it
wasn't long for the world, and I was okay with it. I wasn't a kid
anymore, and it was best to leave that in the past. I was making
plans to go to college, and it was time to grow up. I was in the
early stages of my first comic 'Doctor Aeon'. Mature grown up things.
I was enthralled with Matt Wagner's Grendel and Sandman Mystery
Theatre, and of course even Spawn. And Transformers was meant for
just kids, and nothing was going to change that.
Wow, was I ever wrong with a vengeance.
Next in part three, we maximize. Yeessssssss...
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