The Transformers Issue 2
The Robots Have Landed - The metal invasion has begun!
Published: Thursday 4th October 1984
UK No. 1: “I Just Called to Say I Love You” - Stevie Wonder
The second issue of The Transformers was published the same week that “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder was enjoying its fourth week at number one in the UK singles chart. This young ‘Stevie’ had not long moved ‘up north’ from ‘down south’ and was probably too busy dealing with the culture shock to notice The Transformers just yet, but if he had perused the shelves his new local newsagents he would have be confronted with this:
Now then, what you will immediately notice is that my particular copy has some extra adornments. It appears the creative little whipper-snapper that owned it back in the day chose to plaster their “Free Action Transfers” all over the cover. I’ve since replaced this with a less personalised copy but this image is a bit more fun to look at I reckon.
Continuing the foreboding atmosphere of issue one, the Transformers are portrayed as terrifying invading aliens regardless of allegiance! What I particularly enjoy here are the three children behind a well placed rock. The two boys have spotted the giant robotic aliens ‘invading’ their home planet and naturally cower in shock and fear, the girl however is too busy playing with her dolly… typical right… ugghh girls!
This cover was drawn by John Ridgway a British artist who’s work includes a little Judge Dredd, some early issues of Hellblazer but more importantly in this context a lot of Doctor Who… we will get on to why that's important later.
Once again these Autobots heavily resemble their toys and not their cartoon models, Jazz proudly sports his door wings, missile launcher and all important crotch insignia! This is particularly prevalent in early issues of The Transformers due to the fact that character models had not been finalised yet. The artists instead used a combination of the early animated commercial I spoke of in Issue 1, package art and the toys themselves as reference material.
Inside the front cover we are treated to the same “Openers” double pager as issue one, only this time only the first page is in colour. It contains the usual credits, an editor's letter, and something about teabags… but what really draws the eye is a half page offer of a “ROBOT WATCH” for the princely sum of £3.99.
Interestingly, these are almost official Transformers in that they are made by Takara.. the Japanese company that partnered with Hasbro to create the Transformers toy line. These are ‘Kronoform Watch Robo’ toys from their Watch-Q line. Sadly I never owned one of these but I knew a few kids that did and I was super jealous!
Overleaf we get back into the story from where it was abruptly cut off in issue 1. What you will immediately notice (to your great disappointment I am sure!) is that it’s in rubbish black and white! Sadly, Marvel UK elected to switch to a ‘half and half’ approach after the full colour of issue one to cut printing costs. There are no two ways about it, this sucks! However, we will be forced to endure it for the next year, so we best get used to it.
As you’ll remember from last issue the revival drones had begun the task of reconstructing the fallen Transformers and “rebuilding them to be able to change their shapes in accordance with the mechanical life detected beyond the ark”. Yes that's right! The silly old “Ship’s brain” has mistaken automobiles and so on as life here on Earth. The excuse for this is it’s memory banks were damaged in the crash and as a result has forgotten the war and therefore doesn’t know some of these robots it’s rebuilding are bad hombres!
Indeed, the first to be rebuilt are Decepticon heavy hitters Megatron and Soundwave, who have a chat whilst Optimus hits the dance floor and strikes a pose! Or at least that looks like what he is doing. In actual fact he’s just a bit groggy after being resurrected.
The newly revived Decepticons tell us who they are, reel off their biographies and highlight their character traits and special abilities purely in a massive infodump purely the benefit of the kids at home.. which is no doubt also why Megatron declares the ship's brain has placed the knowledge in everyone's head that this world possesses enormous untapped fuel resources… resources they can exploit! How convenient and plot advancing!
“why not strike now, my leader? End the Autobot Threat and this world is ours for the taking! What Flawed Logic persuades you otherwise!”
Immediately Starscream starts piping up with what would later be considered ‘typical Starscream shit’ but at this point in time was brand new characterisation!
If we were reading this in the US it would be time for the Autobot equivalent of the long and wordy roll call we just witnessed, however (maybe thankfully) due to the layout of the UK comic and the fact we are about to go full colour for a bit, the story totally skips it and moves onto what would be the page after in the US version. A caption which basically amounts to “oh yeah the Autobots are a thing too, don't worry about it, we will catch you up later!” bridges this gap seamlessly.
Prime choses to look on the bright side of his plan (to kill everyone) being a total failure, and begins to organise his troops. The ‘ship’s brain’ as we’ve been calling it until now gets a name and its name is… let’s say it together now… Teletra…. What? no wait?… Aunty?!?
Yes that’s right, in the comics it’s called ‘Aunty’ or ‘Auntie’. This apparently dates back to the original treatment written by Jim Shooter, another legendary Marvel employee and at the time Marvel Editor-in-Chief, in which Aunty was the ‘brain’ of the Autobots unnamed ship. This was later changed, naming the ship the ‘Ark’ and removing the name Aunty all together… Marvel clearly didn't get the memo in time so it appears here for the first and only time in US publication. However for one reason or another the UK comic continued to use it in their UK only stories.
Prime pledges to “spare this world from the scourge we have unwittingly unleashed upon it!” Heavy stuff, how about some breakfast?
British Breakie cereal Weetabix dominates the next page! At this point in time their mascots were a gang of skinheads… how decidedly 80s. The one named ‘Dunk’ tells us “YOU GET ALL THIS IF YOU WIN!” as they introduce a competition to win 100 home computer sets. Across from him ‘Brains’ (the one with the glasses obviously) exclaims “I WANT ONE!” NERD ALERT! Don’t worry the far cooler Crunch jokes “THEY DON'T WIN BRAINS DO THEY?” hilarious.
The Transformers story continues on the next page and we witness a young lad headed towards S Witwicky Auto Repair his name is of course… Spi… nope! Wrong again! He’s called Buster and he’s late. Not for any cool reason, no he’s been reading books in the school library. NERD ALERT! AGAIN! This is a subject of some contention with his greasy monkey father ‘Sparkplug’ who essentially want’s him to get a ‘real job’ and stop trying to be clever.
Meanwhile the Autobots are on the move! Disguised as an unlikely collection of earth automobiles Prowl, Bumblebee, Hound, Cliffjumper and Brawn unaware of speeding restrictions almost run down a hiker as they set out on a reconnaissance mission.
They reach the top of a ridge and look down upon what Bumblebee theorises are the earthlings. Of course what they are actually looking at is a drive-in theatre. The cars are watching a giant screen displaying ‘strange objects’ which Cliffjumper guesses must be “some sort of religious ritual”. I love this stuff! Of course alien robots from a world where there is nothing but mechanical life would jump to such conclusions!
Our heroes hurry down the ridge to meet the local ‘lifeforms’ but not before they are spotted by Decepticon ‘spy in the sky’ Lazerbeak who radios back to Megatron (again another ‘normally’ mute cassetticon proving they’re every bit as intelligent and capable of speech as the rest of the Decepticons) to tell of the Autobots’ impending alliance with the ‘Earthlings’. Megatron is, of course, none to happy about this!
“I'm gonna be the first to greet an earthling!” enthusiastically shouts Bumblebee, as the sail past the Drive-in cashier without paying and immediate he rear ends one of the paying customers. Who just so happens to be… Buster Witwicky with his girlfriend Jesse and friend ‘O’. Yes that's his name ‘O’. To be fair ‘O’ is probably grateful for the interruption as he'd previously been playing third wheel to his ‘friends’ necking in the front seats.
Finding no driver to blame, Buster assumes it's either a prank or the VW Beetle simply rolled into him… either way his dad is gonna kill him when he sees the damage to his car! No time to worry about that though, as randomly coloured Decepticon jets attack the Drive-in!
They blast Bumblebee who makes an audible “ohhhhh!” which would be a clue to Bumblebee’s true identify if it wasn’t for the rest of his pals completely giving the game away by transforming to repel the attack.
You know that Autobot roll call they omitted earlier? Well here it is, completely out of place, 9 pages late, in order to be the centre pages of the issues.
You might notice, like the front cover, my particular copy has some extra stickers on. What are these sticker for you may ask? Well as luck might have it I know! Although this is not my copy of issue two I did have a lot of early 80s Lego and these are Lego stickers for sure. Mystery solved!
Aaaaanyway, Continuing our Story the Decepticon jets led by Starscream bear down upon the Autobots, Starscream is getting his digs in at Megatron early doors continuing to set up his duplicitous power hungry nature nicely. Unable to fly, the Autobots return fire from the ground and show off some of their special powers like Cliffjumer’s Glass Gun and Hound’s Holograms… allowing Starscream to exhibit another well known character trait… self preservation/cowardice and he scarpers.
Finally the penny drops for Prowl as he realises the ‘bizarre looking objects” screaming in terror all around him are the real earthlings and not the largely inanimate vehicles. Armed with this startling new information he speeds off to tell dadd… Optimus Prime totally forgetting about Bumblebee in the process. Thus cementing Powls position as chief ass-kisser and prime-prick of the Autobots.
Too damaged to leave with his colleagues Bumblebee is left behind and Buster elects to take him to his Dad’s garage to fix him up. He ‘drives’ Bumblebee home in scenes reminiscent of Disney’s ‘The Love Bug’ and Sparkplug awakes to find his son apparently working on a car, like the proper son of a mechanic. He is absolutely overjoyed… until that car starts talking!? ‘Continued in the next issue!’
How about winning some toys!? The following page is the Decepticon counterpart to last issues Autobot competition, offering the reader the opportunity to win your own Decepticon plane… or as is common parlance these days ‘Decepticon Seeker’. This started as a fan term to describe the Decepticon jets that all shared the same basic body type and ‘mould’ (essentially the same toy in different colours or with some slightly different parts or accessories repackaged as a different character), over time the term became somewhat ‘official’ and is regularly used by Hasbro today. Of course at the time there were only three flavours to choose from, Strawberry, Mint and Liquorise. To enter you must design your own Decepticon and give it slogan. Very creative and a shrewd move by the Marvel UK office to get the readers to create some content to pad out future issues!
As you’ll remember I mentioned cover artist John Ridgway’s connection to Doctor Who, plus the eagle eyed among you may have noticed mention of a ‘Doctor Who Robot Special’ on said cover… well, here it is!
Written by Alan Mckenzie, Editor of The Official Doctor Who Magazine, we have a one page article on the many and varied robots Doctor Who has met during his, at this point, 20 year career as the UKs premier Sci-fi character and number one Time Lord. Judging by this and the regular ‘Robot Round-up’ feature the assumption seems to be that the readership of The Transformers are ‘robot crazy’!
In addition the the Doctor Who gig, Alan Mckenzie was also Editorial Advisor on this and many further issues of Transformers and had Editor Sheila Cranna’s ear, which we are told is how John Ridgeway got the job here and future issues of The Transformers.
Next we return to Machine Man where we left off last issue… for a bit before it’s rudely interrupted by the “Coming in Transformers” page.
So what is coming up in issue 3? Well Robot Round-up, Machine Man, Posters for your wall and number 1 in the Transformers fact file series, that’s what! PLUS a free gift in the form of a Transformers Iron on transfer! Exciting right? let’s meet back here to discuss it soon yeah? Cool.