THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

JAPANESE TRANSFORMERS MANGA AND INFORMATION

Super Robot Life #4 (1986)

Summary:

Inside Scramble City Convoy is giving the Cybertrons a peptalk. Kenji is conversing with Convoy when he wonders where Ultra Magnus is. Kenji isn’t sure who Magnus is so Tracks tells him that Magnus is an old friend of Convoy’s as well as the city commander. Suddenly one of Teletran’s monitors alarms off reporting Destron activity at Yokohama Harbor. The Cybertrons go to investigate.

Starscream armed with Megatron in gun mode and Blitzwing are laying waste to the city as well as the resident Cybertron warriors. They are getting thoroughly trashed until Convoy arrives to the rescue. However, he is knocked out of commission by a shot from Megatron. Starscream is caught off guard by a large truck coming up behind him. The truck transforms into city commander Ultra Magnus. Convoy gets to his feet and the two prepare for battle. Convoy opens up his trailer and powers up a giant particle cannon, the Scramble Power Blaster. The cannon wastes the three Destrons in an instant. Blitzwing and Starscream transform to jet mode and take to the sky while Megatron returns to robot mode. Blitzwing and Starscream dive-bomb Magnus and Convoy, successfully destroying the particle cannon.

At that time Kenji and Tracks arrive. Tracks transforms to flight mode and baits the jets into following him. Ordered by Megatron at the same time, Blitzwing and Starscream do so. Tracks performs a few aerial maneuvers and swoops down toward Megatron. Megatron dodges to the side, barely avoiding Tracks. However, he fails to notice Blitzwing and Starscream until the last second and they unintentionally crash into him. While they’re down Magnus and Convoy administer the “Convoy Magnus Doublecross Kick!” Thoroughly defeated, the three Destrons retreat as the Cybertrons celebrate another well-earned victory.

Review:

Much better than the last couple of issues, in all honesty. This one was a little longer and much more action oriented. The whole issue seems to be a promotion for the Ultra Magnus toy but Transformer fans are used to that sort of thing. The combination of Blitzwing, Starscream and Megatron is very effective and the trio manages to inflict some major destruction. Warpath is torn up pretty bad by the end of the issue.

An oddity, however, is Megatron in gun mode. Usually he shrinks to handheld size when he converts to gun mode but in this issue he remained in his usual giant robot size. This means that Starscream was holding a very big gun. But balanced on top of Blitzwing in tank mode the image looked much more cool than it did wacky. Also, apparently lots of humans live inside Scramble City. I’d think that would be a safety hazard. What do they do when it transforms to Metroflex?

► Super Robot Life #1 (1986)
► Super Robot Life #2 (1986)
► Super Robot Life #3 (1986)
► Super Robot Life #4 (1986)
► Super Robot Life #5 (1986)
► Super Robot Life #6 (1986)
► Battlestars: Return of Convoy #1 (1991)

Reviews by DrSpengler

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