THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

TRANSFORMERS TITLES FROM TITAN BOOKS / MAGAZINES

Transformers #11 [UK]: Spare Parts
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

After the pretty much unmitigated disaster that was last issue's fill in strip we return to more solid ground with Furman here. As with Bludgeon in his last issue Furman is clearly having a blast with his Decepticon guest star, Dead End is tremendous fun as he goes around looking for body parts with the brain dead incoherent mumbling normally only seen from either zombies or students. Davis-Hunt does some wonderfully manic poses for him as well.

However, the plot he's in is very slight, and the three Cadets are just deeply, deeply dull interchangeable characters. It's especially a shame Jolt is like this considering his one contribution to the film- using electricity to stick dead Transformer body parts to Optimus- suggests a more interesting and hardcore character than we get here. I wouldn't even be surprised if Furman didn't even know Jolt was in the movie.

So an decent enough but fairly throwaway issue, we really need to start seeing as much work put into the plots and Autobots as is being put into the Decepticons and soon, or the comic could well be facing its own Dead End.

The comic's Facebook Page originally promoted this issue using a synopsis that seems to be based on an earlier version of the script, set in Alaska and including Depth Charge instead of Dune Runner. It also specifically spells out that Dead End was one of the new Transformers seen in pods on the Nemesis [as the synopsis calls it] in Revenge of the Fallen.

Dune Runner and Rollbar are newly arrived on Earth, Dune Runner's use of “We” could be read to mean Jolt has only just arrived as well, but as he's talking specifically to Rollbar at that point it's vague enough for this not to go in goofs.

Hoist is shown in flashback, seemingly as a Decepticon being crashed into by Sideswipe and Ironhide. This also isn't going in Goofs as, until he appears properly, there's nothing in this continuity to say he isn't a Decepticon regardless of what the toy is.

As with issues #7 and 9 we get an oversized cover, this time due to a cut out target on the back for you to use the free gift on. This is presumably why the price has gone back up to two pound seventy. For the first time the cover doesn't feature any of the movie cast.


If we ignore the Hoist thing a surprisingly error free issue, unless you want to count Titan/Furman doing what's basically a Halloween issue in March...


A disc shooter watch.
Perplexing and Hexing, horror themed word-search in honour of Dead End's zombie status;
Cover Version, colouring page of the cover;
Competitions for various teen horror books;
Soundwave's Space Shots, aerial photos of various locations from the film the reader is asked to name;
Cover based poster (with a different background to the final version);
Runners up from the design a robot competition;
More Than Meets the Eye quiz page;
Law and Disorder, including Starscream's Stars. A picture of a readers Decepticon themed pumpkin is included as part of the overall theme.

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