THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

OTHER TRANSFORMERS BOOKS AND SERIES

#4: Laserbeak's Fury
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

This is obviously set very early after the Transformers arrival on Earth. The Decepticons (still mainly out to return to Cybertron) know nothing of the humans, and the Transformers presence on the planet is still a secret.

To confirm what we saw on the map in Autobots Fight Back, the car Laserbeak follows has an Oregon registration plate. As a nice bit of continuity, the paper Spike reads from at the end is called the Paprika Plains Informer, referencing the town mentioned on the same map.

This is the first book with a substantial human guest cast, and as with Spike's Father not one of them gets a name in the text. However, if Engineer 1 owns his company, his name may be revealed on the side of his truck, Lewis Stringer. This is likely a joke (or Easter Egg as the kids would call it today) inserted by Collins in reference to Lew Stringer, who was drawing Robo-Capers in the Marvel UK Comic at that time (and later would create living legend Combat Colin).

The Farmer's Son has Dirty Harry and what could be either Madonna or Marilyn Monroe (so it's probably Madge considering the period) pictures on his wall.

Today's education lesson: The history and purpose of windmills. This is the second Ladybird book where the Transformers misunderstand something that you can only find on Earth rather than Cybertron. The notion that they have no concept of a wooden building does make more sense than their lack of understanding of lightning did in book 1 though.

Today's innuendo corner: "I am old because I am hard" said Megatron.

Rumble is drawn using his pile driver arms from the cartoon rather than the vibro-feet he was depicted with in the comic at this stage.

Laserbeak is a convincing enough tape to play in a cassette machine, but only has the sound of beeps and static on him. It's unclear if it would be possible to record on him. This tale of him being mistaken for a normal tape made this easily the most exciting Talk and Read book for young readers.

The last 1985 book ushers in a sea change; it's the last entry with the character guide book end; the last for the 1984 cast (which has been consistent across the books to date, from here it varies a lot more); the last book to be consistently numbered (though the Movie book will briefly return to this); and most importantly, the last for artist Mike Collins.


It has to be said that both the windmill, and indeed the landscape on the cover, look more Dutch than American. The idea of a village hall disco feels like a very British thing as well.

Cliffjumper is constantly coloured like Bumblebee. It's Bumper!

The Decepticons are knocked out of the fight by a wooden building falling on them. Between this and their defeat by mining carts in the last book you have to wonder if they have glass jaws. Even more oddly, the Autobots just bugger off rather than taking advantage of their incapacitated foes to take them into custody.

The Paprika Plains Informer apparently thinks a story about a winged demon at a disco (only seen by some people who'd likely been on the pop) is more worthy of the front page that the mysterious destruction of an ancient local landmark.


Just behind Autobots' Lightning Strike as the second strongest 1985 book, Laserbeak's Fury closes the first year with a considerable degree of style. As with that book, it's very much a comedy of errors, the Decepticons are fooled into thinking the windmill is more than it is whilst Laserbeak gets passed unwittingly from person to person, but done with a lot of fun style.

Mike Collins bows out with some style. His drawing of Laserbeak getting electrocuted is a particular high point, as is the full page given over to the windmill battle.

The only real weak point is again the ending, it's a shame there's such a rigid page count because the last two books could have both done with a few more paragraphs to satisfyingly wrap them up. Here, the plot is just switched off when the building falls down. Despite this though, another entertaining read.

Laserbeak flies through the Decepticons' amazingly green base.

The Pet Shop Boys unveil their new look.