THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

164 "City of Fear"
165 "City of Fear"
166 "Legion of the Lost"
167 "Legion of the Lost"
168 "Meltdown"
169 "Meltdown"
170 "Deadly Games"
171 "Deadly Games"
188 "Firebug"
213 "The Fall and Rise of the Decepticon Empire"
214 "The Fall and Rise of the Decepticon Empire"
132 "Kup's Story"

Marvel UK book 8 of 9: City Of Fear

Reprinting: The Transformers #164-171,188,213-214,132 (Marvel UK)
Plot by: Simon Furman [#188]
Script by: Simon Furman [#132,164-171,213-214], Dan Abnett [#188]
Art by: Dan Reed [#132,164-165,170-171], Robin Smith [#168-169], Jeff Anderson [#188], Lee Sullivan [#213-214]
Pencils by: Jeff Anderson [#166-167]
Inks by: Dave Elliot [#166-167]
Colours by: Steve White [#132], Euan Peters [#164-171,188], Stuart Place [#213-214]
Letters by: Annie Halfacree [#132,164-165,167], Tom Frame [#166,188], Glib [#168,170-171,213-214], Glop [#169]

B-movie homage! Ultra Magnus fights for his life! And some other stuff.

The Stories:

The core of this volume is the storyline "City Of Fear" [#164-165], continuing in "Legion Of The Lost" [#166-167] and "Meltdown" [#168-169]. Ultra Magnus and the Sparkabots return to Cybertron, only to discover Emirate Xaaron and the Wreckers missing. The only corpse at the scene has been dead for years... stop reading now if you don't want spoilers!

Going to investigate, the Autobots run into the Duocons and capture Flywheels. Then the dead begin to rise! Think every zombie film you've seen, with unstoppable numbers of hellish exo-skeletons clawing their way out of the ground! The group escape, figure out that the zombies must be being remote-controlled and head for a transmitter to jam the signal. However, the mystery only deepens when they discover where the signal is coming from! Am I using too many exclamation marks for you yet, by the way?

This takes us into "Legion Of The Lost" and a flashback. Emirate Xaaron recounts Megatron's millions-of-years old plan to sail Cybertron across the cosmos as a dreadnought, powered by a fusion reactor which was incomplete when the Ark disappeared to Earth. He concludes that Autobase has been built above this reactor, now mysteriously active. Springer is meditating on his own lack of competence compared to his predecessor Impactor, when the zombies attack! Funnily enough, Impactor is amongst them... what's left of him, anyway. The Wreckers are overpowered and taken to the holding cells of Flame, a renegade Autobot scientist. Flame is still sore that Xaaron overruled his plan to use the unstable fusion reactor to make Cybertron mobile. He is, however, still an Autobot... and a bit of a Bond villain, explaining his plans and wanting the Wreckers to live to see them come to fruition.

Xaaron slaps Springer around a bit until he agrees to make a break for it. Impactor, still zombified, follows him but begins to remember his personality. Springer promptly abandons him and meets up with Magnus and company. Xaaron has headed for the engine room to attempt to reason with Flame. The other Wreckers made for the armoury, bump into Impactor and point him towards Flame. Meanwhile, Flywheels (who was sent for reinforcements) has returned with a muted but obliging Trypticon. In a rather textbook twist, it emerges that whoever deactivates the reactor will perish doing so. If you think about who's around, you can probably guess the rest. There's actually some very sharp dialogue in this conclusion, and the way in which Furman handles characters and locations belies the obvious convenience of certain plot points. Altogether, these six issues serve to flesh out Cybertron and its Autobot resistance quite effectively.

The rest of the book offers a grab-bag of stories, "Deadly Games" following on directly from the "City Of Fear" arc in continuity, and four other issues worth of reasonably stand-alone material.

"Deadly Games" is a two-parter about aliens in league with Decepticons to run illegal gladiatorial combats and bring funds to each. A new Autobot character lasts all of six pages to prove how lethal the arena is, before Ultra Magnus and the Sparkabots are captured and Magnus forced to duel. The conclusion of the strip and its wry humour would be at home in 2000AD, another long-running British comic.

Following this is "Firebug", a one-shot featuring Inferno, Broadside and Sandstorm... and a pest from an alien race of pyromaniacs. Not an essential read by any means, though it does serve to flesh out some less well known characters a little.

"The Fall And Rise Of The Decepticon Empire" is a two-parter from later in the UK run, printed after "Time Wars". It sees Megatron regaining control over the major concentration of Decepticon forces on Cybetron, wresting it from a triumverate modelled on corrupt Roman oligarchy. Whilst it may seem obvious to an adult audience, their names are a nice little touch. We're also given an insight into the commanding presence with which Megatron formed the Decepticons from the ashes of the Cybertronian State Games, and Decepticon nature in general.

"Kup's Story" tells the meeting of Hot Rod, Blurr and Kup. Leaving aside the slightly unfeasible premise that the Autobots would spare resources to put warriors with combat fatigue out to pasture, this is a likeable one-shot.

There's a wide range of art styles throughout these stories. As the credits at the beginning note, Dan Reed is slightly infamous for the way he drew characters to suggest they were on edge. Jeff Anderson has a simpler style, also offering some credible humans. Lee Sullivan's is probably the sharpest art on offer here, though: slightly sketchy edges really capture the motion in the storyline he's illustrating.

The Presentation:

This is a UK collection by Titan, so it measures a little wider than A4. There's an original cover by Geoff Senior, drawn wonderfully sketchily in inks and painted in rich slabs of colour. The zombies are a treat to look at. In addition to paragraph bios for the writer and artists, there's also a three-page installment of an article on UK stories (though of #223-242, presumably so as not to make the reader feel as if material is being duplicated.) The back cover features a slightly inaccurate blurb predominantly aimed at a non-UK audience, and thumbnail covers of most of the UK issues included here. (It isn't actually Flame's plan to burn Cybertron to a cinder, and issues #213-214 had covers which featured different strips, so it isn't surprising that they'd be omitted.)

The Verdict:

"Meltdown" and "Fall And Rise..." are for me the highlights of this collection, but all are pretty enjoyable. Titan seem to be aiming for 136 page volumes, which means that one or two main storylines plus a handful of smaller random ones will be the way things are printed. The selection here isn't at all bad; definitely worth checking out.

 
Reviewed by Denyer

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