Given that that I’ve written a whole slew of fictional counselling sessions with them, it’s probably no surprise I’m a fan of the Transformers. I’ve loved them since I was a kid.
What might be surprising is that in
spite of the fact I collected the Marvel comics run from #1 into the early
thirties, for the most part, I often found those comics boring.
Too much people. Not enough giant
robots fighting.
The writer on most of those comics
was a fellow named Bob Budiansky, Budiansky created the backstories and names
for most of the Transformers and took over writing duties on the comic starting
with Issue #5. Years later, another writer, Simon Furman, took over the book.
Furman’s run on the
Transformers is considered a high point of the series. Most
modern Transformers comics are still built on the foundation laid by Simon
Furman: galactic scale warfare, tribal politics, the meaning of leadership,
forays into mysticism and religion, and a Cybertronian-centric narrative.
But revisiting those Budiansky
issues recently, I have a new appreciation for his stories. They were different
from what I wanted at the time, but rereading he first thirty or so issues of
his run on Transformers I notice three recurring points of focus: smaller-scale
personal stories, the interaction between humans and Transformers, and an
emphasis on morality.
Although Transfomers is ostensibly
about a multi-million year old, galaxy-spanning robot war, Budiansky tended to
use the war as a setting for his stories rather than as the story itself. Most
of his best stories featured only one or two protagonists struggling with a
specific problem or limitation.
Sometimes he would do this by
isolating characters.
For example, from issue #5 to Issue
#8 when he rediscovers the Dinobots (*), Ratchet is the ONLY Autobot character
in the comic, the rest having been incapacitated since Issue #4. It’s hard to have story about a war
between giant robot armies when one of the armies has only ONE member, and a
medic, at that.
But the story is not about the
galactic war. It is about Ratchet finding a way to rescue his friends in the
face of insurmountable odds and his own self-doubt…and defeating Megatron, the mightiest of
Decepticons in the process (**).
In a similar fashion, Bumblebee is
isolated (although by choice, feeling he is a liability to the group) in Issue #16. Skids is the only Autobot in
Issue #20 (“Showdown!”) and Ravage the only Decepticon to
make a physical appearance (although Megatron shows up in a dream sequence). In
issue #13 (“Shooting
Star!”), Megatron is
the lone Transformer to appear, and he is locked in gun mode for most of the
issue--the protagonist of the story is a human, turning the Transformers into
side characters in their own comic.
Even when there are numerous
characters in the story, the emotional arc often centers around just one or two characters. A number
of Autobots are in on the action in issue #10, but the story’s emotional arc(and climactic
moment) revolves around Huffer and his homesickness.
Similarly, issues #17 and 18
introduce us to a number of new Autobots and Decepticons who are fighting on
Cybertron, but the war is not the story. The war is the setting. The story is
the story of Blaster, an Autobot defying orders to first rescue, then avenge
his friend Scrounge, an Autobot labelled as useless, but who ends up both
discovering crucial information and dying courageously for the Autobot cause.
The Decepticons, as the villains,
tend to get less in the way of personal treatment, but Budiansky does attempt
to make the Decepticon leaders distinct from one another:
Shockwave, Megatron’s rival for command of the
Decepticons, is coldly logical, a strong contrast to the more hot-blooded
Megatron. Meanwhile one of the most unique of the Decepticon high command is
the (by Transformer standards) diminutive Ratbat, whose leadership style is
more in keeping with a penny-pinching bureaucrat than a bloodthirsty conqueror (***).
Even Megatron, whose personality for
the most part is indistinguishable from countless other villainous would-be
despots, has his moments. Issue #25 is focused around Megatron’s inability to accept the death of
Optimus Prime in the previous issue. Whether the denial is brought about by a
twisted form of grief at the loss of the foe that has defined his existence for
four million years or the blow to Megatron’s ego that it was a human and not the
Decepticon leader who killed Prime, the result adds an interesting, if
unexpected, layer of depth to a previously one-dimensional character.
I love the way story reveals
character now. But back in 1986 I wanted to see more robots, more fighting, and
More Than Meets The Eye.
I also wanted to see less of
something in my Transformers comics.
That something was humans.
We’ll tackle that in Part 2
(*) Issue #8 also featured the
Dinobots being beaten by two different opponents less than fifteen pages apart
despite a five-to-one numerical advantage. Their next appearance was for two
panels eleven issues later when they quit the Autobots and they didn’t show up again until #27. Grimlock
and Co. might be signature characters in Transformers comic book lore, but they
got off to an underwhelming start to say the least.
(**) It also established a link
between Ratchet and Megatron which would be revisited later in the series by
Furman, a link that probably wouldn’t have happened without Budiansky’s story. But it’s a brilliant storytelling juxtaposition.
Optimus Prime and Megatron are ideological opposites, but they are both
powerful warriors and leaders. Ratchet on the other hand is far lesss-powerful,
charismatic, and lower in the command structure not to mention a medical
officer and non-combatant. The difference between Autobot and Decepticon
philosophies is not best embodied by the difference between Optimus Prime and
Megatron. It’s embodied
in the difference between Megatron and RATCHET.
(***)When the Decepticons launch a
successful surprise assault on the Autobots, Ratbat rejoices at the ambush’s energy efficiency, exclaiming: “What a banner day this will become
in the annals of Decepticon fuel accounting!” It’s no “Kneel
before Zod,” that‘s for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment