TRANSFORMERS #8, Marvel Comics, September 1985
Heading into our Good Friday Extinction Event, Dinosaur Week gets extended as we look at the introduction of the Dinobots in Marvel's old Transformers comics. Not real dinosaurs, you say? Well, since Marvel was in the habit of putting their licensed toy tie-ins into their actual universe (making sure no series could be entirely collected in trade later), the Dinobots have been lying dormant in the Savage Land! So look, a real dinosaur:
That's Ratchet the Ambulance-bot out looking for the posse who downed Shockwave 4 million years ago. Maybe they can do it again, eh? One of the things I like to look at with toy tie-ins is what creators have been given the thankless job of shilling for Hasbro.
Wow, Kyle Baker on inks. Mismatch? Well, you should also check out the rad Bill Sienkiewicz covers for the first few issues of this series (which went to 80 issues, by the way, so quite a success).
So at this point in the grand Transformers epic, Shockwave has come back from the dead and taken over the Decepticons. Dude is cold and badass:
Yeah, that management style is sure to keep Megatron from ever rebelling. Meanwhile, Ratchet finds the Dinobots dormant in a tar pit and reawakens them. On playback, we find out that the Ark spaceship reconfigured these Autobots millions of years ago to make them blend into the native fauna. Their battle against the thoroughly non-camouflaged Shockwave...
...ended in a draw, with all of them turned into fossils.
One paleontological dig later, Ratchet meets up with Megatron again, but he's not to be trusted (of course). Hell of a time to go skiing.
Then... oh, you know what? I know you're dying to see Megatron in a fistfight with robotic dinosaurs, so let's just get on with it.
The fight ends like you would expect a classic fight with a recurring villain to end: Megatron falls off a cliff never to be seen again... until the next issue.
You know, though the few Transformers comics I have were originally my kid brother's, and only magnetically found their way into my long boxes, they're not too bad. Subplots about a cybergirl not withstanding.
Heading into our Good Friday Extinction Event, Dinosaur Week gets extended as we look at the introduction of the Dinobots in Marvel's old Transformers comics. Not real dinosaurs, you say? Well, since Marvel was in the habit of putting their licensed toy tie-ins into their actual universe (making sure no series could be entirely collected in trade later), the Dinobots have been lying dormant in the Savage Land! So look, a real dinosaur:
That's Ratchet the Ambulance-bot out looking for the posse who downed Shockwave 4 million years ago. Maybe they can do it again, eh? One of the things I like to look at with toy tie-ins is what creators have been given the thankless job of shilling for Hasbro.
Wow, Kyle Baker on inks. Mismatch? Well, you should also check out the rad Bill Sienkiewicz covers for the first few issues of this series (which went to 80 issues, by the way, so quite a success).So at this point in the grand Transformers epic, Shockwave has come back from the dead and taken over the Decepticons. Dude is cold and badass:
Yeah, that management style is sure to keep Megatron from ever rebelling. Meanwhile, Ratchet finds the Dinobots dormant in a tar pit and reawakens them. On playback, we find out that the Ark spaceship reconfigured these Autobots millions of years ago to make them blend into the native fauna. Their battle against the thoroughly non-camouflaged Shockwave...
...ended in a draw, with all of them turned into fossils.One paleontological dig later, Ratchet meets up with Megatron again, but he's not to be trusted (of course). Hell of a time to go skiing.
Then... oh, you know what? I know you're dying to see Megatron in a fistfight with robotic dinosaurs, so let's just get on with it.
The fight ends like you would expect a classic fight with a recurring villain to end: Megatron falls off a cliff never to be seen again... until the next issue.
You know, though the few Transformers comics I have were originally my kid brother's, and only magnetically found their way into my long boxes, they're not too bad. Subplots about a cybergirl not withstanding.
Comments
They certainly developed a mythology and characterization far deeper than anything the cartoon ever did, and while the art was never spectacular, it remained pretty solid and consistent.
Also, transforming robot dinosaurs are awesome.
1) too embarassed to buy toy-inspired comics, and
2) don't outgrow comics as an adult.
Shameless.
You're not doing a very good job of keeping me away from them. ;)
I kind of avoided ROM, the Space Knight because of the toy thing - despite being told it was actually pretty good but friends at the time.
Unlike the wrestling issues, which were just terrible.