Steve's Transformers fansite: review of the 1988 annual

Transformers Annual 1988

Story1: Altered Image!
Story2: All in the Minds!
Story3: Peace
Price: £3.95
Writers: Simon Furman, Ian Rimmer, Richad Alan
Artists: Sullivan (stories and cover), Reed, Burns, Smith
Rating: Art / Story

First appearance: Triton

Synopses:
By Steve Bax

Megatron defies his master by teaming up with Galvatron.

A sinister looking Scorponok hunts down Highbrow.

There will be no peace thanks to a spy in the Autobot midst.

The annual begins with a text story by Simon Furman in which a young hacker named Adam Reynolds reviews the key moments in the Transformer war, courtesy of the Autobots' computer.

The lead strip Altered Image is scripted by Furman and Ian Rimmer, and has art from Lee Sullivan. It opens with Galvatron staring at his reflection in the glass panels of a wrecked office block. A wider view shows the whole city centre in ruins and deserted - clearly the Decepticon has gone to a lot of trouble to draw attention to himself. He is expecting an friend, none other than his former self, the malevolent Megatron!

In issue 189 readers saw a brainwashed Megatron tearing apart a Galvatron facsimile and then killing Cyclonus. Shockwave, who sees the future Decepticon as a formidable leadership rival, has gone to great lengths to recover and reprogram Megatron to act as his agent. Now at last it is D-Day for Shockwave's plan as Megatron and Galvatron face-off.

Squaring up, Megatron accuses his opponent of lies for daring to claim he is descended from him. Galvatron repudiates this by explaining his rebirth by Unicron in 2006 and makes the case that Shockwave is manipulating them. He tastes the fury of Megatron's fusion cannon and blows are traded, sending Galvatron reeling into the side of a building. He transforms into cannon mode and fires - but the blast detonates above Megatron's head. It seems Galvatron has made a fatal miss but Megatron's triumph is short lived as a huge chunk of building lands on him. As Megatron crawls out of the rubble, Galvatron reveals there are worse indignities ahead like when Starscream throws his battered body into space. His curiosity peaked, Megatron asks how Galvatron avenged this and the reply is: "What would you have done?" Megatron laughs. They may not be the same being but they share similar methods and perhaps an alliance would be in both their interests.

******

In the text story Prime Bomb, the Decepticon Powermasters seek the diskette with Prime's personality on it so they can create a missile designed to home in on him. Meanwhile in the second strip All in the Minds! Scorponok rampages through greenbelt in pursuit of the Highbrow. The Autobot Headmaster is clearly alone and out of his depth - his one chance, to offload a fragment rocket in the Decepticon's face, is scuppered by a blow from those mighty pinchers!

With his gun damaged Highbrow is in a very bad situation but brains will prevail over brawn? He sets the weapon to maximum power and magnetically attaches it to Scorponok's chest before it explodes. An unexpected victory, but now Highbrow is under attack from the airborne Apeface and Snapdragon, and transforms into helicopter mode hoping to lose them in the dense foliage. The tactic pays off as Apeface collides with a few branches and Snapdragon gets lost, but Mindwipe appears and fixes Highbrow with his hypnotic gaze. The Autobot transforms and lands - a helpless zombie awaiting instruction.

Mindwipe and Scorponok inform him that he is part of the Decepticon army and on a mission to destroy his enemies (taking care to remove his Autobot insignia first). Highbrow feels something is not right but is too dazed to know better. However when the Decepticons and Highbrow transform their heads into Nebulans the situation changes. Mindwipe's conditioning has only covered Highbrow, not Gort, and the young Nebulan loses no time in attacking his enemies. Mindwipe's head, Vorath, gets decked but Lord Zarak has time to reconnect with Scorponok. Gort has no choice but to bond with Highbrow or be destroyed - but he hopes he won't fall under the Decepticon spell again. Luckily Highbrow remembers Gort's instructions and catches Scorponok off-guard by yanking his head from his shoulders!

Scorponok's decapitated body crashes to the ground and the head itself has been rendered unconscious by the shock - Highbrow has won the day thanks to a case of two heads being better than one.

******

In Peace, the year is 2510 AD and on the Transformers' homeworld of Cybertron a day that has been long dreamt of is about to dawn. Few can remember how the war began and even fewer now no the difference between good and evil, but all will remember the day the last Decepticon fell! It comes after a furious onslaught led by Springer and the Wreckers and finally, after four million years, victory is achieved and a ceasefire is called. Within his pot-holed command centre an exhausted Rodimus Prime is given the miracle news by Blurr - the war is over!

Some hours later Prime convenes a meeting of his top lieutenants to confirm the rumours sweeping the planet. With the job done he announces he will be standing down as Autobot leader and passing the Matrix to the hero-of-the-hour, Springer. But in the audience stands Triton, a Decepticon agent who has been carefully working to undermine the Autobots for 90 years. He cannot believe after all his efforts, his side has lost and he is determined the enemy will not live to savour the victory. He steps forward and angrily denounces Prime for his lack of foresight - Springer is a warrior, not someone to lead the Autobots in peace. He adds that Ultra Magnus, a former Matrix holder no less, should take over.

Whirl rounds on this upstart and demands to know where the precious Magnus was as Springer led the Autobots to final victory. Events suddenly spiral as Triton punches Whirl, causing Roadbuster to raise his weapon, and Scattershot (a Magnus supporter) blasts Roadbuster! Sandstorm fires on Triton and in moments two Autobot factions are shooting at each. Rodimus Prime sinks to the floor with his head in his hands, while yards away an Autobot badge slips off the fatally wounded Triton to reveal a Decepticon insignia underneath. It is the day the last Decepticon fell... and the war began again.

******

Comments:

The best story in the annual for me is Peace, the short and simple strip set in the distant future. Having events take place in 2510 gives the writer Richard Alan (remarkably not Furman for once) a lot of room to manoeuvre, as what he does will not impinge on the comic's regular continuity. This story is dark, pessimistic and massively ironic. The Autobots have stared into the abyss for so long that they eventually became the thing they were fighting. By this point everyone is exhausted and tempers are short, but ultimately no-one knows any other way than war. It is a simple matter for Triton to provoke the civil war and die having accomplished his mission. More powerful is the fact that this just the sort of thing that has happened in human history, as an evil is overthrown and the victors eventually turn on one another. I'd have loved to have known what happened next but the comic never returned to this thread.

All in the Minds! has echos of the World's Apart story from 130-131 in which Scorponok and Highbrow do battle. It is somewhat simplistic but contains enough action to keep it pacey. I like the idea that a Headmaster can be rendered comatose if seperated without the proper mental commands. The thread would be resolved in Time Wars in early 1989.

Altered Image was slightly disappointing for me. I didn't like the art much and script-wise there wasn't a lot happening bar the briefest of battles between Megatron and Galvatron. I'm not sure what I was expecting but probably something more explosive given the hype. Also it didn't ring true that Megatron had been brainwashed because he conversed with Galvatron and was persuaded with relative ease to abandon his Shockwave-instilled programming. Nice touch about Starscream being a unifying factor though. Whoever the Decepticon leader is they've all experienced his traitorous ways!

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