Jim Lemoine
Apr 1, 2003, 01:34 am
<img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/logos/dittol_logo.jpg" align=left width=115 height=100 border=0 alt="Did I Think That Out Loud?!? logo">By Jim Lemoine, jimlemoine@xfan.cjb.net
The second in a continuing series of admittedly biased picks to fill a true list of the most influential Hundred Marvels of all time.
X-Fanboy Alert: There are no mutants in this column. None. Not even invisible, teleporting, or relatively human-like mutants. No X-Men, no X-Statix, no X-Anything. Heck, there aren't even any superheroes in this one. At all. If superheroes are the only things that interest you, then this column isn't for you. Odds are good there'll be super types in the next one, so tune in next time. This week we discuss a fantastic comic that, while having no superheroes, broke numerous paradigms and took one of Marvel's highest selling titles (of the time) to an entirely higher playing field.
When we were very young, our first comics weren't the superhero epics we're so enamored with these days. Most of us instead started with books aimed at a much younger generation. The more mature of us might remember a vast plethora of old Disney comics (Super Goofy, anyone?), while the children of the Seventies lived by the many Richie Rich titles and Casper the Friendly Ghost. In the Eighties kids enjoyed Heathcliff and the awesome Spider-Ham, while the Nineties brought us Animaniacs and a slew of new Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera titles. Most of us still have these old kiddie comics, tucked carefully away for no other reason than nostalgia.
At some point in our lives, though, we each happened to read a mainstream comic that surprised us with its compelling story and undeniably cool characters. For every comics reader, there was originally one single issue that they picked up that convinced them to read the next one, and then the next one, until before they knew it they were a Marvel Zombie (or a DC Drone, as the case may be). Think back... when exactly was it that comics made the significant leap in your own view from "mindless children's entertainment" to "illustrated ongoing epic?" What book did you read, after which comics were at a whole new level in your mind? Was it Fantastic Four? Was it Batman? What's your Comics Origin Story?
The story you're about to read is mine: the one book that started my lifelong addiction to graphic storytelling. My Comics Origin, like most good things in life, occurred in the Eighties.
As with most young people of my generation, I was enamored with the concept and characters of the Transformers toy line. Originally this fascination was a source of some confusion to me; since GoBots were essentially the same toy, only much cheaper, I'd planned to begin a GoBots collection instead. The Transformers, however, were simply captivating and almost hypnotic. Before long, all thought of those measly little GoBots had vanished and I was frantically searching for the oh-so-elusive Hound toy.
The Transformers cartoon was entertaining but expectedly immature. Sure, the characters were neat and the animation was decent for its time, but it didn't really have deep, well-thought out storylines. It didn't have to, because it wasn't meant to. The Transformers were targeted toward children, and children in the 80's didn't expect much depth or strong characterization in their cartoons, especially as compared to cartoons today. If you don't believe me, compare the average modern DragonBall Z or Yu-Gi-Oh episode to an eighties anime counterpart, Voltron. Sure, Voltron was pretty neat, but 95% of the episodes had exactly the same plot.
But I digress. One day at a drug store, I happened to see a copy of Marvel's Transformers #4 (which featured a cover by some guy called Texeira, if you can believe it!), and I decided to rifle through it to see if the comic was any better than the cartoon. Although the beginning was a bit surprising, most of it seemed pretty standard: Autobots talk to humans, Autobots go fight Decepticons, Decepticons seem to be winning, Autobots triumph. I got bored and returned the book to the rack, not even bothering to look at the last page.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfcover.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfcovert.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Cover"></a>The next month I was back in the same drug store, and I saw what is to this day one of the most memorable comic covers I've ever encountered. Instead of standard heroic images of the noble Autobots engaging in battle, Transformers #5 presented the evil Shockwave against a stark metallic background, carving the words "Are All Dead" into a wall. It caught my eye for two reasons: first, because this kind of thing wasn't what you expected to see from a kiddie book, and second, because the art was really head and shoulders above anything I expected to see on a comic book cover. That cover drew me to buy the first comic I'd ever bought with my own money. I couldn't resist picking it up to see just how long it would take for the Autobots to make their comeback and save the day.
Imagine my disbelief as I discovered that the whole issue was a story of the Victory of Evil.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage2t.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Page 2"></a>I opened the book and read three pages of Shockwave studying human culture. No bright laser fire, no gratuitous "look how cool that is" transformation sequences... just the leader of an invading alien race researching the society he plans to enslave. I was pleasantly surprised by the maturity of it all, but that surprise became shock when I turned the page and witnessed a scene more grisly than anything the cartoon ever showed. Pages 4 & 5 of the book were a double-page spread showing the Autobots... nearly all of them... ripped limb from limb and hung from the ceiling. Kind of like Jeffrey Dahmer, but with robots. Replace the robots in that art with humans and you'd have a horrifying bloody image straight from some kind of cannibalistic slaughterhouse. After months of seeing the noble, cartoony Autobots overcoming all odds on their television show, the pure contrast of that one image hooked me.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage4t.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Page 4-5"></a>See, in the cartoon, if an Autobot was captured or defeated by the bad guys, he'd merely be forced to retreat. At worst, he'd be captured. But here, in a comic book of all places, their foes maimed them, ripped them apart, and sought to truly murder them. This raw realism in the world of a kiddie toy franchise was so different from everything I'd come to expect that I was instantly hooked. Where Transformers #1-4 were relatively ho-hum stories of gee-whiz robots, new series writer Bob Budiansky turned the paradigm upside down with Transformers #5 and, like Larry Hama on G.I. Joe, unlocked the true hidden potential of the Robots In Disguise.
Later in the title, I met my first-ever favorite comic-book hero. Unlike most new readers, it wasn't Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or Wolverine... it was a talking ambulance. Amazing I can say that with a straight face, isn't it?
Of all of the Autobots who came to Earth, Ratchet was the only one without any real combat capabilities. Instead, he was the team's doctor. You'd rarely see him charging into battle in the cartoon, and he was almost completely ignored in the first four issues of the comic. Ratchet didn't turn into a sports car or monster truck like the others, he didn't have big guns, and he was about as far from a warrior mentality as you could get. In Transformers #5, while the Decepticons were stronger than ever, Ratchet was the last surviving Autobot. Budiansky brilliantly used Ratchet over the next few issues to convey a real feeling of hopelessness, and to give us a great point-of-view look at the unbridled raw power that evil possessed.. Alone against the combined might of the most powerful Decepticons of all, Ratchet had nothing more than his brain, a few weak medical tools, and the ability to transform into a bulky ambulance. It was the quintessential underdog-against-the-odds story, the kind you'd usually never see pulled off properly in a children's franchise.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage19.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage19t.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Page 19"></a>To this day, Ratchet the Autobot stands out in my mind as one of the most heroic characters I've ever read at Marvel Comics. To watch him stand up to Megatron... well, it would be analogous to Flash Thompson fighting, outsmarting, and ultimately defeating Doctor Doom. This story arc ran until Transformers #8, when Budiansky at last portrayed Ratchet triumphant... and nobody was more surprised about that than Ratchet himself.
I collected every Transformers comic book since #5, and I eventually spread out to try books like Fantastic Four and Avengers. From that point, I was a true hooked Marvel Zombie. But I never would have read comics (and for that matter, you wouldn't be reading this column right now) if it weren't for Transformers #5, an amazing issue that broke all paradigms and preconceptions about what a toy tie-in comic book should be.
Admittedly, the art isn't all that fantastic in Transformers #5... proportion is often off and most of the human characters just look ugly. To be fair, the coloring isn't exactly up to speed either... the majority of the Robots in Disguise appearing in this issue are actually colored incorrectly. But still, I looked past all of the issue's flaws when I cast my underdog vote for this book to be one of the Hundred Greatest Marvels. This single issue deserves a place in the history books for setting a new standard, for really shocking the reader with the kind of things you never expected to see, for boldly going where Marvel had never gone before.
Of the final list of Marvel's Official Hundred Greatest, there was absolutely no representation by any books that took place outside the standard, superheroish Marvel Universe. None of the great horror or western stories from the seventies were there, nothing from the classic G.I. Joe or Transformers series, and perhaps worst of all, not one issue of Howard the Duck made the list. As there was some great, top-notch stuff produced in all of the titles and genres mentioned, I submit as a contender Transformers #5: the paradigm-destroying book that got me into comics and thus, in the long-term, provided Marvel with a small fortune of my money.
And the book still gives me chills every time I read it.
Jim Lemoine (who spent years looking for a Shockwave toy but still hasn't found one, and respectfully dedicates this column to 2TUM) has worked as a disc jockey, a video game designer, and a leadership consultant. He's been reading comics for 18 years, and he's been thinking too much for a while before that.
The second in a continuing series of admittedly biased picks to fill a true list of the most influential Hundred Marvels of all time.
X-Fanboy Alert: There are no mutants in this column. None. Not even invisible, teleporting, or relatively human-like mutants. No X-Men, no X-Statix, no X-Anything. Heck, there aren't even any superheroes in this one. At all. If superheroes are the only things that interest you, then this column isn't for you. Odds are good there'll be super types in the next one, so tune in next time. This week we discuss a fantastic comic that, while having no superheroes, broke numerous paradigms and took one of Marvel's highest selling titles (of the time) to an entirely higher playing field.
When we were very young, our first comics weren't the superhero epics we're so enamored with these days. Most of us instead started with books aimed at a much younger generation. The more mature of us might remember a vast plethora of old Disney comics (Super Goofy, anyone?), while the children of the Seventies lived by the many Richie Rich titles and Casper the Friendly Ghost. In the Eighties kids enjoyed Heathcliff and the awesome Spider-Ham, while the Nineties brought us Animaniacs and a slew of new Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera titles. Most of us still have these old kiddie comics, tucked carefully away for no other reason than nostalgia.
At some point in our lives, though, we each happened to read a mainstream comic that surprised us with its compelling story and undeniably cool characters. For every comics reader, there was originally one single issue that they picked up that convinced them to read the next one, and then the next one, until before they knew it they were a Marvel Zombie (or a DC Drone, as the case may be). Think back... when exactly was it that comics made the significant leap in your own view from "mindless children's entertainment" to "illustrated ongoing epic?" What book did you read, after which comics were at a whole new level in your mind? Was it Fantastic Four? Was it Batman? What's your Comics Origin Story?
The story you're about to read is mine: the one book that started my lifelong addiction to graphic storytelling. My Comics Origin, like most good things in life, occurred in the Eighties.
As with most young people of my generation, I was enamored with the concept and characters of the Transformers toy line. Originally this fascination was a source of some confusion to me; since GoBots were essentially the same toy, only much cheaper, I'd planned to begin a GoBots collection instead. The Transformers, however, were simply captivating and almost hypnotic. Before long, all thought of those measly little GoBots had vanished and I was frantically searching for the oh-so-elusive Hound toy.
The Transformers cartoon was entertaining but expectedly immature. Sure, the characters were neat and the animation was decent for its time, but it didn't really have deep, well-thought out storylines. It didn't have to, because it wasn't meant to. The Transformers were targeted toward children, and children in the 80's didn't expect much depth or strong characterization in their cartoons, especially as compared to cartoons today. If you don't believe me, compare the average modern DragonBall Z or Yu-Gi-Oh episode to an eighties anime counterpart, Voltron. Sure, Voltron was pretty neat, but 95% of the episodes had exactly the same plot.
But I digress. One day at a drug store, I happened to see a copy of Marvel's Transformers #4 (which featured a cover by some guy called Texeira, if you can believe it!), and I decided to rifle through it to see if the comic was any better than the cartoon. Although the beginning was a bit surprising, most of it seemed pretty standard: Autobots talk to humans, Autobots go fight Decepticons, Decepticons seem to be winning, Autobots triumph. I got bored and returned the book to the rack, not even bothering to look at the last page.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfcover.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfcovert.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Cover"></a>The next month I was back in the same drug store, and I saw what is to this day one of the most memorable comic covers I've ever encountered. Instead of standard heroic images of the noble Autobots engaging in battle, Transformers #5 presented the evil Shockwave against a stark metallic background, carving the words "Are All Dead" into a wall. It caught my eye for two reasons: first, because this kind of thing wasn't what you expected to see from a kiddie book, and second, because the art was really head and shoulders above anything I expected to see on a comic book cover. That cover drew me to buy the first comic I'd ever bought with my own money. I couldn't resist picking it up to see just how long it would take for the Autobots to make their comeback and save the day.
Imagine my disbelief as I discovered that the whole issue was a story of the Victory of Evil.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage2t.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Page 2"></a>I opened the book and read three pages of Shockwave studying human culture. No bright laser fire, no gratuitous "look how cool that is" transformation sequences... just the leader of an invading alien race researching the society he plans to enslave. I was pleasantly surprised by the maturity of it all, but that surprise became shock when I turned the page and witnessed a scene more grisly than anything the cartoon ever showed. Pages 4 & 5 of the book were a double-page spread showing the Autobots... nearly all of them... ripped limb from limb and hung from the ceiling. Kind of like Jeffrey Dahmer, but with robots. Replace the robots in that art with humans and you'd have a horrifying bloody image straight from some kind of cannibalistic slaughterhouse. After months of seeing the noble, cartoony Autobots overcoming all odds on their television show, the pure contrast of that one image hooked me.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage4t.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Page 4-5"></a>See, in the cartoon, if an Autobot was captured or defeated by the bad guys, he'd merely be forced to retreat. At worst, he'd be captured. But here, in a comic book of all places, their foes maimed them, ripped them apart, and sought to truly murder them. This raw realism in the world of a kiddie toy franchise was so different from everything I'd come to expect that I was instantly hooked. Where Transformers #1-4 were relatively ho-hum stories of gee-whiz robots, new series writer Bob Budiansky turned the paradigm upside down with Transformers #5 and, like Larry Hama on G.I. Joe, unlocked the true hidden potential of the Robots In Disguise.
Later in the title, I met my first-ever favorite comic-book hero. Unlike most new readers, it wasn't Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or Wolverine... it was a talking ambulance. Amazing I can say that with a straight face, isn't it?
Of all of the Autobots who came to Earth, Ratchet was the only one without any real combat capabilities. Instead, he was the team's doctor. You'd rarely see him charging into battle in the cartoon, and he was almost completely ignored in the first four issues of the comic. Ratchet didn't turn into a sports car or monster truck like the others, he didn't have big guns, and he was about as far from a warrior mentality as you could get. In Transformers #5, while the Decepticons were stronger than ever, Ratchet was the last surviving Autobot. Budiansky brilliantly used Ratchet over the next few issues to convey a real feeling of hopelessness, and to give us a great point-of-view look at the unbridled raw power that evil possessed.. Alone against the combined might of the most powerful Decepticons of all, Ratchet had nothing more than his brain, a few weak medical tools, and the ability to transform into a bulky ambulance. It was the quintessential underdog-against-the-odds story, the kind you'd usually never see pulled off properly in a children's franchise.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage19.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/tfpage19t.jpg" align=right alt="Transformers V. 1 #5 Page 19"></a>To this day, Ratchet the Autobot stands out in my mind as one of the most heroic characters I've ever read at Marvel Comics. To watch him stand up to Megatron... well, it would be analogous to Flash Thompson fighting, outsmarting, and ultimately defeating Doctor Doom. This story arc ran until Transformers #8, when Budiansky at last portrayed Ratchet triumphant... and nobody was more surprised about that than Ratchet himself.
I collected every Transformers comic book since #5, and I eventually spread out to try books like Fantastic Four and Avengers. From that point, I was a true hooked Marvel Zombie. But I never would have read comics (and for that matter, you wouldn't be reading this column right now) if it weren't for Transformers #5, an amazing issue that broke all paradigms and preconceptions about what a toy tie-in comic book should be.
Admittedly, the art isn't all that fantastic in Transformers #5... proportion is often off and most of the human characters just look ugly. To be fair, the coloring isn't exactly up to speed either... the majority of the Robots in Disguise appearing in this issue are actually colored incorrectly. But still, I looked past all of the issue's flaws when I cast my underdog vote for this book to be one of the Hundred Greatest Marvels. This single issue deserves a place in the history books for setting a new standard, for really shocking the reader with the kind of things you never expected to see, for boldly going where Marvel had never gone before.
Of the final list of Marvel's Official Hundred Greatest, there was absolutely no representation by any books that took place outside the standard, superheroish Marvel Universe. None of the great horror or western stories from the seventies were there, nothing from the classic G.I. Joe or Transformers series, and perhaps worst of all, not one issue of Howard the Duck made the list. As there was some great, top-notch stuff produced in all of the titles and genres mentioned, I submit as a contender Transformers #5: the paradigm-destroying book that got me into comics and thus, in the long-term, provided Marvel with a small fortune of my money.
And the book still gives me chills every time I read it.
Jim Lemoine (who spent years looking for a Shockwave toy but still hasn't found one, and respectfully dedicates this column to 2TUM) has worked as a disc jockey, a video game designer, and a leadership consultant. He's been reading comics for 18 years, and he's been thinking too much for a while before that.