Poor old Jazz falls foul of Circuit Breaker again. This is not what he wanted for Christmas!
What better way to get readers feeling festive than a Christmas themed Transformers story? The cover by Mike Collins and Mark Farmer is an absolute cracker! Corny and a little cheesy it might be, but nothing screams ‘Transformers Christmas special’ more than the sight of Optimus Prime in Santa Claus outfit. Now, normally this sort of cover would be for illustrative purposes only and would not actually reflect events in the story, but astonishingly this one does and yes, Prime wears the suit!
The red-themed Transformation page is suitably festive complete with Santa hats and holly. It’s clear the production team are really getting behind the theme. We’re also told that Soundwave had a little too much oil and the Marvel Christmas party failed to turn up for work to answer the letters page – so for this issue only he’s been replaced with Ratchet and the page has been branded Rat-Chat! It’s genius.
James Hill is the writer for this festive special, with Will Simpson as the artist (though credited as William here). It’s Christmas Eve 1985 and – as it always is in these stories – it’s snowing. However, as Circuit Breaker reads the Portland Chronicle’s frontpage story, headlined ‘Held Hostage by Alien Robots’, she explodes with fury. The two guys in the paper look like our friends Gabe and Ferdy, who were until last issue among the human slave labour being forced to toil in the Decepticons’ aerospace plant.
Circuit Breaker is wearing a trench coat and hat to disguise her freakish appearance – an otherwise naked woman covered in circuitry. You assume that the circuits regulate her temperature, or boy would she be feeling the cold right now. In condemning the robots for ‘bringing their conflict to Earth’ she acknowledges that she is fully aware that there are two sides in the Transformers war, it’s just that she holds Autobot and Decepticon equally threatening and culpable.
Simpson draws Soundwave super menacing, with a gaping mouth and drill fingers in Circuit Breaker’s imagination of what the workers endured. And she narrates her own backstory – being attacked by Shockwave, paralysed and reborn as Circuit Breaker to wreak revenge on the Transformers – which is useful for anyone who missed the events of previous stories including Dis-Integrated Circuits. Her vow to destroy every last Transformer might seem understandable given what she’s endured, but it also comes across as dangerously unhinged. This is one lady in urgent need of counselling.
At the Ark we’re able to check in on Optimus Prime for the first time since his head was rescued from the Decepticons and reunited with his body. The fact that he and the Autobots survived the episode is entirely due to their human friend Buster Witwicky, who kept the Creation Matrix safe for Optimus. Clearly the Autobot leader feels he owes Buster a huge debt, as he’s willing to dress up in a Santa outfit to indulge the youth (quite how you can come by an outfit in Prime’s size is another matter!).
Buster and Huffer are busy decorating the Ark and lighting up a mechanical tree, but Prime’s second-in-command, Prowl, is disgusted that Prime has sanctioned this waste of time while the Decepticons are leaderless and the Autobots should be pressing their advantage. He whispers his discontent to Bluestreak who reminds him of their collective debt to Buster. Interestingly Hill’s Bluesteak is a lot less talkative than the one Budiansky characterised in the recent story Brainstorm. It’s interesting and significant to see this dissatisfaction with Prime in the ranks and is a nice tie-in to Crisis of Command, the next story.
Jazz asks Buster about the Christmas tree and is told it symbolises charity, which is part of the festive season. Conveniently this makes Jazz think about Circuit Breaker, who could use her power to help many people but is “only interested in destruction” and there’s yet another recap, this time of Jazz and Wheeljack’s firy encounter with Circuit Breaker at Blackrock’s speedway track. Buster is late for seeing delivering his dad’s Christmas presents and Jazz’s offers to drive him.
In St Petersburg (USA not Russia!) kids are having great fun skating and snowball fighting when a girl falls through the ice. Circuit Breaker leaps into action, using her electric power to melt the ice and pull the child to safety. A gentle burst of electricity restarts her heart. Circuit Breaker is a hero, but she gets no thanks – in fact one of the adults bounces a stick off her head, calling her a freak and suggesting she melted the ice. This is a moment of supreme irony, where Circuit Breaker is given a taste of her own medicine. Usually it’s her attacking Autobots after they’ve tried to do good. In her anger and paranoia, she hallucinates about seeing Shockwave among the trees.
Jazz is speeding through the icy streets and causing Buster some concern. Sure enough, he loses control, transforming as he crashes and throwing Buster clear. Circuit Breaker, flying above, sees this and immediately thinks it’s a robot attacking innocent people again. She zaps Jazz and then disintegrates his weapon. As she moves in for the kill, Buster revives and pleads for Jazz’s life, pointing out the church bells in the distance – it’s Christmas day. Circuit Breaker agrees to spare Jazz a second time, however she vows that this reprieve will be his last and again flies away. Jazz realises that it was Christmas that saved him and how special it is.
This is Circuit Breaker’s only UK exclusive appearance and she now seems to be able to fly without magnetically bouncing off nearby metal objects. Annoyingly she’s doing her usual trick of always attacking the Autobots. This would be an eternal cause of frustration for readers, but if life was easy for the heroes the comic probably wouldn’t be half as dramatic. This issue, while fairly inconsequential to the ongoing storyline is nevertheless good festive fun and would set the theme for future yuletide editions, of human’s teaching Transformers the meaning of Christmas.
One Shall Stand 