Marvel UK goes ‘back to the future’ with a Transformers the Movie sequel featuring the eagerly awaited debut of Rodimus Prime and surprise show-stealer in the form of a robotic bounty hunter known as Death’s Head
After Transformers the Movie the character that the fans were desperate to read about was without doubt Rodimus Prime. And amazingly it was the UK comic and not its wider circulated US counterpart that featured him first! Perhaps that shouldn’t be too surprising really, as the US book pretty much ignored the Movie as it did with the cartoons. Here in the UK however, the film was well and truly embraced as part of the continuity. In fact it was the movie inspired saga of Target: 2006 which had given the book (and writer Simon Furman) their biggest success to date. So, it was inevitable that Furman and the team would wish to return to the fertile territory of the post Movie era for another epic.
In my opinion Wanted Galvatron! is not in the same league as Target: 2006 and it loses its way a bit towards the end, but by god it makes a fantastic start, as we see in issue #113 which sets the scene and #114 where we meet Rodimus for real.
The first sight of the future Autobot leader is the fantastic and super-impactful cover by Geoff Senior with of Rodimus calling for the head of Galvatron. In fact Geoff is on art duties for the story too and at top of his game here. I understand he was responsible for designing the aforementioned Death’s Head and the character looks amazing and totally suits the dialogue and the character that Furman has written. It’s not surprising therefore that Death’s Head would go on to have his own monthly Marvel comic within a couple of years of this impressive debut.
Rodimus wants Galvatron’s head and this is exactly what readers see on the opening page, courtesy of a wild west style wanted poster. This sets the tone and the scene really nicely as readers are deposited into a frontier style saloon on the robot world of Elpasos. The year is 2007 and as the poster suggests, Rodimus Prime is the new sherif and Galvatron the outlaw. A reward of 10,000 Shanix is offered and Death’s Head is intent on claiming it. He asks a ridiculously scrawny robotic bar-keep to fill him in on the details.
After a particularly hilarious moment where the barkeep gets throttled for referring to Death’s Head as “bounty hunter” – a term he is extremely touchy about (he prefers ‘freelance peacekeeping agent’) which is recurring gag and part of the entertainment – the wimpy robot gives a recap of the now familiar events at the end of the movie. Unicron had launched an assault on the Transformers homeworld, he tells Death’s Head. And inside Unicron his servant Galvatron fought with the Autobot warrior Hot Rod. By rights Hot Rod should have perished but the Matrix was his saviour – it transformed, enlarged and enhanced him into Rodimus Prime, who threw Galvatron into space before unleashing the full power of the Matrix to destroy Unicron.
Although these scenes are all very well known to fans, it’s still nice to see Senior’s interpretation and in particular the transfiguration of Hot Rod into Rodimus. And then we’re into new and exciting sequel territory as we’re told, again courtesy of the barkeep (who for a non-Transformer is very well informed about events on Cybertron) that Rodimus had become obsessed with locating and neutralising Galvatron and had personally led the search for many fruitless months. In his absence, Shockwave had regrouped the Decepticons on Cybertron and renewed the age-old civil war. Rodimus had no choice but to break off the search and return home, so he issued the bounty to get others to finish the job.
Death’s Head goes to leave without settling the tab for the three quarts of oil he downed and the weedy barkeep pulls out a huge gun that is twice the size of him! Death’s Head tosses a credit card in his direction and the barkeep’s eyes extend on stalks to examine it closely – oops its a blank! Before he object, Death’s Head pummels his face into the bar leaving the poor mechanoid battered and broken and mumbling “Th-that’ll do nicely”. It’s a very funny scene and establishes Death’s Head as a truly magnificent bastard.
So far no-one has even come close to finding Galvatron but Death’s Head is bolder and more determined than most. He travels to Cybertron to confront Galvatron’s lieutenants Cyclonus and Scourge. We find the pair jetting above the Cybertron landscape complaining about the their new “freak” of a boss Shockwave and how they are looking forward to him getting his comeuppance once Galvatron returns. They transform and land in exactly the spot where Death’s Head is lying waiting for them (quite a coincidence).
He introduces himself and asks “heard of me, yes?” – and it seems his reputation has reached the Decepticons on Cybertron. A fire fight ensues but the mercenary is swift and deadly and dispatches Scourge with a blast to his face. Cyclonus returns fire and attempts to batter Death’s Head with a metal girder. Cyclonus is quickly subdued and Death’s reveals his neat trick of replacing his left hand with one of the weapon attachments he carries on his back, in this case a spiked ball. With Cyclonus at his mercy, the Decepticon has one chance to avoid death – to spill the beans. He reveals what he suspects, that Galvatron has fled into Earth’s past.
The first instalment ends with Death’s Head locating their time-jump equipment and vanishing into the time stream heading for 1987 and a showdown with Galvatron! Now here’s the interesting thing about Galvatron hiding in the past, it’s not as though they are separate places existing concurrently, one follows the other. So if Galvatron travels to 1987 it figures that he would still be around in 2007 only 20 years older, or he would have to die in the past to not still exist in the future, right?
Part two (issue #114) opens with a birds eye perspective of Rodimus Prime, Kup, Blurr and Wreck-Gar with missiles reigning down on their position. It’s another brilliantly drawn issue, this time by Will Simpson, another of my favourites. In fact I have a vague memory of Simon Furman appearing on weekend kids TV show with uncoloured version of this artwork talking about the comic. Sadly the clip doesn’t seem to be available anywhere.
It is the year 2007 (which to us now seems the dim and distant past but back then felt futuristic and exciting) and after the flashbacks, we now see Rodimus in a live action situation. He’s out in the open, out numbered, and possibly out of luck! Wreck-gar, talking TV, declares there’ll be full reports in the ten o’clock bulletin. I can only imagine it must have been a tricky challenge for Furman to write dialogue for this character.
As fleet of Decepticon hunter planes drop their payload, seemingly consigning Kup and Blurr to unconsciousness. They transforms and close in on Prime. The cocky squadron leader can almost taste victory and wants to hear the Autobot leader beg. Instead, Rodimus gives the order to fire and Ultra Magnus and the others spring up and cut down the Decepticons comrades in a volley of laser beams. The squadron leader runs, trips and falls at Prime’s feet. He begs for mercy in a scene which echoes Prime and Megatron’s battle at Autobot City and ends with Rodimus, a cold-steel in his eyes, opening fire.
Later, he snaps at Kup for declaring that they “did good”. True, Decepticons are the lowest of the low, but they were sentient beings whose lives they’ve been forced to end. Prime is very much in the mould of his predecessor Optimus in terms of angst and sentiment and he hates the way that fate has forced him to shoulder the burden of leadership and to compromise his principles. I’m not sure that Hot Rod would have been quite so burdened by having to kill the enemy and I’m guess that Rodimus may well have something of the essence of Optimus about him. After all it was the voice of Optimus who he heard as he was created telling him to arise, right?
Kup provides the wise counsel to the young leader. The only way Shockwave will win is if the Autobots doubt themselves he says. Then Rodimus is visited by their ‘Decepticon’ spy Nautilus (named after Captain Nemo’s ship perhaps?) who has broken cover early to deliver some very important information: he has learned the location of Galvatron! He ran into Cyclonus and Scourge after their bruising encounter with Death’s Head and amazingly got them to spill the beans. Oddly, considering they had to have the same information beaten out of them by Death’s Head, they were willing to tell Nautilus about their earlier time-jump into Earth’s past and that Death’s Head had most likely followed. Rodimus is aghast, realising he’s unwittingly set in motion a confrontation between the most powerful Decepticon of all and the fearsome Death’s Head in Earth’s past. This knowledge only seems to add to the pressure on the young leader’s shoulders.
Our scene shifts to 1987 Earth where Bumblebee is kneeling over a patch of scorched ground where First Aid had recently stood. The medic’s disappearance means that a time traveller has arrived from the future, and that probably means trouble. How right he is. Death’s Head materialises at the scene (unusual for a time jump) and decides to make sure Bumblebee cannot raise the alarm about his arrival, by blowing the mini-Autobot to pieces! Whoa!
Whilst a similar demise was enough to finish Optimus Prime for good, the fans will have been aware of the Goldbug toy recently released as part of the new Throttlebots team from Hasbro. A few may even have known of the recent TFs vs GI Joe mini-series stateside which saw Bumblebee blown up by the Joes and rebuilt (by Ratchet) as Goldbug. So the expectation here will be that Bumblebee will be similarly rebuilt. Since that US crossover was decidedly second rate it’s as well that we’re getting the alternate version. Plus, its worth noting that Bumblebee is among the Autobots who open fire at Rodimus’ order at the start of the issue, so he ought to be alive in 2007 unless Death’s Head has changed history irrevocably?!
All in all a very strong start to the Wanted Galvatron! saga and the action now shifts back to 1987 Earth to catch up with Galvatron and our old friend Ultra Magnus.
One Shall Stand 