A homesick Starscream is encouraged to learn the joy of giving at Christmas time!
It feels a bit odd to review a Transformers Christmas story in the middle of April. Then again today has been hailstones and a biting wind so perhaps its appropriately wintery after all. Roll on the spring please!
Stargazing is the third in what would become an annual tradition of Marvel UK’s festive Transformers stories. They are typically snow-sprinkled, somewhat smaltzy tales of an Autobot or Decepticon discovering the Christmas spirit or overcoming some personal drama thanks to the festive season. Previously we’ve seen Circuit Breaker sparing Jazz after hearing Christmas bells, and Jetfire recovering his lost confidence thanks to a pep talk from Buster Witwicky as he took a break from wrapping presents. So it seems a logical step to feature a Decepticon this year – in this case Starscream.
Somewhat unusually, Simon Furman provides the plot but its his old editor Ian Rimmer who wrote the script for Stargazing. Jeff Anderson provides the interior art and there’s an enjoyable ‘Christmas so what?’ cover featuring Screamer that’s been drawn by Barry Kitson (first time we’ve seen him in a long while) and Robin Boutell.
We last saw Starscream way back in issue #88 when (at the conclusion of Target 2006) he was placed in stasis by Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr, who were visiting from the future to carry out a mission for Unicron. According to the splash page that pod was just a few metres from a main road that’s obviously busy enough to warrant a street light, yet nobody seems to have noticed it in the previous 12 months!
With the pod now opened, Starscream awakens and the story begins with him staring at the night sky and suffering from a severe bout of homesickness. His previous all-consuming ambition to lead the Decepticons has left him – all that it had achieved was to get him put on ice. Now he just wants to see Cybertron again.
Starscream hears a voice…. and sees a human standing at his feet, who recognises him as a Transformer. We never find out his name but he looks like a long lost member of the Proclaimers. Perhaps it’s the ghost of Christmas present come to cheer up Starscream the Scrooge? Starscream tells him to get lost, and then my favourite line of the story, “It’s a sure sign of how bad things are when I can’t even stir up the enthusiasm to squash a fleshling”.
This is a youth with a death wish I think. He tests Starscream’s tolerance by suggesting he would cheer up if he knew what Christmas was about and challenges him to admit he doesn’t know about the occasion. The Decepticon’s internal data file gives a brief and mundane description of the calendar event, but the human tells Starscream he is missing the point. This fleshling wont live long enough to see Christmas Day the way he’s going – but when the youth asks to be released so he can go home Starscream admits to being envious that this human can do what he cannot.
So, in a rare moment of indulgence, he transforms into his jet mode invites the human to show him the spirit Christmas, thinking it might cure his depression. I particularly enjoy the panel with Starscream’s arm emerging from his jet mode to chuck the kid into the cockpit.
Proclaimer kid hopes they will see people giving presents, as they pass over a familiar looking police car. Helping the needy conflicts with the Decepticon ethos of course, the weak give and the strong take. These Autobot sentiments are not for him. They spot a bus caught in a snowdrift and the human thinks it the perfect opportunity for Starscream to show compassion. It would be simplicity itself for Starscream to free the vehicle but he fails to see what’s in it for him.
At that moment the police car from earlier – the Protectobot Streetwise arrives and attacks. Christmas or not, it wouldn’t be Transformers without some action. Starscream is taken by surprise but he’s sure he has the superior firepower than a small Protectobot. As they brawl the people in the bus are placed in greater peril and Starscream’s friend steps-in, telling Streetwise he should be ashamed seeing as Starscream was about to help these humans! The Autobot doesn’t believe it so Starscream smugly lifts the bus from the snowdrift and places it on the road. The bus passengers cheer before going on their way, escorted by Streetwise.
The youth is sure Starscream must have got satisfaction from his good deed. However, Starscream makes out that he was simply motivated to humiliate an Autobot! The human gives up, thinking this Transformer is beyond redemption. All he can do is bid Starscream ‘Merry Christmas’ as the Decepticon laughs and walks off. He takes a few steps and then pauses, perhaps a twinge of conscience or a remnant from the earlier events, he turns and wishes the youth a Merry Christmas back!
It’s a nice note to end on and perhaps a sinister turn there too, as we realise Starscream is on the way back to being his treacherous best. Streetwise’s presence is interesting from a continuity standpoint. When the Protectobots freed Blaster and bade him farewell in the captured Blast Off, my assumption was that they had missed the Ark’s launch and were stuck on Earth. Had they have been picked up on the way you would have thought that the team would have been severed punished for allowing Blaster to go free – but in Space Hikers the Protectobot Blades was clearly aboard, so how is Streetwise on Earth for Christmas? Perhaps its a sign that even while space borne, the Autobots are still able to pop down to Earth for missions.
On that note, we’ll shortly bid a fond farewell to 1987 – a very prolific year for the comic – and get stuck into the next lot of twists and turns from 1988, including a character’s shocking and rather epic return! But first a final story from the 1987 annual.
One Shall Stand 