Ancient Relics (parts 2-5)

Megatron has returned and is loose within the tunnels under London. It will be up to Action Force and their Autobots allies to stop him – if they can!

If you live in the UK you’ll probably have seen TV adverts that are obviously American but the voices have been dubbed over by actors with English accents. The syncing is not quite right and there’s something a little inauthentic about it. That’s how I feel about the decision to repackage GI Joe for the UK market as ‘Action Force’. Their Marvel UK comic maintains the fiction that the team and Cobra are Europe’s counter terror squad and terror squads, with battles set on Salisbury Plains and now London.

Trouble is that the US stories that were reprinted in the weekly Action Force comic (from 1987 to mid 1988) were very obviously set in the States. And there are characters like Wild Bill who is your quintessential mid-western cowboy type and a former Vietnam vet to boot, who the UK Action Force comic tried to pass off as coming from Hull! Sheesh.

The thing is, it’s all rather unnecessary as British audiences are not deterred in the slightest by a series being set in the US. We grew up watching American TV shows and films for goodness sake, plus Marvel and DC superhero comics, and 99% of the stories in Marvel’s flagship Transformers are US based. It’s a non issue. That said, as a London native it is nice to see a story like Ancient Relics set on this side of the Atlantic.

Ancient Relics, for the uninitiated, is a five part story that began in the pages of Marvel UK’s flagship Transformers comic (in issue #125) and played out over the next four issues of the Action Force comic (issues #24-27). The intention was to introduce Transformers readers to the sister comic and hopefully convert them to regular subscribers. I can’t say whether the Action Force readership was significantly boosted, but if so it wasn’t a long term success as AF folded a year later. It rebirthed as a monthly but that was also short-lived.

As I mentioned in the review of part one, there have been all manner of Transformers crossovers and most suck to a greater or lesser extent. This, by the dream team of Simon Furman and artist Geoff Senior, is one of the better ones.

In the first instalment, Blades tracked down a Transformer life signal beneath London. He radioed it in to Autobot commander Grimlock who figured it was the deserters Blaster and Goldbug and is en route. Action Force also investigated the sighting with archaeologist Susan Hoffman, who had barely escaped the sewer creature with her life. To cut a long story short it turned out to be Megatron, and now Autobot and human alike are in big trouble!

Part 2 starts with a monologue from Flint, the Action Force commander. He knows when to stand and fight and when to withdraw. As a mangled-face Megatron, looking truly monstrous, advances towards them, this qualifies as one of those times to get the hell out of there! Previous events are recapped, including Megatron’s swift dispactch of Protectobot Blades and they clamber to the surface to be confronted with yet mechanical monster – Grimlock in T-Rex mode and flanked by the formidable looking Centurion.

Grimlock has a low opinion of humans at this point in the story and fighting side by side with Action Force will prompt him into a grudging respect. Whether he’s aware that Centurion is controlled remotely by Professor Morris, a human, is unclear – and certainly Centurion gives no indication that he’s anything other than a non-transforming mechanoid allied to the Dinobot cause. Suddenly Megatron breaks free and he’s soon launching himself at Grimlock. It’s good to see the new Autobot leader cutting it up rough with the erstwhile Decepticon leader, a right of passage I’d say – and he’s holding his own just about.

Scarlett fears the battle could destroy the whole of Dockside, which I think was still to be redeveloped at that stage. Flint summons Dragonfly helicopters and the Mauler tanks for a bit of needed toy product placement but also to show that Action Force has heavy artillery at its disposal. Wild Bill commands the fleet to open fire on Megatron who reels in pain. He curses the fleshlings and promptly unleashes a fusion cannon blast, setting up a suitable cliff-hanger as Wild Bill’s rotors are disintegrated and he’s plummeting to earth!

Part 3 – Blades leaps from the Thames and lands on the pier. It’s a great couple of panels from Geoff. The Protectobot is no fan of getting wet but unfortunately a trip through the river was required in order for him to escape from the underground tunnels. Cue a quick recap of his encounter with Action Force and getting blasted by a mystery Decepticon. Blades climbs to the surface to witness a scene of carnage: Grimlock and Megatron in battle and Centurion running to catch the falling chopper of Wild Bill.

Blades takes to the air, just as Bill bails out and the Autobot catches him mid-air. Flint, however, thinks his friend perished in the fireball that results from the crashed helicopter and Scarlett has to hold him back from running into the flames. Emotion gets the better of Flint and he orders the Mauler tanks move in and hit Megatron with everything they’ve got.

Wild Bill arrives with Blades, who seem to have become immediate friends. He warns Flint that they call off the maulers fast. All they’ll do is succeed in making the already demented Megatron even more mad!

Sure enough, the cover for Part 4 depicts the giant hand of Megatron crushing a Mauler. The instalment switches perspectives between the key characters, starting with Megatron who remembers the satisfying feeling of tearing a foe limb from limb. It’s how he earned his justified rep as the most feared Decepticon of all. Now, however, he’s left to pull apart human tanks and propel one – on fire – at Action Force.

Flint remembers allowing emotion to cloud his judgement, with the Maulers paying the price. Whether the crews lost their lives is unclear. He’s at a loss to work out what to do next to stop Megatron and even Blades and Centurion seem powerless, while Grimlock is unconscious, having taken a beating from Megatron.
Centurion remembers his previous battle with Megatron stateside where he’d been properly roughed up, and punched through a building no less! He’s been beaten again now and even saving the life of Wild Bill had proved beyond him. Perhaps Wheeljack had been right to call him an ‘ancient relic’, he thinks (even though he was only constructed a year earlier right?).

Grimlock rallies and remembers… a time not long ago when he’d have happily left humans to their fate. Action Force has given him cause to reconsider his opinion of mankind as weak, helpless and undeserving. In fact their interventions against Megatron may well of saved the Autobot leader’s life and Grimlock does not take such debts lightly. With savage fury he renews his attack, charging into Megatron’s back and clamping his powerful jaws on Decepticon’s fusion cannon, snatching it away from the Decepticon. The pair of them battle through a fence into a gas works plant… I think we can see where this is going to end up.

Lastly, Wild Bill remembers… a mission to South East Asia on a last-ditch rescue mission. They’d rescued six men and Bill was prevented from going back for the seventh by his commanding officer. It’s an interesting backstory for the man from Hull, North East England!! Now Flint gives the order to blow the gas tanks, sacrificing Grimlock to take out Megatron. Flint can’t help remembering about that seventh man!

Part 5 sees the story racing towards an explosive finale. It’s been action packed so far, if perhaps a little too drawn out over five weeks. This would have made a good two part story over the standard 11 pages per issue I think.

It’s not stated who drew the cover for Action Force #27 but it’s a nice one of Blades and a rare cover appearance for him. I can’t think of another time outside of Ancient Relics where he appeared solo on a cover. More AF product placement as the sky strikers jets zoom dip beneath the clouds over London. Wild Bill continues to protests to Flint about taking out Grimlock along with Megatron. It’s the sort of tough call that a leader has to make and Flint proves his mettle here. Centurion, meanwhile, seems frozen to the spot, paralysed with indecision or fear. Wild Bill and Blades figure they can’t count on him and set off to help Grimlock alone. But then Centurion has a plan.

It involves Blades flying Centurion in and allowing him to drop-kick Megatron and get off a few punches. The distraction allows Blades to drag Grimlock clear as the sky strikers unleash their deadly missile payload. Centurion grins and moments later a gigantic explosion engulfs them. Flint and Wild Bill catch sight of what looks like the two robots falling out of the conflagration and into the Thames – but Flint refuses to believe anything could have survived it. That’s likely to be a lot of Londoners without a gas supply for a while!
Later Blades, Flint and Wild Bill gather at the water’s edge, with Blades paying tribute to Centurion’s remarkable sacrifice. Rather than an ancient relic, Flint describes him better as an old soldier and as such Action Force salutes him.

So ends the first of many Transformers/GI Joe crossovers and this is one of the best ones I reckon. The characters are likeable, particularly Flint, who is in the Optimus Prime or Autobot leader mould and the two franchises fit together rather well with each getting roughly equal airtime. Some may lament the absence of Cobra but Megatron is more than enough for all of them to handle and certainly would not have needed the help. This will be the last we’ll see of Megatron and Centurion for a while until they are fished out of the Thames by none other than Richard Branson in the 1988 story Salvage!

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Ancient Relics

Transformers comic joins with Action Force as the elite counter-terror team investigates a deadly giant robot loose in the sewers under London.

Transformers crossovers. There’s sure been a lot of them over the years! It seems that every franchise from The Avengers to the Justice League, the crew of starship Enterprise, the X-Files, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and even My Little Pony, have encountered the Autobots and Decepticons on the printed page at some point. Most of these are throwaway fun and I tend to think best avoided.

A handful have been very good and integrated well into Transformers. I’m thinking here of the GI vs Transformers title that Dreamwave that was set in an alternative World War Two and the Marvel story Prisoner of War which saw Gears team up with Spider-Man to rescue Sparkplug Witwicky from Megatron’s clutches and is one of my favourites. In more recent years IDW attempted to forge an shared Hasbro universe which included having the transforming from its MASK reboot being made possible by plundered Cybertron tech. And even Death’s Head’s encounter with Doctor Who in the 1988 Marvel UK story Crossroads of Time counts, I would argue, as a crossover with the Transformers universe.

The point is that there have been many, many attempts at crossovers and most have never warranted more than a one off novelty. GI Joe (Action Force as they were known in the UK) is more enduring and has spawned crossovers via a number of comics publishers over the years, but it started with Marvel in the 1980s. In the US there was a four issue mini-series. A piss poor tale that was thankfully ignored by the UK continuity, though later reprinted as a back-up strip when material ran short in the late 200s but on the understanding that it was not part of the regular continuity.

That uninspiring US mini-series in 1987 set-up the destruction of Bumblebee and his rebirth as Goldbug and meant Simon Furman had to write an alternative for the UK comic, which was that Death’s Head destroyed Bumblebee and fellow time-traveller Wreck-Gar reconstructed him (events from the Wanted Galvatron saga). This was necessary to explain why Goldbug would appear in the comic going forwards. And whereas I suspect the US crossover was motivated by the desire on Hasbro’s part to shift toy product, for Marvel UK crossover between its flagship weekly title Transformers, and the still fledgling Action Force title, was in the hopes of generating more readers for the latter. It didn’t work as ultimately AF folded in 1988 and was absorbed into Transformers as the back-up strip.

So it was that, just as the Blaster/Goldbug/Scraplets story was getting interesting, the UK comic hit pause and whisked off to London for a one-week interlude (in issue #125) to kick off the Ancient Relics crossover story, from Simon Furman and with art by Geoff Senior, that would continue into #24-27 of Action Force. Young collectors would need to fund two comics for the month that followed, and obviously Marvel hoped it would be for longer after that. In my case, I was happy to collect both Transformers and Thundercats but Action Force never appealed that strongly.

In the streets under the Capital is a network of undiscovered Roman tunnels – that is undiscovered until recently. Susan Hoffman – a character modelled on the Bangles singer Sussanna Hoffs – and her three companions are hoping to uncover fascinating relics for their heritage society. Their flashlight catches a glimpse of something metallic; not a building as first thought but a battle-damaged midrift. Next their torches illuminate a terrifying and deformed, though recognisable, robot face! A huge fist punches the wall causing the ceiling to collapse as the humans run for their lives. Hoffman escapes the falling debris – just! Her companions are buried. Had this been the US comic the whole party would have survived but the Marvel UK comic tended to have a grittier ‘2000AD’ edge, as Simon Furman has said.

Across the pond in Oregon USA, Autobot commander Grimlock is not a happy bunny (or T-Rex). He called a meeting of all available warriors and nobody turned up! He strides into Wheeljack’s workshop in the Ark where the engineer is just completing repairs to Centurion (previously ripped to bits by Galvatron). Senior’s Grimlock is twice the size of Wheeljack which may not be consistent with past appearances but makes him appear more imposing and leaderly. While Centurion, who now sports a humanoid face as opposed rather than his much better and more distinctive visor, is bigger than both of them.

Bob Budiansky made Grimlock a tyrannical, petty, obsessive, narcissistic oaf of a leader in his stories – a kind of Donald Trump without the fanbase – but Furman to his credit presents a more mature and agreeable characterisation without undermining Bob. The crown has been ditched (thankfully) and Grimlock’s obsession with finding Blaster and Goldbug is more an insistence on not tolerating failure (or running away after failing).

Wheeljack is surprisingly flippant in his remarks to Grimlock, chastising his leader for tasking the Autobots with fools errands such as the Centurion repair. If Grimlock is as dictatorial and intolerant of dissent as Budiansky presents him, then Wheeljack would not have dared to speak so disrespectfully. It’s a nice nod to Wheeljack’s later role in the US stories as a sidekick whose working against Grimlock.

The mention of Blaster and Goldbug is a nice tie-in to last week’s story Crater Critters as well as upcoming stuff. It shows us how their split is being viewed in the Autobot camp and that Grimlock is not taking it lightly. This helps the build up for eventual reckoning in the US storyline. Centurion is presumably still being controlled by Professor Morris but there’s no mention of that. My guess is that Furman was thinking about the Action Force readership here and didn’t want to muddy the waters with complicated backstory at this point. So Centurion would appear to recent readers as just another Autobot.

Wheeljack brands him an ancient relic (harsh considering he was constructed a year previously) and taking up time that he could be spending repairing fallen colleagues. Centurion looks forlorn but says nothing. Grimlock points out that this mechanoid is a personal friend and of his and that should be enough to prioritise him.

Blades radios in that he has picked up a Transformer life signal beneath London and Grimlock is convinced it is his fugitives. Despite there being any number of Transformers it could be, it makes sense to him that the pair would want to put as much distance between him and them as possible. He orders Wheeljack to ready a shuttle and place Centurion aboard – hands-on leader Grimlock will go to London to settle business personally!

Blades transforms and lands in the Docklands. He too is deeply unhappy that Grimlock has got them all hunting for two fellow Autobots rather than fighting Decepticons. If he finds Blaster or Goldbug, should he bring them in or join them? It’s a fascinating dilemma, though interestingly not one he seems to grapple with in a few issues time when Blades and his fellow Protectobots do actually encounter Blaster.

Enter Action Force – Flint, Scarlet, Bazooka, Airtight and Barbecue – who are accompanying Susan Hoffman back to the Roman tunnels to find her mystery robot. Considering the traumatic experience that Susan has been through its to her credit that she would step foot in there again. And Scarlett is remarkably unsympathetic that this lady has lost her colleagues, even alleging that she made the whole story up. Flint does a good job of reigning in the fiery personalities and keeping them focused on the task.

A robotic shape emerges from the tunnels. It’s Blades, still wrestling with his loyalties, and stumbles into the line of fire as Action Force unleashes on him! Blades is struck by rockets and flame and becomes enraged, firing a burst of blinding light against the humans. Whatever Blades might say, it’s clear that Grimlock’s negative opinions of humans is rubbing off on him. Thankfully he comes to his senses before he can do any serious harm and he declares that he bears Action Force no malice.

However, the comotion has drawn out the mysterious transformer from earlier. A familiar looking cannon emerges from the shadows. The hated Autobot insignia is sighted, and the Transformer opens fire, striking Blades in the back and sending him crashing to the ground. Hoffman recognises the attacker as the one who killed her friends earlier – and as Flint scrambles to find out “what is it?” the answer comes back – Megatron!!
Phew! It’s fair to say that most fans would have sussed out who the Transformer was from the first couple of clues, in particularly the mangled face which was clearly the one Megatron was left with after his battle with the Predacons. At the end of Gone But Not Forgotten, a mentally ill Megatron blew up the Space Bridge with himself on it to escape from Optimus Prime, who he had convinced himself was coming to get him.

It appears that the Bridge transported Megatron to London, where he’s been lurking in the underground tunnels ever since. This is a huge risk that Simon Furman is taking in using Megatron. There is every chance that Bob Budiansky would have reintroduced Megatron at some point and had him reappear on Cybertron in direct continuation from the events on the Space Bridge. In depositing him to London for the Ancient Relics story, Furman achieves his aim of having a big nemesis for the Autobots and Action Force, but he will at some point have to put right the big continuity rift that he’s opening up.

Indeed, Megatron will return in the 1989 US story Back From The Dead, showing up in the Dead End of Cybertron after his accident. Furman ironically will be writing the US comic by then and will come up with the explanation that the Megatron in London was a duplicate created by Straxus in case his attempt to take over Megatron’s mind went awry. Okay, but that doesn’t explain why the London Megatron has the battle scars that the real Megatron picked up in his battle with the Predacons some time after the encounter with Straxus.

Up until this point Furman has been masterful in weaving original UK stories that seamlessly intergrate with the US master continuity but this will be a departure too far. Though it wouldn’t become evident for a couple of years yet. For now let’s kick back and enjoy Megatron versus Action Force and Grimlock as the story continues.

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