Author's Reflections- Comics #286-290

 

#286

 

 

#287

 

 

#288

 

#289

 

#290

#286-290

 

To be perfectly honest I had briefly run out of short-term ideas at this point, so I spread what could have been done in a couple comics out to an entire week. I wanted to continue using the Decepticons since it had been Autobot-heavy for so long, and the most obvious this to do would be to bring Starscream’s takeover plan into effect immediately since, as usual, he was obviously destined to fail anyway. There’s nothing extraordinary about these five comics, but I always had fun with the very played out power struggle between Starscream and Megatron. I also like Onslaught and Erector’s “betrayal” of Starscream; using a comrade for personal gain seemed exactly like something a Decepticon would do.

 

The only real thing of interest is that I remember debating whether or not to have Acid Storm speak at this point. I’m glad I chose not to, it kept a bit of mystery surrounding the character for a little bit.

Author's Reflections- Comic #285

#285

 

I’d consider this comic a throwaway if I wasn’t so amused by Octane’s reaction to Starscream telling him the articulation machine was male. The long running argument in the Transformers fandom over whether or not the Transformers really have genders is so easy to make fun of. Once again I think that if the idea of living transforming machines from another planet is so plausible then why couldn’t they have genders? But that’s just me.

Author's Reflections- Comics #283-284

 

#283

 

#284

 

#283-284

 

We can assume the previous two comics slightly overlapped time-wise with what was going on with Starscream and crew from the previous week. Neither of these comics are anything spectacular but I did have fun with Thundercracker and Skywarp totally rejecting Starscream’s coup. It really went well with what Thundercracker’s personality would be like in future comics.

 

I definitely wanted the Autobots to retake Ratchet’s articulation upgrading machine but it didn’t need to be anything spectacular. Starscream retreating in shame while the Autobots laughed at Acid Storm’s origin worked adequately.

 

I can’t say the Autobots hoping that Erector would have switched sides sooner worked as well as I thought it might have since even though I pushed personalities to the extreme and some of them were extremely arrogant and jerks they were still good guys at their core. However it was a one-time mention, forgotten and never brought up again. Maybe if it had’ve come from Optimus I’d feel differently.

Author's Reflections- Comic #282

#282

 

When writing this comic my original thought was to create a rift between those characters that were stuck without articulation and those with upgrades. Once I got going on the concepts already in progress it was forgotten. Eventually I got around to revisiting that idea in a big way much, MUCH further down the road and I’m glad it ended up that way. Even though it wasn’t my intention to introduce yet another storyline at this point I still think the timing just wasn’t right to give justice to the idea until there was a bigger ratio of G1 toys to modern “upgraded” ones. This comic did nicely transition into something more with Wheeljack eventually so his encounter with the newly upgraded Autobots wasn’t completely pointless.

Author's Reflections- Comic #281

#281

 

Now that there were plenty of new characters added to the comics thanks to upgrades I wanted to tie up some loose ends, most notably the whereabouts of Bumblebee and to do more with the Movie Autobots. This comic had some decent arrogant Optimus moments but otherwise there’s nothing much else to talk about here.