So, in the comic (unlike the cartoon, where being a Headmaster seems to mean alternately piloting a head or power armor), it's very, very clear that when you undergo binary bonding, it's a transformation of the body, inside and out (to say nothing of the mind). Bionics, an exoskeleton and armor, the whole shmear. Galen and Fort Max are merged at a level we could probably scarcely comprehend.

Galen gets squished.

Why can Spike suddenly control Fort Max with a helmet like it's a mere remote control?

Also, if it's so easy, how come EVERYONE doesn't get a little nip 'n' tuck in the ol' repair bay and get a couple of added feet?

Transformers, as a property, can be kind of frustrating in this regard.

 

Notable, I think, and I should have mentioned this back in "Brothers in Armour", but I remember I didn't actually pick up on it until "Trial by Fire" back in the day either, is the quiet retooling that happens around transformation.

Budiansky originally and fairly clearly has the Nebulan transformed to head mode in order for the robot to be active at all; no head means headless longstanding in the corner- and very clearly shown on a number of occasions in the first three Headmasters issues is that they remain merged in alt mode. There's no 'the robot turns into a car; the head pops off and transforms into the driver' business here. Indeed, explicitly in "Worlds Apart", based on the concepts shown here, Gort puts his foot down and forces a transformation back to robot mode, so that he can be removed from Highbrow's shoulders. The whole 'transforms into piloted exo-suit' as part of the gimmick is essentially removed; it's more like 'removes as much of the robot as they can, but are still swathed in metal and transformed inside and out'.

Suddenly, though, in Headmasters #4, we get panels showing the Nebulans leaping up to merge with flying Decepticon Headmasters in alt mode, and combining with them to form the robot mode, shots of Lord Zarak 'riding' Scorponok into battle, and now, in Trial by Fire, the whole splash page of the Nebulans "transforming, and taking control of them from within".

It's odd, and feels again like a watering down of the concept to be more toy accurate and at the same time, the binary bond less absolute. We're not at the level of the cartoon yet, where a head just seems to be 'a handy box on your shoulders that you can put your Nebulan Dumb Stubbie in', but it's going that way a bit, unfortunately.

I'm assuming that the helmet was the part of the armour which controlled the neural relay. This oddly both does, and doesn't, make sense. On the one hand, it's where the Nebulan's head, and thus the hub of its central nervous system, assuming their internal biology to resemble ours that much, goes. On the other hand, it's also the most easily removed or lost part of the armour.

Now, I will allow that having wireless - limited - control of the robot body by the Nebulan even when not plugged into the neck, is implicitly necessary, and has been shown from day one. The Nebulans were shown having that technology back before the Headmasters were created, Transformer bodies were shown as being capable of being manipulated by computer signal as far back as "The Wrath of Grimlock", and it was shown as far back as "Prime Time" that Transformer heads are capable of short range wireless control of their own bodies- enough to, specifically, send the command "Take that thing off your shoulders, grab me and put me on your neck". Indeed, if this weren't the case, the Headmasters would frequently be stuffed, and Lord Zarak in particular would face a really long and difficult climb up Scorponok every time he wanted to binary bond with him. It does, however, dilute the concept to see Spike able to apparently effectively control Farrago Michaelangelo in combat by wearing the helmet and balancing on his shoulders- with, mark you, no proper training or experience.

What is left unclear, is whether they are actually bonded at this point; before the bioengineering Spike undergoes after this story, is Spike part of Forlorn Moggie, or is he merely radio controlling Galen's larger dead body? In the next story he'll talk about how their personalities merge, how he's fused with the latent engrams of Fenchurch Minor and so forth, but, at this point, he appears to be merely operating a piece of machinery; implying that until the new bonding occurred, the connection between Fabulous Mickelthwaite's real head, whether that be back on Nebulos still, as implied improbably by "Regeneration One", or tucked in storage somewhere in the robot's body, as stated by "Final Conflict" (UK Annual text story, also a variant continuity), and the body, via the body's Nebulan Headmaster, died with Galen.

What is still clear is that that connection is routed through the Nebulan. Chromedome does not have control over Chromedome's body, and it isn't Chromedome speaking; it's Stylor, and Stylor controls Chromedome's body completely - that was the whole point of the process; but Chromedome has (some) influence over Stylor's mind. This is an important distinction- very different to the cartoon take on it.

 

That's good. That's what I want from my toy commercial cartoons and comic books.

 

Each to their own there; personally I'd rather see the concepts extrapolated and played out for greater narrative potential. Of course, it doesn't matter whether the Nebulans remain as heads during the larger robot transformation, or separate to operate them as pilots/trainers/etc- but to me it seems slightly symptomatic of a dumbing down of concept, of a forgetting, or a de-emphasis, of the original concept of the Nebulan essentially taking control of the robot body, advised by the robot's former consciousness, said to later grow towards a merging of the personalities.

 

It's amusing that we'll basically never see the Nebulans again, save the Powermaster guys, until like issue 70 or 71 (and even then it's just one guy's head; Highbrow, maybe?). I realize you're adding a lot of characters to an already huge cast, but what a missed opportunity.

Edit: unless I'm misremembering 39 thru 42. Obviously they head to Nebulos in issue 40. Oh, and I suppose we see Zarak from time to time and the other Decep heads in issue 46.

 

It does seem bizarre. Right up to this issue, the norm has been for the Nebulans to be disconnected, in Nebulan form, and- usually - helmetless when they're not actually in the thick of combat or doing a task - i.e. operating Transformer technology- that requires their larger bodies. Henceforth though, the Autobots particularly will seemingly spend more and more of their time binary bonded, more or less acting like full time Transformers. Maybe it's symptomatic of their separation from their homeworld, their growing acclimatised to living among the Autobots, but it's still strange. It reaches its odd apex in "Eye of the Storm", where not only will we see that Hi-Q apparently now spends his leisure time folded up in Optimus' belly even when Prime's just slumming round the ship and moping (does moping require vast amounts of power?), but also that Stylor chooses to remain hooked up to Chromedome rather than standing by separately, even whilst Chromedome's in the middle of being repaired.

With Hi-Q prior to that point, it's been arguable, thanks to Powermaster Prime's ghastly character model- not just the stupid looking Lego head with Nazgûl eyes he's lumbered with, with its barely minimal resemblance to the toy's head, but also the way that Hi-Q gets drawn as, apparently, a two-dimensional grid like radiator grille for some reason; such that he appears to be missing entirely most of the time, but on the few occasions when he's explicitly shown to not be plugged in, in the Underbase saga particularly, Prime's just drawn with a completely blank solar plexus. Of course, when we hit "Edge of Extinction", Geoff Senior not only doesn't bother drawing the change, but in the one panel Hi-Q is seen, in silhouette, he appears to be released through hopping out of Prime's chest windows, as if he had spent the intervening years pretending to be the Matrix.

 

He's his driver, like in King 'Con.  

 

Winding time back to the current issue for a moment, I will take a moment here to mourn something which the comic almost tosses out without noticing here, namely, Mount St. Hillary. It's been the location of Autobot Headquarters, vis the Ark, since back in Issue #1, and whilst "Childs' Play" was startlingly unceremonious about the launch of the Ark after so long, it did at least here have the redeeming justification of saving it up for that shocking last panel reveal. Here, though, the mountain, and Huffer's radio, and anything and everything else that Grimlock couldn't be bothered to pack, gets blasted with lava from an eruption apparently caused by Scorponok being a dick in the magma chambers, and that's 'it'.

 

You know, I've just noticed one other thing about this issue. I can see where he's gone with it, in terms of trying to interpret the 'relief detail helmet front stuck on a Nebulan's square backpack' head that all the Headmasters have, and it's actually quite a remarkably creative interpretation, adding a uniquely three dimensional aspect to the design whilst keeping the front-on view the same (albeit with the problem that the 'ear muffs' simply fail to work as three dimensional objects), but, nevertheless, José Delbo's rendition of Brainstorm's head is bloody creepy.

He's a strange artist. A lot of his work gets panned for being 'flat' and 'dull', but when you look at it more closely there's a surprising amount of detail drawn in there. I think perhaps the thing that causes most controversy is that he seems to have a distinctly different attitude to visualising the junction between the two dimensional image, and the three dimensional imagined reality it's supposed to be representing. Not just in terms of details like Brainstorm's weird head, where he's interpreted the angles of his forehead as an indication of forced perspective, and drawn his profile and three-quarter views with this in mind, to bizarre effect, or in terms of the infamous 'Starscream's Ear' saga- but, take a look at how, in this issue and others, he draws the transformation sequences of the Headmaster partners.

The most notable example comes not in this issue, but in subsequent compositions of Fortress Maximus' head transforming to Cerebros, where Delbo takes the separated diagonals of Maximus' flat head crest in one step of the transformation sequence, and in the next, blends them into being part of the angle on Cerebros' solid, three dimensional shoulders. Here, we see it particularly with Gort, who, when he drops off Highbrow's shoulders in one shot to bitch at Galen, is drawn transforming in some detail- a sequence which has the C-shaped side-flanges of Highbrow's helmet blend into being Gort's arms.

So, it shows considerable artistic creativity, Delbo going far beyond the fairly basic toy transformation scheme of having them flip over; having instead salient features of one mode appear to transform into salient features of the other. Remembering the rather interesting look of Abraham Dante's Scorponok head armour in IDW, where Scorponok's face clearly transforms into Dante's chest, and so on, we can see the genesis of that concept here. It does also suggest something of his method and perception- namely, that he's visualising the page through shapes rather than through representation of objects. It's clearly geometrically impossible and unfeasible for these transformations to work as they do- but it's a clear transition of the initial start shape on the page, to the finish shape, such that the visual narrative of the comic form continues to tell the story of what happened; i.e. in this case that thing (a) transformed into thing (b) and did so in an intricate and interesting visual manner, and, in Delbo's work, the priority works this way, rather than the more naturalist 'show it as if the comic panel is a window into a 3D world' approach of Perlin, for instance.

 

#38 Trial by Fire


Although we’ve returned to the series proper, the story is still about the Headmasters. And thus the story starts on board the Autobot ship, Steelhaven, where the Autobots have used the travel time to enhance Fortress Maximus to be more toy accurate, i.e. he’s (a bit) taller and Galen no longer transforms into FM’s head, but Cerebros. There’s some dissent among the headmasters, because both the idealistic Gort and the military commander Duros feel that Galen has lost his ideals. Galen, however, feels that they have no choice: war has found them so let’s make sure we win. This change in his attitude is also clear in his approach to Earth (not caring about the well-being of us) and in his conversation with Spike (not our job to rescue your brother, even though he was captured by the Decepticons). Galen has a change of heart after he sees Scorponok threatening Spike. A battle ensues and it quickly focus on Fort Max vs Scorponok, but not giant robot again giant robot, but Galen vs Zarak. Sacrificing his own life to save Spike, Galen is trapped and dies. Spike takes control of Fort Max and defeats the Decepticons and they escape the unstable and exploding volcano.


I am of two minds about this issue. First, the art. It’s good and Delbo’s clean lines and consistent designs are a welcome change after the Headmaster run where Springer couldn’t keep art consistent between panels (one panel showing Fort Max, the next a giant Headmaster). But on the flip side, because of his style of art Delbo’s drawing are less energetic than Springer’s. With Springer more happened and it made more of an impression in each of Springer’s panels.

Likewise with the story. It’s a good issue. The pacing is in general good, the story moves forward and everything that happens flows from before. Still, reading it again and now from a review point of view, I’m less satisfied. I find it lacking. Maybe because after The Headmasters, the stakes are less high despite one of the leads dying. It feels small and in a way convenient: evens may flow from each other, but it’s just done too easy. Most annoying is Galen’s death. Why did Galen die other than the make place for Spike? Also Galen’s shift at the end of the issue is pretty sudden. Even though they’ve just left their own world for the very reason to keep the population save from the TF war, they see similar creatures on Earth with Duros commenting that it would be exactly the same, Galen is only interested in the Autobots and the fight…and then suddenly being confronted with a repeat of the situation of Nebulos and the exact thing Duros talked about, he sees the light. It took several issues plus being hated by the planet he swore to protect and the woman he loved, for Galen to shift from devoted to peace to becoming a fatalistic warrior, and here the change is almost immediate and conflicts with earlier dialogue. This needed time to fit with his character. Time he doesn’t get because he’s killed.

I disagree, however, with @Swerve regarding Galen/Spike. Budiansky as creator of many Transformers names and writer of their bio, must have known that Spike was going to be the headmaster for Fortress Maximus -- that is, unless it was initially going to be Galen and Hasbro changed this, last minute, to Spike for the cartoon connection. Unless this change indeed happened (and is completely undocumented), but else Galen is Budiansky creation who was always going to die and be replaced by Spike. And understandable, because while in the cartoon getting a human on Nebulos isn’t an issue, it was in the comics. Thus Galen was created solely for the purpose of giving Fort Max a headmaster component and Galen be replaced by Spike upon reaching Earth.

I do, personally, think this was a mistake. Galen is a far too interesting character to write off. Maybe it would indeed have been better to have the character be called Spike. But then, why would he have this drive to rescue Buster, and subsequently how to get rid of him (without killing him) so the over-powered Fort Max would be removed from the series? I also wonder if there was anywhere left to go for Galen. Maybe they could have him rediscovering his intial ideals, come to regret his decision to join with Foirt Max and abandon the Autobots, which in turn would result in resentment from the other Headmasters. It would solve the problem of the overpoiwered Fort Max, but would take focus that the series just couldn't afford, since they had to re-unite with the other Autobots and the Powermasters were coming.


Re: the Headmasters and how the process appears to have changed. I will honestly admit that I never noticed it back then, and probably would’ve glossed over it now if it hadn’t been mentioned here. Maybe because of the cartoon depicting them as two personalities, maybe because the toys did the same, and maybe because in Headmasters #4 we see three Decepticon headmasters operate without their Nebulon partner. It also makes more sense, because why would control by an organic creature give a robot a fighting advantage? The impression I had in the 80’s was that it was the exact combination that gave them this advantage: different perspectives, sharing duties, each mind taking on a different task.

But indeed, most of the depiction in Headmasters shows the Nebulon not transforming when they go to altmode (save Zarak who rides Scorponok into battle), and actually the opposite: they transform into the head and then transform the body, when they could’ve just transformed the body and take place in the cockpit. Also, still being connected while in altmode would definitely increase response time over working controls like some sort of driver as we see here. But for most of the Nebulons, I don’t think we’ll see them again now that they have merged with their Headmasters. Only Spike will show up in human form again, which is indeed a contrast to The Headmasters comic. But then, they were still on Nebulos back then and thinking of themselves as part of that population. Now, they’re just among Transformers and will remain so.

As for Spike controlling Fort Max through Galen’s helmet without the cybernetic operation, I have no issue with this. In Headmasters #2 we’re being shown they tried radio control first, but it wasn’t as effective. And indeed, we’ll be told in a later issue that just using the helmet isn’t the same as transforming into the head module. Thus I consider the helmet as a means of control when they’re not in headmode.

 

Transformers #39 is live to discuss!
Fort Max gets the (shut yo mouth!) Im just talking about Shaft!

"The Desert Island of Space"
Roll out!

 

"The Desert Island of Space"

Nigh-on Eight year old me, back in the day, was tremendously excited with the idea of Decepticon Island turning into a Spaceship!! Presumably Shockwave was too, which perhaps means that he is really Benny from the Lego Movie.

"It is only logical that I.... I could... I could build ... I could build a Spaceship!!!"

Shockers clearly finds Ratbat insufferable in this, their last shared appearance. It's unclear whether his polite solicitations to Buster concerning the latter's smoked kippers for breakfast are out of a sense of Transformer chivalry, out of the slightly nervous care Decepticons tend to take of human prisoners; being surprisingly considerate, if snarky captors, simply because they don't want to accidentally kill their hostages or slaves, and genuinely don't know the difference between human needs and human wants, so tend to end up practically waiting on their pampered prisoners, or whether Shockwave is actually deliberately trying to piss Ratbat off.

Meanwhile, we get the last appearance by Walter Barnett and Forrest Forsythe and, in the original US version, Bob Budiansky fails basic numeracy when it comes to Throttlebots. As with the volcano last issue, it's a surprisingly low key departure; they just drop off the page, their story never mentioned again.

We can infer things; that the Throttlebots show up in new bodies in "Dark Star", when they really shouldn't have bothered, means that Forsythe did eventually have to negotiate with a *@#!! toy, and presumably agree to their release.

This means that the first peaceful official contact between an Autobot emissary and a representative of the US government happened off screen and was never even discussed. That even happening would have been treated as a massive turning point in the war fifteen or twenty issues ago; now it's no longer worth mentioning. RAAT will briefly show up in the next US issue to do their usual epic fail when confronted with actual Decepticons, and then ages later, Blackrock will off-handedly note them to have been scrapped, but that's all.

It is, however, quite a karmically appropriate ending for Forsythe to be left standing amid a fleet of wholly impotent fleshling military hardware, being told what to do by a *@#!! toy though.

Meanwhile, the Autobot Targetmasters, and most specifically Kup, Knight of Grumblytown, are clearly annoyed that their Headmaster brethren went and unilaterally imposed Dawn Summers Spike on them all as the new leader of the Steelhaven faction, to the point of Kup outright telling his leader to shut up and stay out of the way in a fight, and leave it to the Targetmasters.

Of course, Fandango Marchioness is the big new *@#!! toy in the shops, so there's a certain amount of character shilling that Spike was right and Kup shouldn't have sidelined him, but, nevertheless, when he does go into battle, he not only gets punk'd by Decepticon Island in the most ridiculous, insane, impossible way imaginable (Why was there no "Decepticon Island Space Rocket" Transformer playset? With retractable dome, flip out Autobot flipping claw pipes and Palm Tree missile? *@#!! Fortress Sodding Maximus, I want the damn Island!) but then gets treated like a Russian doll.

It's fairly obvious Shockwave isn't dead, although I recall from the UK edition that the reworked dialogue to ensure his survival was particularly scrappily lettered this time, making the edit rather obvious. A clumsy Dumb Stubbie!

Actually, I would have said that Kup was quite right, and Spike acts like a complete moron here, who deserves the dismal failure he achieves. He does get minor points for "tracing the call" in a cool way though, sadly undercut by the ridiculous 'armour under coat' business.

Notably, there's no actually mention this episode that Flummoxed Malingerer will be repaired, just that he's been "wrecked". I stand by my assessment that Budiansky disliked the *@#!! toy in question.

 

# 39 The Desert Island of Space

Further reconnecting with the story prior to The Headmaster, we learn the fate of Buster (and I guess the Throttlebots who are still toy cars in possession of Barnett). Buster, at the instructions of Shockwave has been taken by Ratbat to the Decepticon Island HQ. After a little further bickering between the two commanders, the story shifts to Spike, fully changed into a Headmaster, who has come to visit his father. Spike traces a phone call and a little exposition later with the description of the Targetmasters, they go to rescue Buster by attacking the Island. The Targetmasters are overpowered by the defences, the Island turns out to be a rocket and in an act of desperation Fort Max jumps on the rocket and is also taken in space. Further defences and Shockwave results in Maxie getting seriously damaged (as argued earlier by @Swerve and myself, Budiansky must’ve needed/wanted desperately to get this overpowered character out of the story), and subsequently Shockwave falling back to Earth when Ratbat takes over command. The ship flies away into space and Spike is rescued.


I have issues with this story. A lot of it is nit-picking, but still. First I find it strange that Forsythe/I.I.I. wouldn’t know about the relation between Buster and the Autobots: Forsythe considers the possibility that Buster is working with the Decepticons, while at the same now acknowledging that there are two factions. Of course, when Barnett rescued the Throttlebots it was Goldbug who pointed him towards Sparkplug and Buster. (NB interestingly enough, there’s a reference to seven brain modules, but there are only six Throttlebots including Goldbug) Next is the before mentioned stupidity of having Spike wearing an overcoat to hide his armour, when without it he’s absolutely bulky compared to his father. (I’m ignoring the fact that FM and the TM are on Earth, but a transport has to come from their ship to transport them to the Decepticon Island.) And how is Spike able to trace the phone call by just holding the wire with his very human hands?

The Autobot attack is another annoyance. Wasn’t the idea behind the Targetmasters that the guns could shoot while the robot did other things? Then why don’t the guns fire on the Decepticon cannons while the Autobots are being fired on and strangled by the greenery? Also, wasn’t Fort Max supposed to provide cover in battlestation mode? Wouldn’t it have helped if he had pummelled the Island hard? And apparently Fort Max is so obese (or ginormous) that him clinging to the rocket slows it down. Not air drag (they’re in space), but literally his weight. Guess the Island was designed with just the right propulsion for the current Decepticon count; any more and they would be unable to take off. And are we supposed to believe that the Decepticons took the effort to make individual leaves? When the shaft is fired at Maxie the dome containing Spike opens to space...space is a vacuum so air should be rushing out along with the sand (or is that also fake and glued in?) and leaves, but nothing. Surely, since there are large glass panels, there’s no force field.


On the plus side there’s the bickering between Shockwave and Ratbat. I find this highly amusing: these two very clear still dislike each other. Although I think Shockwave’s reasoning of using Buster as a shield to prevent the attack by the Navy is logical, in the beginning of the series a likewise large naval fleet surrounding the oil platform wasn’t so much an issue. And that was an human structure, while this base easily could handle such an attack. (I also expect Ratbat, efficient as he is, to immediately terminate Buster now that Buster no longer safeguarding them from an attack and is even a risk because of Fort Max.). But although Shockwave has pretty redundant and a weak commander by now (especially compared to his start in the series), I disliked seeing him go. Although I liked Ratbat character in the series so far, making him commander in a way ruined his character for me.


As for the art in this issue, I know he’s disliked by many, but I love Delbo’s clean lines. He does struggle a bit with scale – the giant Fort Max is apparently the same size as a house, not to mention the giant palm trees on the Island – but overall his art is clean and good. Not exiting, but clean and good. Likewise, the story moves forward in a straight line with good setup and the pay off. Enjoyable, while still at the same time I miss what The Headmasters did for the series.

 

Its also revealed in Regeneration One that

Spoiler

The Headmasters original Cybertronian Heads were kept in storage on Nebulos

 

Agreed that this story and "Toy Soldiers" before it really do make Triple I look like mind-numbingly incompetent berks.

There's an odd tangent here for me- and probably for other UK readers. UK media tends to be somewhat... snide about our larger transatlantic neighbour. There are all sorts of reasons for that, and real life political discussion is, I'm aware, not appropriate, but suffice it to say that ordinarily, one would be expecting that if one branch of the media were treating the US secret service du jour as a risible bunch of bumbling clowns fit only to be a punchline, you'd sort of expect it to be the UK side of things- yet here, it's decidedly not the case. Triple I's outings in the US generally paint them as blundering buffoons who manage to cause a great deal of damage by misunderstanding and pure, base stupidity, but who by and large dismally fail to achieve anything unless helped by the failings of others. Meanwhile, in the UK, "In the National Interest" paints Triple I as straight up chilling, the X-Files before their time, with Forsythe plainly delighting in the power at his command and the utter disregard for the law behind which they operate. The synthesis of the two salvages them to an extent; "Robot-Master" is a somewhat less laughable idea in a sense when it becomes clear that Triple I are willing to pervert the cause of justice, perjure, and even unleash their own pet robot killing machine to perpetrate fake robot terrorist atrocities in order to paper over the cracks in their awful cover story; since it means that with the story being as feeble as it is, Triple I are likely to need to murder fairly often to preserve it. The problems faced by Joy Meadows makes you wonder about the fate of Charlene, or of the anonymous woman with power lines on her car in "Heavy Traffic", or of Bomber Bill, or indeed of myriad other fleshlings introduced by Budiansky over the years who've learned, and might talk, about the truth of the Transformers... until this arc.

Buster Witwicky, whose family's dealings with the Transformers have included such events as the Transformers having a fight in his front yard and on his street, in full view of his neighbours, or driving to hospital in a talking ambulance, or fighting off two Decepticons in the company of GB Blackrock- who we know III are aware of, or, (in UK material) being at the centre of a giant robot domestic squabble during a demolition derby, and indeed having Jetfire, hardly the most inconspicuous mini-spy sized character around, stand around in his garden in full view of the street chatting to him a couple of Christmasses ago, is, it seems, someone who The Big Conspiracy has not heard.

Triple I suddenly seem rather less like a terrifying government conspiracy, not through any greater moral dimension, but simply because they appear to be to the CIA what Inspector Clouseau would be to police brutality.

 

Transformers #40 is live to discuss!
Introducing The Pretenders!
At last: The Return of Optimus Prime!
“Pretender to the Throne”
Roll
Out!

 

My main memory of this issue is missing it as a kid for whatever reason and not getting it until years later... and as it was largely a sequel to issue 23, I don't feel like I missed a ton. Obviously, the Pretenders are an odd concept at best, and this issue doesn't do much to sell the concept to me. The Decepticon Pretenders are pretending to be monsters, so no one will suspect they're Decepticons! The Autobot Pretenders are pretending to be giant, armor clad humans because... uh...

Scorponok seems to have completely forgotten he's part humanoid in this issue. "My brain circuits! My data capacity! Humans are cowardly!"
I did enjoy Sparkplug hanging up on Ethan Zachary. Dude has earned some rest.

 

I suppose for me, the Pretenders work perfectly well as a "proof of concept"; for the Decepticons: "Look, I can disguise six Decepticon warriors as six entirely different alien species; with this technology we can infiltrate countless civilisations without the Autobots suspecting a thing!" is fine, but it carries the unspoken corollary of " Obviously, not this planet, because we didn't disguise any of them as humans and they're too big, but this is a test of the technology's scope."

In turn for the Autobots, it's more "We've pinched this tech from the Decepticons- let's try it out with some DNA we've got to hand- hey, look, we've managed to make some giant dumb stubbies! This will be great if we tried it on some Micromasters; they could sneak into III headquarters and give Forsythe a wedgie!"

All very well so far as it goes, but then the comic tries, rather half-heartedly, to pretend that the Pretenders (sorry) are actually a useful asset in the war as they stand. Unfortunately, for this to be the case, it requires them to be surprised by their own gimmick, for the Decepticons to not have researched the size of humans (you know, the same size as the Nebulan Headmasters of the entire high command of this particular Decepticon branch...), and for the Decepticons to reliably believe that Autobots and humans alike will react to giant marauding monsters with "Oh... hang on, those aren't robotic Decepticons. Nothing to see here, move along."

Of course, when the Decepticons break out of the genetics lab, a RAAT soldier, in the luckless group's last appearance, declares in surprise "Whatever they are, they're not robots!"

There's always one, isn't there? If the Action Masters had come to pass at a time when the Transformers were still on Earth, he'd probably have been the RAAT Stubbie declaring "They're more Alive than the other robots we've fought!"

After the initial unveiling, though, the Pretenders are quite simply just 'generic Autobots' and 'generic Decepticons'. They're about as faceless and meaningless as the Mechabots and foul Bombasticons with which the issue opens. Indeed, frankly, given that "Pretender to the Throne" ends with the plan having failed to convince Optimus Prime that life is more than a video game, one suspects that this is entirely the point, and Budiansky is once again taking the lubricant here. It's notable that Optimus Prime displays far more personality, on his 5½" floppy disk, than all the Pretenders put together, who don't even have the usual character trope display lines of the usual Budiansky introdump; they're just names, names of bland interchangeable soldiers, NPCs in Optimus and Scorponok's game.

So, random speculation: who was that in the game with Optimus Prime?
Vorath inputted his leader's entire mind- but which one? This is purely a matter of software, so, was Zarak uploaded, despite not being a digital consciousness, or did Vorath just hook up the ongoing wireless link between Scorponok's personality and memory engrams in his old head, and Zarak, the new head, to the wired connection in order to input Scorponok into the game. Scorponok seems familiar with Prime as an "Autobot of legend", and the commented upon references to brain circuits and so forth would fit more with that mind being the one active in the confrontation, rather than Zarak.

 

I laughed at Ops line, “Besides, if I die you can always recreate me. Isn’t that right?” Brother you have no idea.
Also, I felt like the way they showed Goldbug being put back together with his head mounted last, on a ship filled with HeadMasters, was a little whoopsie. As a kid my first thought was “Goldbug’s going to be a Head Master!”
I think at this post Bob is happy he’s getting Prime back, but with the deluge of new characters that don’t make any sense on present day Earth he’s starting to give up in frustration.

 

Interestingly, it does seem to be just the tacky newbies who Budiansky declines to characterise here. Goldbug receives some good, dynamic characterisation which both portrays him as recognisably Bumblebee from back in ye olden days, but grown more confident, independent, and forceful. His snark to Ethan Zachary before he believes the story is rather well done.

Optimus himself is extremely well portrayed, and it's telling how much he obviously enjoys the challenge of his missions and of leading troops in battle, when he doesn't have the hang up of responsibility for real lives on the line to concern him. Indeed, dare one speculate that this is the subconscious reason for his hanging on to his delusion?

Scorponok too, is well done - a step down from the quality of Zarak's portrayal in Headmasters, but despite the Hammer Horror pretensions of his Mad Science (Christopher Lee as Lord Zarak, Ingrid Pitt as Llyra?) he's written interestingly and fun.

Really, the one thing letting this down is the utterly forgettable quality of the Pretenders, and that the writer's attitude to them is an almost entirely undisguised "Yeah, bugger off, Hasbro."