No Strings On Me

Angry robot fella Scourge, from 2023's Transformers 7: Let There Be Gorillas:

Angry robot fella Ultron, from 2015's Avengers 2: Avenge Harder:

Hm.

BRUTICUS BLASTED

My quest continues!

Here's Blast Off, alongside his 2001 sort-of-incarnation.

I have seen some complaints about his weird cup hands, but I think they're a nice nod to the original design, even if they make little sense.

As much sense as a Space Shuttle counting as a combat vehicle, for example.

Three down, two to go!

BRUTICUS UPDATE

A new soldier has marched up to the door of the recruitment office!

My quest to complete Bruticus before I die has progressed with the arrival of Brawl! Here he is, alongside his earlier incarnation. Well, the re-released version of his earlier incarnation, anyway.

The tank mode is a bit boxy, and there's that weird hole in the front, but he's a handsome lad.

BRUTICUS COMPROMISED

I am 45ish. My ambition*, before I vanish into cosmic dust, is to own a complete Bruticus.

This is Bruticus:

I owned two-fifths of him when I was a child. I had Onslaught, a fantastic toy and the main body, and I had Blast Off, one of the limbs -- usually an arm -- and a neat little space shuttle. Alas, I did not have the rest of the Combaticons. I did have a couple of other combiners -- Blot and Nautilator -- so I could assemble most of a hybrid, mutated Bruticus, missing a limb. Probably an arm.

At least they were all Decepticons, but it was Bruticus Compromised, at best, and it always niggled at me.

Later, in 2001, I was surprised to discover that the toys had been re-released with different colours and under different names, so flush with student loan money -- ha ha -- I bought them all and at last could assemble Bruticus.

Except it wasn't Bruticus. It was Ruination. This shouldn't matter, but it did, and anyway, I have somehow since lost Rollbar/Swindle, so even if it didn't matter I'm back to four-fifths.

I missed out on the various revamps and reimaginings of the toys -- including this beast -- but just a few weeks ago they released a new Vortex toy. Here he is:

(That's his 2001 incarnation there, "Ro-Tor".)

We will be getting his team-mates Blast Off and Brawl -- probably a leg -- and leader Onslaught in 2026. Maybe I will have a complete Bruticus before I'm 50.

*(I do have other ambitions. I'm not a total loser. Of course, those ambitions include such lofty goals as "finish painting my Eldar army" so...)

Roll Out!

Look at this handsome lad!

This is the new "Missing Link" Optimus Prime. Or technically it's Missing Link Convoy as I seem to have the Japanese version, but whatever.

Anyway, he's quite special, or rather I think he's quite special, because he is something for which I've been asking for years.

The problem with almost every Optimus Prime toy -- that I know of, anyway -- is that they cheat with the transformation, usually with some sort of false chest. By which I mean the front of the lorry does not form Prime's torso, and instead there is some sort of hidden chest somewhere in the toy that only looks like the front of the lorry.

I fully admit that I'm being pedantic and more than a little weird when I say that I want the transformation to be "true" and not involve such deception. After all, he's an Autobot, not a Decepticon!

(Transformers joke.)

They got it right first time with the 1984 toy, but he's a bit clunky and not very poseable at all. And that's where Missing Link comes in. He looks more or less identical to 1984 Optimus; in fact the metal chest piece may be the same one from the original toy.

But...

He has multiple points of articulation! He's super poseable! You can, in fact, recreate the "jumping and shooting" pose from Transformers: The Movie that is subtly hinted at on the box art!

Now mine is a bit stiff around the upper leg joints and I don't think his, um, groin (?) would take the strain if I tried to force them, but overall I'm very happy with this Optimus. I had the original and broke his arm off almost immediately, then spent the following decades rejecting various replacement Primes for their misleading transformations -- which is more a me problem than a Takara/Hasbro problem, I know -- so it's lovely that the quest is finally over.

Votann Boys, Roll Out!

The squats are back in Warhammer 40,000! Although we're not calling them squats any more.

Now they are the LEAGUES OF VOTANN:

Hang on, that sigil looks familiar...

I still quite like the new squats anyway.

The Girl Who Loved Coincidences

The Hybrid Technologies building from the Transformers episode "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide" (1985):

The Stark/Avengers Tower from Marvel Avengers Assemble (2012), and later films:

(Yes, that's what it's called here, probably because of the other Avengers.)

One of these buildings is the headquarters of a high-tech corporation under attack by aliens in a Marvel production, and the other is, um...

Armada Not Included

This was another attempt at a quick drawing but at just shy of half an hour from blank page to finished inking, it wasn't quick enough.

Anyway, here's Cyclonus, the best Transformer.

L versus O

This one looked much better in my head.

Furry boy king Lion-O takes on Optimus Prime and loses, because while he may have sight beyond sight, he does not have the touch.

Bahweepgrahnahweepnineebong

Right, so Transformers then. I saw it last Saturday, and half of it is great fun. The robots (or at least the Autobots; more on that later) are really well animated, and the action scenes are stunning.

But the rest of it is a bit of a mess. One doesn't expect a Transformers film to have a great plot, but at least the original wasn't full of holes like this one. Characters go missing, plot threads go forgotten, and the less said about Optimus Prime's great plan to defeat Megatron, the better. And it was quite clear that the producers didn't know what to do with the Autobots; the general impression is that Michael Bay wanted to make Earth Versus the Space Robots, but had this extra faction of good robots hanging around for which he struggled to find a role. When the big villain is defeated by the Brave US Military™ and a snotty teenager with a magical doohickey, while Optimus Prime lounges about on the ground, something's not right. One shall stand, one shall have a lie down, apparently.

Speaking of the villains, they are hugely disappointing. After making such a big fuss of dropping Frank Welker in favour of Elrond From The Matrix, Megatron barely appears in the film, although given the horrible character design (is he supposed to be some kind of evil robotic pine cone?), it's not much of a downside. The rest of the bad guys get absolutely no characterisation, and barely any lines, with the exception of Frenzy, who's apparently on loan from Jabba the Hutt's palace.

Instead of developing the, you know, title characters, Bay and chums instead populate the film with a bunch of one-dimensional humanoids who do very little of interest throughout; I'm still wondering why the Pentagon has a teenage Australian girl in their computer security division. And then there's the excessive military-porn. If you've seen a Michael Bay film before, then you know what I'm talking about. Slow motion shots of helicopters flying in front of a setting sun, slow motion shots of tough military guys getting on and off military vehicles, etc. One wonders if Bay has a Corman-esque archive of stock footage that he uses again and again for this stuff. It obviously turns him on, but does nothing for me.

Also, Bernie Mac. No.

In short, it feels like Bay was forced, rather against his will, to include the Transformers in his film, and it's difficult not to conclude that another director wouldn't have been a better choice. That said, the bits with the Transformers in (aside from the Optimus and Friends Comedy Hour™ which is truly horrifying) were really quite good, and if there were more of the Giant Robots Smashing Stuff, and less of the puny fleshlings, I would have liked the film a lot more.

Seniority

I'm five years old again. I picked up Titan's new Transformers comic, just out of casual interest, only to discover a comic story written by Simon Furman and drawn by the mighty Geoff Senior. £2.99 is a long way from 24p, so I won't be getting it on anywhere near a regular basis, but my gosh it's great to see Senior drawing comics again. It was the original Marvel UK Transformers comic that got me interested in the medium in the first place, and Senior almost immediately became my favourite artist (which says a lot, as that comic had a great stable of artistic talent). His dynamic storytelling is still a huge influence on my own fumbling attempts at art even today, and I'm so pleased that a whole new generation is being exposed to his work.

Woo, and indeed, hoo.