Furman is at it again lads!
Transformers '84 Storytime
Caleb Anderson
Angel Sanchez
Gabriel Flores
Drinking game: take a shot for every Furmanism
Gavin Sullivan
Ryan Morales
Christian Robinson
Asher Flores
Isaiah Bailey
Leo Morales
Owen Bennett
Kayden Brooks
David Clark
Easton Davis
Chase Flores
Jayden Thomas
Josiah Nguyen
Angel Hughes
Charles Morales
Michael Walker
Joseph Hughes
Samuel Adams
Landon Lee
Justin Reyes
Jeremiah Perez
Chase Evans
And that's it. There's a fuckton of other covers that I can't be arsed to post tho.
Jacob Morales
>Furman
Stopped reading there.
Gabriel Cooper
>let's make a miserably dark story and shit on Optimus again
Can Furman fuck off and never come back?
Can his manchildren fanbase fuck off and never ask for him to write anything ever again?
Mason Torres
Why they bring back this hack and not my precious Roberts?
Caleb Anderson
Continuity notes
Released to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the original Transformers comic that started it all, Transformers '84 marks a return to the Marvel Comics continuity, the first comic to do since 2014's Regeneration One. While that series served as a straight sequel to the original 80-issue comic, this issue is an ostensible prequel... though some minor continuity niggles mean that it can't be a literal, direct prequel to either the Marvel US or UK continuities.
As a retraux homage to the Marvel continuity, the comic features a few deliberate colour choices that might seem strange to younger readers: Megatron is depicted with the black helmet he wore throughout the comic, the Ark is silver rather than its usual gold, and Soundwave is purple rather than blue.
Perhaps explaining their absence from the rest of the Marvel comics, the Earth-based portions of the comic are mostly centred around characters that had never shown up in the Marvel comic: Punch, the Autobot Clones Fastlane and Cloudraker, and Decepticon Clone Wingspan... a storytelling conceit that allows most of them to be safely killed off at the end of the story without any major narrative repercussions.
This issue is also an adaptation of the famous "Man of Iron" story; this was the first original story produced for the UK comics, and was subsequently adapted back into the US continuity. Set in the same year (1017) as this issue, and centered around Stansham Castle, this comic implies that the two Autobot Clones will go on to become the figures in the myth; the wounded Cloudraker will, presumably, become the "Navigator", buried underground in hibernation, while his still-healthy sibling Fastlane will be remembered in local folklore as the eponymous "Man of Iron," who scared away the Viking armies of Godwin the Strongarm during his first appearance. This version of the story, however, omits Aethelric the priest, who was said to be among the first humans to encounter the Man of Iron.
Nicholas Brooks
Micromasters Erector and Crumble appear as workers on the Ark; as per original Marvel continuity, however, the Micromasters wouldn't come to exist until long after Prime's departure from Cybertron, as explained in issue #54 of the US comic and UK issues issues #232-233.
The Council of Autobot Elders appear, led by the Marvel-original character Traachon. The block-colored generic councillors don't really match up to any of their prior appearances, however, so it's not clear if Xaaron or Tomaandi are among them.
Ultra Magnus makes his appearance here as a compatriot of Optimus Prime. Prime describes him as "Cybertron's greatest warrior," an appellation frequently used in the UK series. Prime further informs him that, if he fails to return, then he trusts Magnus to continue the fight. This would come to pass in the UK series, which saw him leading the Autobot resistance on Cybertron alongside Emirate Xaaron, for a spell...though in that comic, Magnus was a recently built Autobot, brought online only a few years before 1986.
Who exactly occupied Stansham Castle at the time of Godwin's siege was not elaborated in the original Marvel story; this issue reveals that the ruler was named Canute (though see "Real world references" for more on this).
The countdown to the Ark's launch is measured in "breems," a semi-regular unit of timekeeping in the Marvel comics.
Shot down by Counterpunch, Fastlane and Cloudraker's damaged ship winds up crashing into Stansham Castle, destroying one of the walls... evidently, the castle was abandoned shortly thereafter, as its contemporary appearance in the Marvel comic depicted it with the same collapsed wall.
Transformers references
Bumblebee namedrops a prior "age of the Titans" as he gazes upon the Ark, a name that's come into vogue recently as Hasbro's preferred nomenclature for city-sized Transformers. Note, however, that traditional big Transformers Scorponok and Fortress Maximus aren't Titans in this continuity!
Liam Perez
Is there some reason he couldn't tell them what the real mission was? Or just leave them off and only make it seem like he was taking his finest warriors to fool Megatron?
Luke Barnes
109488086
109488052
109488105
t.
Jackson Phillips
Counterpunch meets with Prime in the ruined wasteland known as the Badlands; this geographical feature didn't appear in the original Marvel run, though Furman did use it as a setting in his Regeneration One comics.
CR chambers are another non-Marvel invention, first appearing in the Beast Wars cartoon and going on to appear in a wide variety of other Transformers media.
As the Autobots wait for Prime to board the Ark, Hound reminds Bumblebee that "[he's got] a lot of golden disks spinning," referencing the MacGuffin that appeared numerous times throughout the franchise, first appearing in the Beast Wars cartoon and going on to feature in many other cartoons and comics, including Regeneration One.
Real-world references
King Canute, described in the narration as a Viking who currently occupies the English throne, is based on the real-world historical figure, Cnut the Great, a Dane who similarly seized the English throne in the year 1016. His Anglicized name is used here, presumably, for reasons of...well...er...I mean, one typo, and you'll get into big trouble...
Fastlane's assessment that "the natives definitely fall into the restless category" paraphrases the famous line that originated in 1933's Island of Lost Souls and has been used in many, many, other works: "the natives are restless."
An irate Battletrap threatens to "get medieval" on Wingspan's killer, a threat that originated in 1994's Pulp Fiction.
The starship Mantlo is named after Transformers writer Bill Mantlo, who penned the first and second issues of the original Marvel series.
Punch's grim assessment of Prime's plan: "the needs of the many..." is, of course, a reference to Spock's famous line from The Wrath of Khan, though it was also spoken by Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy, in Dark of the Moon.
James Turner
Other trivia
It's not a Marvel comic without a good old-fashioned introdump, and we get an abridged one on page 8, where all of the members of the Ark crew stand around and talk about why they decided to join the mission.
Not an error, per se, but for a comic that namechecks pretty much all of the other original members of the Ark from issue #1 of the Marvel comic and then some, Ratchet and Trailbreaker are conspicuous in their absences, while Ironhide—although he makes a cameo during the battle on page 1—is similarly omitted from the Ark's passenger manifest.
Julian Walker
the cover story is exploration. taking only warriors would be suspicious.
Eli Gray
no, I mean the crew thinks they're going exploring why can't Prime tell them the truth, or just leave them off the ship altogether and take an empty ship since he just intends to crash the thing.
Luis Jackson
Easier to keep a secret when only 2 people know about it. Telling the crew could lead to Megatron finding out via one of the spy cassettes, even if they try to keep it on the down low.
Brody Rivera
Is Transformers just Babby's first Gundam?
Hudson Sanchez
>Transformers '84
So is this gonna be awkwardly crammed full of LGBTQ politics and lectures like IDW's contemporary Transformers comics, too?
Gavin Bell
pretty much.
you could literally read it for yourself in the damn thread.