MediaWiki - User contributions [en]

Mechanic

2010-08-12T21:38:17Z

87.243.193.13:

{{disambig2|the Generation One human supervillain|the ''Animated'' supervillain|Mechanic (Animated)}}
:''The Mechanic is a [[human]] from the [[Marvel Comics continuity|Marvel Comics]] portion of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''
[[Image:MechanicPowerBoosterRod.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Stallone's next big role.]]
'''Nester Forbes''', known as the '''Mechanic''' is the head of a stolen car ring. ''Don't'' call him "thief". Already having developed a considerable criminal reputation on his own, he becomes even more dangerous when he steals tools from the Autobot [[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]]. It is debatable how much this additional power helped him deal with a deep-seated phobia of law enforcement officials.

==Fiction==
===Marvel Comics continuity===
{{noteukonly}}
Nestor Forbes wasn't just a car thief, but the creator of a small criminal empire, calling himself "the Mechanic." During a transaction in which he was ambushed by the police, Forbes accidentally stumbled into the Autobot, Ratchet, while attempting to escape. Ratchet, eager to avoid capture himself, was forced to use a cryogenic sprayer and a laser scalpel as weapons against the pursuing police vehicles right in front of the stunned Forbes. Forbes immediately jumped on the opportunity, and removed Ratchet's tools to use for himself. He then attempted to invade the Ark in search of more alien technology, but was chased away by [[Prowl (G1)|Prowl]], whom Ratchet repaired ''just'' enough to seize upon Forbes' phobia of law enforcement. However, Forbes managed to get away with a [[Power Booster Rod|power booster rod]], in addition to the tools he had previously stolen from Ratchet. {{storylink|Funeral for a Friend!}}

[[Image:MechanicWeapons.jpg|left|thumb|150px]]
Forbes soon resurfaced as the head of a substantially increased operation. In an attempt to retrieve the Autobots' stolen property, [[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]] ordered [[Blaster (G1)|Blaster]] and [[Bumblebee (G1)|Goldbug]] to locate the Mechanic. After Forbes proved more than a match for the pair of Autobots and the police put together (but working at cross-purposes), Blaster chose to defy Grimlock's orders regarding the humans and formed an alliance with them. Working together, the Autobots and the police were able to take down the Mechanic's entire operation, but Forbes himself was able to escape again with the power booster rod and Ratchet's medical equipment. {{storylink|Mechanical Difficulties!}}

''Eventually, Forbes left his life of villainy behind and got a job at a KWIK-FIT in Derby.'' {{storylink|Letters page (Marvel UK)|UK letters page}}

{{-}}

==Notes==
* The Mechanic's real name is not revealed during his [[Funeral for a Friend!|first appearance]], but is used only in "[[Mechanical Difficulties!]]"
* Like Robot-Master/[[Donny Finkleberg]], Bob Budiansky based the Mechanic on a fellow employee, in this case a Marvel editor[http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys.transformers/msg/32bc08f5d9b4678b]. However, it is unknown at this time just ''which'' editor the Mechanic was based on.

==External links==
* [http://transfans.co.uk/popup.php?id=2227 Letter page mentioning the Mechanic's later profession]

[[Category:Comic-only characters]]
[[Category:Generation 1 characters]]
[[Category:Humans]]
[[Category:Supervillains]]
[[Category: Thieves]]

Donny Finkleberg

2010-08-12T21:35:23Z

87.243.193.13: /* External links */

{{factions|{{factions/icons|custom=Robot-Master faction.png|cLink=Donny Finkleberg}}}}
{{disambig3|Robot Master}}
:''Donny Finkleberg, aka '''Robot-Master''', is a [[human]] from the [[Generation 1]] continuity.''

[[Image:Donnyfinklebergsmoking.jpg|right|180px|thumb|Flattering.]]

'''Donny Finkleberg''' is an on-the-outs comic book writer. Although he claims he can "sell any story," most of his titles have flopped, and he sees a grim financial future for himself. To stave this off, Finkleberg will do pretty much anything for a buck. His strong sense of financial self-preservation wars with what small sense of morality he has. Finkleberg sees himself as a good guy and wants to ''be'' a good guy, but $50,000 checks from the government don't bounce. [[Ballobot|Nor does he bounce, at least not well]], according to [[Jetfire (G1)|Jetfire]].

:''Portuguese name (Portugal comic):'' '''Donny Finkleberg / Mestre dos Robots'''

==Fiction==
===Marvel Comics continuity===
{{noteukonly}}
====Comic book writer====
[[Image:Donnyfinklebergwriter.jpg|left|180px|thumb|To his credit, not responsible whatsoever for Heroes Reborn.]]
Finkleberg was originally a writer for a "famous comic book publishing company" in New York. His [[Robot-Master (comic)|''Robot-Master'' comic book series]] had been canceled, and his idea for a Potato Salad Man graphic novel titled ''This Man, This Mayonnaise'' did not fetch interest from his superiors, so Finkleberg was turned away.

====Supervillain====
It was at this low point point in his career that he was approached by the United States government. [[Intelligence and Information Institute|III]] needed a cover story to explain the presence of the Transformers on Earth to panicked American citizens. The idea that a human terrorist controlled the Transformers was decided to be less frightening than the truth, so Finkleberg was paid 50 thousand dollars to dress as Robot-Master and appear in public broadcasts.

[[Image:Robotmaster.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Rejected from Stan Lee's ''Who Wants to Be a Superhero?'']]
When [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]] had ceased movement at the bottom of a strip mine due to lack of fuel, III used this opportunity to claim ownership of the immobile Decepticon leader. Unfortunately, both the Autobots and Decepticons arrived, though the Autobots were forced away by human firepower. After Megatron was refueled by [[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]], he declared his intention to crush Finkleberg for his effrontery. Finkleberg pleaded with Megatron, suggesting that he continue masquerading as their commander, for the purpose of convincing the public that the Autobots were also their enemies. Megatron agreed, since he saw the value in the plan, which was just about enough to overcome his distaste of humans, even though Finkleberg had repeatedly struck matches on Megatron to light his cigarettes. {{storylink|I, Robot-Master!}}

Finkleberg resided in the Decepticon base until he decided it was in his best interest to escape and help the Autobots. {{storylink|The Bridge to Nowhere!}} He fled during an Autobot attack, though he was pursued by [[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]]. {{storylink|Command Performances!}} After taking clothes from an absent campsite, he ran into the Autobot [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] and [[Charlene (cowgirl)|Charlene]], but he brought Ravage with him. Ravage was dropped into a mine shaft, and Skids took Finkleberg with him back to the [[Ark (G1)|Ark]]. {{storylink|Showdown!}}

====Jerk====
While Finkleberg was a captive of the Decepticons, he had learned that seven Autobots had arrived on Earth over the [[space bridge]]. The traveling Autobots were nowhere to be found, but they did leave a fuel trail. Holding for ransom Finkleberg's cashiers check from III, [[Optimus Prime (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Optimus Prime]] ordered Finkleberg and Skids to follow the trail and find the missing Autobots.

Finkleberg shut down Skids and sold him to Triple-I. {{storylink|Heavy Traffic!}}

[[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] (a military subdivision of III), in league with [[Circuit Breaker]], had captured not only the seven missing Autobots, but also the [[Aerialbot (G1)|Aerialbots]], and now added Skids to their number. Meanwhile, the [[Battlecharger]]s had also arrived on Earth and were defacing public property across the United States. With the Autobots' ranks depleted, Finkleberg realized it was his fault there was no one available to stop the Decepticons' graffiti. He convinced Circuit Breaker to control [[Circuit Breaker's Autobot suit|a robot built from the bodies of the captured Autobots]] to defeat the Battlechargers in exchange for the Autobots' freedom. Although they defeated the two Decepticons, they were not able to stop them in time from writing "HUMANS ARE WIMPS" on the Statue of Liberty.

In a last-minute change of conscience, Finkleberg donated the 50 thousand dollars he earned for his treachery towards the clean-up efforts. {{storylink|Decepticon Graffiti!}}

''Donny eventually got a job packaging at [[Hasbro]] after the Statue of Liberty incident. What this exactly entails is unclear, as their toys are presumably packaged in [[China]].<ref>[[Letters page (Marvel UK)|UK letters page]]</ref>''

==Notes==
*[[Image:DannyFingeroth.jpg|right|100px|thumb|The likeness is frightening.]]Donny Finkleberg is based on Marvel Comics writer and editor [[wikipedia:Danny Fingeroth|Danny Fingeroth]]. What a dubious honor.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://transfans.co.uk/popup.php?id=2227 Letter page mentioning Donny's later profession]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finkleberg, Donny}}
[[Category:Comic-only characters]]
[[Category:Generation 1 characters]]
[[Category:Humans]]
[[Category:Supervillains]]

Talk:The Transformers (Marvel comic)

2006-07-29T07:46:53Z

87.243.193.13:

(snipping a lot of stuff that's probably not of any further interest. People can get them back out with "history" if they disagree....)

I wonder if, especially for UK comics, we should change the links so that each UK issue links to a separate "issue" page, with the separate stories being linked as they currently are (all current comic pages are organized by story title). Besides the "back-up" features you mention, later UK TF comics often have TWO TF stories running concurrently, and the current system does not account for this well. But I'm not the best person to suggest an alternative. My expertise is in the US comic, which tended to have just one story per issue, and little else. The US comic even tended to break up story arcs into individual titles for each issue more often than not....

Shouldn't we have talked about merging the UK and US comics into one entry before actually doing it?....--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 23:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

:Should we have? It's easily fixed if that's deemed not acceptable. The real big change here was making [[Generation 1 (comic)]] be a disambiguation rather than blurb on the Marvel US comic, because that is most certainly ''not'' the only Generation 1 comic, and it's probably not even the one that most people would be interested in.
:I decided to just fold the content in that article into Marvel UK, because do we ''really'' need two seperate pages on the two Marvel comics? If we actually do get enough content to warrant two articles, it's easy enough to split the two. But like I said, the major change her isn't the merge, it's putting a proper disambiguation page at the G1 comic link.
:Apologies for the alleged "UK bias" in the little blurb. I've never actually read any significant part of either Marvel comic, and know next to nothing about either, so I can say that definitely was not intended. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 00:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not a big deal to have them merged, and the way it was done (leaving the US and UK sections separate within the same page) I can live with. I'm absolutely opposed to folding all the US stuff into the UK page, though, as I've said elsewhere. I do ''not'' see these two as the same entity, but rather as two distinct, yet often similar and occasionally overlapping, entities. I just would have liked to be aware of the change beforehand, is all.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 00:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've written a bit more on the UK comic, trying to explain its format and its relationship with the US comic. I think I'm right in identifying the 'Perchance to Dream' storyline as the point where US and UK separate, but I can't remember when the original UK material dried up. Was it around #290? --[[User:Tribimat|Tribimat]] 02:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

:Actually, I see it differently. I don't see the US and the UK as "separating," because I see them as ''already separate.'' They may look the same in many cases, but they're separate. This is borne out by the few, but significant, differences between them, such as how Bumblebee is turned into Goldbug. Clearly, there is room for differences of opinion on how individuals look at the canon, but the fact that there ARE these distinctions are part of why I oppose any attempt to force US stories ''into'' the UK continuity on this Wiki, which should essentially present the facts as they appear. (Incidentally, the way you describe the UK version in the actual article is fine with me)--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 03:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Seperating the UK and US comics would give legitimate space to discuss the various special features the UK comic had which had no counterpart in the US comic. Things like the letters pages answered by Transformer characters, fact files (which, in the early days weren't straight reprints of Transformers: The Universe), back up strips, competitions, humourous strips (Robo Capers, Matt and the Cat, Combat Colin - some of which had directly Transformer-related content). Sorry, can't sign this comment as I'm just a visitor.

==How to deal with UK issues with multiple stories==
I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the issues in the UK (especially around the late-200s) that have more than one story contained therein. The current set-up probably won't continue to work for these issues. How's this for an option?

{|style="margin:0 auto;padding:0 auto" align=center id=toc
!align=center bgcolor=#6699CC|'''<font color="white">Marvel UK issues (lead stories):</font>'''
|-
|| [[Kings of the Wild Frontier|#284]] | [[Kings of the Wild Frontier|#285]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#286]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#287]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#288]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#289]]
|}

{|style="margin:0 auto;padding:0 auto" align=center id=toc
!align=center bgcolor=#6699CC|'''<font color="white">Marvel UK issues (back-up stories):</font>'''
|-
|| [[Assassins|#284]] | [[External Forces|#285]] | [[The Lesser Evil|#286]] | [[Inside Story|#287]] | [[Frontline|#288]] | [[End of the Road (UK issue)|#289]]
|}
Note that the back-up to UK #289 is a different "End of the Road" than US #80 (Which is actually entitled "The End of the Road," which may or may not seem significant.)--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 18:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
: Looks good to me. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 22:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

: Is there a way to get all information on a particular issue onto an entry for that issue? For instance, issue 213 will have a "US Story" link that refers to the relevant US strip (which will be identical for 214-216), a "UK Story" section that gives a full account of the UK strip (in this instance, I think it's Megatron's return to Cybertron with Ravage), and a "Back-up Story" section that gives a brief account of the back-up strip. I realise that the back-up stories in most cases aren't TF-related, but they were an integral part of the UK comic experience. I'll try to put an example entry together this week and you can see what you think.

: Incidentally, I take the point about the UK and US continuities not being the same. I'm not at all hung up on "canon" and am much more interested in detailing the things as stories. I just wanted to say that #255-60 is where the two parallel continuities go in completely and irreconcilably different directions. At some point I'd also like to write something about how Furman used his knowledge of what was happening in the US stories to foreshadow later events - the story 'Prey' and the return to Cybertron (UK #97-104) is a classic example, featuring both Optimus Prime's "death" and Megatron's madness.

: Now that I think about it, the letters page was often used as a vehicle for explaining how the US and UK stories fitted together. They should be an excellent resource for this sort of thing. When I've got access to the original issues again, I'll see what comes up.--[[User:Tribimat|Tribimat]] 00:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

::Actually, my preference (other things being equal) would be to have the comics entries organized by issue number, but it was decided early on that it would be redundant to have separate pages for issues of the UK comic that were largely already duplicated on the US page for the similar story. (US stories tend to be 1-per-issue. This not often the case in the UK comic.) A compromise position was to make the pages story-specific, rather than issue-specific. This is working for now, but as I've already noted, appears as though it may be unwieldy as we look at UK issues in the future. I could do this issue-by-issue for the entire US series with no trouble at all, but I'm not arrogant enough to think that the US is the only, or even the "most correct," way of looking at it. I've argued fairly strongly for US comic integrity, but have tried to stop short of giving it "supremacy." It's just that the US comic is what I know. I know it fairly well. But I don't have the background to say much about the UK comic beyond what I know from the Internet.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 02:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've come across some issues of the UK comic that have two TF-related stories, but the "lead" story is just a reprint, while the "back-up" black-and-white story is new. (So far, I've only put links for #221-228 that fit this description) Under the rubric I proposed above, I've felt compelled to make the link in the main (i.e. "lead story") UK chart go to the reprinted story, while the new story is relegated to the "back-up" chart. This technically seems to work, but seems rather unsatisfying. Thoughts?--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 20:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

:I've decided that it would be simpler to only put 2nd stories in the bottom grid in the cases where one of the two TF stories contained has not already been printed in the UK previously. This means that some "back up" black and whites are actually in the top grid, but since these tend to be the stories featured on the front cover (since the "main" color story is a reprint), that makes more sense, I think.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 02:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"><br /><br /><small>From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</small></div>

Talk:The Transformers (Marvel comic)

2006-07-29T07:46:16Z

87.243.193.13: /* How to deal with UK issues with multiple stories */

(snipping a lot of stuff that's probably not of any further interest. People can get them back out with "history" if they disagree....)

I wonder if, especially for UK comics, we should change the links so that each UK issue links to a separate "issue" page, with the separate stories being linked as they currently are (all current comic pages are organized by story title). Besides the "back-up" features you mention, later UK TF comics often have TWO TF stories running concurrently, and the current system does not account for this well. But I'm not the best person to suggest an alternative. My expertise is in the US comic, which tended to have just one story per issue, and little else. The US comic even tended to break up story arcs into individual titles for each issue more often than not....

Shouldn't we have talked about merging the UK and US comics into one entry before actually doing it?....--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 23:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

:Should we have? It's easily fixed if that's deemed not acceptable. The real big change here was making [[Generation 1 (comic)]] be a disambiguation rather than blurb on the Marvel US comic, because that is most certainly ''not'' the only Generation 1 comic, and it's probably not even the one that most people would be interested in.
:I decided to just fold the content in that article into Marvel UK, because do we ''really'' need two seperate pages on the two Marvel comics? If we actually do get enough content to warrant two articles, it's easy enough to split the two. But like I said, the major change her isn't the merge, it's putting a proper disambiguation page at the G1 comic link.
:Apologies for the alleged "UK bias" in the little blurb. I've never actually read any significant part of either Marvel comic, and know next to nothing about either, so I can say that definitely was not intended. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 00:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not a big deal to have them merged, and the way it was done (leaving the US and UK sections separate within the same page) I can live with. I'm absolutely opposed to folding all the US stuff into the UK page, though, as I've said elsewhere. I do ''not'' see these two as the same entity, but rather as two distinct, yet often similar and occasionally overlapping, entities. I just would have liked to be aware of the change beforehand, is all.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 00:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've written a bit more on the UK comic, trying to explain its format and its relationship with the US comic. I think I'm right in identifying the 'Perchance to Dream' storyline as the point where US and UK separate, but I can't remember when the original UK material dried up. Was it around #290? --[[User:Tribimat|Tribimat]] 02:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

:Actually, I see it differently. I don't see the US and the UK as "separating," because I see them as ''already separate.'' They may look the same in many cases, but they're separate. This is borne out by the few, but significant, differences between them, such as how Bumblebee is turned into Goldbug. Clearly, there is room for differences of opinion on how individuals look at the canon, but the fact that there ARE these distinctions are part of why I oppose any attempt to force US stories ''into'' the UK continuity on this Wiki, which should essentially present the facts as they appear. (Incidentally, the way you describe the UK version in the actual article is fine with me)--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 03:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

==How to deal with UK issues with multiple stories==
I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the issues in the UK (especially around the late-200s) that have more than one story contained therein. The current set-up probably won't continue to work for these issues. How's this for an option?

{|style="margin:0 auto;padding:0 auto" align=center id=toc
!align=center bgcolor=#6699CC|'''<font color="white">Marvel UK issues (lead stories):</font>'''
|-
|| [[Kings of the Wild Frontier|#284]] | [[Kings of the Wild Frontier|#285]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#286]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#287]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#288]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#289]]
|}

{|style="margin:0 auto;padding:0 auto" align=center id=toc
!align=center bgcolor=#6699CC|'''<font color="white">Marvel UK issues (back-up stories):</font>'''
|-
|| [[Assassins|#284]] | [[External Forces|#285]] | [[The Lesser Evil|#286]] | [[Inside Story|#287]] | [[Frontline|#288]] | [[End of the Road (UK issue)|#289]]
|}
Note that the back-up to UK #289 is a different "End of the Road" than US #80 (Which is actually entitled "The End of the Road," which may or may not seem significant.)--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 18:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
: Looks good to me. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 22:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

: Is there a way to get all information on a particular issue onto an entry for that issue? For instance, issue 213 will have a "US Story" link that refers to the relevant US strip (which will be identical for 214-216), a "UK Story" section that gives a full account of the UK strip (in this instance, I think it's Megatron's return to Cybertron with Ravage), and a "Back-up Story" section that gives a brief account of the back-up strip. I realise that the back-up stories in most cases aren't TF-related, but they were an integral part of the UK comic experience. I'll try to put an example entry together this week and you can see what you think.

: Incidentally, I take the point about the UK and US continuities not being the same. I'm not at all hung up on "canon" and am much more interested in detailing the things as stories. I just wanted to say that #255-60 is where the two parallel continuities go in completely and irreconcilably different directions. At some point I'd also like to write something about how Furman used his knowledge of what was happening in the US stories to foreshadow later events - the story 'Prey' and the return to Cybertron (UK #97-104) is a classic example, featuring both Optimus Prime's "death" and Megatron's madness.

: Now that I think about it, the letters page was often used as a vehicle for explaining how the US and UK stories fitted together. They should be an excellent resource for this sort of thing. When I've got access to the original issues again, I'll see what comes up.--[[User:Tribimat|Tribimat]] 00:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

::Actually, my preference (other things being equal) would be to have the comics entries organized by issue number, but it was decided early on that it would be redundant to have separate pages for issues of the UK comic that were largely already duplicated on the US page for the similar story. (US stories tend to be 1-per-issue. This not often the case in the UK comic.) A compromise position was to make the pages story-specific, rather than issue-specific. This is working for now, but as I've already noted, appears as though it may be unwieldy as we look at UK issues in the future. I could do this issue-by-issue for the entire US series with no trouble at all, but I'm not arrogant enough to think that the US is the only, or even the "most correct," way of looking at it. I've argued fairly strongly for US comic integrity, but have tried to stop short of giving it "supremacy." It's just that the US comic is what I know. I know it fairly well. But I don't have the background to say much about the UK comic beyond what I know from the Internet.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 02:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've come across some issues of the UK comic that have two TF-related stories, but the "lead" story is just a reprint, while the "back-up" black-and-white story is new. (So far, I've only put links for #221-228 that fit this description) Under the rubric I proposed above, I've felt compelled to make the link in the main (i.e. "lead story") UK chart go to the reprinted story, while the new story is relegated to the "back-up" chart. This technically seems to work, but seems rather unsatisfying. Thoughts?--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 20:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

:I've decided that it would be simpler to only put 2nd stories in the bottom grid in the cases where one of the two TF stories contained has not already been printed in the UK previously. This means that some "back up" black and whites are actually in the top grid, but since these tend to be the stories featured on the front cover (since the "main" color story is a reprint), that makes more sense, I think.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 02:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"><br /><br /><small>From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</small></div>

Talk:The Transformers (Marvel comic)

2006-07-29T07:45:16Z

87.243.193.13: /* How to deal with UK issues with multiple stories */

(snipping a lot of stuff that's probably not of any further interest. People can get them back out with "history" if they disagree....)

I wonder if, especially for UK comics, we should change the links so that each UK issue links to a separate "issue" page, with the separate stories being linked as they currently are (all current comic pages are organized by story title). Besides the "back-up" features you mention, later UK TF comics often have TWO TF stories running concurrently, and the current system does not account for this well. But I'm not the best person to suggest an alternative. My expertise is in the US comic, which tended to have just one story per issue, and little else. The US comic even tended to break up story arcs into individual titles for each issue more often than not....

Shouldn't we have talked about merging the UK and US comics into one entry before actually doing it?....--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 23:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

:Should we have? It's easily fixed if that's deemed not acceptable. The real big change here was making [[Generation 1 (comic)]] be a disambiguation rather than blurb on the Marvel US comic, because that is most certainly ''not'' the only Generation 1 comic, and it's probably not even the one that most people would be interested in.
:I decided to just fold the content in that article into Marvel UK, because do we ''really'' need two seperate pages on the two Marvel comics? If we actually do get enough content to warrant two articles, it's easy enough to split the two. But like I said, the major change her isn't the merge, it's putting a proper disambiguation page at the G1 comic link.
:Apologies for the alleged "UK bias" in the little blurb. I've never actually read any significant part of either Marvel comic, and know next to nothing about either, so I can say that definitely was not intended. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 00:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not a big deal to have them merged, and the way it was done (leaving the US and UK sections separate within the same page) I can live with. I'm absolutely opposed to folding all the US stuff into the UK page, though, as I've said elsewhere. I do ''not'' see these two as the same entity, but rather as two distinct, yet often similar and occasionally overlapping, entities. I just would have liked to be aware of the change beforehand, is all.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 00:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've written a bit more on the UK comic, trying to explain its format and its relationship with the US comic. I think I'm right in identifying the 'Perchance to Dream' storyline as the point where US and UK separate, but I can't remember when the original UK material dried up. Was it around #290? --[[User:Tribimat|Tribimat]] 02:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

:Actually, I see it differently. I don't see the US and the UK as "separating," because I see them as ''already separate.'' They may look the same in many cases, but they're separate. This is borne out by the few, but significant, differences between them, such as how Bumblebee is turned into Goldbug. Clearly, there is room for differences of opinion on how individuals look at the canon, but the fact that there ARE these distinctions are part of why I oppose any attempt to force US stories ''into'' the UK continuity on this Wiki, which should essentially present the facts as they appear. (Incidentally, the way you describe the UK version in the actual article is fine with me)--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 03:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

==How to deal with UK issues with multiple stories==
I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the issues in the UK (especially around the late-200s) that have more than one story contained therein. The current set-up probably won't continue to work for these issues. How's this for an option?

{|style="margin:0 auto;padding:0 auto" align=center id=toc
!align=center bgcolor=#6699CC|'''<font color="white">Marvel UK issues (lead stories):</font>'''
|-
|| [[Kings of the Wild Frontier|#284]] | [[Kings of the Wild Frontier|#285]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#286]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#287]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#288]] | [[Deadly Obsession|#289]]
|}

{|style="margin:0 auto;padding:0 auto" align=center id=toc
!align=center bgcolor=#6699CC|'''<font color="white">Marvel UK issues (back-up stories):</font>'''
|-
|| [[Assassins|#284]] | [[External Forces|#285]] | [[The Lesser Evil|#286]] | [[Inside Story|#287]] | [[Frontline|#288]] | [[End of the Road (UK issue)|#289]]
|}
Note that the back-up to UK #289 is a different "End of the Road" than US #80 (Which is actually entitled "The End of the Road," which may or may not seem significant.)--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 18:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
: Looks good to me. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 22:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

: Is there a way to get all information on a particular issue onto an entry for that issue? For instance, issue 213 will have a "US Story" link that refers to the relevant US strip (which will be identical for 214-216), a "UK Story" section that gives a full account of the UK strip (in this instance, I think it's Megatron's return to Cybertron with Ravage), and a "Back-up Story" section that gives a brief account of the back-up strip. I realise that the back-up stories in most cases aren't TF-related, but they were an integral part of the UK comic experience. I'll try to put an example entry together this week and you can see what you think.

: Incidentally, I take the point about the UK and US continuities not being the same. I'm not at all hung up on "canon" and am much more interested in detailing the things as stories. I just wanted to say that #255-60 is where the two parallel continuities go in completely and irreconcilably different directions. At some point I'd also like to write something about how Furman used his knowledge of what was happening in the US stories to foreshadow later events - the story 'Prey' and the return to Cybertron (UK #97-104) is a classic example, featuring both Optimus Prime's "death" and Megatron's madness.

: Now that I think about it, the letters page was often used as a vehicle for explaining how the US and UK stories fitted together. They should be an excellent resource for this sort of thing. When I've got access to the original issues again, I'll see what comes up.--[[User:Tribimat|Tribimat]] 00:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

::Actually, my preference (other things being equal) would be to have the comics entries organized by issue number, but it was decided early on that it would be redundant to have separate pages for issues of the UK comic that were largely already duplicated on the US page for the similar story. (US stories tend to be 1-per-issue. This not often the case in the UK comic.) A compromise position was to make the pages story-specific, rather than issue-specific. This is working for now, but as I've already noted, appears as though it may be unwieldy as we look at UK issues in the future. I could do this issue-by-issue for the entire US series with no trouble at all, but I'm not arrogant enough to think that the US is the only, or even the "most correct," way of looking at it. I've argued fairly strongly for US comic integrity, but have tried to stop short of giving it "supremacy." It's just that the US comic is what I know. I know it fairly well. But I don't have the background to say much about the UK comic beyond what I know from the Internet.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 02:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've come across some issues of the UK comic that have two TF-related stories, but the "lead" story is just a reprint, while the "back-up" black-and-white story is new. (So far, I've only put links for #221-228 that fit this description) Under the rubric I proposed above, I've felt compelled to make the link in the main (i.e. "lead story") UK chart go to the reprinted story, while the new story is relegated to the "back-up" chart. This technically seems to work, but seems rather unsatisfying. Thoughts?--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 20:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

:I've decided that it would be simpler to only put 2nd stories in the bottom grid in the cases where one of the two TF stories contained has not already been printed in the UK previously. This means that some "back up" black and whites are actually in the top grid, but since these tend to be the stories featured on the front cover (since the "main" color story is a reprint), that makes more sense, I think.--[[User:G.B. Blackrock|G.B. Blackrock]] 02:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Seperating the UK and US comics would give legitimate space to discuss the various special features the UK comic had which had no counterpart in the US comic. Things like the letters pages answered by Transformer characters, fact files (which, in the early days weren't straight reprints of Transformers: The Universe), back up strips, competitions, humourous strips (Robo Capers, Matt and the Cat, Combat Colin - some of which had directly Transformer-related content). Sorry, can't sign this comment as I'm just a visitor.<div id="wikia-credits"><br /><br /><small>From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</small></div>