The Return of the Transformers
| |||||||||||||
 Cheer up, Emo Kid! | |||||||||||||
| "The Return of the Transformers" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||||||||||||
| First published | September 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | James Hill | ||||||||||||
| Art | John Stokes | ||||||||||||
| Colours | ? | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Marvel Comics continuity | ||||||||||||
Danny Phillips is convinced the Transformers are peaceful ambassadors of love and understanding.
Yeah, this is going to be a rude awakening.
Synopsis
Danny Phillips becomes obsessed with the Transformers after being rescued from a fire by Inferno. He is convinced (despite all evidence to the contrary) that they came to Earth to promote peace and understanding and is possessed by the idea of finding them. Hoping to distract her son from his fixation, Jennifer Phillips booked them a vacation to the Charlton hotel.
Meanwhile, Optimus Prime continues to doubt the Aerialbots, so he orders Jetfire to take over the unit and undermine the Aerialbots on their mission investigating Decepticon activity in an East Coast town to see how they hold up. Jetfire thinks this is sucky, but does as he's ordered.
While taking a walk, Danny Phillips finds the nearby power plant seemingly abandoned. Wandering through the buildings, he discovers this is because the Decepticons Skywarp, Starscream, and Thundercracker have locked the plant personnel in an energy cage and are converting its output into energon cubes with a power siphon. Skywarp grabs Danny and squeezes—just as the Aerialbots, goaded into overriding Skydive's recommended cautious approach, attack. Skydive accidentally overloads the energon cubes, and Jetfire orders Fireflight (the team's worst flyer) to take Danny to safety. Fireflight drops Danny on the beach near the Charlton, where the employees have gathered to watch the distant battle, but his poor flying, combined with the earlier abuse at Skywarp's hands has caused Danny to black out, so the humans think he has harmed the boy.
As the battle takes to the sky, Jetfire is shot down by Starscream, and the Aerialbots form Superion. However, Superion is so crippled by the Aerialbots' various phobias, complexes, insecurities and conflicts that he can only focus on one thing at a time. He grabs Starscream and throws him to the ground—into the (thankfully empty) Charlton. Heedless of the damage he is causing, Superion begins digging through the wreckage of the hotel to finish Starscream off when Danny, outraged by the utter pointlessness of this battle between the robots he thought were here to make the world a better place, screams at him to stop and look what he's doing. Starscream escapes as Superion struggles to understand...and fails.
Jetfire, having been shot down for most of the battle, did not witness most of the Aerialbots' failings and tells Optimus Prime that they only need experience, leaving them to struggle with their dangerous problems on their own. For his part, Danny is bitter to discover that the robots are no better than humans with all their fighting and squabbling, and he throws his scrapbook out into the sea before returning home.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Notes
Continuity notes
- As its title suggests, this story is a sequel to "Missing in Action" from the previous year's annual, in which Danny originally appeared. Writer James Hill notes that he chose to continue Danny's story because it was "easier [to do so] than to think up an entirely new plot."[1]
- As with many early UK annual stories, it's difficult—nay, impossible—to fit "The Return of the Transformers" into the continuity of the ongoing weekly comic. The appearance of the Aerialbots means this story must take place after the events of issue #90, in which the Aerialbots were brought online. However, Starscream and Skywarp were taken offline by Omega Supreme in issue #71, meaning that they wouldn't be active to feature in this story at that point in time (Thundercracker suffered the same fate, but was brought back online in issue #84, so he could be present—but see "Other trivia," below). This continuity clash was likely the result of editorial edict to include the Aerialbots in the story in order to promote their toys (like the Insecticons and the Jumpstarters in the previous annual), suggesting the story was written without proper knowledge of the story surrounding their eventual introduction—which didn't actually occur in the regular comic until around four months after the annual's publication.
- That said, the story does make direct references to other UK stories, and even smooths over a continuity error. Back in issue #44, Optimus Prime decreed that the Matrix would not be used to build Ultimate Autobots—but the need to feature the Special Teams in the comic just a few months later caused that decision to be silently ignored when the Autobots commenced planning for the building of the Aerialbots in issue #65. "The Return of the Transformers" explains how Prime explicitly reversed his decision in response to the return of Megatron to Decepticon command, in the that same issue.
Real-life references
- Danny wears Nikes.
Other trivia
- Barry Kitson's cover artwork has Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage and Prowl (the latter in alternate mode) literally traced from the cover of the Panini sticker book that was released around the same time.
- Of the three Decepticons seen in this story, only Starscream and Skywarp are identified by name. It's only logical to conclude the third is their usual wingmate, Thundercracker.
- This is one of the bleakest Transformers stories ever published. The Aerialbots resent one another's weaknesses, Jetfire is forced to play the bad guy to the new guys (the only Autobots who don't already consider him a "renegade Decepticon"), and Danny's lionisation of and search for the Transformers (with the eventual disappointment, realisation and rejection) is couched entirely in terms evoking Danny's relationship to an absent, never-mentioned father. In the end, Jetfire fails to see the truth, and so the Aerialbots are left to suffer in silence, while Danny does see the truth and is forced to accept that there is no meaning in suffering—it simply is.
Cover
- Transformers Annual 1986: Prime and other early Transformers, by Barry Kitson.
-
Transformers Annual 1986
Reprints
-
The Transformers Classics UK Volume 2 (IDW Publishing, 2012)
References
- ↑ James Hill interview in The Transformers Classics UK Volume 2
