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THE TRANSFORMERS (GENERATION ONE) US - UNTOLD MARVELS
ISSUE 23.9
"THE REASON WHY"
Lineart by Paul Naylor
Colors by George Tremarco
Story and lettering by me
Edits by Michelle Therese
Special thanks to J.Z. Belexes and Ibai Canales
NOTES
This comic belongs to the Untold Marvels, a Transformers G1 non-Marvel UK/US extra adventures project.
Are you an artist? Join us to illustrate more of them!
The goal of this one-pager is an attempt at explaining the apparently hasty decision made by Optimus Prime in the infamous G1 Marvel US #24 "Afterdeath".
Is is well known that Bob Budiansky had been instructed by Hasbro to remove old characters and make room for new ones, but story-wise that event made little sense.
By using some previous events from the Marvel US/UK mixed continuities, a different (deeper?) version of the story can be provided.
The focus on Optimus Prime's inner thoughts is also meant to work as a subtle link to his resurrection (as seen in issue G1 Marvel US #42, "People Power!") and the subsequent afterthoughts in G1 Marvel UK #198, "Cold comfort and joy!".
The connection is given by the fact that, in "Cold comfort and joy!", Optimus is completing an inner quest, discovering his own motivations to fight the good fight once again.
Our story is a prelude to that "spiritual rediscovery/rebirth".
Issue references
Panels 1, 6,7: G1 Marvel US #24, "Afterdeath!"
Panel 2: G1 Marvel US #10, "The Next Best Thing To Being There!"
Panel 3: G1 Marvel US #12, "Prime time!"
Panel 4: G1 Marvel UK #83, "Target 2006 (Part 5): "The Devil You Know"
Panel 5: G1 Marvel US #19, "Command Performances!"
Panel 6: "Giri" is a reference to G1 cartoon episode "The burden hardest to bear"
Originally published in the Mosaic project, this one-pager has ben relettered and "remastered".
ISSUE 23.9
"THE REASON WHY"
Lineart by Paul Naylor
Colors by George Tremarco
Story and lettering by me
Edits by Michelle Therese
Special thanks to J.Z. Belexes and Ibai Canales
NOTES
This comic belongs to the Untold Marvels, a Transformers G1 non-Marvel UK/US extra adventures project.
Are you an artist? Join us to illustrate more of them!
The goal of this one-pager is an attempt at explaining the apparently hasty decision made by Optimus Prime in the infamous G1 Marvel US #24 "Afterdeath".
Is is well known that Bob Budiansky had been instructed by Hasbro to remove old characters and make room for new ones, but story-wise that event made little sense.
By using some previous events from the Marvel US/UK mixed continuities, a different (deeper?) version of the story can be provided.
The focus on Optimus Prime's inner thoughts is also meant to work as a subtle link to his resurrection (as seen in issue G1 Marvel US #42, "People Power!") and the subsequent afterthoughts in G1 Marvel UK #198, "Cold comfort and joy!".
The connection is given by the fact that, in "Cold comfort and joy!", Optimus is completing an inner quest, discovering his own motivations to fight the good fight once again.
Our story is a prelude to that "spiritual rediscovery/rebirth".
Issue references
Panels 1, 6,7: G1 Marvel US #24, "Afterdeath!"
Panel 2: G1 Marvel US #10, "The Next Best Thing To Being There!"
Panel 3: G1 Marvel US #12, "Prime time!"
Panel 4: G1 Marvel UK #83, "Target 2006 (Part 5): "The Devil You Know"
Panel 5: G1 Marvel US #19, "Command Performances!"
Panel 6: "Giri" is a reference to G1 cartoon episode "The burden hardest to bear"
Originally published in the Mosaic project, this one-pager has ben relettered and "remastered".
Image size
960x1296px 922.32 KB
© 2013 - 2024 M3Gr1ml0ck
Comments21
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Pretty much agree with everything you said - while I'd've probably given a less problematic reason for why Optimus decided to off himself if I were to just outright retcon this & write something different in the end of Afterdeath's place (like, say, Megatron actually won the game, possibly even without cheating & Prime deciding to stay true to his word in spite of how ludicrous the whole situation is) as opposed to here where it's a mosaic adding character reasons to maybe justify an iffy climax, I think this stays true to his character & generally smooths over what was (and still kind of is) an admittedly stupid death.
Hell, it's even more tragic if you add his decision from the recent '84 issue 0 (tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers_%…) so it's not even the first time he's canonically felt like this about the choices he's made throughout the marvel comic. Combined with that and his previous mistakes, this is basically the end point to the story of a guy slowly succumbing to his severe depression (though fortunately not the end of Optimus's overall arc).
Of course that all comes with the baggage the act & concept of suicide brings, even combined with this & the '84 one-shot this whole arc isn't exactly the most eloquent example of a very serious issue (the same can be said for depression). Though to be fair, if people can look past a story where a despot who has killed hundreds if not thousands of civilizations can change their ways within the span of a day despite having subjugated their own people for millennia on top of the aforementioned genocides and still manage to deliver impactful messages about love, family & abuse (among other subjects), then I don't see why this can't be looked at as anything more than "that one toy comic where a talking truck kills himself because he lost a videogame."
All that said, I will freely admit that my viewpoint is pretty biased because Marvel Optimus is pretty much my favorite protagonist in fiction, but my point still stands.