#issue 113

This is a surprisingly easy issue to start with. It takes place in the aftermath of Transformers: The Movie, which is great, because it means I don’t have to go through the previous 112 issues to understand what’s going on.

Kind of an aggressive call to action there at the end, especially for a storyline that only goes for two issues.

This comic was scripted by Simon Furman, because of course it was. Furman was all over the Marvel Transformers comics, in the UK, and America to a lesser extent. He’s a big part of why Transformers is what it is today, if only because you couldn’t go more than two degrees of separation from the guy in any given publication. You still can’t, in certain regards.

It’s the far-flung year of 2007, and Rodimus Prime is mad as hell. He’s so mad, in fact, that he’s put aside the long-held Prime tradition of just letting your arch enemy faff about unchecked, and put a hit out on Galvatron. Whoever can bring the bastard in- dead or alive- will be awarded 10,000 shanix. That seems a bit low if you ask me, considering just how much bullshit Galvatron’s pulled, but I can imagine that the Autobots don’t have a ton of extra cash lying around these days.

The wanted poster catches the eye of none other than Death’s Head, who proceeds to badger the bartender for more information. Certain parts of Rung’s design for IDW were brought over from this little geek.

Death’s Head is a real stickler for semantics.

This absolute toothpick fills Death’s Head in on the Story So Far, at least where Galvatron’s reign of terror is concerned. The page covering the climax of the movie has a lot of rather unfortunate posing, with Galvatron choking Hot Rod out in the belly of the beast, straddling his lap until the Matrix remembers that it rather likes the little red dork alive and does its thing, then the newly-remade Rodimus Prime chucks Galvatron out into the vacuum of space, yadda yadda, YOU GOT THE TOUCH YOU GOT THE POWER-

Keep running into “not so”, and I’m not sure if it’s a Furmanism or just an Englishism, or I’m just seeing something that isn’t actually there.

Rodimus had tried searching for Galvatron after the dust settled, but after a few months had to head back to Cybertron to stop Shockwave from being a complete menace.

So, Galvatron is clearly a bad dude, having been reformatted from the almost-corpse of a prolific warlord by the robot devil himself into a killing machine.

Death’s Head thinks he can take him.

He starts off for his ship, trying to drink-and-dash, when the bartender pulls a gun on him. Bit of an overreaction, I think, but maybe he’s feeling that 2007/2008 economic recession. Death’s Head tosses him a card, saying it ought to cover his tab.

Death’s Head throws the bartender into the wall, shattering him into pieces, and leaves to go kick Galvatron’s ass. He does not pay his tab. In order to recoup the loss in sales, the waitstaffs’ tips are cut into. Truly, Death’s Head is the real villain of this story.

He does a little research on his mark, notes the fact that Galvatron’s one third of the Time Travel Trio, and decides to pay Cyclonus and Scourge a little visit on Cybertron.

Cyclonus and Scourge are bitching about Shockwave when Death’s Head meets up with them demanding the location of Galvatron. The two don’t take Death’s Head seriously, because why would they? They haven’t seen this guy’s work, they don’t know what he’s capable of.

It’s like a trigger word, honestly.

Of course, Cyclonus doesn’t go down quite as easily as Scourge, once again proving that he’s the cooler of the two by blasting Death’s Head in the torso and gearing up to bash his skull in with a piece of rebar. Death’s Head turns the tables back in his favor, however, and punches Cyclonus in the face, which has to hurt extra bad considering his gloves have inch-long spikes attached to the knuckles. With Cyclonus subdued, we finally see just why exactly Death’s Head has all those weapons strapped to his back.

Death’s Head rears back to start turning Cyclonus into metallic paste, looking like an absolute night demon as he does, but luckily Cyclonus loyalty only gets you so far and gives the guy what he wants. Of course, Cyclonus doesn’t know anything for sure, but there’s only a few things Galvatron ever does, so it’s safe to assume that the bastard’s gone and time travelled again.

With this lead, Death’s Head makes his way to the time machine Galvatron and pals ripped a hole in space-time with, and jumps to 1987, Earth. The issue ends with Death’s Head turning into special effects bubbles, declaring his intent to find his mark.

And that’s the end of #113, part one of Wanted: Galvatron— Dead or Alive!

I can see why this would have hooked Roberts as a kid. It’s a solid entry point into the series, despite how far into the run it is.  There’s action, humor, interesting characters and motivations, and it’s just fun. Would I understand everything that was happening if I was new to the franchise? No, but I don’t think I would feel lost for that, but rather curious. Hell, I kind of want to pick up Transformers UK now, I don’t even like Furman’s writing a lot of the time.