Transformers Review Issue 15: I, Robot-Master!

With Megaton on the loose trying to retake leadership of the Decepticons and a government plot to subdue the people amid rising fears of Transformers presents on earth comes issue 15, ‘I, Robot-Master!’

The cover of issue 15 is a comic book cover on a comic book cover. The comic is black with a white and blue Transformers logo at the top. The cover depicts another comic on the cover called ‘Robot Master’ with Megatron, Bumblebee, Soundwave and several other Transformers in the background. At the bottom is the Robot Master himself, Donny Finkleberg. On the left side of the comic reads in bold black lettering “THE MAN BEHIND THE MACHINES!”

In this issue Megatron is scowering across the land looking for fuel. Eventually his body powers down in a Wyoming Coal mine like some great statue. His mind the only thing still functioning.

The Intelligence and Information Institute (I.I.I.) searches for a way to explain the Transformers tot he public that will be calming and prevent a wide spread panic. In a I.I.I.’s meeting to discuss options, G.B. Blackrock tries and fails to convince the governmental agency that the Autobots are earth’s friends and the Decepticons are everyone’s enemy. At the end of the agency’s meeting everyone is sent home to come up with an explainable cover story and not to return without some ideas.

Walter Barnett, a Triple I agent trying to come up with a cover story finds one while flipping through a copy of his son’s comic book, Robot-Master. Walter flies out to Marvel Comics’ head quarters to meet Robot Master’s Writer, Donny Finkleberg who has just lost his job. Walter takes Donny out to lunch where Walter discusses bringing Robot Master to life. Donny accepts the job offer.

On TV the next day the whole country’s Television programs are interrupted by Donny Finkleberg dressed up like Robot Master. He states that all the Transformers are under his control. The Autobots who see this are confused and ask G.B Blackrock for help understanding what is going on.

The following day a second broadcast shot at the Wyoming Coal mine uses a disable Megatron for Robot Master’s backdrop. This time the broadcast not only catches the attention of the Autobots but also the Decepticon, Soundwave. He goes out to find Megatron and refuel him. The Autobots know that Megatron could still pose a threat so they Transform and roll out. This is the first issue to have Optimus Prime actually utter the phrase “Transform and roll out”.

The Autobots arrive at the Wyoming coal mine, but the human military reacts negativity to their presence. They don’t seem to understand the difference between Autobots and Decepticons. Soundwave, Laserbeak and Ravage arrive at the mine with fuel for Megatron. Once consumed he becomes active again. The four Decepticons start destroying everything around them and the Autobots are to damaged by the human military to help stop them. So, they retreat.

Megatron wants to kill the “Robot-Master” for claiming control over him during the TV broadcasts. But Donny Finkleberg convinces Megatron that continuing to tell the humans that the Autobots are as much of a threat to the them as the Decepticons on TV, the Autobots’ effort might continue to be stopped. Finkleberg’s life is spared for the time being.

No letters to Marvel in this issue.

ISSUE 15′s Ads

Brennan’s Texas Comic Book Wall

Recently I was contacted by Brennan from Texas. He sent me a picture of his new comic book wall using the directions from my IKEA comic book hack. Brennan had the following story to share with us about this comics and his new comic book wall.

After most of my comics got destroyed in a flood about 6-7 years ago, I stopped collecting. But my parents found a box of stuff I stashed away in their garage and it turned out, most of my favorite issues and cover art were inside. Growing up, I was a bigger fan of the B-list Marvel heroes, guys like Dr. Strange, Moon Knight, Iron Fist, Black Panther and Black Knight. So naturally, I wanted a relatively inexpensive way to display them. After doing a little online research, I came across Youseph’s site and liked the results I saw.

There’s an IKEA near where my folks live in Dallas and I bought 16 frames for under $40.00, picked up some black card stock at the Hobby Lobby and some Command Picture Hanging Strips, so that there wouldn’t be any damage to my walls. I chose 16 of my favorite covers from the 40 or so books I had left in my long box and my girlfriend helped me hang them up in the office.

She loves them, I love them. The result was perfect. Now we’re thinking about hanging up 16 more in another part of the house! If it wasn’t for Youseph’s site, we’d have probably spent a lot more money. Thanks for the smart and effective tip!

If you have a comic book wall using the IKEA hack found here, please contact me. I would love to see how it turned out for you.

TransMissions: Jeb Hoge

Back when I started my reviews of the original Transformers comic books, I wanted to do something different then what I was seeing on other web sites. I decided one thing I could do differently was post the letters kids wrote to Marvel about the comic books. At the time these where called, TransMissions.

As I sat copying these letters from each comic book into my post I couldn’t help but think how cool it would be if one of the kids who wrote these letters so many years ago found my post and tried to contacted me about it. Well that very thing happened to me just recently.

Jeb Hoge, was one of those kids who wrote into Marvel Comics back in the 80s. On my review of Transformers issue 5, Jeb wrote in to me and commented:

Cracked me up! I was using Google to look for some old things I’d published online and saw my name show up here. Yes. I did write that letter to the editor in 1985. Never thought I’d run across it here. :-) And I think I still have this issue.

Marvels Comics' Transformers Issue #5: The New Order — Marvels Comics’ Transformers Issue #5: The New Order

Praising Marvel on Transformers, Jeb’s original letter from the 1980s read:

Dear Marvel, I would like to compliment you on TRANSFORMERS. I have two of them and they are terrific! Hats off to you! – Jeb Hoge, Tullahoma, TN

Communicating with Jeb since he contacted me about the post, he recalled how excited he was to see his letter printed in issue 5 of the Transformers comic. The cover of issue 5 is so iconic now, I can’t think of a better issue to have your letter published in.

Jeb was kind enough to do a quick interview with me about the Transformers comic book, his life since he wrote that letter and if he is still a Transformers fan today.

Youseph: How did you discover the Transformers?

Jeb: I was born in 1974, so that put me right in the target market when Transformers first came out. I’m not sure if I found the toys or the cartoon first, but I do remember having to go to a friend’s house to watch the cartoon. I also had the first four TF comic books, and then the fifth. I’d say Transformers were in my top three of all toys, along with Lego (naturally) and GI Joe.

Youseph: Where did you get your Transformers comics from?

Jeb: I first started getting comic books at a local drugstore that just happened to have them. My favorite was “GI Joe,” which started up right around when I was just old enough to get into comics and “big kid toys,” but when “Transformers” hit the racks, I started buying them too. Later, I found a proper comic book store in town that was fun, but I never got hugely invested into comic books as a medium.

Youseph: You found my website because I republished a letter you wrote to Marvel about the Transformers comic. What compelled you to write to them? What was it like to see your letter printed in the back of the comic?

Jeb: The letter I wrote to Marvel was just the kind of thing that an excited, avid comic book reader did at the time. I’m sure my mom encouraged me to write it, too, but you’d never expect to get it published. So when I saw my name in Issue #5, it made my year. I showed it off to everyone, I think.

Youseph: Who are you today and are you still a Transformers fan?

Jeb: Now, I’m almost 40 and I’m a married dad of three little boys. Two of them are old enough to be Transformers fans too! They watch the original cartoon series thanks to Netflix streaming. I wish I had the old toys to share with them, but those are long gone. I do tell stories about when I had them and how I played with them, so it’s a really nice connection between my kids and my kid-at-heart self. My oldest has even gone online to look at pictures of the original series of TF toys and I’ve given thought to seeing what they go for on eBay, just to surprise him with an old-school Soundwave (“See, son, they used to have these things called ‘Walkmans’…”). Sometimes I get quizzed on different Transformers’ abilities, but mostly they just like them for what they are, and that’s good enough.

As for what I do, I’m a technical writer in Richmond, VA. That’s not terribly interesting, though. :-)

Thank you Jeb, for taking the time to do this interview with me. It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope I get to hear from more of you out there who may have written into Marvel back in the day.

Bike Xing

bike xing The late 80s is when I got my first bike. It was a gift from my parents. Their only rules were that I had to stay on the sidewalks and be home before dark. Now, not every road in my home town of Gridley, Kansas had a sidewalk in those days, but I had friends who knew how to single to cars that you were slowing down or turning. They taught me those rules so that I could use them anytime that I found myself on a road without a sidewalk.

Eventually my family and I moved from the little farming community of Gridley to the bigger town of Anacortes, Washington. When I turned 18, I got my drivers license. I remember studying for my drivers test with the materials that were given to me by the local Department of Motor Vehicles. The little booklets had a section on bicyclists. It showed the different singles that bicyclists use. These were the same that my friends taught me back in Gridley. The booklets also said that for safety reasons bicyclists have the “Right of way”. Which to me makes sense. If there are no sidewalks a bicyclist would have to be on the road with vehicles and vehicles should watch out for them. No problem with that.

The reality of having driven for the last 15 years or so is different. I have learned, rather rudely that, it is not legal in every state for a bicyclist to use a sidewalk. This is a great vain of frustration for me as an auto driver and a law that every cyclist should break in my opinion.

I can’t fathom how many times I have had to slow down and ride into the opposite lane just to avoid hitting a bicyclist who is riding on the same road as my vehicle. Worse yet, a sidewalk is almost always right there! With no pedestrians on it either!

darwin bike Its hard to tell what is worse. When you’re trying to pass a someone on a bike in full sport racing cyclists gear, or the family of 5 who are always stopping and the youngest member of the group is weaving wildly. The sport cyclist will almost always ride the white line that indicates the road’s shoulder forcing vehicles to weave around putting themselves in danger of oncoming traffic. A sport cyclist clearly has a death wish riding this way. But the family of 5 is worse in a lot of ways. They will take the whole family out on a bike ride with the 4 or 5 year old who just got her training wheels off. She is weaving so wildly that cars trying to pass feel the need to take a far wider berth than necessary just to be safe and not hit the little Darwin experiment.

The thing that really grinds my gears is that these bicyclists can’t be this stupid. Can they? I mean what part of any of their brains tells them that riding on the same road as a heavy vehicle is even remotely a good idea? If they get hit by one of these rolling boxes of metal it’s all over for them. Don’t they see that? No do over. No play again. It’s just over. Their done.

Let me tell you a story. The other day I went for a walk. The sun was out and I had just about enough of sitting in front of my computer. So, I went out for an evening constitutional. As I was crossing the street from my home over to the lake, I see a mother bike riding with her three small children in front of her, Yup, you guessed it. They were all on the shoulder of the road with a perfectly unused sidewalk right next to them. The youngest lead the family while the mother brought up the rear. To say she was bike riding would be disingenuous here because the mother was so worried about her wobbly, slow moving children in front of her, that she was off of her bike WALKING IT BEHIND THEM. You could hear her yelling out commands to the the child in front to not swerve so much. I could see that the child was not swerving because he was goofing off, which would be equally as bad on a road with cars, but he was swerving just from inexperience of riding at his age. This was all taking place on a low visibility inclined turn mind you.

Now, this parent supposedly loves her children. Wouldn’t you think she would just say ‘Screw It’ to the twenty dollar ticket she might get for riding your bike on the sidewalk and have her children ride their bikes on the sidewalk just for safety sake? All I could do was shake my head in frustration as I walked past.

My wife loves to bike ride. On a sunny day it’s a fun thing to do. But every time she goes out she makes sure to carry enough cash with her to pay off any ticketed she might get for riding on the sidewalk. She and I have had this conversation several times. If she gets a ticket while she is riding her bike on the sidewalk, she can pay it off right there and walk her bike on down till the cop is out of sight.

Safety first.

Wearable Art Juneau 2013

My wife and her endless creativity has brought her back to Juneau’s Arts and Humanities Council and their annual ‘Wearable Art‘ event. Hannah spent months designing her entry. Starting with sketches on paper, she has designed her dress entry this year out of sterile instrument wraps and used laser printer film. The dress was worn by her model, Amber.

Last weekend was the two day event. It was a lot of fun and had some nice changes from last year’s event.

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXu8PK3ZQ9U]

Genie

My wife Hannah and I got back to Juneau this weekend from our vacation and our plane parked next to this big old guy.

October

The Juneau summer this year was not the warmest or the sunniest I have ever experienced since moving to Alaska. They all can’t be winners when you live in the middle of a rain forest.

As fall hits us with a shock the weather has turned cold and the air has become very dry. At the start of October people have had to start waking up earlier than normal to make sure their cars are defrosted and warmed up for the morning drive into work. Before the month was out we got our first real snow fall that dusted the landscape like sugar.

With all the recent cold weather, and the daily continuing loss of sunlight that comes with living this far north, we have had some bright spots too. Most notably is that during the daylight hours we do have they have been bright and sunny. Hannah and I have managed to go for some walks after work all bundled up and trying to soak up some of that natural vitamin D from the sun. We are lucky enough to live really close to a park with a lake, so its easy for us to walk out our front door and down to the lake where we walk the length of it and back.

October is also the month I was born in and Hannah put together a nice little party with some good friends. Some of which flew all the way in from southern Washington State. It turned out to be a great weekend that I don’t think I am going to ever forget.

Halloween is also in October, so of course we carved out some pumpkins and turned them into some great looking Jack-o-lanterns. My brother Abe came over and the three of us took to work on four pumpkins. This is the second or third time since I have lived up here that I recall it snowing when we set our Jack-o-lanterns outside.