UK Comics general discussion

[Shockwave]

1987:
"Stargazing" (Furman/Rimmer/Anderson)
Starscream is homesick and blunders across a human who teaches him the real meaning of Christmas. Streetwise shows up, and is made to look like a punk.

Maybe it is because I have read this more than the other TF Christmas stories (actually having found an original copy in the late 90s), but this is the least interesting of those I have recently read. "Bad guy does something nice on Christmas" is arguably a cliche of a cliche.

Grade: C

There's more to the story than that. In fact, this is my favorite TF "Christmas story" for a lot of reasons. The human TRIES to show Starscream the true meaning of Christmas but fails completely. He tells SS that the good feeling you get from helping people is it's own reward but Starscream saves a bus full of people and only gets joy from the crap the humans give to Streetwise because of it. The human then gets all depressed after Starscream is like "Yeah, that was great, look at how that Autobot got punked!" It's actually kind of funny because I could totally see Starscream just being a dick like that.

That is harsh. I have not read "Breaker", so I cannot comment. (Now that you mention it, I recall knowing about it. But, I have no memory of having read it.)

But, damn, what is your issue with Circuit Breaker? (Issue 9 of the US comic is a favourite of mine. And, the concept of Circuit Breaker is good.)

I have the comic so I could send you scans if you want (much like I did with "State Games"). But I will tell you know that it is not worth reading. When I go through my old comics I skip this issue and any with CB in them. CONCEPTUALLY, she's an interesting character. Where that falls apart is in execution. She such a one dimmensional retarded fuckwit that I pretty much cringe whenever she's on the page or even referred to. Basically, if you've read one CB story, you've read them all. It's literally the same thing every time. She goes on a hunt for "robots", only ever finds Autobots and tries to kill them because she's "so blinded by hate that she can't tell the difference". This gets old after the first panel. Ever. Especially with every other human character beating her over the head with empyrical evidence that the Decepticons are the bad guys she still only winds up killing/injuring Autobots. This complaing would be mitigated if at some point, she had actually just killed/injured both Decepticons AND Autobots at any of her encounters, but she never does. It's only ever Autobots. Even when the Decepticons are present, she still focuses on the Autobots. And I get why they did that. "Show her killing Autobots because it shows she doesn't know who the real enemy is" Great. Fine. After one issue. Once you've established that, mix it up a little to give that concept some credibility. But they don't. It's like they feel like they have to re establish that every. Fucking. Time. I also have a problem with anyone, real or imagined, that just flat out refuses to believe factual evidence when presented with it. I also don't buy into the idea that the mental image of Shockwave destroying the oil rig was enough to cause her to go on a rampage but when she actually sees Shockwave she goes into shock and ends up in a catatonic state? Bullshit. Plus, there's her ill defined power set. she can fly by magnetically repelling ferous objects. But she can somehow still fly when none are actually present? and the electricity harness not only controls her nervous system but also does the whole Shrapnel lightning attack thing but can also bluetooth connect to any computer wirelessly long before such technology even existed? Again, I call bullshit. That just illustrates that she's what I call a "kitchen sink" character: A character which is given everything including the kitchen sink. I have this same issue with Kes in Voyager. The Elogium episode is so full of it that it completely takes me out of the narrative. And that's basically what happens for me with CB. She's just so much deus ex machina that it just completely kills the narrative for me.

Wow. That was way more of a rant than I intended. But, I REALLY hate that character and those are the reasons why.

[Dominic]

No need to send scans. I most likely have this story in a compilation somewhere.


That being said, I recall her attacking Scorponok and Shockwave in issue 72 or 73.


I think that her power set was supposed to be be evocative of Magneto. It may be ill-defined. But, that was hardly rare for 80s Marvel.

[Shockwave]

I doubt it. I don't think it ever actually got reprinted anywhere (at least not that I'm aware of, but I don't have all of IDW's UK collections either).

I forgot about the fight in the later issues which really just makes it more bullshit when she freaks out from seeing Shockwave later (this was later in the book when they were on Cybertron). There was also a brief moment where she attacked Rumble but most of the time she went for Autobots and really seemed to have it in for Jazz in particular. I can see the Magneto referrence and you're right, ill defined power sets were not unusual but that does not make it forgiveable. If one is writing a character they should be able to write it consistently without having to deus ex machina their way out of it.