Rated X wrote:Deaths head is a prime example of what was wrong with the G1 comic continuity. Along with circut breaker, the robot master, and the mechanic. I know its Marvel and all, but couldn't they focus on TRANSFORMERS and leave all the superhero styled characters out of the fiction? The lack of these types of characters was one reason the Sunbow G1 cartoon was so much better. Just my opinion....
Death's Head wasn't really a superhero style character any more than any Transformer. He was a robotic bounty hunter (a term he strongly disagreed with) who was a very well written interesting character with some nice depth and had key moments such as destroying Bumblebee (which led to his recreation as Goldbug... in a far better way than the pretty lousy GI Joes Vs The Transformers the US continuity had) and helping defeat the head of Unicron. He leapt into various Marvel Superhero titles AFTER his exit from the Transformers universe but he was still portrayed the same way until all that Minion nonsense. Original Death's Head is easily one of my fave ever characters in any Transformers fiction or any fiction in general come to think of it. Plus he just looked awesome and I loved his sense of humour too.
Also regarding the US characters you mentioned, I quite liked Circuit Breaker especially when with GB Blackrock. And Robot Master wasn't a superhero either, his supervillain persona was a gimmmick by the government to try reduce panic amongst the public for some reason. Not saying it was a great plan but he was never meant to be a superhero or villain at all in the context of the story. I haven't read that one in a while so can't quite recall why Megatron and co put up with that at all.
Really the only real superhero to ever have appeared in the comics was the amazing Spider-Man himself and that was only in the first few US issues which then distanced itself from the main Marvel Universe when they realised it would be impossible to constantly explain why all those many, many Marvel superheroes and villains WEREN'T showing up and getting involved in these giant robot battles.
Anyways back to Death's Head whom I think is a prime example (amongst many, MANY others) as why the Marvel (especially the UK) comic was far, FAR better than the cartoon in general (which even as a kid I thought was badly made shallow crap with just some decent voice work usually from Cullen that made it almost bearable, but still full of technical animation errors and idiotic plots moreso than the vast majority of other 80s toons many of which still hold up extremely well). Often when we'd get to a bad comic story like the US tale where Roadhandler briefly became a pro wrestler I'd often wonder if that was some unused script for the cartoon series as it seemed very much the sort of silly thing to come in, show off some new toys and be gone again. Anyways just my opinion...
PS: And Geoff Senior's artwork in the comics always looked far more 'animated' than the cartoon did. There's a lot to be said for energetic looking comic strip panels over stilted low-budget animation. That image above has a far better sense of motion and action than the cartoon ever attempted.
(damn i typed more than i meant to. I think i got somewhat triggered
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