Brain Massage

Sometimes writing about religion, faith, war, genocide, and the transcendence of art can get a little rough. That's when I need a double helping of geekiness: Transformers comic books.

Here we have a classic from the mid 1980s. This is from the original Marvel 4-issue miniseries--later expanded to an ongoing series lasting 80 issues. We have special guest Spider-Man sporting his new black costume. We would later find out the suit was "more than meets the eye" when it was discovered to be an evil alien that would go on to bond with Eddie Brock to create Venom. That was in Spidey's future, though. At this point the costume was just Marvel's attempt to sell more action figures through their Secret Wars toy line.

The weird thing is, I don't know how ol' Web Head figures into this story. I've read a trade paperback collection featuring this story, but it wasn't published by Marvel. All the Spidey stuff had to be cut including the cover image. He can't have played too large a role as I didn't notice any glaring plot holes. Then again it was the '80s and this was a licenced Marvel comic. I'm not sure a whale-sized plot hole would have seemed out of place.

Today's Transformers comics are much better. The audience has aged with the property and unlike more mainstream facets like animated television and live-action movies the comics can cater fairly exclusively to us fanboys. The last collection explored the effects of war on individuals that once shared common beliefs and how it can drive relationships beyond the brink. Faiths are challenged, philosophies adjusted, and lives destroyed.

I said I wanted escapism. Oh well, I got giant robots.

By the way, NaNoWriMo is half done, and so am I!