THE TRANSFORMERS issue #41 is called "Totaled!" and this title is appropriate for a couple of different reasons!

This issue was printed on February 23, 1988, with a pull date of June 1988.  After a strong focus on new 1988 toys in the previous issue, this story focuses largely on 1984/85 characters.  Bob Budiansky wrote the issue, with José Delbo penciling the art, newcomer Danny Bulanadi inking the art, Bill Oakley doing the lettering, and as ever, Nel Yomtov coloring the art.  Danny Bulanadi (who just passed away in 2022) was both a comic book artist and animation storyboard artist, and he also worked on the Transformers G1 cartoon during season three!  He also notably illustrated a comic book adaptation of the Bible for Kingstone Comics.  He would go onto ink several more issues of TRANSFORMERS.

The front cover is off the hook, featuring a huge Transformers brawl with the greatest number of characters we've ever gotten on a cover up to this point.  José Delbo and Dave Hunt gave us this masterpiece, depicting a war on the Moon with the Earth and space in the background, and it features no fewer than 40 Transformers.  Blitzwing, Powerglide, Ramjet, Swoop, Vortex, Scattershot, Slingshot, Laserbeak, Thrust, Jetfire, Cosmos, Silverbolt, and Ratbat are all in the air, while the following Transformers battle on the ground: Hook, Kickback, Brawl, Bombshell, Fortress Maximus, Grimlock, Chromedome, Brainstorm, Doublecross, Smokescreen, Octane, Rampage, Soundwave, Nosecone, Goldbug, Hardhead, Hound, Blaster, Tracks, Trailbreaker, Omega Supreme, Sludge, Cloudburst, Waverider, and Prowl.   The only character I can't make a 100% positive identifcation is the guy who is mostly hidden by the UPC bar code box, but he's got treads on the back of his arms, so it's probably Warpath.

One character whose presence seems like an anomaly to me is Red Alert, who was never officially introduced into the comics and only ever seems to appear as an artwork mistake.  He appears on the cover colored like Sideswipe, since that's a character who turns into a Lamborghini who is actually part of the existing TRANSFORMERS character roster, whereas Red Alert is not.  There are a few other mistakes as well—Brainstorm is colored purple, for some reason, and Smokescreen is also shades of purple and pink.  Trailbreaker is colored green and orange, like Hoist.  Kickback is standing right behind Brawl in tank mode, but Bulanadi must have misinterpreted the pencil art, since Kickback is holding Brawl's dual-barreled cannon as if it were his own handheld weapon.  Still, considering the sheer number of characters making an appearance, the goofs are comparatively minimal.  

The story opens aboard Steelhaven, with a full splash page featuring Optimus Prime's body exploding, echoing the end of issue #24. The Autobots have attempted to build him a new body, but they simply didn't have the materials to do it, especially after having recently built Goldbug a new body and having created the six Autobot Pretenders.  Fortress Maximus and Brainstorm and Highbrow and Goldbug watch in horror as Optimus Prime explodes right before their eyes.  (It's interesting that this, then, is technically Optimus Prime's second body, albeit a very short-lived one.  His upcoming Powermaster form will be his third!)

Goldbug is still determined to restore Prime to life somehow.  After Hot Rod finally detects the Ark out in space, Fortress Maximus' crew suggests a rendezvous with the ship.  Fort Max realizes the Ark will have more resources to rebuild Optimus, and he figures Goldbug will surely be happy to see all his old shipmates again.  Goldbug, himself, is less than pleased at the prospect.  (This makes sense, given his character arc, but it's a total reversal from Goldbug's behavior in issue #37, when he supposedly can't wait to get to the Ark and see his old buddies.)

On board the Ark, Grimlock is lounging on a throne, wearing his crown and getting his teeth cleaned.  What a buffoon. Ratchet is protesting that they need to go back to Earth and protect the humans, but Grimlock won't hear of it.  When they receive the communique from Steelhaven and want to board, however, it rattles Grimlock's composure a bit.  (This is the first time Steelhaven is actually identified by name, incidentally.)  Fortress Maximus has brought his top-ranking soldiers with him, who he identifies as Targetmaster group leader Pointblank, Technobot group leader Scattershot, Pretender group leader Landmine, and information officer Grotusque.  (The Hasbro tech specs for Grotusque say that he's a military strategist, incidentally.)  Fort Max is cut off before he can identify Hardhead, but we can infer that Hardhead must be the Headmaster group leader..  Pointblank and Landmine are drawn wildly off-model, to the point where both are unidentifiable.  Pointblank is shaped like Kup with pointy ears, and Landmine either has a pointy cone head or an Aerialbot-style nosecone on his back.

When Grimlock points out that there's only one true Autobot leader, Fortress Maximus misunderstands him and infers he must be referring to Optimus Prime.  Fort Max asks permission to use the Ark to build Prime a new body so that they can upload the floppy disk containing his mind.  Ratchet starts gushing when he realizes Prime's mind still exists, but he gets clocked by Grimlock with a "SHUT UP, RATCHET!" for his troubles. (This really should be Wheeljack in the role of defying Grimlock, not Ratchet, since we know Wheeljack was already acting out against Grimlock in issue #36 when he called Sky Lynx for help. It would have been more internally consistent, anyway.)  

There's a great moment when Grimlock dismisses Prime as weak and worthless for trying to protect the humans, at which point Fortress Maximus detatches Cerebros, who in turn detatches Spike, revealing that he's the one in charge of Steelhaven and her crew.  "A human?!  Human commands Autobots?! NEVER!" balks Grimlock.  "Looks like never is NOW, commander!" Ratchet snaps back with delight.  Fort Max lets it slip that Goldbug helped them find the Ark, at which point Grimlock brands Goldbug as a traitor and demands his arrest.  

Grimlock can't seem to wrap his vocal components around Fortress Maximus' proper name, as he refers to him as "Fruitloop Multipuck" when he challenges him to a fight to determine the supremacy of the Autobots.  Fortress Maximus checks his memory banks and realizes the challenge is legitimate and steeped in Autobot tradition, although it's an older way of settling things that is considered primitive and uncouth by modern-day Autobot sensibilities.  He returns to Steelhaven to decide his next move.

Goldbug is thrown into the brig where he finds Blaster already imprisoned, strapped to the variable voltage harness that Grimlock had the Autobots build specifically as a torture machine for Blaster.  He explains how he no longer cares about Autobot affairs, and he also mentions the Spacehikers vanished and haven't been heard from (a major plot point that will be addressed in a future issue).  Goldbug realizes Fortress Maximus is too badly damaged still to ever be able to beat Grimlock, so he suggests that Blaster volunteer as a stand-in.  He encourages Blaster to do it, not for the benefit of the Autobots, but for himself—to get revenge on Grimlock for imprisoning him.  Fortress Maximus begrudgingly accepts the challenge, but Grimlock responds, "No need, Forktongue Maxiface!  A champion steps forward to fight in your place!"  

Elsewhere, aboard the Decepticon flying island base, Soundwave reports to Ratbat that he has tracked Fortress Maximus to Steelhaven, and has found both Steelhaven and the Ark parked on the Moon.  It's certainly strange to see Soundwave acting in a subservient role to one of his own cassettes!  It's also odd that Soundwave and Ratbat are the same purple color, but that's not a new observation.  Also, Soundwave is very strangely drawn with a normal mouth, rather than a mask, which will tend to be José Delbo's default style.  It seems to be a misinterpretation of a smudge present on Soundwave's mask in his TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE profile. Ratbat delights in the idea of an efficient attack that will wipe out the crews of both crafts simultaneously.

Grimlock's group of Autobots pour out of the Ark, with only Sludge, Slag, and Swoop seeming to look forward to the ensuing brawl.  Snarl isn't name-dropped here, but I don't think this was a mistake by Budiansky.  His tech specs describe specifically how he hates warfare, so the mistake would have been to lump him in with the other carnage-loving Dinobots.

This page was the source of the 'Bot Roster contest, in which readers were invited to identify all the characters and could potentially win prizes.  It was made more challenging by the fact that only seven characters out of 34 were colored accurately, with the rest blocked out in light blue.  A contest of this nature would also be heavily dependent upon the artists actually drawing the characters accurately, something that they struggled with even in this very issue.  But, the group consists of Tracks, Slingshot, Perceptor, Silverbolt, Sideswipe, Trailbreaker, Skydive, Wheeljack, Smokescreen, Skyfire, Ironhide, Mirage, Powerglide, Skids, Windcharger, Sunstreaker, Seaspray, Blue Streak, Hound, Hoist, Jazz, Prowl, Air Raid, Beachcomber, Brawn, Cliffjumper, Grapple, Swoop, Sludge, Slag, Fireflight, Gears, Cosmos, and Ratchet.

Notably, Warpath is absent from this line-up.  There are a handful of artwork mistakes as well—Slingshot seems to have two jet nosecones, one on each shoulder.  Trailbreaker is missing his shoulder-mounted gear, and Wheeljack is missing his rocket launcher as well as his wings.  Jetfire is tiny, and is the same size as Smokescreen and Mirage.  Huffer inexplicably appears here in a very early model, the same one used for TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE, in which the truck cab behind his robot head is rounded instead of squared-off.  Almost everybody present except for Jazz and Ratchet is missing their Autobot symbol.  

On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 5:58:19 p.m. UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
>
> This does represent a signficantly changed premise, however, as it seems that now every single Autobot originally a member of the Ark's crew are active and fully functional again. We could infer that Blaster's group must have been reconstructed, since we saw them working on the variable voltage harness earlier, but this is the first time we've seen the Aerialbots active since they were dismantled by Circuit Breaker, and also the first time we've seen many of the 1984 Autobots up and about since their deactivation. What happened to most of them being in stasis pods and Ratchet lacking the parts to bring them back to full function? What happened to Prowl barely clinging to life in issue #26?
>

Maybe Grimlock had something to do with it? He may have bullied the Autobots to take what they need from the puny humans to repair their comrades and also rebuild the Ark for space flight. Grimlock was not all bad as a leader.. He does not have Optimus's weakness in that he is not compassionate about the Earth and its inhabitants.

> Let's talk about this s'more. When the 1985 toys were being introduced, issue #14 made a huge deal about how most of the 1984 characters would probably never be restored to operational status again. It was a necessary move by Budiansky to push the older toys out of the picture so the newer ones could enjoy the limelight. But, we're at a point now where that seems to have been reversed, and he was like, "There are well over 100 Transformers at this point, so what the heck, let's just feature ALL of them." (The only faction missing is Scorponok's Decepticons. Imagine how crowded this issue would have been if they'd shown up as well!)
>

I may be in the minority but I liked reading about new characters instead of retreading old characters. I would have liked stories featuring the Pretenders, Micromasters and Action Masters instead of the 1984-85 Transformers group even though the 1984-85 is my favourite TF era.

When characters die, they should stay dead. Optimus, Megatron, Ravage, Battlechargers, Shockwave, even Iguanus all had great deaths. They should have stayed dead and new characters should have been featured more. The only TF that has stayed dead in the original Marvel comic was Ratbat, and I liked him.

> The Protectobots are also absent from this group shot, which again strongly suggests that Grimlock did something horrible to them. But, they didn't get thrown into the brig with Blaster, or we would have seen them in this issue. Is it possible Grimlock simply had them executed? They're just about the only Autobot characters who are completely unaccounted for at this point (though Streetwise does appear in a background scene later). It seems unlikely Budiansky just plain forgot about them. It's possible he was planning something for them that never panned out (which I think might have also been the case with Inferno and Red Alert).
>

Sadly, another possibility is that the Combaticons killed the Protectobots. The last time the Protectobots were seen the Combaticons were their prisoners. But the Combaticons were heavily featured in #41. Octane was leading the Decepticon assault on the mooon.

>
> Elsewhere, the Constructicons tear into the Ark to recover their wayward Decepticon comrades, destroyed by Omega Supreme and kept in cold storage since issue #19. How did the Constructicons know the deactivated bodies were inside the Ark? I dunno. The narration describes the group as being led by Bonecrusher, but the artwork shows Scrapper taking the lead.

He should take the lead since he is the leader of the Constructicons.
>
> We see crates containing the remains of Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Buzzsaw, Frenzy, and one who is partially obscured but we can infer is Rumble. Long Haul claims that there are "lots more of these damaged Deceps to unload," but the only ones I can think of who might qualify are Blast Off (who is still in Autobot possession following the Spacehiker adventures) and Dirge (if there's anything left of him after being blown to bits in G.I. JOE AND THE TRANSFORMERS). There shouldn't be anybody else. A strict reading of the artwork shows there's a crate that Buzzsaw is stacked on top of that isn't identified.
>

There is also Reflector.

>
>
> With the battle over and Grimlock and Blaster having resolved their dispute, it now remains to repair the damaged Autobots as well as the Ark. When Grimlock suggests using Steelhaven to help (and even gets Fortress Maximus' name right when he asks), Fort Max laments that he had to send Goldbug and Steelhaven away to Nebulos, realizing it was the only such place they would ever be able to rebuild Optimus Prime and give the Autobots what they've been missing and needing—a truly worthy leader.
>

I always got the impression that Grimlock was intentionally misprononcing his name to mock him until he finally respected him by asking for his help.

On Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 2:43:59 PM UTC-7, Optim wrote:

> Maybe Grimlock had something to do with it? He may have bullied the Autobots to take what they need from the puny humans to repair their comrades and also rebuild the Ark for space flight. Grimlock was not all bad as a leader. He does not have Optimus's weakness in that he is not compassionate about the Earth and its inhabitants.

I'm just surprised that it wasn't addressed in any real capacity. The comic made a big deal about the fact that dozens of Autobots were in stasis and emphasized Ratchet's inability to bring them back to full functionality. So, it's clear something changed, but it's hard to say just what.

> I may be in the minority but I liked reading about new characters instead of retreading old characters. I would have liked stories featuring the Pretenders, Micromasters and Action Masters instead of the 1984-85 Transformers group even though the 1984-85 is my favourite TF era.

I'm kind of two minds about this. After the cartoon got taken off the air, Marvel Comics was the only way to enjoy the adventures of any characters from 1988 and beyond. So, I was definitely in favor of the contemporary toys appearing in the comic book. Given that the comic was, at least in part, meant to be advertising for the toys, it made perfect sense.

At the same time, though, the cartoon breathed life into the characters in a way that the comic book never could. It's just a limitation of the medium. I imagine most of us "hear" the cartoon voices for Starscream, Grimlock, Jazz, etc. even when they appear on the comics page. The comic book failed to take advantage of this under Budiansky's direction, most of the time. It wasn't until Simon Furman came along that a lot of the 1984-85 characters were ressurected, though I guess you could argue that, on a long enough timeline, if there had been more issues with the Action Masters in them, we would have seen all the old favorites come back eventually anyway.

> When characters die, they should stay dead. Optimus, Megatron, Ravage, Battlechargers, Shockwave, even Iguanus all had great deaths.

Budiansky had a good point about how since these are robots, "death" to them doesn't mean the same as it does to us. To bring a "dead" robot back to life, all you have to do is build them a new body and upload a copy of their personality. So, it makes sense for deactivated robot characters to be able to come back.

Secondary to the Hasbro mandate to sell toys, though, the comic should be driven by good stories. If a character's death makes a story better, then I'm all for it. But, if a character being brought back makes for a compelling story, then I'm fine with that, too. And, for what it's worth, my favorite issues of the comic book are the final dozen or so under Furman's direction, which heavily featured the likes of Megatron, Ratchet, Shockwave, Starscream, Grimlock, Prowl, etc. Those characters mean a lot more to me than Octopunch or Cloudburst or Hosehead.

> Sadly, another possibility is that the Combaticons killed the Protectobots. The last time the Protectobots were seen the Combaticons were their prisoners.

Hmm, interesting. I would have expected Blaster and the Protectobots to have shared the same fate, since they were all deserters and Grimlock would have wanted all of them executed or at least imprisoned. That's why their disappearance is so puzzling. Nobody even talks about the fact that they're gone.

>> A strict reading of the artwork shows there's a crate that Buzzsaw is stacked on top of that isn't identified.
> >
> There is also Reflector.

I mean, yes, but no? Budiansky never considered Reflector a part of the cast. He never got a TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE profile, he was never name-checked at any point in the comics, and he never got a death scene. I'm sure he was just thrown into the artwork because his character model existed, but he was essentially just a nameless Decepticon technician who disappeared after the mini-series, just like the crowdfiller Decepticons in the cartoon disappeared after the pilot episode.

And even after the Constructicons have collected the crates filled with deactivated Decepticons, we never see Reflector at any point during the Underbase saga, so there's that.

> I always got the impression that Grimlock was intentionally misprononcing his name to mock him until he finally respected him by asking for his help..

If Grimlock were smarter, maybe. I'm not convinced that he's clever enough to make that kind of joke. I really think he was just remembering Fort Max's name as "big long word that starts with F and then another big long word that starts with M" but had a tough time figuring out what those big, long words actually were.

Zob (Flimflam Melancholy)

> > Sadly, another possibility is that the Combaticons killed the Protectobots. The last time the Protectobots were seen the Combaticons were their prisoners.
> Hmm, interesting. I would have expected Blaster and the Protectobots to have shared the same fate, since they were all deserters and Grimlock would have wanted all of them executed or at least imprisoned. That's why their disappearance is so puzzling. Nobody even talks about the fact that they're gone.

Well, they are present in the Generation 2 comic written by Furman, so he did not seem to consider them dead at least...

On Monday, November 20, 2023 at 1:48:52 AM UTC-8, Avaran wrote:
> > > Sadly, another possibility is that the Combaticons killed the Protectobots. The last time the Protectobots were seen the Combaticons were their prisoners.
> > Hmm, interesting. I would have expected Blaster and the Protectobots to have shared the same fate, since they were all deserters and Grimlock would have wanted all of them executed or at least imprisoned. That's why their disappearance is so puzzling. Nobody even talks about the fact that they're gone.
> Well, they are present in the Generation 2 comic written by Furman, so he did not seem to consider them dead at least...

I was just about to comment this same thing. I definitely remember Blades (alongside Sideswipe) in the first issue of the G2 comic.

Plus, didn't Hotspot sacrifice himself to forestall specific technology becoming acquired by G2 Megatron and co.?

JB

On Monday, November 20, 2023 at 2:48:52 AM UTC-7, Avaran wrote:

> Well, they are present in the Generation 2 comic written by Furman, so he did not seem to consider them dead at least...

Yeah, but G2 was kind of like a soft reboot. Lots of dead characters like Dirge and Runabout and Fangry were de-unalived, mostly so they could be gratuitously unalived again...

Zob (had Taco Bell for dinner, and boy was THAT a mistake)