Going forward, I'm also going to be posting these reviews to Reddit (r/AltToysTransformers) for archival purposes.

THE TRANSFORMERS issue #45 is entitled "Monstercon from Mars!" and answers the question nobody was asking: What would happen if one of the Decepticons became a movie star?  It also features the return of Circuit Breaker, a character we haven't seen in action since issue #23.  Bringing Circuit Breaker back during a time when suddenly the robots don't always look like robots is honestly a great idea.  Given the focus on Pretenders beginning with 1988, it sort of brings the whole "robots in disguise" aspect to a whole new level!

 This issue was printed on June 28, 1988, and had a pull date of October 1988.  The story is by Bob Budiansky, with José Delbo drawing the pencils and Dave Hunt inking the artwork (they are credited for "breakdowns" and "finished art" respectively).  Bill Oakley did the lettering and Nel Vomtov served as colorist, as always.  The front cover (illustrated by Budiansky himself, and inked by Hunt) features Pretender Skullgrin standing in a rocky landscape with Circuit Breaker high above, zapping him with her electical powers.  The coloring (which was also likely done by Budiansky, as he has laid claim to coloring the TRANSFORMERS covers that he illustrated) also features a lovely orange-to-magenta gradient for the sky background, as well as some airbrushing on Circuit Breaker's body to create the illusion of three-dimensional definiton and really help her to "pop" on the page.  You don't often see coloring techniques like this outside the UK stories (which utilized an entirely different printing process that allowed for many more subtle shades of color).

Our story opens with a scene from Creepozoids from the Crab Nebula, in which a Flash Gordon type movie hero called Brick (played by Jake Colton) rushing in to protect his beloved space gal, Celestia (played by Carissa Carr) from a tentacled monster.  When the monster breaks down during filming, however, the self-important Jake storms off in a huff.  The film director, Rollie Friendly, now has to contend with the prop taking three weeks to repair so that filming can resume.  In the interim, his public relations agent alerts him to a news story on television about Sky Lynx arriving on Earth.  The Spacehikers disembark and are returned to their families, and Sky Lynx is encouraged to pose for a few publicity pictures.  (As a point of interest, this is the story that finally provides the surnames for the kids.)  However, Circuit Breaker is watching from neaby in a trench coat and fedora, as one does, but a large anti-robot crowd has also gathered, and begins harassing Sky Lynx and forces him to depart before Circuit Breaker can make a move against him.

There's a slight continuity error when Sky Lynx mutters something about being treated like he had a contagious scraplets infection.  Scraplets shouldn't be common knowledge among Transformers.  If they were, then the Decepticon Triple Changers and the Throttlebots would have known what they were and how to deal with them immediately, but instead, it was a new phenomenon that none of them had encountered and had no clue how to cure them. It's highly unlikely Sky Lynx would be familiar with them.

The public relations guy is enamored with the idea of putting a robot in the director's next film.  So far, this is playing out very similarly to the cartoon episode "Hoist Goes Hollywood."  Budiansky always said he never watched the TV version of Transformers, but the comic always seemed to be cribbing from the cartoon show for ideas.  Anyway, when Friendly rejects the idea, the next plan is to investigate the so-called Bigfoot sightings in the woods, and possibly use the needed three weeks to film something interesting.  So, it's off to the Great Smoky Mountains, straddling the borders of Tennessee and North Carolina, with both a film crew as well as Jake and Carissa in tow.

The locals are complaining about something that wrecked their farm and frightened their chickens.  (In an amusing moment, one of the National Guard soldiers on the scene suggests as a solution, "perhaps if you wrote your congressman... or Frank Purdue.")  The troopers won't let the film crew pass through, even when they claim to be filming a news reports, but flashing a few hundred dollars bills at the landowners proves sufficient to let them take a secondary route on a dirt road.  That's when they encounter Skullgrin.

The crew tries to get some footage of him, but Skullgrin starts kicking their vehicles and throwing rocks at their camera equipment.  (As a point of interest, despite being primitive, Skullgrin seems a fair bit smarter than the Decepticons from "Hoist Goes Hollywood."  In the cartoon episode in question, Ramjet and the others mistake the movie camera for a weapon of some kind, but Skullgrin's not an idiot and knows it's just a movie camera.)  Skullgrin was sent in advance to Earth to set up a refueling station in anticipation of Scorponok's arrival, thinking perhaps he would be able to operate covertly in his Pretender guise.  But, ever since then he's been chased and hunted by humans who believed him to be a monster, and at this point Skullgrin's fed up with the harassment. It's almost like the Decepticon Pretenders disguising themselves as horrifying creatures wasn't such a great idea after all.

Friendly, always thinking with his wallet, offers to help Skullgrin out and even pay him for his time.  Skullgrin recognizes on some level an opportunity to get paid in fuel, so he accepts the offer and signs a contract.  Friendly throws some money at the locals whose property has been damaged, and now that Skullgrin has calmed down and is no longer a threat to the public, the National Guard has no jurisdiction to take action, and Skullgrin goes off with the moviemakers to meet his destiny.  

In the weeks that follow, Skullgrin becomes a huge star——signing autographs and making guest appearances, appearing on the covers of Time magazine and Newsweek and People magazine, and doing wonders for the popularity of the upcoming film.  Carissa and Jake also benefit by proxy, since they're attached to Skullgrin's upcoming movie, Monster from Mars.  (Again, this issue takes so many story cues from "Hoist Goes Hollywood" that it's not even funny.)  Circuit Breaker continues to covertly observe Skullgrin and his newfound fame.  (There are a few of Delbo's illustrations of Skullgrin that are quite clearly reproductions of his character model sheet.  Not all the Pretenders got TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE profiles, but Skullgrin did, and the pose and angle of his Pretender shell illustration are a perfect match.)

Jake is understandably upset and jealous at being upstaged by Skullgrin.  Carissa is being far more understanding, recognizing that he's scared and confused, but learning to adjust.  There's a certain irony that everybody involved likely exhibits a deep-seated fear of giant robots, but they have absolutely no problem with Skullgrin being a giant monster.  The film's make-up crew is quite happy to polish his claws and buff his horns, making him look good for his upcoming press conference, never realizing he's actually a Decepticon.  At the conference in question, the media lets loose with pointed questions about Skullgrin eating animals and killing people, but Skullgrin takes offense at the accusations.  It takes Carissa to calm him down, and in a real King Kong moment, he picks her up and cradles her in the palm of his hand.  

There's a lettering edit of some sort when Rollie informs the public that there will be no further press conferences until the filming of Monster from Mars is completed.  There's an unusually large space between the words "monster" and "from," and I'm guessing the lettering originally read "Monstercon from Mars" until somebody made an editing pass and realized that's only the name of the real-life Marvel Comics issue, and not the actual name of the in-universe fictional film.  Circuit Breaker is present yet again, and professes to be a big fan of Skullgrin.  Carissa lets it slip that they're going to be filming at the Grand Canyon before shooing her away, and that's all the information Josie needs.

A couple of days later, filming proceeds in Arizona.  During a break, Skullgrin and Carissa commiserate, both of them relatively new to the movie business.  Carissa confesses that she's just pretending, and that Carissa is just her stage name——climbing out of her movie costume, she admits her real identity is Ethel Stankewicz.  Trusting her, Skullgrin likewise removes his "costume," revealing himself as a Decepticon Pretender. Circuit Breaker realizes that Skullgrin is a Transformer after all, and she immediately activates her costume and goes to work.  

Circuit Breaker lets loose with an electrical burst from her fingertips, zapping Skullgrin.  Carissa recognizes Circuit Breaker as the woman that she told about the Grand Canyon, and Skullgrin is aghast when he learns that Carissa told Circuit Breaker where to ambush Skullgrin.  Rollie, meanwhile, has no idea what's going on, but he recognizes it's too good to waste and tries to get it all on film.

Circuit Breaker recognizes on some level that Skullgrin is maintaining some form of radio command over his Pretender shell.  When Skullgrin transforms to try to finish her off, Circuit Breaker is able to interfere with the radio signals and causes Skullgrin's shell to strike his vehicle mode (which Circuit Breaker amusingly identifies as a "tank-thing," which strikes me as an editiorial comment by Budiansky about the decidedly unconvincing nature of Skullgrin's transformed mode).  When a stray shot hits the ground near Carissa and she is about to fall into the canyon, though, the director is seemingly unconcerned with her fate... only with capturing the action on film.  Skullgrin isn't too keen on saving her, either, since she's the one who betrayed his location to Circuit Breaker in the first place.  It's finally Circuit Breaker who convinces him to rescue her, and he sheepishly apologizes to Carissa for jepordizing her.  "Friend should never doubt friend," he says in his stunted language.  

Zobovor wrote:

> Going forward, I'm also going to be posting these reviews to Reddit (r/AltToysTransformers) for archival purposes.

There has to be a better way to post to alt.toys.transformers. without having to post to two different sites. I don't like Reddit. NovaBBS is just like the old Google newsgroup but does not archive forever. I hope someone finds a better site that allows for archiving. I miss Google newsgroup.

> This story basically couldn't have happened if the Autobots hadn't been stranded on the moon for many issues on end. The story would have essentially necessitated that the Autobots would learn of Skullgrin's rise to fame, and then send agents out to investigate, and it would culminate in the Autobots attacking him and derailing his Hollywood exploits. That would have been a very different sort of story. I like that the Autobots were removed from the scene long enough to be able to tell a tale like this one, since it's structured so differently, and less predictably, than we typically tend to get.

It is still not a plausible tale. This is a giant, intelligent beast walking around on Earth. That is completely unusual. The various human governments around the world and medias would be converging on Skullgrin. They would not have allowed a camera crew to casually film him. This tale could only be plausible if Skullgrin was on another planet with monsters that look like him.

The Pretender concept with giant humans in space suits and giant intelligent monsters does not work on Earth. They only work if the setting is anywhere in the universe inhabited by like giant humans and intelligent monsters.

The previous issue, #44, where Optimus Prime and the Autobot Powermasters were on a Mos Eisley Cantina-type space station trying to rescue Sky Lynx would have been better as a Pretender story in which it is the Autobot Pretenders that try to rescue Sky Lynx.

That is why issues #52-53 is the only good Pretender story. The Autobot Pretenders were travelling to a space station then to a planet full of giant humans in order to get microchips to repair their colleagues.

> Next issue features the Roadjammer bounty hunters in a story called "Cash and Car-Nage!"  It's arguably one of my least favorite issues, but it's the final story before we jump into the much more exciting four-part Underbase saga!  

Yes it is also one of my least favorite issues. But I didn't like the Underbase Saga either. It was just action and nothing else.

Optim wrote:

> NovaBBS is just like the old Google newsgroup but does not archive forever.

Right, that's why I'm also posting reviews and things to Reddit. Their archive goes back at least 15 years, so I think it's safe to say it will be around for the forseeable future.

> It is still not a plausible tale. This is a giant, intelligent beast walking around on Earth. That is completely unusual. The various human governments around the world and medias would be converging on Skullgrin. They would not have allowed a camera crew to casually film him.

Well, when Skullgrin was first sent to Earth, he was met with fear and violence from the locals, which is about what you'd expect. It was only after the film studio framed him as a movie star that the general public accepted him. So, I think it's safe to say that most of the people probably thought he was a sophisticated movie prop. I think it was the equivalent of Kermit the Frog making an appearance on the Tonight Show. People didn't talk to Jim Henson; they played along and talked to the sock on Jim Henson's hand. I kind of think that's what was going on with Skullgrin. Nobody thought he was a real monster, any more than Johnny Carson thought Kermit was a real talking frog.

> The Pretender concept with giant humans in space suits and giant intelligent monsters does not work on Earth. They only work if the setting is anywhere in the universe inhabited by like giant humans and intelligent monsters.

What I really wish they had done with the story is used size-changing technology to enable full-sized Autobots to disguise themselves as normal-sized humans. Transformers already had characters who changed size (Megatron, Soundwave, Blaster, etc.) so the concept was already baked in from the beginning. The Japanese cartoon got it right. Making the Autobots disguised as gigantic humans was ridiculous.

The Decepticon Pretenders are even harder to justify, because there's no real *reason* for them to be able to disguise themselves as tiny humanoid monsters.

> Yes it is also one of my least favorite issues. But I didn't like the Underbase Saga either. It was just action and nothing else.

The Underbase story was fun for me because it disrupted the status quo. I would argue that it wasn't just non-stop action, since it also had some interesting character moments for Starscream and Ratbat and a few others. It also showcased the beginnings of the alliance between Optimus Prime and Scorponok, which would turn into a true and meaningful friendship later on.

Zob (I'll take non-stop action over Roadjammers misadventures any day)

Zobovor wrote:

> What I really wish they had done with the story is used size-changing technology to enable full-sized Autobots to disguise themselves as normal-sized humans. Transformers already had characters who changed size (Megatron, Soundwave, Blaster, etc.) so the concept was already baked in from the beginning. The Japanese cartoon got it right. Making the Autobots disguised as gigantic humans was ridiculous.

Size-changing technology would open up a can of worms. If a TF can reduce to a a smaller version of himself then he could do anything. It would be better if there are TF that are already human-sized to begin with like the Micromasters for example or the bipedal robot cassettes like Rumble, Frenzy, Rewind and Eject. No need to have size-changing technology.

In fact, there is no need to have Pretender shells on Earth at all since the TF already have Nebulans that look exactly like humans.

> The Decepticon Pretenders are even harder to justify, because there's no real *reason* for them to be able to disguise themselves as tiny humanoid monsters.

Realistically, if there are to be Pretender shells on Earth then they should be based on humans in regular clothing. An Autobot Pretender shell could be a human dressed as a businessman, a carpenter and so on. The Decepticon shells could be based on evil human types such as a mafia hit man, and so on.

But those would be unappealing for kids to collect. I think Hasbro probably thought that kids would rather collect monsters than boring humans in regular clothing. So, if there are to be monsters in Pretender shells then Pretender stories need to be based anywhere else in the universe except Earth. I don't think kids cared if TF stories were set on Earth or not. I didn't care.

What I don't understands about Hasbro's thinking is why they believe kids would collect Pretender shells that are just humans in different space suits like the Autobot Pretenders.

On 3/24/2024 3:48 AM, Optim wrote:
> What I don't understands about Hasbro's thinking is why they believe
> kids would collect Pretender shells that are just humans in different
> space suits like the Autobot Pretenders.

I remember when I bought those first three human Pretenders, it was a
novelty. Then there were more, and more. And I probably shouldn't open
this can of worms, but they were all generic white dudes in space suits.
Even Jazz. That makes a very dull collection to look at. I greatly
preferred the Decepticons as they were fun monsters.

The Pretender Beasts were fun too. Sort of a precursor to Beast Wars.