Reposting this since it seems to have been eaten by the Usenet monster. Apologies if it comes through twice!

THE TRANSFORMERS issue #46 is not a favorite story of mine.  It focuses strongly on a new group of human bounty hunters, and while it does introduce a number of new Transformers characters, the manner in which they're introduced is somewhat lacking.  Bob Budiansky's tendency to subvert the rule of cool does not always work in his favor, from a storytelling perspective.

This issue is entitled "CA$H AND CAR-NAGE!" and is stylized as I've done here.  It was printed on July 26, 1988 and had a cover date of November 1988.  This story was reprinted as TRANSFORMERS UK issues #192 and #193.  It was on newsstands until almost Christmastime, but instead of featuring the big, expensive Transformers toys, this issue features a couple of Sparkabots and a Triggerbot.  We don't even get to see the complete teams... only pieces of them.

This issue features Budiansky as writer, José Delbo as penciler, Danny Bulanadi as inker, Bill Oakley as letterer, and Nel Yomtov as colorist.  The front cover by Frank Springer features one of the Roadjammer bounty hunters (Roadhog) squaring off against one of the Sparkabots, who is largely eclipsed in shadow (Sizzle, judging by the shape of his legs).  "The Sparkabots battle the Roadjammers!" promises the starburst text.  I would have preferred to see Sparkabots fighting the Firecons, myself.  

At a carnival in Pennsylvania, a bounty hunter named Burn-Out (blonde hair, scarred face, trench coat) completely dominates the "Reck the Robot" attraction, sponsored by an organization called the Z Foundation.  The game operator, evidently working for the Z Foundation, offers Burn-Out a chance to earn fifty thousand dollars by using his talents to wreck some actual robots.  He accepts.  

Elsewhere at a Pennsylvania demolition derby, human motorists are competing against the villanous, mechanized "Robo-Car" (who looks like he's wearing Hot Spot's head) in an event called the "Transformers Trash-O-Rama" (also sponsored by the Z Foundation!) when another bounty hunter called Roadhog arrives on his motorcycle and steals the show, making quick work of the Robo-Car with his chain mace.  He, too, is offered the opportunity to earn some serious money.  (Every page ends with big panel featuring the bounty hunter in question, which sort of conveys the meta-message that these guys are going to be important to the story. Mr. DeMille, they're ready for their close-ups.)

Our last two bounty hunters live in Nevada.  Felix (small and wiry, cigarette smoker) is clearly the brains of the outfit, while his partner Skunge (balding, grey hair) is not nearly as smart.  We see them track down a pair of crooks counting up the money from a recent heist (using Felix's laser microphone to listen to the vibrations their voices make on the glass of the windows) and Felix and Skunge turn them into the police.  One of the cops spots a Z Foundation poster offering money for the capture and destruction of any Transformer, and suggests they travel to New York to apply. We have now met our four Roadjammer characters.

When Felix and Skunge arrive at the Z Foundation building, Roadhog and Burn-Out are already there, and don't take kindly to the arrival of more competition. But, agents of the Z Foundation assure them that all four of them were summoned for a good reason. The agents in question consist of three men in business suits, who identify themselves only as Mr. K. (black hair that's slicked back), Mr. B. (African-American with a moustache) and Mr. L. (curly red hair).  Interestingly, this story predates the Men In Black motion picture by about nine years.  Anyway, the Z Foundation agents explain that the company was founded to rid the world of Transformers for the good of mankind. They specifically take the time to describe both Autobots and Decepticons as "equally dangerous" and are offering $50,000 per robot that is captured or destroyed. They hand the bounty hunters a small jamming device that will block a robot's ability to transform or move of his own accord.  They have information that three Autobots have been spotted in the vicinity of the Shawungunk Mountains, and the team, now officially called the Roadjammers, are sent on their way.

Eight pages into the story and we finally get to see some Transformers!  Within the confines of a Decepticon detention camp, the three Sparkabots (Sizzle, Fizzle, and Guzzle) and the three Triggerbots (Backstreet, Dogfight, and Override) have been captured.  There's something very peculiar about the designs of the Sparkabots, in particular, that I want to talk about.  Now, on the actual Hasbro toys, the robot legs were a single block of plastic, and there was a rubberized tire in the center of the plastic, between the legs, that drove the spark-shooting gimmick.  Obviously, the characters in the comic book have working arms and legs, so there wouldn't be a wheel magically floating between their legs.  But, the artwork is very inconsistent with regards to how they solved this problem.  Sometimes the wheel is connected to one leg, and there's a wheel-shaped gap in the other leg (as is the case with Fizzle on the front cover, and Guzzle when we first see him in the story).  Sometimes the wheel splits itself in half and becomes two wheels, so there's one connected to the inside of each leg (as is the case with Sizzle when we see him in the prison camp).  Sometimes the characte
rs stand with their legs close enough together to match the look of the Hasbro toys, and the single wheel does, indeed, just straddle the space between their legs.  It's a minor detail, but it really bugs me.

Just then, the Autobots' jailers, the Firecons (Cindersaur, Flamefeather, and Sparkstalker) show up and select Sizzle, Fizzle, and Backstreet for a prisoner transfer of sorts. The Autobots take advantage of the opportunity and attempt a jailbreak, but they're under-energized and cannot put up much of a fight.  The Firecons quickly manage to subdue them.  (I know that Marvel Productions put together character models for many of the 1988 toys so that they could appear in Hasbro toy commercials. The Firecons did appear in animation, but this comic book doesn't appear to use those designs at all.  In the toy commercial, the Firecons had conventional-shaped robot designs, and large Decepticon symbols on their chests in creature mode.  In this issue, José Delbo just appears to be drawing the 1988 Hasbro toys.  They all have rubberized wheels on their bellies in creature mode, and Flamefeather even has the square spot on his left leg where the heat-sensitive rub symbol sticker was originally planned to go.)

By the way, Cindersaur posits that the Autobots are so weak that a Microcon could beat them with one arm tied behind his back. An early reference to Decepticon Micromasters? You decide!

Anyway, they considerately give Backstreet his Triggerbot weapons back, and then they send the three through the space bridge to Earth.  The Autobots have no idea why they've been sent there, but they don't have much time to ponder their circumstances. The Roadjammers are all on motorcycles, preparing to rendezvous with the robots as per the Z Foundation's intel.  Sizzle is the first to be accosted by one of the Roadjammers, Roadhog, who uses the jammer to immobilize Sizzle.  He manages to transmit a partial warning to the other Autobots before he's nullified. Elsewhere, Skunge runs into Backstreet.  (Skunge identifies Backstreet's vehicle mode as alien in design, even though he's quite clearly a Porsche... albeit a Porsche with gigantic guns mounted to his spoiler.)  

So, When Skunge mentions that the Z Foundation led his group right to the Autobots, Backstreet realizes they coudn't possibly know where to find the Autobots unless the Z Foundation had gotten their information from the Decepticons who sent them through the space bridge in the first place. Fizzle tries a different approach and attempts to reason with Burn-Out, but he's a bit psychotic and isn't interested in any sort of civil conversation.  

Something that strikes me as astrange about all of this is that, presumably, the real reason Budiansky broke up the Triggerbot and Sparkabot groups was because this story required cars.  It would have been weird for the Roadjammers to try to capture a tank or a plane.  The three Autobots chosen for the story all turn into recognizable Earth vehicles, and no explanation is given as to why, despite then arriving straight from Cybertron without ever modifying their transformed modes into Earth configurations.  

After the Roadjammers regroup and share their stories, they begin to realize the Autobots might have been onto something.  There's no way the Z Foundation would have been able to provide them with the location of the Autobots in advance, unless the Foundation agents were secretly working with the Decepticons.  The Roadjammers figure if they can catch the Decepticons, they can expose the three turncoat agents to Mr. Z and get an even bigger reward from the Z Foundation.  So they head to the Foundation headquarters, with the Sparkabots (and a Triggerbot) in tow, and take a peek inside the parking garage.

To their surprise, the Roadjammers discover three Decepticons... well, most of them, anyway.  The bodies of three new characters, Horri-Bull and Fangry and Squeezeplay, are propped up against the parking garage wall, but their heads are nowhere to be found. (There is also a sign on the wall that reads DON'T LEAVE THE KEYS IN YOUR CAR that is oddly distracting.  I think it's supposed to be funny, but it completely ruins whatever cool factor might have existed in seeing these Decepticon characters for the first time.)