Dis-Integrated Circuits!

Part 2

Issue 34, 9 November 1985.

Written by: Bob Budiansky
Art by: Mike Manley (pencils), M Hand (inks)
Colours by: Nel Yomtov
Letters by: Rick Parker
Cover art: Again, no idea.

Reprinted from US issue 9.

Plot: Josie explains to GB Blackrock her new role as Circuit Breaker - to wipe out all the robots! (Yeah, she's a bit one-track.) GB tries to talk her down, but she'll have none of it. The next day at the demonstration of his new anti-robot weapon, Jazz shows up and strikes the fuel-for-protection deal with him. GB agrees. When the demo rolls around, however, not only has Circuit Breaker sabotaged the cannon, but Starscream and Frenzy show up to spoil things too! Well, everyone beats each other up for a bit, and the Decepticons eventually retreat. It's kind of like the TV show, really. Anyway, GB pleads with Circuit Breaker not to harm the Autobots, and she agrees, but any debt she owed him is now paid. As she leaves off, GB reflects that Josie may have come to the least harm today, but she's the only one who truly lost.

Brill!: Jazz laying it on the line to GB Blackrock. Rarely do we see the Autobots being so brazen, but here Jazz makes his offer to GB plain and clean, and Blackrock buys right in. That's the way to do it.

Wicked dialogue: It's quite funny in the above scene with Jazz, that as Big J's explaining his deal, all Blackrock can do is scream keywords between each paragraph. 'Autobots?' 'Decepticons?' 'Fuel?'

Technobabble: Circuit Breaker has atomic-powered micro batteries in her systems.
Hey! And GB Blackrock's big toy is an anti-robot photonic multi-cannon! (Well, I don't know from photons, but it doesn't look 'multi' to me, that thing.)

Miserable glitches: I don't know enough to make this call definitively, but wouldn't those electromagnetic fields Circuit Breaker generates be less reliable than they seem in these stories? For a start, would there always be enough iron in the vicinity to get a decent repulsion from? After all, Josie's got to weigh, what, sixty kilos or so? And, if her fields are that powerful, wouldn't she do more than just access computer programs? Wouldn't she wipe any disk or tape in the vicinity? (As for that first point, I know there's a lot of iron-bearing things in the world, but there's also very very many that contain little or no ferrous matter at all.) (Please, anyone who knows about electromagnetism, feel free to write in.)
Oh, speaking of whom, Circuit Breaker's 'suit' isn't drawn on when she's leaving GB's office! No wonder the poor man was all flustered!
I know there's nothing literally wrong with it, and big mega-rich tycoons can do what they want, but that's quite a double-bill GB's putting on here. A race-driving day-cum-powerful anti-robot weapons demo. Well, if it brings the punters in...
Jazz tells GB, 'if I were a Decepticon, I would've let you bounce me a couple of times before scraping you off the ground!' I don't think he's saying what he means to say. Do Decepticons often let humans bounce them?
As Jazz is talking about pulling own strings (oo-er), his speech bubble is missing the little electric zigzag.
Circuit Breaker tells GB that with his cannon broken (by her), he now has no choice but to announce her as the real secret anti-robot weapon. Well, Ms Beller, there's that, or you've just provided a chance for GB to tell the world that you're the crazy person who just messed up his toy!
Of course, there's the notion that this anti-robot crusader would take out an anti-robot weapon, but we'll talk more about that below.
What is this 'secret' mode the caption refers to when Starscream picks up Frenzy? His robot mode? I don't think that's a secret!
Someone forgot to put a panel-divide on the scene where Circuit Breaker leaves. It makes it look like there's actually two of her walking away from the battle.

Notes: It's obviously not intentional, but does the failure of GB's cannon in front of half the country's media remind anyone of when Windows crashed for Bill Gates, live on stage?
Jazz is obviously over that 'codename' thing from a few issues back. Here he just tells GB it's his name.
The Autobots' bargain with GB Blackrock makes a lot of sense (and I think it's another one of Budiansky's rarely-noted better ideas), but does this mean their protection's limited to GB Blackrock? ('Hello, yes? Roxxon, you say. The Decepticons are raiding your plant? Well, that's very sad, but I'm afraid we're opening the county fair for Mr Blackrock today...if you like, we could send Bumblebee down with a price list and you could make a down-payment for the next attack...')

Comments: Poor, poor Josie. She's lost her mobility, and she's on the way to losing her soul, too. She's also very self-centric...it's actually kind of fitting, we'll see as we go on, that she took out GB's cannon. She's very into letting people know about her and how much she's been hurt. Her actual battle scene, I'll confess, isn't the best, but her debut here isn't about robot-swatting (give us about sixty issues or so toreally get into that), it's about who she is. She doesn't wear a lot, either, does she? If this circuit-tape is pretty much an essential part of her body now, doesn't that mean she spends most of her time pretty much naked? Maybe she's the first naturist in Transformers canon. Or perhaps she's into letting people know all about her. Not the most classic of Transformers stories, but it sets up some nice things, and shows that Bob Budiansky certainly can do well.