Issue 55, 5 April 1986.
Written by: Bob Budiansky
Art by: Don Perlin (pencils), Keith Williams (inks)
Colours by: Nel Yomtov
Letters by: Janice Chiang
Cover art: Tempted to guess Don Perlin on the pencils, at least.
Reprinted from US issue 15.
Plot: Roaming and desperate for fuel, Megatron stumbles into a coal mine in Eastern Wyoming. When he finds that the 'fuel' there is no good to him raw, he throws a temper tantrum and wrecks the mine. However, said tantrum uses up the last of his energon and stops him dead in his tracks. He becomes the first robot captive of Triple-I. They still need something to stop the public hysteria over the robots, though. They won't believe GB Blackrock's story about 'good' and 'bad' robots (well, Forsythe won't, and he chucks it out the window for everyone else), so Barnett hits on a plan. His son Stevie has a comic called Robot-Master about a man who has an army of robots. Barnett enlists the aid of the comic's writer, Donny Finkelberg, to create a story to tell the public. The story manifests as a series of TV broadcasts from 'Robot-Master' - in reality Finkelberg himself - claiming responsibility for 'his' robots use in terrorist schemes. Blackrock implies to the press that Robot-Master is a hoax, and that same press have a photo of the frozen Megatron in Wyoming. Triple-I ask Finkelberg to stay one more day...
Cor!: So when a Transformer runs out of fuel, they just stop dead and freeze like that, do they? Hee. In the unlettered panel as Megatron's demolition derby stops, you can almost hear the transition from violence to silence, and feel the breaths of the workers around being unheld.
Wicked dialogue: Bumblebee, thoroughly tweaked by Robot-Master's broadcast: 'Are his circuits disconnected? Who is this mad human?'
GB tries to help, but the next thing he sees is the broadcast, so he sums up his feelings: 'Those jerks!'
Then later, to nosy reporters asking after Robot-Master: 'Don't you guys have an ambulance to chase?'
First appearances: Walter Barnett's wife and son: the son's called Stevie, the wife appears to be just called 'Honey' at this point. Or maybe she really is called Honey, like PC Harman off The Bill.
Donny Finkelberg, known to the 'adoring' public as Robot-Master first appears here, too, in his civilian job as a comic writer. Actually I guess he doesn't really have a civilian job any more when we see him... In his civilian position as an unemployment statistic, then.
Miserable glitches: The hyphen on Stevie's copy of Robot-Master disappears as his dad picks it up.
Even with those non-safety matches, can you really just strike them on any old thing, like Donny's doing? Surely the diner table is made of something smooth that wouldn't work? (I'll have to read up on matches, really.)
There's a lot of flaws in the whole 'Robot-Master' scheme. Even if the comic was just cancelled, wouldn't people recognise him as a comic-book character and not an eccentric terrorist? Wouldn't some people even recognise that it's Donny Finkelberg? Despite what Barnett says about not wanting the story to get around, why choose Donny to play Robot-Master? Don't they have people better qualified for this already in Triple-I? What about undercover operatives? So, they might be recognised. So might Donny Finkelberg, writer of a Marvel comic book! And why would the public find it reassuring that the robots are being run by a human terrorist? Even if they are humans, people worry about terrorists. They worry about them more (again, despite what Barnett says) because they do know what they are and what they can do. That's probably a lost worse than saying some robots are good. Nice try, Walt, but it doesn't add up.
And when the Autobots are watching that particular broadcast, Wheeljack is coloured almost all green - Hoist's colour scheme from the panel before.
Back-up strip: Rocket Raccoon.
Notes: Yep, this story does indeed feature Marvel as the comic company Donny used to work for. Not only is it on the cover of the comic, but pictures of the Incredible Hulk and Captain America adorn the foyer of the offices.
More sociopolitical zeitgeist as the good people of the USA circa 1986 blame the PLO and the Communists for Robot-Master's actions.
Comments: Good thing it was Robot-Master that Barnett found, not Donny's other creation. I, Potato-Salad Man! might not make for such a good cover logo... Mind you, I guess it'd make ye pick up the issue out of curiosity if nothing else...
Obviously, Bob Budiansky's a comic-writer also, so I'm forced to wonder if he put much of himself in Finkelberg. Write what you know, right? I've never seen a picture of Bob from this era (or any era), but I'd be dead curious to know if he resembles him at all. As it happens, as a result of this character I always used to imagine Simon Furman as looking like Donny Finkelberg. The odd thing is, having read later issues before earlier ones, I didn't know that Finkelberg was actually a comic-writer! Guess he just puts out some kind of vibe, yes?
The logic of the plan might be flawed, but the writing's pretty good, considering. Director Forsythe fills the role of the blinkered, nasty authority guy who won't believe the good in a situation...and it works, coming from him. Sure, it's going to be frustrating, but Forsythe already seems like the kind of guy who prefers netting everything into blameable or fightable enemies than trying to sort through solutions. Robot-Master himself is pretty woeful, but that's really part of the point. Making the 'terrorist' this vaguely sad, self-interested guy rather than vicious-looking threat has more potential than another world-conquerer. So, flawed yet interesting stuff this week.