Transformers #40 (May 1988) - The Commercial, Not The Comic

“Besides, if I die, you can always re-create me. Isn’t that right?” - Actual quote from Optimus Prime this issue.

Gene Kendall returns, and he’s hoping you won’t notice it’s been over a year since our previous installment. But, hey, Hasbro allowed much longer gaps in the actual airings of these animated commercials. This time, we’re looking at only a year or so absence…much more understandable than the bizarre three-year gap between the television ads for 1984’s Transformers #1 and 1987’s Headmasters #1.

If those Headmasters didn’t blow your mind, kid, then maybe you’ll like this latest gimmick: human shells that contain (get this!) all-new Transformers! Some oddly designed, anorexic-looking Transformers that transform into seemingly random shapes we’re going to pretend are futuristic spacecraft…but Transformers, nonetheless!

There always seemed to be two major issues with the Pretenders concept. One was the emphasis on human-looking heroes, even though this is a toyline that previously differentiated itself by starring some cool-looking Japanese-designed robots, a sharp contrast to the standard Prince Valiant hairdos of the day. And two, every kid knows that Transformers are much, much taller than mere humans. So there’s no feasible way any Transformer can “pretend” to be a small, squishy human. (Okay, in a mythology that allows guns and boom boxes to alter size at will, this could’ve been handwaved, but that’s not the treatment of the “human” disguises I recall.)

Pretenders are the latest gimmick, regardless, and they’re getting the “secret all-animated toy ad disguised as a Marvel commercial” treatment.

The TV commercial opens with Brainstorm and Highbrow battling Mindwipe and Weirdwolf, and narrator Victor Caroli is thankfully still around to sell that slightly menacing mood. In response to what we’re told was a “startling defeat,” three new Autobot Pretenders are created inside an Autobot research facility. Their human faces hint that this is another ad that skipped the American part of the production process, perhaps being designed, storyboarded, and animated entirely in Japan.

What’s accomplished by having the Autobots adopt human disguises? Why, just nothing, that’s all. Dreadwind and Darkwing invade the facility, the newly armored Pretenders split open to reveal their robot forms, and the Decepticons promptly retreat.

Literally the next second, a new class of Decepticon Pretenders debut…in front of what might be, for some reason, a volcanic backdrop. Most of the Decepticon Pretenders were designed to appear genuinely monstrous, and as a kid who was perhaps getting burned out on Transformers, I did think these designs were honestly cool. I suppose it makes just a tiny amount of sense, the Decepticons choosing to ape the appearance of giant monsters, in contrast to the Autobots believing they could pass as twelve-feet-tall humans.

After these villains smash through the facility’s wall, we’re offered some hint on what the playability of the Pretenders could be. Kids can also simultaneously use the robot forms and these Pretender shells in their living room battles…though you have to live with the fact that the shells, through necessity of design, have literally no articulation.

Visually, there isn’t much to find fault here. This is the anime look I think most fans would want from the 1988-era of the franchise, the action is fast and fluid, and even if you think those human Transformers look like dorks, surely any redblooded kid of the ’80s would recognize the glory of Skullgrin.

Oddly, even though Hasbro had already backtracked on the death of Optimus Prime, and made quite the deal out of it, the animation does nothing to acknowledge that the comic it’s allegedly advertising actually features the (comics) resurrection of The Leader Kids Can’t Resist. Unless you were watching that cathode TV screen closely, it’s very likely you missed Prime’s appearance on that issue’s cover during the ad’s final second.

Written by Bob Budiansky and penciled by José Delbo, Transformers #40 dutifully introduces the Pretenders concept, and wraps it around one of the strangest Optimus Prime stories in the Marvel run. Since Prime’s earlier death inside a video game, human computer programmer Ethan Zachary has been keeping a copy of Prime’s mind on a floppy disk.

Zachary’s attempts at truly reviving Prime involve a call to the Witwicky residence, but instead of reaching Autobot Pal Buster, it’s his father Sparkplug who answers the phone. In the Marvel continuity, Sparkplug is firmly anti-Transformer, regardless of their rub-on insignia, which did bring some decent drama to the series’ early issues. You can always count on me to note the “I can’t…yet I must!” conflict from a Shooter-era Marvel comic, and it seems Buster’s conflicted loyalties between his father and his new Autobot pals was tailor-made to fit the Shooter philosophy on quality drama.

Ultimately, the Autobots discover Prime might be alive, and Goldbug devises a plan with Zachary to convince Prime he’s more than digital bits. Prime is sent inside the computer system of a genetics laboratory seized by the Decepticons. There, he discovers what occasional super-genius Scorponok and the Decepticons are doing: manufacturing a new breed of Transformer…(say it in Victor Caroli’s voice) the Pretenders. With this info, the Autobots create their own quickie Pretenders to counter the Decepticreeps.

Does this match what we saw in the commercial? Aside from some of the same characters appearing for the fight scene, not exactly. In fact, the comic inverts the timeline presented in the ad, which had the Autobots creating Pretenders first. But presumably no one issued a complaint to the FCC.

Does all of this product placement fit with Budiansky’s ongoing story arc? Well, this is actually one of the more egregious toy commercial interruptions -- the original solicitation text for Transformers #40 doesn’t match what happens in the printed issue at all. Instead, #41 features the originally-solicited Grimlock vs. Fortress Maximus story promised for this issue. One final footnote for Transformers #40 is that it features the last Marvel appearance of the Autobots’ Mount St. Hilary base, the inspiration for the famous setting of the original 1984-1985 animated episodes.

This is one of the earliest Transformers I picked off the spinner rack, and I’m guessing it is another anecdotal case of that commercial doing its job and inspiring me to buy a comic book. This began a fairly steady run of buying the monthly series, and the digest reprints, up until around 1990.

Budiansky didn’t have the best reputation among the online diehards for a while, but his Transformers work is typically a competent representation of that 1980s Marvel formula of inner conflicts to accompany the obligatory action sequences. It’s occasionally silly, but I wouldn’t dismiss it as hack work. José Delbo was viewed as a journeyman artist of that era, but this is the style of art I preferred as a newbie comics fan. Delbo received some notoriety during his final days, exploiting his past as a Wonder Woman artist to create an unlicensed NFT of the heroine, and ranking in over a million dollars (though some sources indicate this money was raised for charity.)

And that’s all for now. I believe there’s one more animated Transformers commercial out there…and after that, I just might pursue what could be the most absurd (and ultra-niche) review series in my shameful history. Until then, I invite you to check out my quickie comic reviews over on Instagram. I’ll also shamelessly plug my fiction writing, most of which you can read for free on Kindle Unlimited. My latest novella Gutbuster is perfect for those looking for a short, noir-inspired read.