Transformers: Toy Stories

July 4th, 2011

There are many, many reasons why I might be considered an idiot, but if you were going to make a list – and believe me, I’ve made a few such lists in my time – then I’ve got a fair idea of what the top three should look like.

I’ll spare you numbers one and two for now, but number three is easy. You see, I must be an idiot, because I don’t think I understood mortality until I watched Transformers: The Movie for the first time. Yeah, Transformers, “robots in disguise” that turned into planes and cars and tanks, and had their own crappy TV show. That was where my first intimation of mortality came from. Told you I was an idiot.

The realisation that all of this would one day stop had never sunk in at Sunday School, where the focus was more on old stories than on the possible absence of narrative. It hadn’t made any impression on me when various distant relatives had died – they had seemed like minor characters in my story, and their deaths didn’t truly register with me at the time. It didn’t even really occur to me in the early parts of Transformers: The Movie, despite the fact that whole planets were being destroyed and beloved characters were being gunned down like so many extras (with all weapons having been switched from tickle to mangle between TV series and movie, naturally). But OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME, my favourite toy and childhood hero, dying on-screen, in an astonishingly drawn out manner? Yeah, I felt that, and it scared the living shit out of me.

See, here? One day your sentence will be up. Full stop. Story over. The end.

Don’t worry, we’ll get to Simon Furman in a minute!

Cape killer apokriffer

September 29th, 2008

The first mission of the Silent 73 (there’s about 14 of us now, I think, including half of all the people I know in the world. This could take a while.)

Will be to locate certain priceless documents pertaining to our quest. These are:

  • The ‘missing’ scenes of Batman #428 (Earth-A version) – the scenes that they had on standby in case the Yes vote took it. When our final quest is completed, these pages will be the real deal, of course. These pages must ne made manifest in simulation before they can be brought into the real. (got scans?)
  • The editorial/letters page of Batman # 427, where they explained the whole mad deal to the fans. I need to see them so I can feel the awkwardness and embarrasment in Denny’s ‘voice’ as he explains this weird little gimmick to his always-explosive and over-invested readership. Handle with care.

Help us, Silent 73. Find the treasure.

More after the jump…