“My vote for worst comic of the year would have to go to Marvel’s TRANSFORMERS #1. Has anyone out there seen it? I’m still trying to figure out why I wanted to spend $.75 on it in the first place, but any reason I may have had was inadequate.
The premise is that two groups of ‘robots’ evolve on a faraway planet and start an eons long war for control of same. This knocks the planet from its orbit and sends it spinning through our solar system (!) The goodguy robots send an expedition out to punch a path through the asteroid belt, where they are ambushed by the badguy robots and all end up crashing into Earth and being suspended for ages in a volcano. Then they wake up and start the battle again.
I had thought I had seen bad comic writing at its peak during Marv Wolfman’s tenure on MACHINE MAN (MM 10-13 in particular are classically bad comics and can be savored as such), but I think Ralph Macchio has topped even this.” The following is typical :
–The AUTOBOTS. Whereas life elsewhere in the cosmos usually evolved through carbon-bonding, here it was the interaction of naturally occurring gears levers and pulleys that miraculously brought forth sentient beings.
In addition, both sides go through incredibly bad sequences to establish the identity of each robot in the worst ‘of course you know..’ manner, and there are gaping holes in even elementary plot logic.
First has been accusing Marvel of what ammounts to dumping. I cannot think of any other reason for this comic to exist,and admit to being mystified about its intended audience (esp given the price).”
That’s an actual Usenet post from *1984* about the comic book that largely introduced the Transformers to America. You didn’t know that there were nerds griping about things in virtual space that long ago, did you?
What’s funny is that I own this comic book. Not to wave my nerd flag too furiously, but I own it and the other 79 issues of the original Marvel Transformers run. Of course, I was like 6 when it launched, so maybe I wasn’t as distressed about “gaping holes in even elementary plot logic”.