Soooo, why/when did Bumblebee become Goldbug?

Prowl1984 · Post by **Prowl1984** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:23 pm

I'm currently reading the Titan Tpb's and i'm currently at that horribly dire point after "breakdown" where Budiansky's gone "f**k this for a bag of spanners, i don't care anymore". so, at what point did bumblebee become goldbug and why? as soon as Grimlock takes command, boom! Bumblebee --> Goldbug! sorry if this seems incoherent, i've been onthe beer and this suddenly sprung to mind.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:30 pm

Prowl1984 wrote:so, at what point did bumblebee become goldbug and why?

As soon as the Goldbug toy was released? Nah, seriously, it depends on your continuity that you're following. In the US comics, GI Joe blew him up in a (pathetic god-awful puketastic) crossover and he was rebuilt into Goldbug. In the UK comic, he was taken out by Galvatron and then rebuilt by Wreck-Gar into Goldbug in the "Volcano/Galvatron is your pimp" series.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:45 pm

In the UK comic he was taken out by Death's Head, not Galvatron. Considering the absolute blown-to-smithereens-ness of his demise, I was not that shocked. Especially considering it was the first out-and-out destruction of a Transformer ever to grace the pages of the TF comic.

There's bits of him still in the atmosphere now, clogging up the turbines of planes as they fly overhead. Death's Head had some great weapons.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:49 pm

Shows you how long it's been since I read that story (as in two weeks since it FIRST appeared in the UK). Consider me corrected.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:56 pm

That probably makes it about 23 years and two weeks then

Did you get rid of all your old Transformers comics many years ago then? I stored all mine in a box, and found them again back in.... 1997 I think. Made for a fantastic and solid amount of reading, fawning over all the artwork and vivid memories of what was going on at the time I was buying them. I only collected up to Issue 157 though because I thought I was getting too old for them. Muppet.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 11:50 pm

I didn't, my step-mother at the time threw them all out (along with most of my hobby stuff) once I went to my grandmother's for the summer. Lovely woman, we haven't spoken since she left my dad for a younger 'rich' construction worker (who, in turn, left HIS wife for her)... Yes, I'm still bitter -but about much more than a few grand of toys, comic books, and models. :P

Anyway, I've seen the US reprints recently enough, but the UK ones have been hard to find in this neck of the States, unfortunately. I just haven't gone out of my way to get them through Amazon yet, though, but I probably should.

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:33 am

TFVanguard wrote:In the US comics, GI Joe blew him up in a (pathetic god-awful puketastic) crossover and he was rebuilt into Goldbug.

And people wonder why I prefer the G1 cartoon?

BTW ... I like "puketastic" ... it's a nice companion to "craptacular".

BTBTW ... I still have that puketastic crossover. I'm a "hoarder".

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:58 am

Rurudyne wrote:And people wonder why I prefer the G1 cartoon?

Nah, we don't wonder why. We just think you're a moron.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:43 am

The daft thing is the Brit take on it fits in better with the US stuff than the version actually made by Americans.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:40 pm

Rurudyne wrote:And people wonder why I prefer the G1 cartoon?

Because the comic published an easily ignored GI Joe crossover? Yeah, that makes Child's Play* and Attack of the Autobots completely okay.

* the episode, not the issue.

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 4:18 pm

Halfshell wrote:Because the comic published an easily ignored GI Joe crossover? Yeah, that makes Child's Play* and Attack of the Autobots completely okay.

* the episode, not the issue.

At least the one GI Joe crossover in the cartoon wasn't totally bust.

However, the Marvel comic version had other issues: it wasn't all a triumph like Shockwave and his "All are Dead!" wall scrawl after all.

For example: while Cybertron seemed a lot more grim in the comic (needing to be attributed to nothing more than animation budget keeping it from being similarly grim in the cartoon) in terms of what we think of as oppressive regimes — also offering better pretext as to where characters might pop up from — the idea of the Creation Matrix becomes problematic ... if it had been inactive on Earth for millions of years (in Prime's noggin) then why wasn't Cybertron an emptier place given the scale of cultural horror displayed (Hot Rod's friend wasn't the only one in the pool if I recall, meaning it was either an unusually good day for Straxus or we're dealing with a continuity error)?

Conversely, and while I believe in many ways Vector Sigma was superior in concept than the Creation Matrix, one could ask (if ignoring the whole almost-no-population side effect of a limited budget) why Cybertron was so empty when the means for more bots was more or less on hand? Especially since said super computer wasn't ultimately portrayed as one with will of its own.

In both cases there are problems with the material but these are especially troublesome for the US comic because they actually tried to think things out (or so it seems). In some respects being slapped together as the US version of the cartoon sometimes seems to have been (not sure about the Japanese version's differences) helps it over the rough spots: by leaving so much outside the scope of "as seen on TV" it offers fewer opportunities to highlight the defects.

Not unlike how the episodic original Star Trek through TNG seems to bear up better at times than the much more serialized DSN, Voyager or (especially) Enterprise.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 4:50 pm

Rurudyne wrote:At least the one GI Joe crossover in the cartoon wasn't totally bust.

And that's what qualifies something as good or not, isn't it? The quality of the GI Joe crossover. Idiot. Not to mention the GI Joe crossover was surgically removed from the full UK continuity, and is thus only acknowledged by a few xenophobic Americans. Instead it was effectively replaced by Death's Head in continuity (saving us from colour coded pyjamas so kids can keep up with who's who) and "Ancient Relics" (which was actually good, not "wasn't totally bust") in spirit.

(Hot Rod's friend wasn't the only one in the pool if I recall, meaning it was either an unusually good day for Straxus or we're dealing with a continuity error)?

Hot Rod wasn't in "The Smelting Pool". He didn't turn up in the US comic until about a year later, and in-continuity it was closer to two. It was Blaster in the Smelting Pool - the colours are the same, I can see why that would be confusing. Hot Rod's the one that turns into a car and is called Hot Rod.

Cybertron in the comic is about the size of Saturn, and the population are massacred. By the time we catch back up with them, the surviving Autobots have gone underground - those that have survived are the tough guys (e.g. the Wreckers, Ultra Magnus, Blaster). The Decepticon leadership on the planet has degenerated vastly by the time of Straxus, a lazy sadist with very limited ambitions, hence the relative malaise. Nevertheless, cities are nearly all shown to be war-torn husks populated by a handful of empties. After the battle at Darkmount (where the Autobots take heavy casualties, the Autobots rarely muster ~20 Cybertron-based warriors at any one time. By the time Unicron comes around it's less than that, and the bulk of the race seems to be made up from the two forces based on Earth.

Have you actually read any of this? At all?

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 6:36 pm

Well we can be fairly certain he never read The Middle Years. It didn't have pictures.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 6:59 pm

It smacks of someone who's read a few Waki articles and minimal actual comics, TBH. At this stage, I don't really give a shit about who prefers the comic and who prefers the cartoon - if people are going to take the stupid option they're not worth the effort. But is it too much to ask that when comparing the two they have some sort of ****ing idea what's going on?

The number of both generics and named Transformers on Cybertron depreciates along a fairly consistent curve from the massed battles seen in "The Transformers" to the "Return to Cybertron" issues (the assault on Darkmount seems to cost both sides large numbers of whatever forces they need; add into that the steady flow of reinforcements to Earth...) through to the Unicron arc. The UK ?alternate? post-Movie future shows the planet to be more populous, but then a) there's a ~13 year gap when next to no stories are set regardless of which timeline you follow and b) the post-Movie stuff is set on a Cybertron explicitly locked in stalemate.

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:36 pm

Cliffjumper, you neglected the "However" that began the next sentence.

I clearly wasn't saying that the relative merits of GI Joe crossovers were what mattered as to which I preferred. I wasn't even opining that my example was the whole basis (as it is not).

That I make mention of it is not "xenophobic" though I'm sure it's just your usual snarkiness shining through.

As for confusing Hot Rod and Blaster, well, fair cop ... it's been a while since I've looked at the comics I've got (I generally had stopped buying comics at all by 1989 and so I believe I may have stopped collecting about the time of the Underbase storyline, possibly shortly beforehand ... hard to discern which just from memory because I did continue to go into comics book stores every so often for a while after that and casual 'looking' is free).

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:51 pm

If the GI Joe crossovers had nothing to do with it, why mention it?

Rurudyne wrote:it's been a while since I've looked at the comics I've got

Maybe don't make broadbrush claims as to their continuity or lack thereof, then. That's what makes everything after "However" you spouting ill-informed bullshit. You've read, what, around two-thirds of the series a long time ago and you're making statements about the relative population across the whole run, never mind the extended continuity available worldwide now the UK comics are avaliable for free in a wide number of places. You clearly didn't pay much attention to what you did read to not notice Cybertron's dwindling population; the only time it's particularly bustling in the US comics is in the first issue, which covers a massive amount of time.

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 9:26 pm

Ummm ... I mentioned it because someone else had mentioned it first?

I *was* agreeing with the assessment of said comics crossover.

Not exactly sure why you felt the need to call me a moron when you waded in simply because we disagree.

As for the quality of my memory: it's good but there's a lot in there and I guess the proverbial index isn't always well organized.

For example: in a recent exchange on another forum I was momentarily confuzzled by the term "non-elected Kirkaldy sociopath" and went immediately to one Irene Morgan Kirkaldy who was not a sociopath by any means (but who had played a role in the history of American jurisprudence). After a few minutes of being stumped by the writer's intended meaning I realized that he was referring to Brown and what has been said about him ... which should have probably been the less obscure reference point.

Likewise, in that same forum I'd referred to "Hamilton the Secretary of State" in a number of recent post when I know darn well that he was with Treasury — small wonder that my motto as a writer is "the last edit you do is one edit too few."

borg72 · Post by **borg72** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 9:28 pm

I love how you're all arguing like a bunch of 9 year olds over a matter of personal opinion, when the original question was answered in the first response.

YEAH WELL MY COMIC IS BETTER COS MY MUM SAYS SO, SO THERE

god, -3 internets to the lot of you, arguing which continuity is the worst/least in your own opinion and then arguing the toss back when someone else SHOCK HORROR disagrees.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 9:37 pm

Rurudyne wrote:As for the quality of my memory: it's good but there's a lot in there and I guess the proverbial index isn't always well organized.

Then, like I say, don't make statements about it. First of all you make a self-aggrandaising comment (when has anyone ever wondered why you prefer the G1 cartoon?). Then you take the Marvel comic to task for having problems which didn't actually exist, specifically Cybertron apparently being massively overpopulated when, if anything, the opposite is true. You got called on it. Deal with it, don't try and wriggle out of it.

borg72 wrote: arguing which continuity is the worst/least in your own opinion and then arguing the toss back when someone else SHOCK HORROR disagrees.

Discussion board. What would be your big plan for the place? Passive-aggressive crap like that? Just leaving people to spout ignorance? Prey tell. Run us up some great topics we can all mindlessly either agree with or ignore.

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Sat Apr 17, 2010 9:42 pm

I didn't say it was massively overpopulated.

Only that it seemed a bit more populated than I'd have expected it should be. Thus my comment about if Straxus had been having an unusually good day throwing hapless bots in the pool.