All original content (c)
Ben Cremeens
|
In
Defense Of: |
My earliest memory of Transformers is receiving a comic book in exchange for a week of taking out the garbage. In that issue (number 17), I was witness to the tragedy of Scrounge. That story helped frame my conception of heroism, and pulled me into the fandom where I remain nearly twenty years later. Much of my childhood was built around Transformers, and much of Transformers was built by Bob Budiansky, the writer for the comics for much of its 80 issue run. This essay and--with any luck--the several that will follow, is a homage to the stories I grew up on and their underappreciated creators.
--Benjamin "Obsequiosity" Cremeens, who reminds you that 1 breem = 8.3 Earth minutes.
One of the most sorely underappreciated stories in all of Transformers canon is "Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom", issue 31 in the U.S. run. Many will snort at the admittedly bizarre title (a parody of the already-campy '84 Indiana Jones flick) and dismiss the whole thing as silly. But if you look closer at this Bob Budiansky-written gem of a story you can find so many things to love about it. Such as...
| The
Plan. "Buster
Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom" is about a plot
masterminded by Ratbat, the Decepticon fuel auditor, to
steal all the earth's fuel by having oil billionaire G.B.
Blackrock build carwashes that hypnotize customers into
gving the fuel out of their cars to the Decepticon cause. "Why the convoluted plan?" Why not just hypnotize Blackrock to give you oil directly? Why wait for people to buy fuel from you, just to give it back? Well, I'll tell you why: operating capital. Contrary to what we've been taught by Buddy Ebsen, oil doesn't just seep up from the ground when we're shootin' at some food. Oil must be drilled for, it must be piped out of the ground to distilleries where it can be made into something useable. How are we going to get it out? Hypnotized slave labor? Slaves still have to be fed, or they're useless. In order for the oil to flow continuously, we must have operating capital. What's the easiest way to obtain that? The same way that Blackrock Industries did: by selling gasoline to consumers. See? Blackrock gets paid for his oil, then he gets it back. He uses the money he made to pay for more oil rigs, to pay for food for slaves (or quite possibly unwitting employees, after all: willing employees are more efficient than slave labor), to keep the oil flowing out of the ground until it has been exhausted. And all Ratbat has to do is sit and wait. The reason people think there is a "flaw" in Ratbat's plan is that they're still thinking like a human. 83 Earth years is nothing to a Transformer. 40 million years isn't really that much to a Transformer. Humans plan two to twenty years ahead, tops. But real bots tell time in vorns. So how you keep up a perpetual oil flow for vorns to come? By exploiting every quirk in the system with a carefully balanced scheme. It was only Ratbat's arrogance in thinking that humans couldn't resist his will that made it fail. So, we've established that the plan that has been mocked for years is in actuality rock solid; and the only reason people think that it's silly is that they didn't give the idea the amount of thought it requires. So, anything else cool is just gravy. Like: |
I hear a lot of complaints from people that Ratbat had a dinky toy and did not deserve to lead the Decepticons (these people are usually silent about other non-leader toy choices like Bludgeon and Thunderwing or even non-toys like Straxus). But conquest is about appropriation of resources, so a fuel auditor is a perfectly valid way to run the operation. Instead of a barbarian horde, the Decepticons become like the mafia. I love this panel as Ratbat sinks his fangs into a fuel pipe to sample its quality. Fuel is lifeblood for Transformers, what better expert on blood than a vampire bat? |
 |
The
Setting. Why, of all places, would you
set a Transformer story in a car wash? There are countless episodes of G1 and even Armada cartoons where the battles occur in some nondescript desert. But Budiansky suffered from no lack of imagination. Bob had fights on the surface of the moon (issue 41). And when Bob wanted a human to fight hand to hand with a Decepticon, he knew he needed cramped quarters to even the odds. Why not a car wash? Note that by having the poor fleshling slog through the brushes and hoses it merely added to the struggle of man against machine. And for capturing the spirit of desperation in the struggle between man and machine we have: |
The Cover. "Car Wash" features one of the several covers in Transformers where we get to see Budiansky draw. It makes me wish we got to see him draw more the interiors more; he's got the Sal Buscema "How to Draw the Marvel Way" style down cold. Not excessively flashy, but hey--Liefield and McFarlane are flashy. Instead, Budiansky grabs your attention by substance. Here we have a huge monster attacking our clenched-jawed hero and damsel in distress. It has this classic exploitation movie poster style that recalls the days when a comic book was still in the public's eye (I do so miss that spinner rack in the cereal aisle at the grocery store) and they had to fight for your attention. Just one look at that cover and you know pretty much what's going on. There's going to be a big fight set in a car wash. (Let's compare that to my 3rd printing of DWG1#1, where the cover features Omega Supreme fighting a whole bunch of Decepticons in the desert, ignoring that Omega never shows up for the entire six issue run, much less this issue, and I don't even think they go to the desert..) There's also: |
 |
|
The
Art. When asked to name TF
artists, you'd probably rattle off the names Wildman,
Senior, and Yaniger. Add Don Perlin. Perlin only got to
do the breakdowns on this issue, but it has his stamp all
over it. He may not have used "walleye vision"
perspectives and bug's eye views of crotches, but he got
the point across that TF's were massive solid entities. In a story that heavily involves human interaction, the ability of the characters to act really shines in this book. Facial expressions and body language tell as much story as the dialogue. An excellent sample of Perlin style is in the exposition scene where Buster and Jessie talk about how busy the filling station is. They don't just stand in one place, they walk over to the car wash and carry on the conversation while Buster continues to work. Subtle touches like that allow for a dynamic look to each panel. Panel layouts are clear, with a natural flow from one corner of the page to another. Unlike some current books, there is no confusion as to which panel you're supposed to read next. What's more, look at Ratbat's toy here. Perlin (and Budiansky on the cover) made that into a menacing threat. That alone is a testament to artistic skill. |
| Characterization. One of the great things about Budiansky
Transformers is that although we do empathize deeply with
them, we're never allowed to forget that they're aliens.
Autobot and Decepticon alike are constantly running into
things in Earth culture that absolutely baffle them. The
vocabulary of words like "fleshlings"
maintained this appearance of the TFs being
"strangers in a strange land". Bombshell refers
to a fleshling's "head module", using his own
metaphor to deal with such alien (to him, anyway)
anatomy. Note the exchange between the 'cons and the humans in the tanker raid at the beginning of the story. Ramjet is incredibly brusque with the humans, threatening their lives. Vortex is less demanding as he knows that these obviously inferior beings will comply. Thrust is not so trusting. It is this struggle between the varying attitudes 'cons have toward the fleshlings that drives the beginning of the story and turns out important in the end.. Ratbat has a similar arrogance to that of Vortex's, whereas Shockwave shows the cautiousness that Thrust showed. Humans are just too unpredictable in Shockwave's view to be used for anything. .The collision of personalities in Ratbat and Shockwave are also particularly interesting to watch. Ratbat carries himself with the manner of an upper management type, who can't believe the incompetence of these low ranking employees. Shockwave has the air of the long time office veteran who can't believe some pencil pusher has the audacity to tell him how to do his job. When the tanker raid goes wrong, you can feel the bite of his sarcasm as he tears into Shockers. "My mechafangs have sampled all types of fuel from many worlds, Shockwave...but this vessel carries a fuel of a vintage yet to be distilled--it's EMPTY!" The 'cons have made a mistake that will only net them 23.4 energy units "--that is, if someone goes below deck and LICKS the tanks walls clean!" Up until this point Shockwave has been bragging on his perfectly executed manuver and the logic of his plan, but when the tanker turns out empty he immediately calls his troops fools and passes the buck on to them. The pompous ass. |
 This page also has an interesting bit in it with regards to story pacing. Bombshell's brainwashed human leads them to the control room, but we are only told this through narration, as it isn't important to show us. Compare this with the Dreamwave style of spending five panels just to watch someone get flattened by a giant fist while his buddy pees out in the woods.
|
I could go on and on about the great bits in this issue, such as the way the pacing builds up faster and faster until we reach the peak of the crescendo with the resounding "KKKRAKKK" of a tire iron against the neon sign, freeing all the hypnotized humans. Or the fact that Budiansky Decepticons actually disguise their base rather than using a giant gryphon or a humongous Decepticon symbol.
In fact I could compare this panel by panel to Dreamwave's G1 comic #1 and tell you that Car Wash's 2568 words in 151 panels manages to pack in three times the amount of story than DWG1 #1's 1864 in 118 panels, all without resorting to the copout of making you read two pages of prose in a fake newspaper just to find out General Hallo's first name. (Smooth move Robert--you're trying to convince a man who drinks his coffee while wearing welding gloves that you aren't an evil government conspiracy head and you introduce yourself as 'General Hallo'. He'd been much more likely to invite you in if you'd just said your name was Bobby.)
I could note that Perlin's ability to make the poor sailor above look absolutely terrified of Kickback and Shrapnel allows you to feel more empathy for him and therefore more menace from the Insecticons than Peeing Boy's stone expression while he quips back and forth with Manny before a 50 foot robot manages to wade through thick jungle and crush all the bones in Manny's body so quietly that our friend can't hear the approach or the bones snapping over the sound of his own urination.
But I won't. By now I am convinced that you have seen the error of your ways. . You see that the plan to steal fuel from hypnotized humans is at once both complex yet elegant. You have learned to appreciate the attention grabbing power of the cover. You can see that the location only serves to amplify the tension of the conflict. You realize that while it lacks the sheen of later offers with slicker art and coloring techniques, Transformers #31 offers solid story telling, done well. You have learned to look beyond the goofy title to see the true brilliance that is "Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom."
Back to Obs' Lame TF Page