Transformers Back to the Future Comic Review

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You're gonna see some serious shit. That is affirmative.

Hello and welcome to The Pull Bag. But this isn't

just The Pull Bag, it is also All Things Transformers.

That's right, because we are crossing over to

talk about IDW Publishing's Transformers Back

to the Future. I'm of course TFT and Mike, you

are. Steve Megatron. That's right, that's right.

And yes, IDW, one of their last, I think this

was actually their very final crossover, was

Transformers Back to the Future, four issues,

and I liked it. I thought it was fun, but all

is they did was take the original film and add

Transformers to it. I mean, I saw some of that,

but same token, they did change some stuff. Yeah,

true. They did, but I mean, the basic plot of

it is rumble stows away on the DeLorean. Well,

yeah, that part, but once it was in the altered

timeline. Oh yeah that's all yeah that's totally

different yeah that's all totally different but

i'm saying like the beginning and ending is essentially

the it's essentially back to the future and that's

fine it's supposed to be back to the future hello

it's transformers back to the future so just

to get the creative out of the way as always

written by kevin scott art by one samu uh Colors

by David Garcia Cruz and Candice Hahn letters

by Neil Yucatay and Yeah, so we have For humans

we have Marty doc Biff George and Lorraine for

the Autobots. We have bumblebee optimus Jigga

-jigga -watt gigawatt, whatever. I forget how

it's supposed to be pronounced gigawatt Skills

and Rodimus Prime Decepticons we have Megatron,

no not that one Ravage, Soundwave, Starscream

Flame War for some odd reason Rumble Hook Mixmaster

and Watchtower I will say this going in, I totally

ignored Watchtower So when it showed up in the

comic I was extremely like, oh WTF and then I

was like, oh, this is cool. Yeah Yeah, no when

I like I normally like going through the the

character pages IDW does for their Comics because

they do them in the individual ones and in the

the trade as well but yeah, I completely missed

the whole watchtower thing and Yeah, I was like

Oh snap. That's crazy. Now did you, because I

know that I think the toy was announced before

the comic or it was like right around the same

time, whatever. Did you have any inclination

of picking up Gigawatt at all? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah. It was, it was, it was a real close toss

up. I was like, I'm like, do I get it for the

soul's sake that it's a DeLorean? I don't have

a DeLorean. It was very tempting, but I was like,

I don't know, I really got to pay attention to

what I'm getting my hands on here. I want to

say it was like 30 bucks for a Deluxe. Which

isn't terrible like it's not I mean implicit

wasn't it exclusive to somewhere like a martyr?

Okay target. That's fine Yeah, I think so. Anyway,

I don't know. I saw it. Maybe it wasn't I don't

know I could just where I saw it both Yeah, probably

So the plot of this is is interesting as you

said yes, you are right. The middle section is

issues two and three are the most interesting

out of this because let's face it there's only

so much you can do back to the future style at

the beginning and ending like you know you have

to kind of sort of set things right and this

starts with you know Marty being chased by the

Libyan terrorists and then we get to the Transformers

and all hell breaks loose Well, and Ravage and

Rumble are scouting it out for Megatron. Yep.

And then Rumble is like, the car vanished. What

do you mean it vanished? What I said, Megatron,

flash of light, gone. Yep. And then Ravage scans

and they're like, trans -temporal particles detected

and Megatron's like, time travel. He's like,

how are they doing that? And instead of like,

they were doing the true deception thing. Yeah,

very much so. Yeah. And he was about to shake

things up and Bumblebee got in the way. And what's

funny is they still were trying something terrible,

not. to be seen, the Decepticons and the Autobot.

It's like the Decepticons normally wouldn't care.

Yeah. Yeah, normally they wouldn't care, but

because I think they have to follow the Back

to the Future rules of the whole, like, why are

the... Because it seems to me, and I could be

getting this wrong. Did the Autobots and Decepticons

come back from the future? In this? Or were they

already? No, they were on the ark. They were

already here. Okay. Yeah, this was like 84, like,

when they woke up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep,

yep. Because it's, yeah, because it's 85. Okay,

yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. I will

say, I find this absolutely great how we do start

with Optimus and Bumblebee and then we eventually

get to Rodimus. That was hilariously good. I

do find it weird how Marty goes to sleep in one

timeline and wakes up in the other but remembers

everything. Yeah, that was a little... It's a

little bit of a paradox there. Yeah. Yeah. Because

it reminds me of when he got... In the original

movie, in the second movie, when he goes... At

the end of the first one, he goes back, but in

the beginning of the second one, he comes back.

Yeah, but he travels, whereas here, he doesn't.

Yeah, no, he doesn't. He remembers and he shouldn't.

Yeah, he shouldn't. But I did like the shocking,

you know, don't just stand there, gaping, get

on the transport before we get zapped. Zapped?

And then they're in an energon. Internment camp.

Yep. I love the designs. I really dig the art.

Mari and Doc could stand to look a little bit

better, but they're not bad, but the Autobots

and the Decepticons... They look perfect. They

look perfect. I mean, it's a specific design.

It's still G1, but it's not your standard 84G.

It is and it isn't. It's... It looks like a modern

deco of it. Yeah, yeah. Bumblebee looks like

he could be off the Volkswagen assembly line

yesterday. Or another brand car. Yeah, yep. I

was really enjoying the appearances and the designs

and Biff, you could clearly tell, and George

McFly. Yeah. Oh, Biff. What a butt head. Yeah.

And Starscream is still his taskmaster. And you

see Biff, instead of him ruling everyone like

he thinks, he's like, Lord Starscream, sir, I

didn't know we were scheduled for an inspection.

Yeah. Yeah. Biff is a lackey. It's like doon,

doon, doon on his head. Yeah. Yeah. Biff is a

total lackey. But I found it funny though that

Marty flings a trash can lid at Starscream. He's

like, who dares? Who dares assent Starscream?

All's I can think of is, and I know this is not

what they're going for here, but all's I can

think of is Mikey and Turtles 3 with the burnt

pizza. Frisbee also good. Zing. And then I love

the fact that he gets on this skateboard. This

is just what I needed. And then the DeLorean

comes out of nowhere. Yup. Yup. Comes out of

nowhere. Okay, so overall, how do you feel about

Gigawatt? I really like them. I love the design.

And I like the fact that he's reminiscent of

Doc Brown, because he even goes, great Scott.

Yeah. So I like him. I like him as a character.

I like him in the comic. I like the fact that

there is a transforming DeLorean out there. I

think that's cool. However, skills is something

I could have done without. It was, but I didn't

hate him. I do really like the DeLorean transformer

though. Yeah, no, absolutely. But yeah, skills.

I mean, at least he's not a hoverboard, thank

God. But yeah, still. Yeah. So we get the reveal

of Gigawatt, and that's how the first issue ends,

I believe, and her first or second out and on.

So, yeah, so the Whole thing with meeting up

with skills and gigawatt and Starscream doing

his thing and like Starscream Jesus Oh Starscream

he just Doesn't matter who writes him as long

if it's 80 if his classic Starscream he's going

to be That same personality, which is great.

At least they're not, you know, drastically changing

it. And yeah, we get to the alternate timeline

and the Decepticon internment camp and, like

I said before, Rodanus Prime. I love it. Absolutely

love it. What do you think of the art overall?

I really enjoyed it, despite the human appearances.

I loved the robots. I loved the colors. I loved

how they captured everything. It almost reminded

me of that... What was that group's video game

that they had? High Moon Studios? No, they did

the Back to the Future game years ago. Telltale?

Yeah, it almost reminds me of that in a sense.

Yeah. So it was already kind of in my memory

there. And so when I saw the Transformers or

I saw them, it kind of melded really well. But

it's still an original take all the way around,

but I really did enjoy the art. Yeah. From the

backgrounds to the character designs. It's the

only again the only like you've said the only

problem I really have it like George and Lorraine

look fine Biff looks fine. It's just Marty and

Doc There are certain angles that they show Doc

and I'm just like that just doesn't look like

Doc Like the part where he's talking to rumble

your damage keep back human It just doesn't look

like the dog Einstein looks more like he actually

is supposed to look like but Doc just doesn't

I don't know, and I get it. They probably obviously

couldn't get the likeness rights for Christopher

Lloyd. I don't know why. What else is he doing

these days besides being retired or whatever?

Mandalorian Season 3, I heard. What about Mandalorian

Season 3? I heard he's acting in it. Oh, really?

Yeah. That's interesting. As who, I have no clue.

Yeah, I don't think the trailer showed that.

No, but I read something about it earlier today.

Interesting. Mm -hmm. That's gonna be cool, actually.

Yeah. Well, at least he isn't, uh, you know,

hurtling towards the sun, so as I'm scrolling

through the story here, folks, we've got Rumble

doing his pilo driver thing. We get up to a point

where Megatron says, Reconstruction in progress.

Rumble, is that you? Aren't you a sight for sore

optics? And Reconstruction basically has Optimus

and everybody else hound and... Who is that?

Is that not Skids? Oh, Smokescreen. Basically,

it's all of their body parts. And the fact that

there end up being two rumbles and Megatrons

like, oh boy, I need to get rid of one of these

guys. Yeah. Those time paradoxes guys you gotta

you gotta be aware of those. Oh Man No, I did

not know this because I am actually I've got

the the TF wiki pulled up as well even though

I'm not looking at it, but Jigawatt is not the

only he's not the first unlicensed DeLorean Transformer

that honor goes to someone called swindler He

was part of the Marvel Comics continuity he was

in the Japanese generation one cartoon continuity

and he was also in Dream Waves and IDW's Comic

continuity he was in the war for Cybertron trilogy

marketing material, but obviously he wasn't anywhere

near war for Cybertron Interesting yep So other

than having the humans serve the robots, what

is Megatron's master plan here? Because he just

seems to like blowing up people. I mean, I know

it's Megatron and that's, you know, what bad

guys do, but like, at the end of the day, he's

not doing much. Time travel, wipe out Autobots.

That's, yeah, that's true. Um, let's see what

else. Yeah, and I do like, so I'm up to the point

where we get to Hill Valley, let's see. The work

camp in 2015 and you've got George and Lorraine,

you know, working for the Constructacons and

I find this absolutely hilarious. You have the

construction vehicles having the humans build

something for them. That is just absolutely hilarious

to me So yeah, what what else are you thinking

on this I Think it's it's kind of interesting

that they have Rodimus in this and kind of Explaining

everything away. Mm -hmm Megatron wearing the

the King's robe Yes, yeah Starscream Cape, that's

right. Yep Man Yeah, it's it's just so fun And

that's a good thing I mean the crossovers are

meant to be fun and they're meant to you know

I mean like we said we've got some nitpicks here,

but in general I Did very much enjoy this as

we get to issue three we open with the construct

icons And And yeah, their personalities are all

G1 Constructicons, especially Hook. I hear Neil

Ross coming out of that mouth anytime, and Biff

actually runs away from them. Oh man, poor Biff.

Then you get Doc, and he's cooking Decepticons.

Yep, yep. You get George and Lorraine in on it.

Now everybody's out to save the timeline because

that's what you gotta do. Hello, George and Lorraine.

Starscream, coming here. That's so good. The

colors in this are great. Yeah, I've pretty much

enjoyed like a lot of the the designs, the colors,

like when Biff shows up, he's Decepticon purple.

Yeah, so Marty and the Back to the Future Autobot

team are basically trying to stop the Decepticons

from doing what they're doing. And Megatron thinks

he can stop them, even though he can't. And yeah,

it's just fun. It's just pure unadulterated fun.

I like the parts later where Biff gets his own

exosuit. Yeah, Biff getting the exosuit. I'm

just like, oh, Biff. Bumblebee having an eye

patch. I saw a panel earlier where he was missing

his right side door. I was like, wait a minute,

when did that fall off? But yeah, I mean with

everything that they've gone through in this

in this comic it's like holy crap and Rodimus

has holes in him and Cracks all over. You know,

I Love that Of course for me I only hear Tim

Curry with this one but fleshling scum He has

got to stop doing that and you know Rodimus replies

in the next panel, that can be arranged. All

I can hear of is Tim Curry and the three musketeers

is Cardinal Richelieu anytime I see that line.

I like the Rodimus punch. That's hilarious. That's

so funny. In the third issue, Marty sends Biff

to the waste, the trash compactor. Yep. In the

exosuit. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because, you know,

you got to crush it. It's just like when he goes

in the manure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love

all the little callbacks. Yeah. It's an old manure

joke. And yeah, the third issue ends with the

clock tower coming to life. And I'm just like,

whoa. Rodimus's face, like, like just as it's

happening in bumblebees, like their mouths are

hanging open like, oh, crud. Yeah, yeah Rodimus

is like And I know this is not his line, but

spike isn't here to say it but oh shit, what

are we gonna do now? And Okay, I don't mind the

arc being a robot Like I don't mind that at all.

I think that's cool. I don't mind gigawatt, gigawatt,

whatever you want to call them. I don't mind

him being a robot, you know, coming out of a

DeLorean. But this watch tower transfer, thank

God they never tried to make this into a toy.

First of all, who would buy this? Somebody that

likes giant robots. I guess, but... I'm not a

fan of giant robots, so I have no care. Oh. I

mean, Megatron did get larger and larger and

larger as he progressed throughout Beast Wars,

so. True. So I mean, you know, you kind of do

have a thing for big bots and you cannot lie.

No, I don't like the combiners or the city robots

and those type. I mean, normally I do. Normally

I'm cool with it, but this just makes no damn

sense. I'm sorry to the artist, but the design

is kind of ugly. Like, I don't know. So yeah,

we end issue three with Doc Brown saying, looks

to me like we need to beat the clock once and

for all. My eyes rolled so hard just now it was

audible across the room. I mean, I get it. That's

Doc Brown's sense of humor and that's fine. I

think the only thing that I absolutely love about

the fact that there is a clock tower transformer

is the final cover for issue four with this,

like, time scepter in the center and you have

the Autobots and the humans and then the clock

tower up at the top there. With gigawatts face

in the center of the timepiece. I thought I think

that's really really cool So yeah chapter four

issue four is essentially just a race against

time Unintended and I love that doc fixes the

the flex capacitor. Yep Absolutely The overall

message of this comic folks is basically what

Rodimus says on this one of the panels on this

first page, huh? This is why you'll never win,

Decepticon, Autobots, and humans working side

-by -side. Freedom for all! No destruction for

all! Rodimus is down! But we're picking up speed!

There's no time, Marty! You have to leave us

behind! When this baby hits 88 miles per hour,

you're gonna see some serious shit. He's like

we did it doc and then in like it's funny as

license plate goes and it's his gigs. Yep. I

Thought that was a nice touch And then he shows

up and then he's like all smashed up. Yep Because

he he whacks into the other DeLorean yeah, and

smashes it and Rumble's like, wait, what? Yeah,

Rumble doesn't know what the hell's going on.

Yeah. And neither does Biff. Well, and Biff comes

to the rescue. That's true. Biff does. And...

He says, be a pathetic Earthlet. It's Earthling,

you idiot. So they have to chase rumble down

the little little hole here and then rumble comes

up against optimus prime jazz bumblebee and Ron

Yeah And is that yeah ratchet on the left on

the right hand side by the movie No, I couldn't

tell because I wasn't zoomed in far enough and

I was like wait a minute Who the hell is that

white transformer? And then they dump an energon

truck of on top of them, you know Which I'm surprised

that they did that because No, the okay. No at

first. I thought that was long haul. I thought

that was the construct a con at first and But

yeah rumble gets energon dumpage on him and and

Optimus Prime has another one of his kneeling

poses. Where is Marty McFly? Then I think it's

funny they put the regular DeLorean back together.

With the help of Gigawatt. Yep. Yep. Is it weird

or... I don't know. And they created a time travel

paradox. Yep. Yep. They did. You see both Optimus

and Rodimus. Yeah, that's what I was just going

to say. Is it weird? I know that doesn't happen

often because one leader usually has to die so

the other one can take his place kind of thing.

The hate plague notwithstanding considering that

Optimus had to defeat Rodimus. I like seeing

them stand side by side. It still looks weird

to me. Well, they didn't headmasters. Yep before

prime sacrificed himself again. Yep Yep, yep,

yep And yeah, everything works out and Marty

or does it Well, we're led to believe that it

does because until the very last panel. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So what I'm getting

to here is that we think that, you know, traditionally

for Back to the Future, the end of the film,

Marty gets the four by four doc and the Autobots

go back to the future or do something or whatever.

And then Marty goes to drive off and we see the

end question mark because his 4x4 truck has a

Decepticon logo on it. Yep. I think that might

be the coolest Decepticon logo that I've seen

though. Because it's 3D. Yep. I just want to

see his truck transform now. I don't think we're

gonna get that chance. I know. It just sucks.

I only want it because then I could retool it

as my old truck. Uh -huh, yep. Yeah, so Transformers

Back to the Future, I absolutely dug it. I thought

it was great. I thought it was fun. You take

an interesting concept like the Transformers

and Back to the Future and you combine them and...

Turns out to be maybe a not so believable story,

but I guess it could be but I mean it's all time

travel. It's all you know But it was fun. Yeah,

exactly. That's that's the thing. It was fun

and it was interesting And it led to places that

you didn't think it was gonna go Because I can't

count on on any digits How many times Biff switched

sides? First he was trying to play it up for

Starscream and the Decepticons, then he was trying

to play it up for the Autobots, and oh man, Biff.

Oh boy. All right, what are we going to rate

this zero to five? I'll give it a four and a

half. Overall. Yeah, overall, I'm right there

at a four out of five overall for me. I liked

it. I enjoyed it. I thought the story was great.

I thought the art was great. It's just a couple

of things stick out that I have to take one point

off for, and they're just little piddly things,

but overall, it's not a bad comic at all. No.

Alright folks that's gonna do it for us here

inside the pull bag but before we go as always

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And we are trapped, hurtling through space in

a ship shaped like Rodimus' head. The ship, for

reasons we haven't been able to determine, contains

the entire run of the IDW Transformers Phase

2 comic. Which chronicle the events following

the end of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons.

So we figure we may as well read them all in

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Yes! Alright folks, that's gonna do it for the

pull bag and this episode of All Things Transformers.

Coming up folks, Steve and I are planning some

big stuff. We actually, I think I mentioned this

last time we did an HDTF episode. Brian Carlson,

I believe his name is, he reached out to me on

Facebook and asked me about our Summer of Baham

where we cover all the Bay movies and he asked

me if this was still happening. I said, yep!

It's still happening. It's not gonna be in the

summer anymore, but it's still happening. So

my next thought was ooh the winter of Bayhem

Well, you could say it's a cold winter in uh

-huh It's a cold winter on Cybertron and earth

on base blozions. Yeah, exactly So we've got

that I'm sure we will catch up with the news

and things like that as well and There's a bunch

of other things we're gonna be planning out for

the future of All Things Transformers. As for

the pull bag, we have got a bunch of stuff coming

up. A lot of it's pre -recorded, some of it isn't

pre -recorded yet, but I've got our Beast Wars

finale next episode. Hahi Prime is gonna join

me for Livio Remindelli's The Kill Lock. I believe

if we can get it scheduled, JT from Saskatoon

is going to join me for Transformers vs. Terminator,

enemy of my enemy. This was the crossover right

before the Back to the Future crossover that

RDW did. And then after that, a bunch of Origins

episodes, and then 494 and 495 is me and my buddy

Jesse W. Jackson from set listing Bruce talking

about Tom Zoller's long distance and warning

label. As the pull bag is just over 10 episodes

away from 500 episodes, and as of this recording,

All Things Transformers is 80 episodes away from

500. Yay! Yes. Oh boy. Where are the people going

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your greatest gift to comics and we will be transforming

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Ha ha ha ha ha. Yes. I wish to speak to my lawyer.