Before Ohio lost electricity during its Half-Hour Fake Hurricane, I was already planning on driving home for July Fourth to see the Fams ™, including my brother’s new daughter who is six months old. And so without power, we just left early, because, dude, why the hell not. They probably have power in Indiana, right?
I returned home this evening to power! Huzzah! But here is one last guest strip anyway, because, dude, this week sucked. I have to be in San Diego starting this Tuesday for Worst/Best Week Ever! And now I am behind for preparing for that as well! Woof.
Today’s guest strip is written by T Campbell and Phil Kahn and illustrated by John Waltrip. These folks do so much stuff it may be easier to list which comics they have not worked on, but at the center of the T/Phil/John Venn Diagram is Guilded Age, a fantasy webcomic about ages and the guilding thereof.
Ethan Hunt.
Ethan Hawke? =B
Oh man. Megatron’s face in panel 5.
The original G1 comic needs that sudden sense of disbelief of Megatron realizing that his enemy was actually going to let himself DIE OVER LETTING NPCS DIE IN A VIDEO GAME.
Best guest strip ever. Almost spot on art from the comic. Even I never understood Optimus Prime’s decision here.
Simple really. Having had his favourite minibot Brawn defect and almost die then being tracked by Predaking and having to use Roller to save himself simply to justify the toy, Prime decides to retire to a world where jumping in and out of pipes is the biggest problem he’ll face. Knowing his mind will be saved on entire kilobytes of floppy disc, he majes the noble sacrifice and puts on a pair of dungarees.
“I must do this. Not because of the outcome of this video game. But because Hasbro has decided to cease production on my action figure.”
Damn if hearing that in Peter Cullen’s voice in my head isn’t just hilarious.
Could be worse, Ethan. Your name could be Joe.
(An internet to whoever gets it).
As in Joe Quesada? Or Joe Piscopo? Or Joe Shimamura? Or G.I Joe? Or Angry Joe? Throw me a bone here, Doc.
A Joe who similarly did something terrible to someone Ethan really looks up to.
Correct. Have an internet, but don’t leave it around where kids can find it, because there’s a lot of adult material in it.
The comment was supposed to be a reply to Andrusi. Oops.
Chill.
(I’m not telling you to chill. I’m saying the Joe in question is Joe Chill.)
(He’s the guy who killed Batman’s parents.)
Yes, but then Ethan would have gone through periods where he wasn’t ashamed of the name.
Didn’t Joe Chill get removed from canon for a time before getting retconned back into being the killer?
Yeah, for a while it was just some unknown guy, the idea being that this way Batman just sees him as some faceless criminal, and views every criminal he beats up as a substitute. This was back when writers were especially fond of portraying Batman as a total nut.
Then they brought him back into continuity (in Infinite Crisis) to lighten the tone a bit. The idea now, I think, is that Batman has had his closure, and for him being Batman is now about seeking justice rather than vengeance, and he does what he does to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else.
At least, that was the state of things last I heard. Haven’t been keeping up with the reboot as much as I should, so maybe it has been changed again.
Oh, man, I love Megatron’s reaction to this. When MEGATRON, of all bots, is giving you, his archenemy, a WTF like that…
Oh, and belated congrats on unclehood!
I think Megatron was realizing what would happen if Optimus blew up right there. Just think, the only thing that would make it worse for him is if Optimus decided to give him a bear hug just before blowing up.
“Wow, I thought you were just a schmuck, but you’re actually completely insane.”
Yeah, it’s really no surprise that Prime’s death under these conditions drove Megatron yampy.
I just read the synopsis for that issue.
Seriously?
Yes, it happened. To quote Linkara, “Comic books are weird”
It’s on my list of Transformers comics to do down the line. Car Warsh of Doom comes first, though.
Car Wash of Doom is a tongue-in-cheek masterpiece. Nobody understands it.
I feel the same way about BOT.
Agreed! It was Bob Budianski at his best/worst. But it was also an attempt at a running joke that never really panned out.
Lewis, if you are going to review Car Wash of Doom. Please also watch the G1 episode ‘Prime Target’. And how lord Chumley captures the Autobots. It gives an impression the joke that Budianski was going for.
(Love AT4W, eventhough I’m not really a comics guy).
Marvel Optimus was…um…unique at times.
Yeah I remember when my cousin showed it to me. It really was a WTF moment.
I’m a little confused. I thought the kid that was supposed to blow him up was Zach, then his name is Ethan?
I suppose I might be traumatized too, but I was never interested in the comics. It deviated too much from the cartoon.
His name is Ethan Zachary. It even says as such in panel 2!
Panel 3
It never ceases to amaze me how much of a chameleon John Waltrip can be with his art.
Indeed. When he took over for Gisele Lagacé over at “Penny & Aggie”, you could barely tell there had been a change in artist. And Gisele is a GREAT artist.
That was Jason Waltrip, John’s twin brother.
Chameleon twins? Somtimes this world is a pretty good one.
Oh, memories… and considering how Megatron ended up being unable to deal, it just adds another layer of amusement.
I bought this comic about ten years back. Wish I could remember where I put it, but yeah, it was the first Marvel TF comic I read.
And I STILL can’t believe Optimus would get himself killed over CHEATING. Though I wouldn’t remember the kid’s name for the life of me, but yeah, that’d have to be a shocker.
Oh, Optimus! You and your wacky hijinks!
Also, they had a backup copy of Optimus on a floppy disk. Seriously, you sometimes thought the G1 cartoon was crackalicious, but…
It was probably a High Density Floppy Disk.
And it’s not like a Transformers program is all that complicated.
10 FIGHT DECEPTICON
20 GOTO 10
You forgot qbout the pontification subroutines for Optimus. Also the random guilt. Seriously, Prime can guilt like a champion.
And, as seen here, you have to have a way for the program to randomly terminate every now and then.
I love how science fiction in those days has no concept of what realistic AI/alien mainframes/digital videophones/ANYTHING that didn’t then exist would require in terms of space. Makes me wonder what ours will look like in twenty years.
(And also what the hell those Star Wars mechanics were pumping into that X-Wing that let it get the kind of sustained flight those ships do…)
“Fuel.”
Refined tibanna gas powered by a hypermatter reactor.
I’ve actually started to read the G1 Marvel comics for the first time and already in the first issue I question Optimus’ decisions and train of thought. Boy, I am going to be eager as a beaver when I get to that infamous video game death issue.
… Honestly, I’m not sure why Ethan should be embarrassed about his name. It’s Optimus who’s being the idiot here. Ethan Zachary was just the accomplice. Besides, it’s a pretty short list of people who can say they killed Optimus Prime.
Also, six-month-old babies! D’aww.
Let’s see. There’s G1 Megatron(a couple of times in fact), Vector Sigma(if you follow the Headmaster anime), Unicron(in the comics), The Swarm(G2), Beast Wars Megatron. And that’s just G1 Optimus.
Arguably Hot Rod if doing it accidentally through sheer stupidity counts.
Hot Rod didn’t kill Optimus Prime. He just made it possible for Megatron to kill Optimus Prime.
True, but considering just how many characters are in the franchise, I figure it’s still not that long comparatively.
Considering how most characters are only killed by one other character/thing, G1 Optimus must be a fucking cat! And not as awesomely badass powerful as we’ve all always thought despite all that proof to the contrary.
I donno maybe hes in trama over a character with his name giving Optimus an Assisted suicide.
It’s not hard to see where the shame came from.
Ethan Zachary KILLED Optimus Prime.
Oh my god. After all that reading I finally caught up!……
….
….
I’m just gonna leave this here for whoever doesn’t get what the comic’s about. (Not that many, apparently.)
http://www.faans.com/best-to-worst-6-deaths-of-optimus-prime/
Heh, I should have known from the start that T did this. In that article he even says something to the effect of “(so where’s the Shortpacked! comic about this one, David Willis?)”
What, no mention of Optimus Primal dieing while stopping the Vox from destroying the prehistoric earth and getting back-stabbed by Megatron? For shame.
WORST deaths, dude.
It says Best to Worst deaths.
if Ethan had a clue he’d have secretly used wireless controllers that would blow up Megs either way
“Have no fear Ethan Zachary. Megatron will be so unable to cope with my lame-ass death, that he’ll go insane and destroy himself before he can exploit my absence. Both my Autobots and the Decepticons will then have to choose new leaders. Shockwave might be a problem, but since his toy is no longer being made, I’m sure he’ll soon follow Megatron and my own lead and suffer a lame death of his own. And who will that leave to lead them? Starscream? HA! They’d be better off being lead by a cassettebot. As for my people, as long as they’re smart enough not to choose a Dinobot with an intermittent speech impediment, anger management issues and an affinity for crowns, they should be fine.”
and then they voted for rodiums….
When Optimus got a chance to choose his successor, he chose Grimlock!
Yes, and the seriousness of Optimus belief in handing over of the mantle to Grimlock almost made you think it would not turn into the unmitigated disaster that it did. Damn, I think I had blocked most of that out of my mind in defense of my sanity, I feel like a scab has been ripped from my brain. Good times.
Oh, and this comic also forgot to mention that Megatron cheated first and Prime KNEW he cheated first, it was more about the death of the video game NPCs that Prime took out.
I seriously can’t believe I can remember this because I haven’t read those comics in years.
It’s understood that the bad guys will cheat at every opportunity. But the good guys are not allowed to do anything remotely like cheating, ever.
“Now you see that Evil will always triumph, because Good is Dumb.”
I was just talking about this issue!
I love a lot of the wackier Marvel US issues. Car Wash of Doom, Showdown, the ones with the Meccanibals…but this one, nope, can’t do it. Not even with the (fairly good) Mosaic that explored why Optimus might have been suicidal. I will say that it paved the way for stories I like a lot more, like the ones with the Mechanic and the ones where Goldbug and Blaster are on the run.
The Mechanic always cracked me up.
I’m just glad that someone outside of Vermont knows who Ethan Allen is.
I’m in PA and we have Ethan Allen stores. That’s probably what is being referenced here.
I commiserate your lost power, being from just north of Dayton (Troy, actually). Sadly, my own trip to Indiana was canceled with a blown tire halfway there, having us limp back home and STILL not having power.
Glad SOMEONE had a good time of it. *laugh*
Let me just say the Guest Artist is amazing I mean if Willis didn’t say it was a Guest Strip I’d never have been able to tell. I can’t say anything for the Transformers comic part as I’ve never read it But the rest looks just like David’s art style it’s amazing.
Yeah, but fuck Ethan Allen.
Seriously.
No, not the furniture store. The fucking Revolutionary War guy. Seriously. Total jerk.
I think if any rational person were in Ethan Zachary’s shoes, they would have hit Megatron’s button ANYWAY.
“You…didn’t live up to Autobot ideals!”
“Um…not an Autobot, dude. Oh, and the guy who’s trying to destroy both our worlds is dead, so…yeah, you’re welcome.”
And then Soundwave would ahve killed him.
And he would have died a hero.
Oh, I never said there wouldn’t be consequences for it.
Which reminds me of a completely tangential note.
For all the shit people give the live action Transformers movies, aren’t they pretty much the only time the Decepticons are competent enough to pull off the minor task of actually killing some puny humans?
What about Ethan Rom from Lost?
So wait, is Ethan actually (in a meta sense) named after Ethan Zachary?
You know, you’d hate to see Optimus play the likes of GTA. “What have I done?!”
I’m really wanting to home and run amuck a while in Saints Row 3 in my Optimus Prime colored semi now.
Hey are you planning on seeing any evening panels this year? You know, during the period nobody can visit your booth, except other people who also have booths…
Yeah, you might need somebody to help close up your booth, on your behalf, but if you start prepping in the last 15 minutes, it might not be so bad.
Not that I really know what’s happening this year, since I’m not going. Still, a quick look see, makes me think that the Aquabats might be one of the evening affairs…
Then again, you might not be able to get in, unless you’re already in the room 2 panels prior.
Speaking of things to consider, has the notion of using Amtrack ever crossed your mind? I mean, most of them have WiFi, I think & also have sleeper cars. Yeah, they aren’t the most expedient way to travel, but it’s still cheaper than flying.
Since your work can be done on the road, via WiFi, I figure it’s a notion you might want to at least ponder. Plus, it might save you enough that you can justify going to the SDCC Hasbro panel, as well as the NYCC one.
Unless it’s BotCon, I don’t care much for panels. Certainly not at SDCC, where merely existing is a chore, to say nothing of waiting in line for two hours just to get into a room.
And if my choice is between evening panels or having dinner with friends and actually getting some sleep, then I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that.
Always depends on what you’re trying to see, there are a good deal of night presentations that take 20 minutes to get into. The typical direct to video showings typically are done in one of SDCC, larger presentation areas (not Hall H, but the one that’s nearly as big) & those usually play 2x.
I get not enjoying a long line, but I’ve also gotten pretty good at determining if a line is worth waiting in. Sometimes a line at SDCC might seem long, but it’s really shorter than you think.
Oh, and while you’re at SDCC, consider eating at Joe’s crab shack. It’s in the small mall like place, that’s directly across from the trolley stop at Hazzard. It’s on the 3rd level.
The same mall also has a hilarious edutainment for children’s items. Some of which are exceeding creepy.
Isn’t Joe’s Crab Shack a national chain? We have them here in the midwest. I mean, I’m all for eating crab, but it kinda feels like suggesting Applebee’s.
I didn’t know Joe’s was quite that widespread. I just know I don’t have one anywhere near me & they can cook your crab meats in various flavored water/sauces (not sure exactly which is done). I mean just because it a chain doesn’t make them horrible.
I’ve gone to places that serve crab that, the food wasn’t nearly as good. So, I don’t think it’s a horrible suggestion.
It’s certainly not a horrible suggestion. It’s probably just not the best choices to dine in a seafood chain when you’re on the coast, within walking distance of any number of local places.
That said, living in Indiana, Joe’s is just about my first choice for seafood. Red Lobster can suck it.
Ironically, there’s an Applebee’s in the same mall.
*sigh* I wish i could get resurrected enough times to properly enjoy *my* death fetish.
DUH. Optimus had to blow up his own head so he could become a Headmaster and ruin the G1 Transformers forever!
But didn’t Optimus become a Powermaster?
(Those guys were hooked up to the mid section, not the head.)
Man… Optimus is an inverted Narcissist. He suffers from the rescuer dynamic in co-dependency.
“My name is Optimus Prime, and I send this message. I cheated at a video game! The Autobot way of life is meaningless, now! BLOW ME UP!
Honestly, this comic hits on so many of Shortpacked’s sweat spots, I wonder if Willis will incorporate this as canon? (Something that is part of the story & not the thing that blasts holes in things, I tend to get their spellings confused.)
I mean, Ethan being ashamed of his name, due to a TF comic might have the potential to be turned into an ongoing gag.
You got the right usage of “canon”. The weapon is spelled with 2 Ns.
Right use of “canon,” but I really hope you meant “sweet” spots. Hitting on Shortpacked’s sweat spots sounds particularly naughty and nasty.
Circuit Smasher1!!1
How exactly is Ethan Frome supposed to make him feel better? A spineless man who gives up trying to care for his wife, who intimidates him so much that he can’t even lie to her, and tries to cheat on her with his live-in maid, then fails a suicide pact with the maid, resulting in his ending up a cripple with two bitches in his house…