End of the Road! (UK)

« The Transformers (UK) #289 »
Even humans are bigger than the Stunticons!
"End of the Road!
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Cover date	29th September 1990
Writer	Simon Furman
Art	Staz
Letters	Gary Gilbert
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity/Earthforce

The Autobots struggle to rescue Irwin Spoon—but is this what the Decepticons want?

Synopsis

"With my last breath, I curse Zoidberg Jazz!"

Motormaster speeds along a motorway, crushing all in his path, with Irwin Spoon trapped in his cab. Prowl comes alongside the Stunticon but Motormaster knocks the Autobot off the road. Behind him, Jazz, Bumblebee, Sunstreaker, Tracks, and Wheeljack speed along in pursuit. Wheeljack breaks off to help Prowl, but the others prepare to advance on Motormaster. However, waiting at a junction are Dead End, Drag Strip, and Breakdown who speed off to help their leader.

Inside the cab, Irwin asks why he has been captured and Motormaster explains that the Decepticons don't want the humans to know the truth about the Autobot-Decepticon conflict, otherwise their armed forces might side with the Autobots. Irwin tries promising not to write his story, but the offer falls on deaf ears. Meanwhile, Bombshell, in his beetle mode, is hiding in the cab.

Jazz transforms and shoots out Motormaster's rear tires, causing the Stunticon to veer all over the road. In revenge, Breakdown smashes into the Autobot. Both Autobot and Stunticon are damaged. Motormaster jettisons his trailer, leaving it turning to block the road. Bumblebee and Tracks get past it but Sunstreaker is hit in the bonnet.

Bumblebee and Tracks find themselves being pursued by Dead End and Drag Strip as they close in on Motormaster. The Stunticons prepare to ram the Autobots, but the latter quickly turn aside and it is Motormaster who is hit by his fellow Stunticons. Motormaster crashes. Bumblebee rips open his door and rescues Irwin who is concussed, but otherwise okay. They take him home.

Later, Bombshell reports at the Decepticon base to Starscream that the mission was a success and Irwin has been implanted with a cerebro-shell.

At home, Irwin sits down to type his story. He writes of how he was held prisoner by the evil Autobots, "no doubt to blackmail the government".

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"[Narrating] My name's Irwin Spoon. Right now I want out! Out of this cab, out of this war and - most importantly...out of journalism!"

—Irwin

"Hey, I'm all for freedom of the press, but this is one story that won't see print - know what I mean?"

—Motormaster

"[Narrating] Mother was right...I should've gone for a nice, quiet, safe profession...like lion-taming!"

—Irwin

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

• Motormaster's trailer detaches from his cab mode without any seeming pain, despite being his entire robot mode, less his feet.
• Irwin's clothes have changed from the pullover and leather jacket he wore last issue to the jacket, tie and checked shirt he wore during "Inside Story!". However he's still wearing his second outfit on the cover.

Continuity errors

• TBD

Continuity notes

• Irwin is now given a surname—"Spoon".
• This is a rare story in which the Transformers are in their disguise modes for almost all the time. Only Jazz, Bumblebee, Tracks, Starscream and Bombshell appear in their robot modes, the latter four all on the final page.
• Instead of naming the next story, the box at the end of this story states THE WAR GOES ON...

Real-life references

• TBD

Other trivia

• This was the very last original strip in the UK series. (Simon Furman said in 2021 that this didn't really have an impact on him as he was now working on the American comic^[1]) From issue #290 the comic combined new US material with reprints of past colour UK stories.
  • The text story "The Magnificent Six!" in the Transformers Annual 1991 is also set in the Earthforce timeline, but it is not clear where exactly. The annual had already gone on sale by the time issue #289 appeared.
  • There would be one final original UK story, a text story entitled "Another Time & Place" in the Transformers Annual 1992. It eschews the Earthforce stories completely and is set after the end of the US comic.
• The phrase "End of the Road" has often been used to note the end of material by Furman. As well as being the title of this story, it is also the title of the last issue of the US comic and also appears prominently on the cover of the last issue of the US Generation 2 comic; he also used it as the name for the last issue of his Dragon's Claws.
• One of the letters in #289's Dread Tidings refers to a contemporary broadcast of Super-God Masterforce in Malaysia, likely one of the earliest times a western Transformers publication (indirectly) confirmed the existence of any of the Generation 1 anime series, though Dreadwind confessed he'd never heard of Metalhawk.^[2]
• In the same column, Marvel Dreadwind says that doing five page stories is a lot harder than eleven page ones.
• Motormaster is all for freedom of the press.

Back-up material

• Additional Transformers story: "Deadly Obsession"
• Other strips: G.I. Joe the Action Force - "Fair Trade" and Combat Colin
• AtoZ: Wheelie and Wheeljack

Cover

• Issue #289 cover: Irwin Spoon and the Stunticons experience some strange perspective, by Pete Knifton.

• 

  Issue #289

Reprints

• Transformers: Perchance to Dream: Menasor smacks down Superion, detail from the cover of issue #259, by Andrew Wildman.
• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 20: End of the Road: Bludgeon (art reused from Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye profiles) above an interior scene of Grimlock punching through Fangry (from US issue #80), by Andrew Wildman.

• 

  Perchance to Dream
  (Titan Books, 2006)

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 20: End of the Road
  (Hachette Partworks, 2018)

References