COMICS – Transformers: City of Fear

Christian Sellers — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:45:22 +0000

In 1988, Transformers were at the peak of their popularity. With the success of their big screen spin-off (which marked the swan song of screen legend Orson Welles) less than two years earlier, the sales of comics were at an all-time high and the cartoon was soon set to make a comeback with the highly anticipated sequel The Return of Optimus Prime. Proving just how influential the horror genre had become during the 1980s, even children’s comics would turn to terror and gore, as Transformers would do with City of Fear.

Seemingly inspired by the likes of Lucio Fulci and George A. Romero, the story saw Autobots Ultra Magnus (who first rose to power in Transformers: The Movie) and the Sparkabots wandering into the derelict Cyberton city of Kalis, which has been abandoned and left to rot. After being ambushed by Decepticons, Ultra Magnus takes one of them hostage and attempt to extract information. But Flywheels informs them that the dead have risen and that they are not safe. Moments later, they are instead overrun by zombified robots who have been re-animated, despite many of them having missing limbs and eyes gouged out.

The cultural impact of the zombie revival was first evident in 1983 when Michael Jackson’s promo video Thriller saw him team up with cult filmmaker John Landis to create a twelve-minute horror movie, in which the singer was transformed into both a werewolf and a zombie. In 1985, the genre enjoyed further success with the releases of The Return of the Living Dead, Re-animator and Day of the Dead. City of Fear would take it cue from both American and Italian zombie films, with the living dead revealing themselves as decaying and unstoppable.

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COMICS – Transformers: City of Fear