What even more ridiculous is that even 40 is enough time to make them a viable species (heck, going on Carousel at 30 worked just fine), so there’s no point to the hubbub in that regard.

Lobdell is no 1980s Claremont, but he’s no Austen, either. It kept the book alive during a horrible decade.

I agree that Claremont post Dallas is lackluster, but my first contact with the X-books (outside Wolverine’s Canadian appearance in McFarlane adjectiveless Spidey) was Claremont/Lee’s three issues of adjectiveless X-Men and it really drew me in as a sprawling, beautiful world of great, strong characters. (Yes, I read the books out of order.)

I think X-Men Forever is certainly very addicting, even if I’m still waiting for it to become either good or bad. (There’s been some great moments but some missing characters and some really weird decisions—mutants die young? And it was a secret? And now every Tom, Dick and tertiary character talks about it all the time?)

Overall, Claremont is one of my heroes. Just cross out 90% of the captions and you have masterful, compressed comics!

In the original cartoon mini-series, Soundwave basically transformed into something that looked suspiciously like a Cybertronian lamp-post.

>>> Ergo, I guess they just created their own names once they were on Earth to communicate with the populace (though that’s never formally explained). Though why they use they’re Earth name in stories that take place before they get to Earth is a good question…

It’s usually referred to as a translation convention – the premise that giant alien talking robots are using their own language, names, and terminology (most likely in some sort of binary language or digital computer-speak humans could never understand), and that they’re only presented as speaking English so that the READER (ie, us) have a chance to actually understand what’s going on.

Thus, since they’re already translating everything the various robots are saying to each other on Cybertron into English (millions of years before the English language actually existed, mind you), they just go ahead and translate their names as well, into the versions that the readers would recognize.

As for Lobdell on the X-men, according to John Byrne, Portacio and Lee didn’t follow their own plots. Sure it Claremont left, but that story gave us Omega Red and Bishop. Well, Omega Red was still really cool. Bishop’s story was ‘solved’ in the whole Onslaught thing leading the traitor to be Xavier himself… the X-man who was supposed to kill Xavier was himself?

Well, whatever.

“Jazz definitely says as much in the “Man of Iron” story from #9 of the Marvel UK comic (reprinted in the US comic around #33), from 1985.”

That was probably what I was thinking of and had DW on my mind. I never got that story, even on re-reads, since it seemed to be part of the UK continuity that I wasn’t getting at the time.

BTW, if anyone is familiar with that story or the UK storyline: Did Trailbreaker actually bite it, or was he simply injured (despite the fact that he was blown to bits if I remember it correctly.

“Simon Furman managed to get a great story arc out of the misnaming of the Dinobot Swoop in various territories. Swoop was called Divebomb in some places, and we UK readers got a cracking story to explain it”

Which explains why Grimlock calls Swoop “Divebomb” in War Within vol. 2, if memory serves. I thought that maybe it was foreshadowing something else, like the predacons working with the dinobots or something. That makes far more sense.

I’ve heard that rumour too, but I have to give it some skepticism. Claremont and Jim Lee teamed up a year or so later on a WildC.A.T.S run (those were Lee’s last issues as regular artist). I have a hard time believing either one would WANT to work together if there was any bad blood from the X-Men days.

To be fair, that isn’t entirely Lobdell’s fault. He came in during the horrible Image Era/90′s speculator boom where

a) half assed writers like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld were giving creative input

and more importantly

b) they had those stupid “mega crossover” events every 2-3 months which pretty much forced writers into a corner as far as plotting and characterizations were concerned.

Oh, as for an urban legend, here’s one that sorta ties in with Lobdell: Is it true Lobdell was a stand up comedian? Is it true Larry Hama was in an episode of MASH? Did George Perez really direct apartment wrestling videos?

Though why they use they’re Earth name in stories that take place before they get to Earth is a good question
Universal Translation. They’re calling each other by Cybrtronian names but we, as readers, see names we’re more familiar with. Or something.

Simon Furman managed to get a great story arc out of the misnaming of the Dinobot Swoop in various territories. Swoop was called Divebomb in some places, and we UK readers got a cracking story to explain it.

Since the 70s, the only thing Claremont has done well was his run on Fantastic Four post Heroes Return.