Mechanical Difficulties!

	; I think that I shall never see/A weapon as deadly as a tree.
	"Mechanical Difficulties!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	January 1987
Cover date	May 1987
Writer	Bob Budiansky
Penciler	Don Perlin
Inkers	Ian Akin & Brian Garvey
Colorist	Nel Yomtov
Letterer	Janice Chiang
Editor	Don Daley
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

Blaster and Goldbug are ordered to catch the Mechanic, at any cost!

Synopsis

Aided by stolen Autobot technology, the Mechanic launches a crime wave, stealing high technology equipment and extorting huge payments from the Portland underworld. Grimlock sends Blaster and Goldbug to find the Mechanic and retrieve their stolen technology, even at the cost of human lives. Meanwhile, members of the Portland Police Department are also attempting to bring the Mechanic to justice. Believing the Mechanic's super-tools to be of Transformer origin, the police have been instructed to deal aggressively with any Transformers they encounter. In one attempt to trap the Mechanic, the police and the Autobots hinder each other's progress, and the Mechanic escapes.

The Mechanic calls a meeting of all the crime bosses of the Pacific Northwest, during which he displays modifications to their cars that equip them with heavy weaponry. The police and the Autobots, having come to an agreement to work together, invade this meeting, capturing the crime bosses and the Mechanic's henchman, Juan, but the Mechanic himself escapes once again.

Believing Grimlock to be an unfit commander, and knowing that Grimlock will see their mission to recover the Mechanic as a failure, Blaster and Goldbug decide to head out on their own.

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text only appear in flashbacks)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Humans
Goldbug (3) Blaster (4) Grimlock (9) Ratchet (10) Wheeljack (13)	Mechanic (1) Juan (2) Deadhead (5) Fuzzy (6) Altman (7) Greco (8) Stoler (11) Bigelow (12)

Quotes

"No mere pair of vehicles are a match for...The Mechanic!"

—The Mechanic really needs a better bad-guy name.

"Why you not destroy humans?!"
"Commander, it's difficult enough to get the trust of the humans without destroying them."

—Grimlock and Blaster

"Times like this make me wish I agreed with Grimlock about humans! But I don't!"
"I'm not inclined to stomp them either, Blaster!"

—Blaster and Goldbug patiently endure the assault of the Portland PD

"My orders are to destroy robots like you."
"And my orders are to destroy humans like you. Some orders are not meant to be followed."

—Detective Greco and Blaster are more alike than different

"...Like I said before, some orders are not meant to be followed... and for that matter, neither are some leaders. Which way to the Ark, Goldbug?"
"Behind us, to the east."
"Let's go west."

—Blaster and Goldbug strike out on their own

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

On page 2, Ratchet's cryogenic sprayer's beam is colored like a laser, though it's drawn like a frost beam.
In this issue, Goldbug is drawn consistently as Bumblebee's body with Goldbug's head and colored in Bumblebee's color scheme (although he has the correct character model on the cover).
Page 12, panel 5: Blaster's whole visor is colored yellow, rather than just the eyes.

Continuity errors

Seriously, what is going on?

After displaying normal eloquence in two of his three appearances so far, Grimlock speaks in the manner of his cartoon counterpart in this issue ("Why you not destroy humans?"), and will do so for the rest of the book's run. Until his demise in "Dark Star", he also displays a much more "buffoonish" and self-centered personality as well. In Marvel UK's 1989 booklet "Transformers: The Facts", the writer claims that Grimlock's varying speech pattern is a deliberate ruse on his part, because he considers intellectuals weak, though this is never specifically stated in any story.
The Mechanic's crippling fear of police officers, so important in his previous appearance, seems to have completely disappeared here.
Page 5: Goldbug asks, "About what, Commander Grimlock?" From context, it's clear Grimlock just asked him something like, "Me want your opinion, Goldbug", but no such dialog balloon exists. This is corrected in the UK edition, with an extra dialog balloon saying "what do you think?"
Page 7: Juan is installing the radar dish inside the building. Later, it's on the roof.
Blaster's plan is kind of ridiculous. Detective Greco carries Blaster (in altmode) into the hangar full of gangsters, singing scat and dancing to music. He pulls out his badge and turns off the music, which is the signal for the police outside to rush in. It's unclear what any of that accomplished. And while scrambling the modified cars makes them unusable for the gangsters, the cars now just fire randomly and uncontrollably, posing a lethal threat to the gangsters as well as the police.

Continuity notes

The Mechanic acquired his Autobot technology in "Funeral for a Friend!"; we get a couple of flashback panels to that issue.
After agreeing with Perceptor that Grimlock is a viable leader at the end of last issue, Blaster has already lost respect for his intelligence at the beginning of this issue, setting up their rivalry.

Real-life references

That's Little Richard's 1955 rock & roll classic "Tutti Frutti" that the Detective Greco is singing along to. (His gangster quarry, being men of low culture, cannot dig it, so Greco suggests that maybe they prefer Sinatra.)
Like most of the series, the action is set in and around Portland, Oregon, including Portland International Airport. Greco and his comrades work for the "Portland Police Department"; the city actually is policed by the Portland Police Bureau.

UK printing

Hey, it's the red Bumblebee's toy variant!

Issue #121

Back-up strips: Iron Man - "Man of the Year" and Robo-Capers
This issue marked the beginning of a trend to only use UK covers. From this point on, very few U.S. covers would be reprinted for UK issues—and only one by a U.S. artist.
In Grim Grams, Grimlock seems to think that there are toys available of individual Junkions in the U.S.!

Issue #122

Back-up strips: Iron Man - "Man of the Year" and Robo-Capers
The final page of the story in the UK printing is colored completely differently from the US one, adding a number of errors that weren't in the original! Besides the colors generally being applied with less precision, all the human characters' clothes change colors from the previous page, and Goldbug is colored as Cliffjumper for one panel. How this happened is anyone's guess. Maybe the UK accidentally received Nel Yomtov's work-in-progress instead of the final page..?
This issue included a bonus 6-page Action Force strip "Dummy Run!" by Steve White & Geoff Senior. It was originally printed in issue #18 of the Action Force weekly comic.

Other trivia

This is the first Marvel US issue to be sold for $1.00.
The "Formax Computer" is totally a jukebox.

Bot Roster

Autobots: 32 active, but Blaster and Goldbug strike out on their own; 14 in repair bay. (46 total)
Decepticons: 31 active; 9 offline. (40 total)

Courtesy of my...

The Mechanic is back with his laser scalpel, cryogenic sprayer, and power booster rod.
As with any story involving Blaster, the electro-scrambler gets called out a fair bit.

Covers (3)

US cover: The Mechanic vs Goldbug and Blaster, by Ian Akin.
UK issue #121 cover: Goldbug, Blaster and the Mechanic, by Jeff Anderson.
UK issue #122 cover: Goldbug, about to be disassembled, by Jeff Anderson.

US issue #28 - Guns are one thing, but trees?
UK issue #121 - And people say that Animated's villains are goofy!
UK issue #122 - I can't see that being a good business plan

Reprints

Transformers: Breakdown TPB: Predaking, Megatron, Ratchet and half of Ratbat, by Andrew Wildman.
Transformers: Breakdown HC: Grimlock fighting Trypticon, by Kev Walker, Simon Coleby and Chris Blythe.
Classic Transformers Volume 2: panels from US issues #20 and #25.
The Transformers Classics, Vol. 3: Bumblebee, by Guido Guidi.
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 8: Wanted: Galvatron – Dead or Alive : Soundwave by ??? and Galvatron by Dan Reed

Breakdown TPB (Titan Books, 2004)
Breakdown hardback (Titan Books, 2004)
Classic Transformers Volume 2 (IDW Publishing, 2008)
The Transformers Classics, Vol. 3 (IDW Publishing, 2012)
Definitive G1 Collection Vol. 8 (Hachette Partworks Ltd, 2017)

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Mechanical Difficulties!

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