Car wash of Doom.
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Previously I claimed that every volume of Bob Budiansky's run on The Transformers had one real standout story that made it worthwhile. This is sort of true of vol. 3 of The Transformers Classics: "Man of Iron" is probably the best story of the Marvel Transformers series full stop... but it's not by Bob Budiansky. The UK creative team of Steve Parkhouse, John Ridgway, and Mike Collins (all familiar to me thanks to their work on Doctor Who Magazine) step in for a two-part story that is just incredible. Written almost entirely from the perspective of the human characters (the Autobots are investigating information about a ship beneath a castle in the UK), the story is entirely unlike any other Transformers story I've ever read: moody and frightening. The Transformers are inscrutable alien robots, even when in scenes written from their perspective.

The story is told from the point-of-view of a child for large chunks, something often pooh-poohed by Transformers fans (including myself), but in the hands of these master craftsmen, that only makes the story even more frightening. The end of the first issue is even a terrifying kidnapping scene, as Jazz drives off with an unwilling Sammy while all his mother can do it watch. The second issue explains the Transformers a little bit more, but makes them cold and ruthless-- the Decepticons never speak, and the whole thing ends with a big blow-'em-up battle that is utterly-uncartoonish, and the death of two faithful Autobots who'd been waiting for the Ark for a thousand years.

It's a triumph of tone, and the best Transformers comic I'd read up to this point.

The rest of the book is... not as great. Grimlock becomes the leader of the Autobots, which should be hilarious and awesome, but just makes the Autobots look like indecisive incompetents who'll bow to anyone with a mildly strong will. The book does introduce my favorite Decepticon leader, Ratbat, a fuel auditor. From his base on Cybertron, he audits the Decepticon operation and determines it's wasting too much resources for too little profit, and assumes control by cutting off supplies if the Decepticons don't run things his way. On the other hand, his plan to mind-control America's greatest manufacturer of gasoline into building car washes that hypnotize their users into driving at night to a Decepticon base and siphon off their excess fuel isn't exactly an elegant plan itself.

I was also a little annoyed to discover that though the Headmasters spin-off series has a major impact on the events of the parent book, it's collected in The Transformers Classics, Vol. 7. Its issues really ought to have been woven into this one, in a sort of "meanwhile, elsewhere..." fashion like the original readers would have experienced it. As it is, a ton of new characters from Headmasters pop up out of nowhere and have a major influence on the plot.