MASK was one of my must-watch shows as a kid. Based on the Kenner toyline, the series followed the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (had to make that acronym work, even if they had to misspell a word) as they battled the Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem (VENOM, who had it easier I guess). Both sides had vehicles that converted into battle modes which had extra weaponry and even acted like whole other vehicles, like the motorcycle/helicopter or the helicopter/jet. The narrative gimmick also included each mask offering a particular power or weapon to the wearer. Spectrum had enhanced sight on various electromagnetic spectrums and could create energy glide wings…somehow. Lifter had antigravity rings or a beam depending on the media. And so on. I have a few of the toys and an incomplete set of DC Comics both from the shelves and the minicomics that came with the first wave of MASK toys. I reviewed those comics here at the Spotlight.
Kenner would later be bought by Hasbro long after the MASK line ended. Once in a blue moon Hasbro might drop an homage Matt Trakker into the GI Joe figures, or currently let another toy company do the resurrecting for them, and that was it. Meanwhile they made a spiritual successor called Vor-Tech, which included a TV show that wasn’t as good, and no comics I’m aware of. It didn’t last very long and was kind of uninteresting. Other toylines used a similar gimmick over the years, like Switch Force, but nobody quite lived up the MASK’s success, a success that happened during the rise of G.I. Joe’s “A Real American Hero” period and the debut of the Transformers. You might have heard of those lines. Kenner was probably inspired by both. Transformers even played with MASK’s ideas with the mailaway “Omnibots” and later the Triggerbots/Triggercons in the stores. Even Tracks kind of steals the MASK vehicle gimmick with a flight mode, and the gimmick was part of the Beast Wars Transmetals. It’s a neat gimmick. That doesn’t mean the stories behind them mesh as well.
Recently, during IDW’s “1.0” period, Hasbro made the questionable decision to combine many of their toylines into a shared universe. Now MASK, the acquired Rom: Spaceknight, and Micronauts, all lines Hasbro has done little to nothing with since the 1980s, would exist in a shared universe with G.I. Joe and the Transformers despite never sharing their universe(s) until then, even in the comics. Retcons came into play and by that point I had dropped out of IDW’s take on the Transformers so outside of some previews I wasn’t interested, and the previews showed me something that was so altered from MASK’s lore it might as well have been Vor-Tech.
Now Skybound is set to do it again. While their “Energon Universe” was built from the ground up as a sort of “Hasbro Cinematic Universe” with G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Skybound original Void Rivals starting together from the start, I still wasn’t a fan. Admittedly, the darker, adult content (graphic violence, including KILLING MY MAIN BOT BUMBLEBEE TO SHOW THEY WERE “MORE MATURE” NOW SCREW YOU, KIDS!!!) already turned me off but while I can at least understand putting the Joes and Autobots together since it’s been done more than once, I like them better as separate universes. Their concepts are quite different even though companies tend to licence them both. Yes, there were nods in the cartoon and I know all about Hector Montoya of 20 Questions and his ties to numerous Marvel/Sunbow/Hasbro shows. I don’t care. They were just nods, not constantly interacting but doing their own thing. Jem never fought the Inhumanoids. Surprisingly. Well, despite MASK getting new toys, made NOT by Hasbro but a company called Loyal Subject, Hasbro wants to work them in again. I’d rather they didn’t.
You’ll have to pardon me. Been doing a lot of snow shoveling the past few days and I really should get in shape. I can’t blame 2016 for my current state anymore, not 10 years later. While I work on that, I’m going to use more of the original review than usual, and maybe just add some updated notes. At least it wasn’t a “speed run” last time, but this time I could use one.
The feelgood buddy cop story of the year?
Sonic the Hedgehog #205
Archie Comics Publications (December 2009)
Main Story> “On The Run” part 1: “All The Eggs In One Basket”
For the 40th anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie (the name mistake is easy given that the trailers in the day just called it Transformers: The Movie, but the TV series was The Transformers), Hasbro has decided to have a bit of fun with the part of the movie most 80s kids talk about, the death of Optimus Prime.
At the time, Hasbro didn’t realize how important the character has become to kids. One kid even grew up and legally changed his name to Optimus Prime because the character was more of a father than his biological one–and as far as I’m concerned a firefighter and Iraq War veteran has earned the right to call himself whatever the #$%^$# he wants. For kids in the 1980s, Optimus’ death, and that of other G1 characters they come to know and love, was a huge shock because it was nothing we were used to. For Hasbro, it was just a way to send off the old character and make the war look serious so they could sell new toys that kids didn’t own yet. The thought was everyone who wanted and could afford an Optimus Prime already had one, so it’s time to install a new leader, moving the series forward to the far off year of 2005 and introducing a new generation of Autobots and Decepticons to continue the war.
The plan was such a backfire that they brought Optimus back, first for a better attempt at torch-passing to Rodimus Prime in the episode “Dark Awakening”, and when that wasn’t enough just brought him back for good in “The Return Of Optimus Prime”, even giving him a brand new figure as one of the new Powermasters. Unless you were in Japan, which was more used to dead mentors, where they killed him off again in The Headmasters and used the Powermaster Optimus Prime mold to create the new character God Ginrai in Super God Masterforce. Their Optimus, or “Convoy” in Japan, would still get resurrected as Star Convoy, the inspiration for the final 13th Prime in current Hasbro lore, in the Battlestars manga and Return Of Convoy toyline from Takara we never got in the West.
I wasn’t going to write about it, maybe use the trailer for a Daily Video to go alongside my continuing look at the pitches for bringing the cartoon to CBS. Then came an article from That Park Place contributor HT Counter (like I’m one to question screennames). In his commentary he made the case that the apology, which is all in fun, wasn’t necessary, that killing Optimus was actually a good thing narratively. I wouldn’t go quite that far. Do I hate it? I have mixed feelings. I didn’t get to see the movie until it hit home video and TV, so between the comic adaptation and season 3 episodes I was already prepared for the big moment. On the other hand I don’t think he really has a grasp on what the problem actually was in the 1980s and how it affected the kids who sat through the movie. So allow me to add a different perspective.
Two books? These anthologies are long enough at one!
Military Comics #1
Comic Magazines, Inc (August, 1941)
I can tell right now from the list that I probably won’t review further issues until they show up in the Friday rotation, like with National Comics. Maybe not even that since I was never interest in war comics, not even G.I. Joe. This is a curiosity since the only thing that fits pre-DC Tuesday is on the cover. This is the debut of the Blackhawks, or at least the origin of their leader. DC has tried more than once to make them mainstream but as far as the DC Universe goes I think they work better historically, one of those experts the heroes call upon now and then, with side stories of their adventures. Back when World War II was heating up, however? I expect this to be more interesting, especially in an actual war comic. Let’s see if I’m right.
Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
How can we have the villain defeated last chapter and still have about four chapters to go? Well, these two are short enough to review together to meet quota. That helps.
Plus we have had added scenes not just with the TARDIS crew and Vicki but actually seeing what’s going on with the rescue ship. That has to be to pad out the book. “The Rescue” is made of two episodes, where most serials are maybe four to six arcs. I miss those days. The serial made me want to come back for the next episode more than the current seasonal subplot. Plus, while there were longer stinkers in the serial format due to being the same story, you had less single episodes you could just ignore and less stinkers overall due to the good stories also taking up a good part of the season. Even when it was good, new Who just never grabbed me the same way the old shows did because of that one change.
Of course if you never saw those serials, your experience might be different and you prefer the subplot arcs around done-in-one episodes with the obligatory two-parter somewhere in the middle. That’s fine, too. I’m not saying they made the new shows bad (I blame the people making it, especially for more recent takes like Chris Chibnall and Russell T. Davies’ second run), just it doesn’t click for me in quite the same way. It does make this arc a bit harder to adapt into the usual Target novel length, while the new books I don’t think do novelisations. All I’ve seen are brand new stories, like they did during the “wilderness years”. All I know for sure is we have two chapters and it’s time to get to them.
BW Media Spotlight 
Why Do They Keep Putting MASK Into The Transformers?
MASK was one of my must-watch shows as a kid. Based on the Kenner toyline, the series followed the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (had to make that acronym work, even if they had to misspell a word) as they battled the Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem (VENOM, who had it easier I guess). Both sides had vehicles that converted into battle modes which had extra weaponry and even acted like whole other vehicles, like the motorcycle/helicopter or the helicopter/jet. The narrative gimmick also included each mask offering a particular power or weapon to the wearer. Spectrum had enhanced sight on various electromagnetic spectrums and could create energy glide wings…somehow. Lifter had antigravity rings or a beam depending on the media. And so on. I have a few of the toys and an incomplete set of DC Comics both from the shelves and the minicomics that came with the first wave of MASK toys. I reviewed those comics here at the Spotlight.
Kenner would later be bought by Hasbro long after the MASK line ended. Once in a blue moon Hasbro might drop an homage Matt Trakker into the GI Joe figures, or currently let another toy company do the resurrecting for them, and that was it. Meanwhile they made a spiritual successor called Vor-Tech, which included a TV show that wasn’t as good, and no comics I’m aware of. It didn’t last very long and was kind of uninteresting. Other toylines used a similar gimmick over the years, like Switch Force, but nobody quite lived up the MASK’s success, a success that happened during the rise of G.I. Joe’s “A Real American Hero” period and the debut of the Transformers. You might have heard of those lines. Kenner was probably inspired by both. Transformers even played with MASK’s ideas with the mailaway “Omnibots” and later the Triggerbots/Triggercons in the stores. Even Tracks kind of steals the MASK vehicle gimmick with a flight mode, and the gimmick was part of the Beast Wars Transmetals. It’s a neat gimmick. That doesn’t mean the stories behind them mesh as well.
Recently, during IDW’s “1.0” period, Hasbro made the questionable decision to combine many of their toylines into a shared universe. Now MASK, the acquired Rom: Spaceknight, and Micronauts, all lines Hasbro has done little to nothing with since the 1980s, would exist in a shared universe with G.I. Joe and the Transformers despite never sharing their universe(s) until then, even in the comics. Retcons came into play and by that point I had dropped out of IDW’s take on the Transformers so outside of some previews I wasn’t interested, and the previews showed me something that was so altered from MASK’s lore it might as well have been Vor-Tech.
Now Skybound is set to do it again. While their “Energon Universe” was built from the ground up as a sort of “Hasbro Cinematic Universe” with G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Skybound original Void Rivals starting together from the start, I still wasn’t a fan. Admittedly, the darker, adult content (graphic violence, including KILLING MY MAIN BOT BUMBLEBEE TO SHOW THEY WERE “MORE MATURE” NOW SCREW YOU, KIDS!!!) already turned me off but while I can at least understand putting the Joes and Autobots together since it’s been done more than once, I like them better as separate universes. Their concepts are quite different even though companies tend to licence them both. Yes, there were nods in the cartoon and I know all about Hector Montoya of 20 Questions and his ties to numerous Marvel/Sunbow/Hasbro shows. I don’t care. They were just nods, not constantly interacting but doing their own thing. Jem never fought the Inhumanoids. Surprisingly. Well, despite MASK getting new toys, made NOT by Hasbro but a company called Loyal Subject, Hasbro wants to work them in again. I’d rather they didn’t.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on February 25, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged commentary, IDW Publishing, Marvel Comics, MASK (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand), Skybound Entertainment, Transformers, VENOM (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem).
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