Dave's Transformers - Comics: Collections

Transformers Animated the Arrival: Regular series writer Marty Isenberg scripts, new (to me) artist Dario Brizuela has the drawing job. Like most IDW books, it's a miniseries. And like all IDW miniseries, there's no indication anywhere on the comic how many issues it'll be.

Transformers Animated the Arrival #1: IDW - Got cover A. Rather than just adapt the "Transform And Roll Out" pilot "movie" or take it as read and move on, Isenberg instead mixes sequences from TARO with events that happened in the gaps. The repeated scenes each emphasize the point of view of one of the characters, and most of them get some sort of spotlight, even ones who didn't actually show up in TARO. Brizuela's art does a good job of keeping to the animation models without being slavish about it. This looks like it might be shaping up to be something like Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes, covering the first season of TF: Animated with a mix of POV shots and behind the scenes. And it's off to a good start if that's the plan. Recommended. $3.99
- "So, Coded Balloons?" Award to Cover A of Transformers Animated: the Arrival #1
Transformers Animated the Arrival #2: IDW - I got cover B, with the big Sentinel Tick, er, Prime looming over a holo-image of the space bridge repair crew. The lead story answers the question, "With all the human supervillains running around Detroit, what about human superheroes?" It seems to be set shortly after Total Meltdown, and follows a fairly stock plot, so-so. The backup looks at what happened to Starscream between "Transform And Roll Out" and his next appearance in the cartoon. Heh. No Sentinel Prime in either story, ah well. Mildly recommended. $3.99
- "I Am A Pretty, Pretty Princess" Award to Transformers Animated the Arrival #2
Transformers Animated the Arrival #3: IDW - My store only got cover B, oddly. The first story is essentially Nanosec done with a new character. Megatron arranges for human to get powered gear, she field-tests it as part of Megatron's rebuilding program, she gets hoist on her own petard. But with a lot less personality. The second story is the cover piece, featuring Oil Slick in a flashback to Ratchet's days in the Great War (and set before the Arcee story, so Ratchet still has a bit more of his innocence). Recommended. $3.99
- "At Least There Was No Space Scarab" Award to Transformers Animated the Arrival #3
Transformers Animated the Arrival #4: IDW - As usual, two stories. The lead story is a fairly simple "Powell is being a poo-head and gets his comeuppance" tale, although it takes a look at an interesting point that the cartoon never really addressed: the Autobots do not own their own appearances, at least in vehicle mode. They copied existing Earth vehicles, and as such are open to lawsuits for theft of intellectual proprty! Heh. The second story looks at how Blackarachnia and Lockdown got into play and knew to go after the Autobots. We also get an official name for their team: Autobot Spacebridge Repair Transport Unit 073063. Arse-Too? Heh. [Later correction: ASR, not ARS. Sigh. Asser-Too?] Recommended. $3.99
- "Time To Unpimp Ze Auto" Award to Transformers Animated the Arrival #4

Transformers Animated Cel-Books: Digest-sized books using screenshots from the cartoon to create a comic. Two or three episodes per volume, with pagecounts of either 96 or 112.

Transformers Animated vol 1: IDW - This is a cel-book covering the first three episodes (a.k.a. the pilot "movie") of Transformers Animated in digest- sized (5" by 7") format on glossy paper. Unlike the Cinemangas for Armada and Energon, however, it's been put together by someone with half a clue how to lay out a comic, so it actually reads like a proper comic. The narration sometimes verges on "would insult the intelligence of a five-year-old", but it's otherwise well adapted. As one might expect from trying to cram 66 minutes of show into 108 pages (plus 7 pages of profiles), there's some time compression issues. My rule of thumb for adaptations is that you really need about 22 pages of comic for every 8-12 minutes of show (the wide variation is due to differences in pacing), and this is at the edge of that with 22 pages per 13 minutes. A few of the action scenes, most notably the initial fight between Megatron and the Autobots, get cut a bit too short as a result, and Megatron comes across as kinda wimpy. Still, as both cel-books and adaptations in general go, it does a better job than most...and until they release a DVD set it'll have to do for art reference purposes. ;) One odd production choice stands out, though. On the cover, the finish is mostly matte, but the Autobot symbols are glossy like the title. Kinda weird. As a final note, Diamond doesn't seem to want to bother shipping orders of this series (at least, not to my store), and I haven't seen it at any chain book stores or department stores locally, so if you want this, you may have to go online. I got mine from deepdiscount.com for $6.39 plus free shipping. Recommended. $7.99 cover price. (Note, these three episodes are not officially part of Season 1.)
- "Optimus Prime Goes 'Boing!'" Award to Transformers Animated vol 1
Transformers Animated vol 2: IDW - Yeah, pretty much given up on getting these through Diamond, so they show up now whenever my online source's shipments show up (deepdiscount.com for reference). This digest-sized full color volume has the same pagecount as vol 1, but only adapts Blast From The Past (S1 Ep3, Dinobots first appearance) and Nanosec (S1 Ep5, meaning there's more space to properly tell the stories. There's also no profile pages like vol 1, freeing up even more story pages. At 50 pages for Blast and 68 pages for Nanosec, that's pretty much in the sweet spot for my "22 pages per 8-12 minutes of animation" adaptation rule of thumb. Some of the captions are a bit too "talking down to the kiddies", but it's not like they get in the way of the cel art. :) Good episodes, if not the best of the first season, and it does make it clear that IDW's not going to try to adapt everything in these volumes. Recommended. $7.99
- "Wally Wood's T.R.A.N.S.F.O.R.M.E.R.S. Agents" Award to Transformers Animated vol 2
Transformers Animated vol 3: IDW - Took a while to get this one, it was either delayed or vastly short-printed and needed a second printing (volume 4 is already a month late too). This one steps back and covers "Home is Where the Spark Is" (S1 Ep1) and "Total Meltdown" (S1 Ep2). Total Meltdown gets two more pages thant HiWtSI (42 versus 44), and there's six pages of profiles at the start (the main five Autobots, plus Megatron). Profiles of Prometheus Black and Colossus Rhodes would've been nice. A decent adaptation, although with the DVD set for S1 coming out soon, I expect demand for these may drop. Recommended. $7.99
Transformers Animated vol 4: IDW - 96 pages, presents "Along Came A Spider" and "Sound and Fury," the Blackarachnia and Soundwave origin episodes. The nigh-unrelenting darkness of the art in Spider really translates poorly to cel book form, we're talking Dreamwave levels of murk. Sound and Fury works a bit better, although as an episode that relies strongly on sound, it necessarily gets hurt by translation to an unaudible medium. The roster entries at the start are for the Space Bridge Five, the Sumdacs (each has a half page), Megatron, Blackarachnia and Soundwave. It might have been a better idea to move those last two to the end, since their entries kinda summarize the stories in this installment. Mildly recommended. $7.99
Transformers Animated vol 5: IDW - 112 pages, presents "Survival of the Fittest" (52 pages) and "Lost and Found" (44 pages), plus roster entries of the five Autobots, the Sumdacs, Megatron, Blitzwing, Lugnut and Starscream. Despite getting more pages, "Survival of the Fittest" cuts too much, robbing the running Fanzone gag of most of its scenes and making Bulkhead's detective work come out of nowhere. By contrast, the simpler story of "Lost and Found" does fine on only 44 pages. They probably could've stolen a few more pages from the second story to give scenes back to the first, which definitely needed them. Mildly recommended. $7.99

Transformers Comics

Reviews of Transformers Animated comics.