Dave's Transformers Page
Transformers Comics	Reviews of comics in which Transformers meet other properties or play "What If?", plus miscellany
	Last Updated 12/12/09 Transformers Timelines #4 added.

• New Avengers/Transformers #1 (of 4): Marvel - Stuart Moore writes, Tyler Kirkham pencils. Takes place at a divergence point before Civil War. Mostly the Avengers this issue, but parallels to the "standard operating procedure" of IDW Decepticons are in place. All told, while it's not actually disappointing yet, neither am I really filled with confidence for the rest of the series. It feels like this entire issue should have been the first eight pages of the story, not the first twenty or so. It's especially dangerous to spend so much time writing people out of character before revealing that there's a reason beyond "hack writer". Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
  • "Imagine How PISSED Doom Must Be" Award to New Avengers/Transformers #1 (of 4)

• New Avengers/Transformers #2 (of 4): Marvel/IDW - The constipated Wolverine on the cover is not exactly gonna sell books. The story inside is pretty much a running hero-on-hero fight scene until the plot device is neutalized. Doom gets to be Doom, and Spider-Man gives lip to giant robots, but all in all it felt padded. Between #1 and #2 you get about one issue's worth of story. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
  • "Bah, Doom Has Little Patience For Crossovers" Award to New Avengers/Transformers #2 (of 4)

• New Avengers/Transformers #3 (of 4): Marvel - Moore plays up parallels in this issue, between Autobots and Decepticons, humans and TFs. And we do get to see giant Iron Man kick some tail. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
  • "Sorry, The MegaMorphs Are From A Different Continuity" Award to The New Avengers/Transformers #3 (of 4)

• Transformers Evolutions: Heart of Steel #1: IDW - The Evolutions line is meant to be to Transformers what Elseworlds used to be to the DC Universe, looking at taking the basic characters and concepts and transplanting them to new settings, new times. In Chuck Dixon's first arc, we have the Transformers waking up in the late 1800s after a different (and possibly worth a one-shot of its own) initial war on Earth. The inevitable cameos by the famous (Mark Twain and Jules Verne) and fictional (John Henry) are handled fairly well, although Dixon glosses over the usual adaptation phase in the story. For instance, one character goes from a dino altmode to a steam engine altmode between panels with no explanation (although that may be given next issue). Ominously, while there's several pages of house ads and a Stormbringer preview, there's no masthead page talking about what will be coming out next month, nor lettercol. It may just mean they're worried this issue will blow deadlines, but some are taking it as an omen of IDW pulling a Dreamwave collapse. Hopefully they're wrong. Anyway, while the writing is a bit wooden in places, I give this one a Recommended. (I got Cover A, BTW.) $2.99

• Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel #2 (of 4): IDW - The "Keep Prime and Megatron out of it until later" plan is in full force here, and we don't even see them, although they are referred to. Anyway, this issue is about the two "contact" humans and how they interact with and are treated by the Autobots and Decepticons. Dixon does set up an interesting mirroring here, where the Autobots seem initially threatenining and the Decepticons seem initially benevolent, but both humans discover things are the other way around. Guidi's art is generally good, and the nighttime scenes are fairly clear without looking too "shoot day for night"-ish. I do have one quibble, though, and that's the fact that the alt modes don't really feel clear from the robot modes. Some of that is the fantastic nature of the alt modes, but there's also a fair amount of kibble-erasing. A few pages of the reprint of G1 #17 (Bridge to Nowhere) are included at the end. I picked up the B cover this time, since I didn't really care for the A cover and wanted at least one of the wraparound design sketch covers. Recommended. $2.99

• Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel #3 (of 4): IDW - Pretty much the entire issue takes place at night, which is portrayed in a washed out sepia tone. It's not murky in the "hard to follow" sense, but it does rather mute the emotional impact of the art. Mark Twain steals the show, which is only fitting for such a personage as he, but there's generally a good balance between the humans and the robots (although Starscream kinda goes through a repeat of his spiel from #2). The writing is, I think, a bit unnecessarily mysterious about the destination for the final showdown in #4, unless Dixon is engaging in a major red herring. Recommended. $2.99

• Transformers Evolutions Hearts of Steel #4 (of 4): IDW - While there were certainly some cool bits, like Scourge the airship, it felt like they'd headed the climax off at the pass. With the pacing up to this point, the story really should have gone two more issues...the two sides barely even skirmish and the battle is suddenly over, apparently because all the Decepticons forgot they could transform or something. Feh. And the art, especially on the humans, looked rushed. Neutral. $2.99

• Transformers Timelines Featuring Beast Wars #1: FP Comics - This is basically the BotCon 06 comic with a new cover (and a nice Matt Moylan logo). As one might expect from a story written around a bunch of convention exclusive toys (the ones from 06, plus some upcoming exclusives), the story is a bit on the iffy side. It has to wedge everyone into the story in a single issue, not to mention provide two forms for Megatron (presumably to match the bio entry at the end, which isn't the form used for his convention toy). This leads to some pretty pointless scenes and plot choices that might have made more sense if the story were free to evolve on its own without having to shove all dozen or so characters into place and get them back to "starting places" for Beast Wars. Oh, it looked nice enough, and had some interesting ideas, but as a story it kinda fails. Don't bust your hump trying to find this one (which I finally found in Seattle, Diamond doesn't seem to want to ship it to my store). $4.95
  • "Okay, Not The Shadowy Figure I Was Expecting" Award to Transformers Timelines Featuring Beast Wars #1

• Transformers Timelines #2 - Fun Publications - This is a publicly available (in theory) version of the BotCon 2007 exclusive comic. Given that it took until January 2007 for me to get the FP edition of the 2006 comic, you'll see why I don't hold out a lot of hope for seeing this one in person soon. Story by several people (Forest Lee, Pete Sinclair, Ben Yee), but actual writing just Lee. Alex "Made Car Wash Of Doom Look Good" Milne is on art. Where #1 featured Beast Wars, this one features Classics, tying in with the Classics recolors/remolds in the BotCon exclusive set. The Target exclusive Ultra Magnus gets in on the act too. Anyway, as one might expect from a convention comic, there's loads of fan references and general fanficky Gotta Explain 'Em All aspects sprinkled throughout. As for plot, call it "Revenge of the Gobots". The story ends on a big confusing fragfest that leaves several new characters probably dead and a few more possibly dead. Of course, given that this sub-continuity (which seems to come out of the end of the Marvel G1 comic) is unlikely to get more than 22 pages a year and will need to cycle in new convention exclusive characters every year, a really high death rate is really no hindrance. It's not like they'd have pages to devote to doing anything with Bugbite again, after all. Ends with More Than Meets The Eye pages for Springer (Cybertron Defense Hot Shot recolor), Bugbite (Classics Bumblebee recolor), and a one page text piece explaining how the Classics Mini-Cons came about (the Last Autobot spread bits of the Matrix and his own spark across Cybertron after TFG1 #80 and the little pieces grew into Mini-Cons). All in all, it's pretty much a 12-16 page story loaded down with a bunch of character introduction scenes. Mildly recommended if you can find it. $4.95
  • "I Foresee Fanfic In Which It's Revealed Bugbite Doesn't Keep His Brain In His Head" Award to Transformers Timelines #2

• Transformers Timelines #3: FP Comics - I am astonished! Diamond actually shipped this one, more or less on time! I never did get last year's through Diamond. The story picks up directly from...somewhere else. It never says where, and it's not Timelines #2 (I did finally get a CBR of that, and doublechecked it just now). Maybe something in the Collectors' Club magazine, which I don't get. [Later note: I've had this confirmed. Cliffjumper chased the clear-plastic Club Exclusive toys through a plot hole, and while they landed in the main Club setting, Cliffy got dumped in Shattered Glass.] Anyway, how Cliffjumper got into the Shattered Glass universe isn't too important, as the story mainly focuses on how he deals with being there (in and among the worldbuilding infodumps). Figueroa's art is pretty good, and Ben Yee's story is okay, burdened by a G1-like need to trot all the toys on-camera in one issue (for those who don't follow TF fandom, most of the characters in here were BotCon 2008 convention exclusive toys). [Later note: the story continues in Club-Exclusive text stories.] There's also character data pages for evil porn-stache Rodimus and heroic Starscream. But what really makes this issue worth picking up is the inclusion of the three page April Fool's gag "leaked preview" of the Shattered Glass story, by M "Insert Quip Here" Sipher and Trent Troop. Tally ho! Recommended. $4.95
  • "Cut The Jibba-Jabba!" Award to Transformers Timelines #3
• Transformers Timelines #4: FunPub - Gasp! It actually shipped to my store without requiring months of reordering! [Later note: that makes an astonishing two in a row!] Anyway, the FP comics are made to provide fiction for BotCon's annual batch of redecos that they sell for a few hundred bucks a set, and the theme this time was the Elite Guard, taking the TF:Animated concept and putting it in a pseudo-G1 context. The main story is a tale of Kup's youth, with the framing sequence being an odd re- envisioning of the 1980s movie's "story time" with Universe Cyclonus and redecos of Cybertron Sideways taking the role of Sweeps attacking. Rik Alvarez goes a bit overboard with bits of the story in places, but for a comic that has to bring in a bunch of "new" characters (old names, new bodies, new interactions) it does pretty well. Khanna's art on the framing sequence is rather busy, but Guidi's flashback story art is pretty good. Recommended. $4.95
  • "Neon Dion" Award to Transformers Timelines #4

• Transformers Summer Special #1 - An anthology book, this has four short pieces, mostly by Patyk and Mick (in various orders), plus an Energon story by Furman. The first piece has Pat Lee art and is set in the G1 comic continuity, more or less (some cameos on page 2 draw in a Japanese continuity element). It's reminiscent of Marvel's G1 #25, albeit with a decidedly different outcome. The art is more or less followable. "Perspective" has Furman and Raiz on a story that is stated as being out of continuity, featuring Snow Cat, Slugslinger and Sharkticon (the latter two being characters not yet released as toys). It's a clever little tale, with reasonably clear (for Dreamwave) art. Rob Ruffolo pencils Patyk&Mick's Robots in Disguise tale, which is a bit of a mess in storytelling terms. I kinda liked the ending, but if this is the level of RiD tale they can provide, I don't want RiD to win the vote (more on that in a sec). Finally, Figueroa pencils a Beast Wars tale set late in the final season and inserting some new stuff that might get used in a potential BW comic. Inserted in the middle of the comic is a postcard you can send in to vote on whether you want Dreamwave to do a Robots in Disguise comic next, or a Beast Wars title. To be honest, neither's representative in this book thrilled me, but the RiD story was less interesting, so I'll probably send in a vote for Beast Wars. Oh, and as the "May" on the cover and the ads for comics that came out last month attest to, this came out a leeetle late. Mildly recommended. $4.95

• Issue 1: While there's bits and pieces of characterization here and there, this is really a comic driven by the High Concept: what if the fledgling Cobra organization discovered the crashed Ark and rebuilt the Autobots and Decepticons into their servants, reverse-engineering the technology to create all the weird stuff Cobra has classically brought to the table? There's hints that future issues will focus more on a few characters and their development, but for now it's all set-up and action scene. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. This is a good, solid, action-movie sort of piece. I'd have a little more praise for it if it wasn't recapitulating a lot of what we saw in the first TF G1 series from Dreamwave, though. Recommended. $2.95/$4.05Cn

• Issue 2: After the initial action sequence, this follows a pretty standard 4-part-story pattern and steps back for teambuilding and exposition. There's still some action sequences, but they're sparring and demonstration, not in earnest. I do like where the story seems to be heading, and Blaylock is managing to keep things tied together without making it blindingly obvious what every bit of foreshadowing portends. It *was* a little annoying, though, to get to the last page of the story when I was barely past the middle of the comic...a few too many pages of back-loaded ads. Recommended. $2.95/$4.00Cn [Late note: Of course, it's actually SIX issues....]

• Issue 3: The last few pages are a bit too "easy" even though it's clearly set up that it should be easy. Almost an anticlimax (and yes, this is the proper dramatic climax, the turning point in the tale). While the art may lack much in the way of emotional power, it's a welcome relief from the murk of Jae Lee in Transformers/GIJoe and the overcolored blur of the rest of the Dreamwave TF books. Recommended. $2.95/$4.10Cn

• Issue 4: The first few pages are pretty badly laid out in terms of storytelling, a clear case of writing for the TPB and ignoring the fact that not everyone rereads all previous issues before reading a new one. The storytelling improves later, but does tend to have some awkward scene transitions. Miller's artwork is pretty good, although the highly organic (even Maguire-like) face on Megatron doesn't quite work for me. Of course, its clarity is very welcome after Jae Lee's shadows and fog in Transformers/GIJoe, and the clean coloring is likewise welcome compared to the overproduced Dreamwave house-murk. Recommended. $2.95/$4.35Cn

• Issue 5: While a couple of the larger panels look like they were made with an eye towards selling the original art as a poster later (i.e. cool poses instead of coherent storytelling), Mike Miller's clear art is generally an asset to the book, and Lynx Studio's restrained colors continue to be much better than those found on Dreamwave TF books. The story jumps a bit here and there, but flows pretty well overall. Recommended. $2.95/$4.50Cn

• Issue 6: Whenever there's an "out of continuity" story like this, there's a temptation to make it a slaughterfest. After all, it's not like killing a character will keep the regular books from using him, her or it. But Blaylock and Jolley exercise admirable restraint in that regard, and even the apparently dead characters are mostly revealed to have survived (with one or two exceptions, of course). There's a strong sequel vibe in the last few pages, and I'd welcome one. I like the combined setting created for this miniseries, and wouldn't mind seeing more of it, especially exploration of the philosophical implications of the climactic conflict between Prime and Megatron. Strongly recommended. $2.95/$4.00Cn

    GIJoe vs Transformers II - Devil's Due has spun off from Image, and is following up with a series set a few years after the above book. Same creative team. It looks like it was originally planned as another six issue series, but is now three double-sized issues. CORRECTION: It's four issues, but not all the same length.

• Issue 1: I have to wonder if this was originally planned as a 6 issue series, and is just being put out two issues at a time (there's a natural cliffhanger break at page 20 out of the 40). The structure is very classic "team book adventure", which is to say that the plot device forces everyone to split up into four teams and run around on a scavenger hunt (one issue setup, one issue per segment, one issue wrapup...another reason I think this was planned as 6). Jolley and Su don't give us anything highly original or masterfully crafted, but it's good nostalgia and competently told. And I don't mind a merely "good" comic, especially when attempts at greatness (i.e. TF vs. GIJoe v1) can fall so hard. Recommended. $4.95 (Oh, and the art deco Wheeljack image on the back cover is nifty.)

• Issue 2: Looks like they're playing around with issue length to turn a 6 issue story into 4, not into 3, since this is only 22 pages long and they list an issue 4 on their schedule now. :) Pacing can be a glitch, eh? Anyway, the "split into teams on a scavenger hunt" plot continues in the 1930s, and the nameless (well, okay, he's named Percy) Cobra goon really steals the show. Jolley's dialogue is fun all around this issue, and Su & Seeley do a good job on the art (and how did that Race-Bot BETA get in there?). Recommended. $2.95

• Issue 3: I got the alternate cover (cover A) with what looks to be a Decepticon rebuild of Metroplex on it (not Metrotitan colors). Jolley seems to be playing the role of Simon Furman crossed with Chris Claremont in this issue. A decent story, although with a "Hey, what? That's pointless!" sort of ending. Granted, it's an Act III sort of thing, and stuff is supposed to be at its bleakest here, but the switch from "we seem to be getting a handle on things" to "darkest hour" is almost perfunctorily abrupt. Mildly recommended. $2.95

• Issue 4: The art quality drops a lot this issue. Not on every page, but on a lot...it looks like the deadline got moved way up and the artists had to scramble to finish in time (which might well be the case, since I've already noted how this feels like a 6 issue series crammed into 4). Decent story wrapup, some fun scenes, and a bit of broken internal logic that I suppose I can overlook because of the way it's used to bring in a particular group of characters. And the sequel is pretty clearly set up. :) Recommended. $2.95

    GIJoe vs Transformers III: The Art of War - Dreamwave may be dead, but Devil's Due is doing fine. In this third miniseries, the consequences of tech transfer become a serious problem, and Serpentor gets a new origin. Five issue series, the "A" covers fit together as a single image.

• Issue 1: Sort of follows on from v2, but there's a strong feeling of "Whoops, we decided we didn't really want to go that way after all". And then proceeds to probably go tht way anyway, but with new justification. I got the Ng cover (will there ever be a Transformers comic again without multiple covers?) with Bumblebee being chased by every Decepticon. The plot setup hearkens back to G2 #2 in some ways, and that genie never goes back into the bottle. The new menace being set up is a little tortured in execution, but I suppose no worse than the character's original origins. Recommended. $2.95

• Issue 2: It's the "ARP" issue, heh (check the front cover). And while it's still not labeled by how many issues there are, the inside front cover says that there are five "A" covers that fit together into a single piece...so either it's a five issue series or something very weird is going on. :) I still think the Serpent O.R. name is weak, but the character by that name shows promise. And he has GaiGar shoulders. It's nice to see The War Within being referenced here, even though it's a compeltely divergent continuity...I suppose it diverges in the 1980s, though, not in the deep past. Heh. The coloring drifts into Dreamwave-style occasionally, but the art is otherwise decent. Recommended. $2.95

• Transformers vs GIJoe III #3 (of 5): Devil's Due - A mix of exposition, fight scenes, and a little OTP fanwank. It looks nice thanks to Ng and Raiz, but the story itself felt a little flat to me. Got cover A (mini-poster component). Mildly recommended. $2.95

• GIJoe vs. Transformers III #4 (of 5): Devil's Due - Following the Shakespearean five act structure pretty well, as things start to turn around for the heroes. I liked the philosophical parts revolving around Serpentor, although Prime's own meanderings were a bit stale. The art's not always easy to follow, but the colored borders on the word balloons at least help with keeping track of the factions. Recommended. $2.95

• GIJoe vs. Transformers III #5 (of 5): Devil's Due - Lotsa fighting, a false climax, and then the actual climax that is pretty much given away by the A cover. Cute flashforward sequence at the very end, though. All in all, I'd say this was technically proficient, but didn't really move me in the way I expect Seeley might have hoped. The array of artists kinda hurts things as well, especially the way some of the pages look like they're designed for original art sales at conventions, rather than trying to tell the story. Mildly recommended. $2.95

• GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2): Devil's Due - Once again, we're getting fewer issues in a series, but oversized ones (48 pages and no ads interrupting it). And DUUUUUUUUDE. Yeah, there's fanwank going on here, but it's the good kind. :) Both the Transformers AND GIJoe movies get melded in this story, plus a new origin for Pretenders...and Eject gets to shine. And even more stuff I'll leave as a surprise. Wildman's art is a bit scratchy in places, and a couple pages look like there were uncredited fill-in artists, but the layouts are excellent. Seeley's story isn't the best-crafted I've seen, but it's so loaded with good ideas that I'm willing to overlook the occasional clunker line. Strongly recommended. $5.50
  • "Kung Fu Brip!" Award to GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2)

• GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #2 (of 2): Devil's Due - I got the Bludgeon cover. Anyway, you can tell where the issue break is here (a 4 issue series done as two double-sized issues), and it's a good spot for one. :) There's a LOT more nostalgia cranking here, what with Kung Fu Grip and Battle Beasts and the Laser Team. The story itself is a bit compressed, but at least the plot device used in the endgame was clearly established last issue and makes perfect sense. Recommended. $5.50 (gave it the Kung Fu Brip award again, oops)

    Transformers vs GIJoe - From Dreamwave, this series is set in WWII, with Cobra being elite Axis forces. The Autobots align with the Allies, Decepticons take over the Axis. 6 issues.

• Issue 1: John Ney Reiber's storyline shows promise, but count me out of the Jae Lee fan club. Dark and moody is one thing, murky and twisted another entirely. What good are cool new character designs if you can't tell what anything looks like? Very mildly recommended. $2.95

• Issue 2: Not quite as murked out as #1, but the art still subtracts more than it adds, IMO. Decent enough story, though. Mildly recommended. $2.95

• Issue 3: Y'know, this story might be pretty good if I could see anything? I can't even blame this on the usual Dreamwave coloring job, since it's just inked to death. Deep black shadows concealing anything of interest...I didn't even realize Stormshadow had an exposed face until several pages in. Plus, Jae Lee seems to be a bit obsessed with using photoref (or outright photocopying) on all the vehicles, to the point where there's no life to them. And when you're doing living machines, you NEED to give them life visually. Neutral. $2.95

• Issue 4: I think this is the point at which the writer was able to start seriously adjusting his scripts to work with the art, because there's a lot more captions to clarify what's going on in the murk. Also, every so often, the art clears up like a break in the clouds on an overcast day. Both factors make for a better read, and there's some good banter between Bumblebee and Scarlet, but there's still so much potential that's not realized. Mildly recommended. $2.95

• Issue 5: You know, the cover might have spoilered the final page if I could have figured out what the heck was supposed to be going on. My best guess was that Starscream was crashing into Optimus Prime or something, which was nowhere near the truth. Anyway, all my complaints about Jae Lee's art continue to hold, but so do my comments about Rieber routing around the storytelling damage with additional words. Mildly recommended. $2.95

• Issue 6: Bleah. Fog of war is one thing, and some of the stuff characters say can be attributed to it. But other stuff reads like they had to scramble the word bubbles because the pages weren't drawn in order. Extremely unclear issue, with plenty of "let's kill them, since we don't have to do an #7" bad writing. This has been one long disappointment capped with a craptastic ending. Avoid. $2.95

• Issue 1: Sort of a sequel to the World War II crossover, but with enough details...off...to suggest an alternate timeline. Or just careless writing, which is certaintly possible. Pat Lee's art is passable, and McDonough's writing goes okay (although the military jargon feels pasted-on). It looks like it might be better than the first series, but that's not too hard. Mildly recommended. $2.95