Now as an adult I find my ability to tell Skywarp from Thundercracker sorely diminished along with my once comprehensive internal enyclopedia of every dinosaur that ever walked, swam, or flew. No, this will not be a rant about the loss of youth, but instead a reaction to a happy cultural phenomena going on right now. You see, every once in a while the world lines itself up and produces something precisely tuned just to you. I guess it would be like having all of your favorite baseball players suddenly traded to the same team, or finally having your chance with the girl you had a crush on in high school the day after you get left at the altar. For me, it’s the 80’s nostalgia revival. In a few hours Cartoon Network will air a re-make of He-Man. Late at night you can sometimes catch syndicated GI-JOE episodes. But most excitingly for me is the recent completion of Dreamwave Productions’ first Transformers: Generation 1 mini-series.
I’ll rewind a few months. My friend Jay-1 is all aflutter about the new Transformers comics. For some reason I don’t realize how big a deal this is. Then I go to the store and pick up the preview and the first two issues. I have to say that I was blown away. First of all, the comics themselves are printed on very nice paper. Also, Dreamwave doesn’t run ads every few pages like Marvel and DC do. All you get are a few ads for other Dreamwave titles at the center page, and announcements for next month’s releases at the end. But on top of that, Pat Lee’s artwork is utterly top-notch. I’ve never really cared much for manga-style art, but they employ it perfectly here. The Transformers (though we don’t really see them until issue 2) look great. The artists accomplish what the show rarely did because it showed the Transformers mostly interacting with each other: these things are HUGE. Not only do they just look cool because I’m seeing icons from my childhood, but they just look freakin’ great. The inker, Rob Armstrong, uses computer colors to make all of the artwork look smoother and more vibrant than a live-action movie might appear.
As for the writing: it’s good. I don’t think the story is as strong as others seem to, but I also don’t think that’s the point. I do have to give credit to Chris Sarracini for coming up with a creative way to bring these characters back without just starting where the cartoon or last comic series left off. The basic story is that, three years ago, the Earth got fed up with the Autobot/Decepticon war. They had been fighting for years and people just kept getting caught in the middle, so the humans agree to devote all of the their resources to help the Autobots. They win, defeating the Decepticons. The Aubobots pack their bags and board a giant spaceship, the Ark II, with the deactivated Decepticons in captivity, along with a small group of Earth’s great scientists who are going to Cybertron to study its technology. For some reason, though, the ship explodes, killing the scientists and, the world thought, the Transformers. Now, three years later, a covert bad guy has discovered Transformers buried in ice and has learned how to reactivate and control them. Society’s only hope is the lifeless form of Optimus Prime, but no one can figure out how to get him working. The story works, and turns out pretty well once you get into it. But it does come off feeling a little bit too complex for itself. They’ve got a mysterious villain, an over-zealous military general, the re-activation of the Transformers, poor Spike caught in the middle, and some weird techno-virus that doesn’t get nearly enough explanation. Nonetheless, the momentum does hold up and builds very strongly into an exciting fight. At one point we get a marvelous two-page splash of Devastator rising out of the San Franscisco bay and you realize just how terrible a force a Decepticon attack would be.
I really can’t recommend this new series enough. If you liked the Transformers as a kid, you just have to read it. Dreamwave just finished the first 6-issue arc and plans another in early 2003. In the meantime, go out and pick up the trade of Transformers: Generation 1. You won’t be disappointed.
It doesn’t stop there…
Along with the G1 series come two more titles: Transformers Armada and Transformers: The War Within. The War Within only just started so I don’t have a big impression of it yet, but it starts off well. The idea is that they’re going back to tell how the war started. Optimus has only just become Prime and the Decepticons right now are just rebels starting a coup. One of the cool things is that we get to see the robots’ various “Cybertronian Forms.” It makes sense, because it isn’t likely that Cybertron would have cars and airplanes that look just like those on Earth, so we get cool things like Grimlock as a tank instead of a T-Rex and Starscream as a, well, space jet of some sort. Armada sadly doesn’t worry about that too much, but I think that it merits a bit more attention than some are giving it. Admittedly, the cartoon sucks. I like it despite that fact, but that’s just me. The comic is better, judging from the preview and the first three issues that is. The premise is that there’s a race of robots called the Mini-Cons who the Decepticons are using to boost their own power. Using Mini-Cons the Decepticons are basically unstoppable, and the Autobots don’t like that. Neither do the Mini-Cons, because being attached to other robots in such a way amounts to torture for them. A small group of them escapes and rescues the rest and together they blast off into space to of course become stranded and end up one earth. And I think that it works very well. The artwork, like in Gen 1 and The War Within is superb and you do get a flash of horror when you see the poor little guys getting thrown into cages screaming. Armada also has a very good line of toys accompanying it with some very neat features. They’re bigger than Transformers used to be which provides more detailing and better articulation so you can actually pose the toys instead of just having them stand up straight and do nothing. They each come with a Mini-Con, and when you attach them to the Transformer they activate cool features like lights, sound effects, and guns that flip out of nowhere and fire. The Optimus Prime toy has a trailer that transforms itself into a base automatically when you change his body from truck cab to robot. Very cool
So the Transforms are back and this is a good thing. Get excited, check it out, and remember not to be an uptight adult. Play with toys, read comic books, watch cartoons, and be merry.