-General Outline-
In the last few years, a sort of retro revival of old 80's properties has swept the comics industry. Started by G.I. Joe, companies like Image and Dreamwave, along with Devil's Due and others, have begin producing hordes of retro property comics. Thundercats, Micronauts, Battle of the Planets, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron...
And The Transformers. One of the biggest phenomenons of the decade, the Transformers told the saga of Optimus Prime and his Autobots waging war on Megatron and his Decepticons. The property reigned supreme in the toy and cartoon arenas for many years, finally waining in the early 90's... at least in America. After the Transformers Movie, the American property wound down, but it seemed to keep growing in Japan. Sequels, spin-offs, alternate universes... toys and television were still held by the Transformers in the land of the rising sun (Britain's Comics also continued for a time). Back home, the series quietly returned in the form of Beast Wars, set far in the future of the events of the American Series (technically prehistoric Earth but it involved 'decendants' of the Transformers from the first show)... The series did well, ran for several seasons, sparking a less successful sequel series, but nonetheless helped to propel this current comic to frutation.
-Prime Directive-
(Contains Spoilers of sorts)
The first arc of Pat Lee's ongoing Transformer series starts with an attack on a military installation in the jungle by none other then Megatron! It turns out the Autobots had helped the humans beat down the Decepticons and then when they launched their shuttle to go home, something went wrong and the Transformers must have been knocked offline, where military types tried to use them as super weapons...
Things don't go as planned, and soon Megatron is running amok! Daniel, son of the Autobot's human friend Sparkplug, is accosted by a shady military group who demand he get Prime online. Using a shard of Prime's Matrix of Leadership he had as a keepsake, he wakens the dormant Transformer who leaps into action.
Facing the military and Megatron, Prime's autobots must avoid a deadly techno-organic virus Megatron tries to unleash and avoid military forces. But can they stop two deadly foes who will stop at nothing to get what they want? What price will the Autobot's pay...?
-Criticism-
First, I want to say Pat Lee was born to draw Transformers. The man has made these robots built from a fleet of twenty year old cars look badass. He has great colorists and a good artistic sense when it comes to mechanics... but his people tend to be rather generic in shape and size. And there are people, lots of people.
And thats where the other flaw of this arc becomes apparent. Too many people running around! It wouldn't be so bad except that they all tend to be stereo types. The bitter child of the dead hero who does the right thing in the end. The shadowy and covert yet seeming omnipotent military group... its a weakness thats crippling, especially considering humans are a major focus for this series for most of the arc!
Something else that bothers me about this storyline is the way Lee sets it all up. We don't see the Transformers come from Cybertron to crash land on Earth. Instead, we have this period where they must have been on Earth for at least 15 years BEFORE the humans Autobots put the Decepticons down.(assuming they did indeed come in 1984 like the show) Why did it take the humans so long?
Then we have the issue of the "Ark Diaster". Apparently the humans were going to send the Transformers back home to get rid of the Decepticons and to help bring technology back to Earth from Cybertron. But the shuttle explodes and apparently all the Transformers crash to Earth inert (in Stasis Lock, Im guessing).. does NOBODY except a few select military groups find them? There were DOZENS of Transformers! When the Columbia Shuttle crashed, there was debris from East of Texas to California. They could'nt have all crashed into the 'remote' parts of the world. And if the Humans manage to rebuild at least ONE of them, where the hell is the technology they no doubt get as a result of studying the systems of these sentient robots?
Okay, so maybe I'm expecting way too much from such a beloved childhood cartoon. But it wasn't just a cartoon... its an ICON. I find it hard to believe the world could forget about giant transforming robots in the span of two years after being constantly blitzed for the past 20...
One last thing: The book is called TRANSFORMERS. Lee and company spend WAAAAY to much time on humans for my tastes. Having human buddies is neat, but this is more then a bit much. They have more screen time then the stars of the show! And the plot advances far to slow for my tastes. We barely get to the action when we realize the action is already over.
This series has lots of potential, but the first arc leaves so much to be desired!
