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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A supremely detailed analysis of ALL the Transformers., 1 Jan 2005
Readers of the old Marvel comics would recognise the format of these entirely new books, as they are very much in the vein of the fact files which appeared periodically in the comics (themselves reprinted from the US 'Transformers Universe' series). Basically, these are 'Who's Who' listings, giving details (personalities, abilities and weaknesses) of the robots.But they go much beyond that, as Dreamwave have achieved what Marvel never managed - profiles of EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Generation 1 Transformers - including the later sub-groups such as the Pretenders, Micromasters and Action Masters, which the Marvel versions predated and, in Volume 2, detailing Transformers technology and history. Also, these files are occasionally 'written' by the subject's fellow Transformers (Optimus Prime's views on Grimlock and so on), giving an intriguing new slant on things. Contents wise, the book is perfect and well worth the 5/5. Unfortunately, there are a couple of factors which might draw the mark down. The first of these is that this is only Volume 1 of the book - there are so many Transformers (around 400) that this volume can only cover up to the letter P, and all the robots after that have to be bought in a separate volume. Many of the Transformers listed in this volume's index aren't to be found in its pages, and that's frustrating. Also, some robots are grouped in the alphabetical order of their sub-group. While it makes some sense to include all members of the Special Team groups together due to their combined form, others such as the Dinobots and Insecticons could really have been split into the correct alphabetical listing... especially as the Micromaster teams are profiled as individual robots, with no reference in the index of which team they belong to (I had to physically go through both volumes and list each member). Still, these are minor drawbacks in such an impressive, detailed and well researched work - especially as Simon Furman's superior depiction of my personal favourite, Grimlock, now appears to be the official one...
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