Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed, but fun beginning to an epic saga, 25 April 2003
Okay, so the American comic series never matched the UK series for epic storytelling, dialogue, plot and characterisation, but it's still a lot of fun in places. This book brings together issues 1-6 of the original US comic book (reprinted as issues 1-8, 22-25 of the UK series) which tell of the origins of the Transformers war, their landing on Earth, and the initial battles. Issues 5 & 6 also begin an engaging saga involving Shockwave, the Dinobots and creation Matrix (which comes to fruition in the next book, "New Order"). Some of the dialogue is painfully atrocious and the art is a little ropey, but this is still a worthy addition to any TF fan's bookshelf, kickstarting seven years of comic stories in the only TRUE Transformer continuity (the comic really does knock spots off the cartoon series).
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed, but still worthy of a place on your bookshelf, 26 Mar 2003
Okay, so the art and script (particularly some of the dialogue) are somewhat ropey in parts of this collection (which brings together issues 1-6 of the original US comic series) but this is still an enjoyable launch to the epic story known as The Transformers. Things get off to a slow start, but really start moving when Shockwave arrives, wipes out all the Autobots (save Ratchet) and duffs up Megatron, assuming command of the 'Cons. I prefer comic continuity to the cartoon anyway, and this epic story (continuing into the next collection, "New Order") is a good - though not the best - piece of evidence to explain why. Highly recommended, great for nostalgia, and the chance to see where it all started "BF" (before Furman).
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3.0 out of 5 stars
An important starting point... but by Primus it's flawed., 18 Jan 2004
It's a shame that history can't be rewritten so the first four Transformers comics could too. The main storyline is fine - civil war on Cybertron, spreading to Earth where it all begins again in the present (well, 20 years ago) day - but a number of factors crucially let this down. Firstly, the artwork - far too closely modelled on the toys, with very little of the artistic licence which would evolve (most notably with Ratchet, Ironhide, Brawn's arms and Gears' face). Secondly, the characterisations are still very one-dimensional at this point, relying completely on the brief personality descriptions on the toy boxes. Thirdly - the dialogue. Don't get me started on the dialogue...On the plus side, the final two stories as Bob Budianski took over writing duties lessened the above flaws and the storyline started to develop beyond its four issue 'limited' run. Events were set in motion which would develop over the following issues and enable the Transformers comic to develop and grow. Unfortunately Budianski's own stories would eventually become less impressive as the Transformers toys became increasingly far fetched (Headmasters, Targetmasters and Powermasters - okay. Pretenders and Micromasters - hmm). But Simon Furman was waiting to take over.
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