This Will Be Our Year, Took a Long Time to Come.
Issue 1: Optimus Prime/Official Movie Prequel Part 1/Beast Wars: The Gathering Part 1. July 2007*.
A hallucination? A vision? Perhaps a warning!
*Again with a first issue, the exact release date doesn’t seem to be online. However, based on the date for issue 2 of 16th August, the 19th seems most likely. Or just over a week before the film came out. The comic is now released on Thursdays.
Oh, and as a head's up for images, the comic is now ever so slightly bigger than my scanner. So expect full pages to be a bit cropped and other oddities...
I talk about the road that bought us here in the accompanying essay, but the big thing to note about the film tie-in comic is that, for the first time, we’re dealing with a title that is specifically tied into some other fiction rather than just the toys. Previous Transformers comics, odd adaptation aside, have been free to do their own thing with the franchise as long as the right toy gets promoted at the right time, here we’re looking at something that has to specifically link into something bigger, and rather distant (Paramount will not be especially interested and Hasbro will be too busy counting all the money to make much of a fuss) from where they’re working.
Making a comic out of a film yet to be released when you don’t have a lot of firm information is difficult, as we saw in 1986. Scripts and plot details can help, but when you’re talking a big blockbuster these can change on a daily basis and dialogue and character are usually the last things to be really solidly locked down, because getting the expensive set-pieces right is the important thing as there’s no point coming up with a brilliantly witty exchange during an explosive battle if you then can’t afford it.
The various companies (as well as IDW and Titan, there’s an original novel I’m going to have to talk about at some point) tying into the first Bay film hit upon the same idea: They knew the basic starting point of the movie of everyone coming to Earth to hunt for the Allspark, so they would do prequels they could heavily promote as being OFFICIAL despite the very good chance no one involved with the making of the film ever even heard of them.
A hallucination? A vision? Perhaps a warning!
*Again with a first issue, the exact release date doesn’t seem to be online. However, based on the date for issue 2 of 16th August, the 19th seems most likely. Or just over a week before the film came out. The comic is now released on Thursdays.
Oh, and as a head's up for images, the comic is now ever so slightly bigger than my scanner. So expect full pages to be a bit cropped and other oddities...
I talk about the road that bought us here in the accompanying essay, but the big thing to note about the film tie-in comic is that, for the first time, we’re dealing with a title that is specifically tied into some other fiction rather than just the toys. Previous Transformers comics, odd adaptation aside, have been free to do their own thing with the franchise as long as the right toy gets promoted at the right time, here we’re looking at something that has to specifically link into something bigger, and rather distant (Paramount will not be especially interested and Hasbro will be too busy counting all the money to make much of a fuss) from where they’re working.
Making a comic out of a film yet to be released when you don’t have a lot of firm information is difficult, as we saw in 1986. Scripts and plot details can help, but when you’re talking a big blockbuster these can change on a daily basis and dialogue and character are usually the last things to be really solidly locked down, because getting the expensive set-pieces right is the important thing as there’s no point coming up with a brilliantly witty exchange during an explosive battle if you then can’t afford it.
The various companies (as well as IDW and Titan, there’s an original novel I’m going to have to talk about at some point) tying into the first Bay film hit upon the same idea: They knew the basic starting point of the movie of everyone coming to Earth to hunt for the Allspark, so they would do prequels they could heavily promote as being OFFICIAL despite the very good chance no one involved with the making of the film ever even heard of them.
The difference between you and Geoff Senior, is Geoff Senior makes this look good.
This also has the advantage of not risking any contradiction with a possible sequel (they had no idea how much backwards mythology would go into the follow up films) and letting them appease Hasbro by giving a focus on characters outside of the film’s main Bumblebee focus.
Though for this first UK story, the very sensible decision was made to have it focus on one of the big hitters dealing with a key moment from the film (one that handily isn’t directly shown in the IDW prequel), Optimus Prime and the moment he blasts the Allspark out into space.
The idea of these first six issues is to effectively do the equivalent of IDW’s Spotlight series, a first person narrated focus on one character. Which is a format we’ve not really seen on the British stories to this extent before, but it was something Furman had done a lot of by this point.
I’ll talk about how many of the film comics fail to get the feel of the movie later in the issue, but what is notable here is Furman just writes Optimus Prime as the IDW version. He’s full of doubt and uncertainty and feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. This isn’t too far from the first film character who was prepared to kill himself to stop the Allspark being corrupted, but equally it’s hard to hear Peter Cullen saying things like “And yet in Megatron’s malign hands...”
The key thing though, is the return of Geoff Senior on art. This opening arc (and the two “Oh, we’re still here” issues following) will generally feature more “Name” artists that fans will already know that subsequent issues, suggesting to me the IDW reprint that followed hot on the heels of the UK release was part of the plan from the start and, either in direct collaboration with the Americans or simply just to make it more appealing to them, some extra money was found for the talent here.
Though for this first UK story, the very sensible decision was made to have it focus on one of the big hitters dealing with a key moment from the film (one that handily isn’t directly shown in the IDW prequel), Optimus Prime and the moment he blasts the Allspark out into space.
The idea of these first six issues is to effectively do the equivalent of IDW’s Spotlight series, a first person narrated focus on one character. Which is a format we’ve not really seen on the British stories to this extent before, but it was something Furman had done a lot of by this point.
I’ll talk about how many of the film comics fail to get the feel of the movie later in the issue, but what is notable here is Furman just writes Optimus Prime as the IDW version. He’s full of doubt and uncertainty and feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. This isn’t too far from the first film character who was prepared to kill himself to stop the Allspark being corrupted, but equally it’s hard to hear Peter Cullen saying things like “And yet in Megatron’s malign hands...”
The key thing though, is the return of Geoff Senior on art. This opening arc (and the two “Oh, we’re still here” issues following) will generally feature more “Name” artists that fans will already know that subsequent issues, suggesting to me the IDW reprint that followed hot on the heels of the UK release was part of the plan from the start and, either in direct collaboration with the Americans or simply just to make it more appealing to them, some extra money was found for the talent here.
My Liege!
Senior’s first interior art in 13 years (incidentally, at 12 years, this issue is now the same age the final UK G2 issue was in 2007) is impressive for how it doesn’t disappoint. I’ll talk next week about how the artists struggled with the film designs, but he has the advantage that Optimus, arguably the best of them, is the only one featured extensively (you get a one panel flashback with an upskirt shot of Megatron and that’s about it), otherwise it’s generics who look like humans in gas masks and a drone based on the Liege Maximo for fun.
This means that the art is stunning. We open on a full page of Optimus kicking ass in battle, but even the pages of him talking to the guardians of the Allspark (it’s fair to say all this is very much based on the backstory to the Underbase) and deciding what choice to make about keeping it out of Megatron’s hands are well realised as well. Robin Smith (another familiar face) does an excellent job on colours as well, whilst it’s very grey—something Senior seems not to have been happy with as he produced a version of the first two pages he’d coloured himself to show what he was thinking of—it’s still got more depth and tone to it than anything from the Armada series.
This means that the art is stunning. We open on a full page of Optimus kicking ass in battle, but even the pages of him talking to the guardians of the Allspark (it’s fair to say all this is very much based on the backstory to the Underbase) and deciding what choice to make about keeping it out of Megatron’s hands are well realised as well. Robin Smith (another familiar face) does an excellent job on colours as well, whilst it’s very grey—something Senior seems not to have been happy with as he produced a version of the first two pages he’d coloured himself to show what he was thinking of—it’s still got more depth and tone to it than anything from the Armada series.
Cybertron mode Prime: Looks like he turns into a truck, but drives like a brick.
The drone that bursts through hunting for Prime isn’t much of an enemy, but again, the fight is realised exquisitely and—for all it’s a simple plot—you get a sense the creative team are just having fun working together again and it’s infectious. Though Prime blowing up a fuel container that has FUEL written on it in giant letters (ACME is probably on the other side) is unintentionally funny.
The fight ends with Optimus (despite being drawn in his Earth form) turning into his protoform toy mode and blasting through the drone, which is a good old fashioned bit of Optimus Prime action. We then get a good old bit of Furman writing has he has an apocalyptic vision of the war on Earth and, in a nicely subversive touch, the Allspark actually being launched into space by one the generics who is following Prime’s “If I’m not back in ten cycles...” order.
This isn’t really indicative of what the comic will become. Indeed, it’s going to be a couple of months before we really see the series hit its stride with issue 9, but despite a variety of stock Furman clichés it’s a solid, fun start to the run that makes you wish Senior had popped back a few more times.
The comic as a whole is very much aiming to be a multi-continuity anthology, with three strips in total (the other two not being given title cards, hence the slight break in my usual format here), two taken from IDW. The first being that company’s official prequel to the film, the only bit of their film lore Titan with bother to connect to.
The fight ends with Optimus (despite being drawn in his Earth form) turning into his protoform toy mode and blasting through the drone, which is a good old fashioned bit of Optimus Prime action. We then get a good old bit of Furman writing has he has an apocalyptic vision of the war on Earth and, in a nicely subversive touch, the Allspark actually being launched into space by one the generics who is following Prime’s “If I’m not back in ten cycles...” order.
This isn’t really indicative of what the comic will become. Indeed, it’s going to be a couple of months before we really see the series hit its stride with issue 9, but despite a variety of stock Furman clichés it’s a solid, fun start to the run that makes you wish Senior had popped back a few more times.
The comic as a whole is very much aiming to be a multi-continuity anthology, with three strips in total (the other two not being given title cards, hence the slight break in my usual format here), two taken from IDW. The first being that company’s official prequel to the film, the only bit of their film lore Titan with bother to connect to.
The visual flourishes are one of the few highlights of the Prequel. But remember, that's film Bumblebee talking...
And to be blunt, this opening seven pages is largely awful, taking the issues I talked about that can plague a licensed film tie-in and turning them up to eleven.
Written by Furman and IDW editor in chief Christ Ryall (though I suspect Ryall is the main writer on their film collaborations), it recaps the backstory to the war the main strip touched on as well, and reveals that Bumblebee is leading a team—including a white Arcee—to hold off Megatron’s troops in parallel with Prime’s battle with the drone. All covered by first person narration from Bumblebee.
Which is in theory fine, but if you can’t hear Peter Cullen saying Prime’s dialogue, your brain will have an aneurysm imagining film Bumblebee’s internal monologue including things like “In the way of a grateful species before a munificent creator—few ventured to quantify its miraculous properties”.
Which is where the “Sometimes things don’t line up because we don’t know that much” argument falls down, because Paramount could have told IDW literally nothing about the film in advance and you’d still know the lead good character in a summer blockbuster would never talk like that. It’s a terrible misjudgement that sows the seeds for how IDW will wind up treating all their movie comics (and of course, by the second, they know what the style is): Complete contempt for the source material and a desire to make a part of the franchise that’s a bit different from G1 rehash 78362 into G1 rehash 78362. Only some striking art from Don Figueroa—including some lovely black and white flashback pages—stop it being a complete right off.
Written by Furman and IDW editor in chief Christ Ryall (though I suspect Ryall is the main writer on their film collaborations), it recaps the backstory to the war the main strip touched on as well, and reveals that Bumblebee is leading a team—including a white Arcee—to hold off Megatron’s troops in parallel with Prime’s battle with the drone. All covered by first person narration from Bumblebee.
Which is in theory fine, but if you can’t hear Peter Cullen saying Prime’s dialogue, your brain will have an aneurysm imagining film Bumblebee’s internal monologue including things like “In the way of a grateful species before a munificent creator—few ventured to quantify its miraculous properties”.
Which is where the “Sometimes things don’t line up because we don’t know that much” argument falls down, because Paramount could have told IDW literally nothing about the film in advance and you’d still know the lead good character in a summer blockbuster would never talk like that. It’s a terrible misjudgement that sows the seeds for how IDW will wind up treating all their movie comics (and of course, by the second, they know what the style is): Complete contempt for the source material and a desire to make a part of the franchise that’s a bit different from G1 rehash 78362 into G1 rehash 78362. Only some striking art from Don Figueroa—including some lovely black and white flashback pages—stop it being a complete right off.
All your favourite Beast Warriors.
Ignoring what actually made a part of the franchise that’s a bit different a success also applies to our second backup. Reprinting a Beast Wars comic does on the surface seem a bit strange. However, the cartoon had received two full repeats on Channel 5’s kids TV strand just a few years before (the first time season 3 had been shown in the UK and the first time a Transformers cartoon got a full run on terrestrial), meaning it was fairly current in the minds of younger fans, probably more so than, say, Cybertron.
Plus, as a tie-in to the film, Sony had put Beast Machines out on DVD (as they’d done the previous single disc Beast Wars release as well, it’s a puzzle as to why they didn’t release a boxset of the better known in the UK series first, but hey ho), making for some nice cross-promotion.
The Gathering actually started life at Dreamwave where it was originally to have been written by the Brad Mick gestalt before they left the company over the not being paid thing (one of their subsequent issues being the series used their plot without payment or credit, presumably Furman was given the basics as they’d already solicited it), at which point Furman took over and—after the collapse and move to IDW—basically resurrected it when the new licence owner wanted to do something with the franchise.
Furman was on paper a perfect writer for this and the accompanying Beast Wars Sourcebook character guide, as he’d written the last episode of the cartoon. Short of getting Larry DiTillio or Bob Forward, that would seem to make him ideal.
But, as he admitted, writing one episode a decade earlier did not make him much of an expert, so he made the choice to bring super fan (and indeed, again, on paper a good idea as they’d actually been credited as a consultant on the cartoon’s Generation One crossover) Benson Yee to help with general advice and plotting.
The problem is, being a knowledgeable fan and knowing anything about plot and character are not the same thing. And as we go along the two miniseries (and in terms of what I was saying in the interim piece about how IDW’s sales fall was fairly drastic, Beast Wars managed 8 issues before being cancelled due to low sales with figures about three times higher than their current successful books get) we’re going to see a lot of problems develop from this as the Transformers Ian Levine and Eric Saward team up.
Plus, as a tie-in to the film, Sony had put Beast Machines out on DVD (as they’d done the previous single disc Beast Wars release as well, it’s a puzzle as to why they didn’t release a boxset of the better known in the UK series first, but hey ho), making for some nice cross-promotion.
The Gathering actually started life at Dreamwave where it was originally to have been written by the Brad Mick gestalt before they left the company over the not being paid thing (one of their subsequent issues being the series used their plot without payment or credit, presumably Furman was given the basics as they’d already solicited it), at which point Furman took over and—after the collapse and move to IDW—basically resurrected it when the new licence owner wanted to do something with the franchise.
Furman was on paper a perfect writer for this and the accompanying Beast Wars Sourcebook character guide, as he’d written the last episode of the cartoon. Short of getting Larry DiTillio or Bob Forward, that would seem to make him ideal.
But, as he admitted, writing one episode a decade earlier did not make him much of an expert, so he made the choice to bring super fan (and indeed, again, on paper a good idea as they’d actually been credited as a consultant on the cartoon’s Generation One crossover) Benson Yee to help with general advice and plotting.
The problem is, being a knowledgeable fan and knowing anything about plot and character are not the same thing. And as we go along the two miniseries (and in terms of what I was saying in the interim piece about how IDW’s sales fall was fairly drastic, Beast Wars managed 8 issues before being cancelled due to low sales with figures about three times higher than their current successful books get) we’re going to see a lot of problems develop from this as the Transformers Ian Levine and Eric Saward team up.
That's just Prime.
Though for a taster, one of the reasons the Sourcebook wound up being useless as a character guide is that it threw out the established personalities of several Japanese characters for not being Serious Business enough, from the franchise that brought us an episode about killer farts.
The Beast Wars cartoon was notable of course for having a small focused and well developed cast. So naturally the comic barely features them (because you couldn’t do a small little adventure that could fit between episodes, it has to be EPIC without disrupting continuity) and instead brings in Every Single Beast Wars toy that never got to be in the show.
Including American and Japanese toys that are identical beyond different names, which would be like doing a Generation One comic with both Cosmos and Adams in it.
Which is exactly the sort of thing you get when you bring a fan consultant who can’t write fiction aboard.
Things start decently with a three page recap of the events of the first two and a half seasons of show that’s very nicely drawn by Don Figueroa (as he’d yet to effectively burn his bridges he was still hot stuff at this time), before Magmatron (not to be confused with Megatron) arrives with his motley crew—including Razorbeast—on pre-historic Earth, revealing he has been sent by the Tripredacus Council to complete Ravage’s mission of bringing Megatron (not to be confused with Magmatron) in.
So as to avoid any of the characters you might actually want to be in a Beast Wars comic taking part, Depth Charge wanders past to establish Magmatron is invisible, being just a few seconds temporarily out of sync with the time stream, in an idea taken from the Star Trek: The Next Generation two parter Time’s Arrow (Furman would remember it as The Next Phase in interviews, where a completely different cause produces a similar effect).
Which is not a terrible start, but also isn’t that exciting. So far this is very much a comic being held up by the British strip.
The surrounding comic is very much an aimed at an older audience take on the Armada format, which by this point is very much the standard for UK comics, even if the final result is more a hybrid between their dedicated reprints of DC material for older teens and the small kids stuff. This includes the free gifts, which this month are some Autobot or Decepticon logo dog tags so you can pretend to be in the army like a cool Michael Bay hero.
It’s Here!, is the excited editorial page, which yells “FOR SHAME!” at readers who haven’t seen the film yet. A film that will only be on release for three of the four weeks the comic is out.
The Beast Wars cartoon was notable of course for having a small focused and well developed cast. So naturally the comic barely features them (because you couldn’t do a small little adventure that could fit between episodes, it has to be EPIC without disrupting continuity) and instead brings in Every Single Beast Wars toy that never got to be in the show.
Including American and Japanese toys that are identical beyond different names, which would be like doing a Generation One comic with both Cosmos and Adams in it.
Which is exactly the sort of thing you get when you bring a fan consultant who can’t write fiction aboard.
Things start decently with a three page recap of the events of the first two and a half seasons of show that’s very nicely drawn by Don Figueroa (as he’d yet to effectively burn his bridges he was still hot stuff at this time), before Magmatron (not to be confused with Megatron) arrives with his motley crew—including Razorbeast—on pre-historic Earth, revealing he has been sent by the Tripredacus Council to complete Ravage’s mission of bringing Megatron (not to be confused with Magmatron) in.
So as to avoid any of the characters you might actually want to be in a Beast Wars comic taking part, Depth Charge wanders past to establish Magmatron is invisible, being just a few seconds temporarily out of sync with the time stream, in an idea taken from the Star Trek: The Next Generation two parter Time’s Arrow (Furman would remember it as The Next Phase in interviews, where a completely different cause produces a similar effect).
Which is not a terrible start, but also isn’t that exciting. So far this is very much a comic being held up by the British strip.
The surrounding comic is very much an aimed at an older audience take on the Armada format, which by this point is very much the standard for UK comics, even if the final result is more a hybrid between their dedicated reprints of DC material for older teens and the small kids stuff. This includes the free gifts, which this month are some Autobot or Decepticon logo dog tags so you can pretend to be in the army like a cool Michael Bay hero.
It’s Here!, is the excited editorial page, which yells “FOR SHAME!” at readers who haven’t seen the film yet. A film that will only be on release for three of the four weeks the comic is out.
Chris McFeely before Chris McFeely.
Transformers 101 covers the key basics of the set up; Character Profile: Optimus Prime is an abridgement of the one from the movie guide book, and hilariously makes it sound like Optimus was prepared to die to stop the Allspark falling into the wrong hands but then thought “Sod that”; Autobot Vs Decepticon Smackdown! Ratchet Vs Barricade is a credited to Furman look at the two characters where you then get to decide who wins; Transformers: The Animated Movie: A Piece of History pimps the newest DVD release of the original film with a competition and description that very carefully doesn’t let on who dies, you’ll never guess who the Most Famous Autobot of All might be; The Gathering opens with a text recap of the show and a competition for the Beast Machines DVDs; Top Gear: Transform Your Summer! talks about the Thumbs Up t-shirts; Optimus Prime voice changer helmet, the gauntlet super soaker (ah, take any old tat and slap the logo on it) and the Optimus and Megatron toys, with competitions for all but the helmet.
The competition questions are actually a little tricky if you’re not a long term fan, with “What did Bumblebee turn into in the 80’s?” being the real stumper as there’s no hint of the answer to that in the 86 film write up.
The letters page is Mech Mail, with art largely from adult fans, who presumably were the ones to know about the comic in advance. The father of four year old Jamie Childs is especially cynical for sitting his kid in front of his own collection and pretending you’d give a four year old Alternators Optimus Prime and it’s totally all the little tyke’s toys so that his picture will get in.
There’s also a couple of letters from adult fans talking about how great the comic was in the 80’s, most notably from one time Auto Assembly runner Sven Harvey. And the main new information we get from the page is the sequel will likely be 2009 or 2010 (optimistic! But correct) and an animated cartoon will debut in 2008.
But there’s also lots of letters from children talking about how they’ve already seen the movie and how great it was. A week before release. Now, there were advance screenings and previews, but not by the point this issue would have needed to be put to bed. There was also a pirate copy that did the rounds due to the daft decision to delay the release until after America (which may, or may not, have been how I first saw it).
But frankly, this feels entirely like the issue not coming out after the release of the film was a mistake due to the shifting date and these letters are either entirely faked or heavily altered. Which is a shame, as Kristy Manheim from Newport makes the very good point about how hard it is to be a girl fan of this franchise when you don’t get any respect from the boys. But Kristy, you’ve got the bigger issue of never having existed.
But, if you wrote in and are real and somehow got away with advocating piracy in an official comic, do let me know.
What is real is my look at what happened between Armada and the film, which you can read by clicking below.
The competition questions are actually a little tricky if you’re not a long term fan, with “What did Bumblebee turn into in the 80’s?” being the real stumper as there’s no hint of the answer to that in the 86 film write up.
The letters page is Mech Mail, with art largely from adult fans, who presumably were the ones to know about the comic in advance. The father of four year old Jamie Childs is especially cynical for sitting his kid in front of his own collection and pretending you’d give a four year old Alternators Optimus Prime and it’s totally all the little tyke’s toys so that his picture will get in.
There’s also a couple of letters from adult fans talking about how great the comic was in the 80’s, most notably from one time Auto Assembly runner Sven Harvey. And the main new information we get from the page is the sequel will likely be 2009 or 2010 (optimistic! But correct) and an animated cartoon will debut in 2008.
But there’s also lots of letters from children talking about how they’ve already seen the movie and how great it was. A week before release. Now, there were advance screenings and previews, but not by the point this issue would have needed to be put to bed. There was also a pirate copy that did the rounds due to the daft decision to delay the release until after America (which may, or may not, have been how I first saw it).
But frankly, this feels entirely like the issue not coming out after the release of the film was a mistake due to the shifting date and these letters are either entirely faked or heavily altered. Which is a shame, as Kristy Manheim from Newport makes the very good point about how hard it is to be a girl fan of this franchise when you don’t get any respect from the boys. But Kristy, you’ve got the bigger issue of never having existed.
But, if you wrote in and are real and somehow got away with advocating piracy in an official comic, do let me know.
What is real is my look at what happened between Armada and the film, which you can read by clicking below.
