Transformers: The Wreckers

This article is about the 2001 comic series. For other meanings, see Wreckers (disambiguation).

Transformers: The Wreckers is a comic book series published by 3H Productions. Originally intended as an ongoing series when it debuted at BotCon 2001, a variety of factors subsequently saw it put on hiatus, retooled into a mini-series named Transformers: Universe featuring The Wreckers, and then cancelled before ever finishing its story.

Set around the timeframe of the Beast Machines cartoon, The Wreckers featured a large and eclectic cast that included both 3H's convention-exclusive toys and regular toyline characters not starring in other media. In addition to the titular Wreckers, making their debut in American Transformers fiction, the series also features the Beast Machines Dinobots and the Beast Wars Mutants, all assembled by the Oracle to carry out enigmatic missions on other planets.

The series also played host to the Beast Wars: Primeval Dawn backup story. Set prior to The Wreckers and serving as an "origin story" for several of its characters, Primeval Dawn debuted in issue #1 and was originally intended to spin out into a series of standalone motion comics. Ultimately, plans changed and it returned to being a backup strip in The Wreckers, beginning in the "Director's Cut" of issue #2.

When 3H lost the Transformers convention license after the release of 2004's issue #3, The Wreckers was left unresolved for three years. Eventually, new license-holder Fun Publications would provide some closure with The Wreckers: Finale, publishing the four pages of issue #4 which had been drawn before its cancellation, as well a brand-new illustrated prose conclusion for the series.

«	Transformers: The Wreckers issues:	»
#1 #2 #3 #4 (unreleased)

	The Wreckers: Finale stories:
Part I Part II

Build-up

3H's next big storyline was first teased at BotCon 2000 with the release of the Apelinq toy, whose packaging placed the character in the Beast Machines setting and obliquely described him as leading a "highly-trained, elite team of Cybertronian commandos." The accompanying convention comic, meanwhile, was far less vague, seeing Apelinq give the Wreckers' iconic battle-cry of "Wreck and rule!", while also establishing that he was the shadowy stranger from BotCon 1997's "Visitations" script reading.

Starting in January 2001, the BotCon: Beyond website began periodically revealing the new roster of Wreckers via the "VEHICON ALERT!" feature, taking the form of in-universe data readouts. To retain some mystery, many of the characters being newly introduced to 3H's stories had their names censored. Shortly after this feature concluded, another in-universe teaser began: "Apelinq's War Journals", which ran from February to June. These journal entries covered the title character's exploits leading up to his appearance in the BotCon 2000 comic, travelling from Cybertron during the Beast Machines cartoon back to prehistoric Earth.

Overview

After an encounter with Optimus Primal and Nightscream in the midst of their struggle with Megatron, the Wreckers, Dinobots and Mutants are each dispatched to a different planet by the Oracle. The story primarily follows the Wreckers as they travel to the 9th planet of the Archa system, where a mysterious artifact awaits, as does betrayal from within their ranks. Recovering, the group moves on to another world where they take on a Quintesson passenger. The other teams, meanwhile, have walked into traps, as their Oracle-given missions turn out to be false messages sent by the Quintessons. Eventually the Dinobots and Wreckers return to Cybertron, to join the population there in defending it against an all-out Quintesson invasion.

The series suffered heavy interference from Hasbro, who reportedly required multiple changes to fit their ever-shifting toy plans. Originally, 3H intended for The Wreckers to be an ongoing comic that would serve as their main fiction for the foreseeable future, released via conventions and the fan club. As of summer 2002, shortly before the release of The Wreckers #2 at BotCon 2002, the plan was that the book's opening story arc, titled "Enter the Wreckers", would conclude in a 48-page issue #4 at BotCon 2003. This would be accompanied by two additional 16-page books: an interlude issue leading into the next Wreckers story arc, and a double-sided issue featuring side stories set during "Enter the Wreckers".

These plans were derailed by Hasbro's insistence that 3H instead focus on producing fiction for the new Universe toyline, which led to no new Wreckers issues being released at the 2003 convention. Glen Hallit said Hasbro bluntly told them "we don't care about the Wreckers" ("exact quote)", and he wished they'd pushed back more against this. Eventually, the series would be renamed Transformers: Universe featuring The Wreckers, and continued with issue #3 and a "Director's Cut" of issue #2 at OTFCC 2004. With the main Universe title now set to become an ongoing series, The Wreckers was reworked into a limited series. Listings for The Wreckers #3 on the OTFCC website indicated a total of four issues, although by the time issue #4 was scripted, the series had apparently been extended to include at least a fifth installment. Ultimately, only four pages of issue #4 were drawn before 3H Productions lost their Transformers license, leaving the series incomplete.

Eventually, in 2007, those four pages were colored and printed in Fun Publications' club magazine as "The Wreckers: Finale Part 1", and the script for the entire issue was unofficially released to the fandom not long afterwards. A few months later, the story was concluded in the prose story "Wreckers: Finale Part II" on the Collectors' Club website, under a new creative team.

The series was rather heavily criticized by fans, in large part for starting off with an unmanageably huge cast, then solving that problem by brutally killing much of that cast off. The series also seemed to contain implicit criticism of the then-recent Beast Machines story, working hard to "undo" some of its events and concepts, as well as overt "fanwanking". Hallit would claim in 2014 that the intention wasn't to 'retcon' Beast Machines but that the Oracle had been hacked, and readers were meant to think something was up. (This doesn't quite make sense when characters outright said the Oracle was a Quintesson scheme.)

Creative team

Issue #1 was scripted by Glen Hallit with assistance from Rob Gerbracht, who subsequently took over as the lead writer for subsequent issues. Art for the first two issues was provided by Dan Khanna, with Guido Guidi taking over for the third and unfinished fourth issues. Colors were handled by Khanna himself for issue #1, while Dreamwave Productions, the then-current main Transformers comics publisher, provided colors for the original release of issue #2. The Director's Cut of issue #2 featured replacement colors by Hi-Fi Design, while issue #3 was colored by Blond.

When Fun Publications later completed the first four pages of issue #4, Guidi's lines were colored by Drew Eiden and Hans Kappers. The concluding prose story was written by Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop, with new illustrations drawn by Guidi and colored by Eiden.