Prime Directive

The name or term "Prime Directive" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Prime Directive (disambiguation).

What is Cosmos doing on this cover? Why are glass shards flying away? Why is Spike only shown as a mysterious silhouette? Ah, Dreamwave covers. Always full of mystery.

"Prime Directive" is a six-part Transformers story arc published by Dreamwave Productions in 2002, released as their initial Transformers: Generation 1 miniseries and set in the main Dreamwave Generation One continuity. It centers on the revival of the Transformers after a catastrophe several years prior. Four of the six individual issues topped Diamond Comic Distributors' sales charts for the month they were released in (with one issue losing to another Dreamwave Transformers title and the other one to a special publicity stunt by Marvel Comics), an accomplishment no other Transformers comic title has achieved before or afterwards.

On initial release, the story arc was untitled - the cover logos merely read Transformers, while the inside front cover logo expanded this to "Dreamwave Productions presents The Transformers Generation 1" and the formal indicia listed it as "TRANSFORMERS: Generation 1, Issue (n), Vol. 1". It was finally given the title "Prime Directive" when the miniseries was collected in trade paperback form.

	"Prime Directive" issues:	»
Preview #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6

Overview

Prior to the events in the series, the Transformers had been gone from Earth for several years, having all vanished and thought destroyed in the destruction of their Ark II ship. The ship was carrying the victorious Autobots and their captive Decepticons back to Cybertron, but exploded soon after launch. Afterward, the sinister Lazarus collected their inert forms and found a way to control them, planning to sell them on the black market. However, the U.S. government has plans of its own... as do the Transformers themselves.

Production and release

"Prime Directive", originally only titled Generation 1, was the first mass-market Transformers comic in nearly a decade, an absence reflected in the storyline.

The mini-series marked a brief phase of highly successful Dreamwave Transformers comics: Following an introduction in the form of a six-page preview issue, the first regular issue, released in April 2002, debuted at #1 of Diamond Comic Distributors' sales charts, an accomplishment repeated by issues 2, 3 and 6. Issue 4 ranked second behind Dreamwave's own Transformers: Armada #1, whereas issue 5 was beaten by Marvel's Fantastic Four #60 (which sold for a mere 9¢ as part of a one-off publicity stunt), with 705,109 copies ordered versus Generation 1 #5's 122,829 copies. Generation 1 peaked with issue 3 in June 2002, with 131,586 copies ordered, although issues 1, 2 and 5 saw a second printing run, and issue 1 even saw a third printing run.

Back then, rumors were circulating that Dreamwave was manipulating the market through a special deal with Diamond to ensure their success, or that Hasbro had set up an account to order large numbers of the Transformers comics. In fact, however, Hasbro had apparently ordered less than 200 copies per issue, and primarily because they were not guaranteed free copies from their contract with Dreamwave. Later that year, other companies also reported high sales of "nostalgia" titles, thus further challenging those rumors.

Each issue had two regular covers available in equal quantities, one featuring the Autobots, and one the Decepticons. The centre pages of each issue were a pull-out poster illustrated by James Raiz, Alan Wang and Kenny Li; two different posters were avaialble each issue, one with the Autobot cover, one with the Decepticons. This made twelve posters total, which could be combined into one giant super-poster, four issues wide by three high, featuring over 600 characters from multiple Transformers continuities.

Continuity

"Prime Directive" established a new G1 continuity that drew on elements of the cartoon but also incorporated some elements of the old Marvel comics (most notably, the mention of Spike Witwicky's brother Buster, who originally only appeared in the Marvel comics) and generally does not fit well into any particular previous story. A second Generation 1 volume called War and Peace followed, and an ongoing series after that.

Reception

Many fans found the series impressive for the great amount of care and detail put into the artwork. The glossy print and computer coloring were worlds beyond the newsprint paper and dotted coloring of the Marvel Comics series. Others felt that the storyline was needlessly decompressed (almost two whole issues pass before any of the Transformers actually speak), that the visual storytelling was unclear, and that the overall pacing suffered for the sake of needlessly dramatic splash pages.

Creative team

The series was written by Chris Sarracini and penciled by Pat Lee and Edwin Garcia (and, allegedly, also by Sigmund Torre).

Notes

• "Prime Directive" was also the name of the original Transformers movie script, and a working title for IDW Publishing's Movie Prequel mini-series.
• The "Prime Directive" trade paperback collections were the only official releases of the eight-page preview story for the second Generation 1 volume, War and Peace... which doesn't actually have a lot to do with the actual story of War and Peace, due to a sudden change of writers. The Hachette Definitive G1 Collection would eventually reconnect War and Peace with its Preview.

Collections

• Transformers Generation One, Vol. 1 TPB (December 4, 2002) ISBN 0973083727 / ISBN 978-0973083729

• Includes gallery of all covers, the original Preview, and a Preview for Volume 2.
• Pagecount: 160

• Transformers Generation One, Vol. 1 Hardcover (June 4, 2003) ASIN: B002LRP4C4

• Published by DreamWave / Dynamic Forces

• Transformers Generation One, Vol. 1 TPB (IDW reprint) (February 22, 2006) ISBN 1933239816 / ISBN 978-1933239811

• Pagecount: 160

• The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 25: Prime Directive (December 12, 2018)

• Published by Hachette Partworks
• Includes background material created especially for The Definitive G1 Collection, including features on the in-between years of TRANSFORMERS and the rise of Dreamwave, and a new contextual introduction by series editorial consultant Simon Furman.

• 
  TPB
• 
  Hardcover
• 
  IDW's reprint
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 25: Prime Directive

International printings

Japan

Transformers G1 Vol. 1 (トランスフォーマーG1)

• ISBN 4902314134
• ISBN 978-4902314137
• Date published: December 17, 2003
• Translator: Hiroto Ishikawa, Katsuya Akitomo
• Publisher: JIVE Ltd. (JIVE American Comics Series)