* Block of various Sketchy Things (I.E. Charles Atlas)
* Helen of Toy mail-in military scenes
* Marvel bonus certificate
* ''Muppets Take Manhattan'' storybook & record (Inside rear cover)
* ''Star Wars'' home console video arcade cassette (Rear cover)
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====UK====
Revision as of 18:17, 22 August 2010
This article is about the first comic issue of the first comic series about Transformers. For other uses of The Transformers, see Transformers (disambiguation).
On the Saturn-sized mechanical world of Cybertron, life has evolved not through carbon bonding, but via "naturally-occurring gears, levers, and pulleys". The resultant sentient robots, the Autobots, live in peace for many eons, until some of their number fall victim to a lust for power. Rallying behind the banner of the powerful Megatron, these "Decepticons" rebuild their bodies, allowing them to change at will between a humanoid form and the form of various war machines. The Decepticons unleash a furious war on the Autobots, intending to conquer the planet and rebuild it as a cosmic dreadnought.
Faced with annihilation, the Autobots turn to a noble leader from their own ranks: Optimus Prime. Under his leadership, the Autobots, also now gifted with the ability to "transform", rally and counterattack. And thus, an all-consuming war rages across the planet for a thousand years, while the planet itself—dislodged from its orbit by the titanic battles—spins out of control through the cosmos.
Eventually Cybertron enters another solar system and is faced with destruction as it approaches an asteroid belt. Aboard a huge spacecraft dubbed the Ark, Optimus Prime leads a team of Autobots on a mission to clear a path through the asteroids. After the mission is completed, the Decepticons attack the weakened Autobot warriors. Facing inevitable defeat, Optimus Prime sends the Ark on a suicide course into a supposedly lifeless planet. The crash renders all the combatants inert.
Combat Deck bought a junker lot from eBay.
Four million years later, a volcanic eruption reactivates the Ark's dormant computer, which finds the planet now teaming with mechanical "life". It reactivates the ship's passengers, rebuilding them to resemble the planet's natives. Damaged, the computer does not recognize friend from foe, and thus both factions are restored to life. After checking themselves over, the Decepticons flee for other parts, leaving the Autobots to make their home in the crashed Ark. Observing the planet, Optimus notes that they must work to save the planet from the Decepticons, whom they've accidentally unleashed upon it.
Optimus Prime sends a team of five, under the command of Prowl, to scout out the new world and make contact with the natives. En route, they are sighted by Decepticon spy Laserbeak. The Autobots mistake a drive-in movie theater for some kind of religious ritual; Bumblebee over-enthusiastically nudges a "native", violently jostling its teenage occupants Buster, Jesse and "O". As Buster and the others climb out to see what happened, the Decepticons attack, intent on keeping their foes from establishing an alliance with the planet's natives. The Autobots reluctantly transform and defend themselves, turning the drive-in into a battlefield. During the battle, Prowl realizes that the automobiles are not alive at all, but the small, pink creatures fleeing from them are; the Autobots retreat to draw the Decepticons' fire away from the apparently defenseless fleshlings.
During the battle, Buster hears the damaged Bumblebee cry out in pain, and ends up "driving" him away from the battlefield. That night, his father "Sparkplug" finds him tinkering with the yellow Volkswagen Beetle in his garage. He's delighted that his son is finally showing some interest in mechanics, but not so amused when the car cries out that it needs help, because it's dying...
It's said in this issue that the war between the Transformers knocked Cybertron out of its orbit, which sounds...very improbable because of the sheer magnitude of force required for something like that to happen; Cybertron would have likely been completely obliterated before it would've been knocked out of its orbit.
In his very first appearance, parts of Soundwave's backpack, arms and legs are colored red.
As he and Optimus Prime report to the Autobot Elders, Jazz is colored yellow and blue, and has two shoulder launchers instead of one. He's also extremely toy-based, right down to have the toy's conjoined uni-feet, and complete with Earthen car parts!
Numerous generics show up aboard the Ark. By story continuity, it should only have the 18 crew members shown here, plus the future Dinobots (whose characters presumably didn't exist yet in real-life terms).
Page 7:
As the Decepticons first strike the Ark, Optimus Prime is colored almost entirely red.
...Nemesis Prime, is that you? A blue-chested, red-legged Optimus Prime is among the invading Decepticons! In the same panel, Optimus himself is colored entirely red and is missing his chest windows.
None of the invading Decepticons resemble the ten Decepticons later shown to comprise Megatron's crew.
Page 8: Prowl is missing his door/wings, though one could retcon this as being his "Cybertronian" body.
Page 10: "The drone swiftly plots its return to the Ark"—it's not clear from context if "it" is the jet scanned by the probe, or the probe itself. Neither makes a lot of sense.
Page 12: The robots undergoing repair don't really correspond to any Transformer known to be present.
Nobody thought to attack the other faction instead of standing around yakking? (Granted, some of the Autobots do open fire as the Decepticons transform to escape.)
Soundwave converts to his tape player form and flies off with the jets! Or starts to, at least—he's not shown in the next panel as the Decepticons flee the volcano.
In the giant two-page Autobot spread:
Sideswipe seems to have a made-up or at least off-model head.
Wheeljack's "ears" are kind of folded up against his head.
Bluestreak is missing his door/wings and shoulder rockets.
Gears is a strange alternate model bearing almost no resemblance to his toy or later design.
Hound, Wheeljack, and Sideswipe are all missing their shoulder launchers.
Trailbreaker is missing his force field projector.
Page 16:
Gears seems to have an entirely new, entirely different model here.
Bluestreak is colored like Prowl.
Bumblebee suddenly has the toy-based "backing plate" behind his head, whereas before he didn't.
Not all of the silhouettes correspond to actual characters.
Sunstreaker's "ears" are misshapen.
Page 17: Sparkplug's "okay" is missing a period at the end.
Page 19: More Deception generics visible on the cliff.
Page 22: Starscream's entire cockpit cowling is colored as though it were a canopy.
When Ravage confronts him, Hound has two shoulder launchers.
Soundwave is colored silver-blue as he attacks Prowl and Cliffjumper. His gun is missing its narrow tip.
Cliffjumper's arms are colored white as Prowl orders the retreat.
The artwork uses early character designs for many characters, some of them heavily toy-based (Ironhide, Ratchet, Brawn, Gears), others based on early models that would later be changed (Megatron, Starscream's color scheme), and still others completely random (Gears again).
The "revival drones" that reactivate the Ark's crew are based on Optimus Prime's Combat Deck.
Though many generics appear in the pre-Earth battle aboard the Ark and its aftermath, the art might be seen as providing an "out": On page 12, what looks to be a huge pile of unrepaired Transformers can be seen between behind Optimus and Megatron as they re-awaken.
The cover price is 75 cents, which would be $1.50 when adjusted for inflation to 2007 dollars. In November, 2007, IDW Publishing's Transformers comics currently cost $3.99.
The cover corner box, a staple of Marvel's covers from the 1970s through the mid-1990s, features a character model of Optimus Prime. A new, more dramatic pose would debut with the first ongoing issue (issue #5).
Over the course of the series, some of this issue's early details would be retconned away or simply ignored. Among them are the notion of a Saturn-sized Cybertron, the "naturally evolving" origin of the Transformers, and the toy-based appearance of several characters, such as Ratchet, Ironhide, Bumblebee and Brawn.
Covers (6)
US issue #1 cover: gigantic Optimus Prime, tiny Starscream, Gears, Laserbeak and the Witwickys, by Bill Sienkiewicz.
UK issue #1 cover: Soundwave and Buzzsaw kick Prime's ass, by Jerry Paris.
UK issue #2 cover: the Autobots depart the Ark, by John Ridgway.
Collected Comics #1 cover: Reuse of US issue #2's cover.
The Complete Works Part 1 cover: reuse of UK issue #1's cover.
25th Anniversary Optimus Prime cover: now including tiny disclaimer: "Headline from original comic; this reissue is not part of a series."
US issue #1 - First he will crush the planes, then he will crush the giant floating heads.
UK issue #2 - Is this girl that into her doll that she didn't see the giant f*cking robots?
Collected Comics #1
The Complete Works Part 1
US issue #1 (25th Anniversary Optimus Prime pack-in)
Generics
This issue features a broad range of generic Transformers, from peace-loving Autobots to a Decepticon raiding party. As the brand was in its infancy at this stage, character models were not yet fixed and coloring tended to veer towards the random, so some of these generics may have been intended to represent actual characters. Whether they do so is probably best left up to you.
The first glimpse of the Transformers. The Autobot on the far right may represent a pre-war Optimus Prime (Orion Pax/Optronix?) while the others share design elements (if not colors) with the 1984 Autobot cars.
Since he is called out in the caption box, it is probably fair to assume that the robot armed with the ion blaster represents Optimus Prime, albeit miscolored. That may be Sideswipe to his right, apparently armed with a fusion cannon.
In one of the more famous mistakes from this issue, a robot resembling a miscolored Optimus Prime leads the Decepticon raid on the Ark.
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US
The Last Starfighter (Inside cover)
Free Spider-Man Comic from Fig Newtons
Olympic Prizes or Cash
Mile High Comics
Block of various Sketchy Things (I.E. Charles Atlas)
Helen of Toy mail-in military scenes
Marvel bonus certificate
Muppets Take Manhattan storybook & record (Inside rear cover)
Star Wars home console video arcade cassette (Rear cover)
US issue #1 - First he will crush the planes, then he will crush the giant floating heads.
Collected Comics #1
The Complete Works Part 1
US issue #1 (25th Anniversary Optimus Prime pack-in)
The first glimpse of the Transformers. The Autobot on the far right may represent a pre-war Optimus Prime (Orion Pax/Optronix?) while the others share design elements (if not colors) with the 1984 Autobot cars.
Since he is called out in the caption box, it is probably fair to assume that the robot armed with the ion blaster represents Optimus Prime, albeit miscolored. That may be Sideswipe to his right, apparently armed with a fusion cannon.
