Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection is a fortnightly eighty-volume patchwork from Hatchette, edited by Simon Furman. Partworks are a Hatchette speciality: a series will be collected out of order (the first Definitive was Volume 6) for commercial purposes but can be collected on your shelf in order with a fancy picture on the collective spines.
The plan is to republish all Generation 1 comics (as of 2016) and all of the original Marvel Comics run, UK and US, as one run again. Wow! That's great, right?
Only if you live in the United Kingdom and Ireland, suckers!
Each issue has a special cover and bonus content, and older strips will have recoloured artwork. Fantastic FREE! Gifts are provided for subscribers, to make you buy all of them; the fourth delivery for subscribers would have Autobrand and Deceptibrand bookends to hold your collection.
This was given a trial-run in parts of the UK before a national release started in early 2017. The first volume was a collection of Target 2006, coincidentally out on newsagents thirty years after the story originally ran![1] The extra features included character profiles and The Middle Years that ran in the original issues.
US reprints are taken from IDW's Transformers Classic 'remasters', complete with desperate attempts to 'fix' errors. Instead of running the black and white UK strips in their original form, John-Paul Bove has coloured them with emulations of both 1980s American and latter-day Marvel UK colouring techniques.[2]
Volumes
| Volume # | Contents | Issue # |
|---|---|---|
| Volume 6: Target: 2006 | Marvel UK #78-88, Marvel US #21-23 | Issue #1 |
| Volume 10: Trial by Fire | Headmasters #1-4, Marvel US #38-39, Marvel UK #130-132 | Issue #9 |
| Volume 16: The Primal Scream | Marvel UK #198, #213-222, Marvel US #56-61 | Issue #3 |
| Volume 18: Edge of Extinction | Marvel US #67-75 | Issue #4 |
| Volume 19: Perchance to Dream | Marvel UK #240-260, Marvel US #76-77 | Issue #7 |
| Volume 28: The War Within | The War Within #1-6 | Issue #5 |
| Volume 36: Stormbringer | Spotlight: Shockwave, Spotlight: Soundwave, Stormbringer #1-4, Spotlight: Nightbeat, Spotlight: Hot Rod | Issue #2 |
| Volume 37: Escalation | Escalation #1-6 | Issue #6 |
| Volume 39: Heart Of Steel | Hearts of Steel #1-4, Spotlight: Galvatron, Spotlight: Optimus Prime, Spotlight: Mirage | Issue #8 |
Features
Notable features in the back included:
- A guide to the launch of The Transformers: The Movie in the UK and its marketing purposes for Marvel UK (Vol.6)
- An article by Bove on the colouring techniques used at Marvel UK and Marvel US in the 1980s, and how he emulated them for colourising the UK strips (Vol.16)
Notes
- When the website launched, it accidentally credited Andrew Wlidman.
- Copies of the first issue (volume 6 - this will get confusing in the long run) provided to general retail and initial subscribers have an error on the spine, with the black volume number box at the top being the wrong size. Subscribers received free corrected copies. Everyone who bought it at a newsagent has to wait for a replacement copy to be included with issue 7 (which is not volume 7, if you see). Hachette were seen giving away error-stricken copies for free at a signing event at a London comic shop.[3]
- This error shouldn't be confused with the change in spine art for the first four issues made between the limited trial run and the mass release[4], which means that anyone who subscribed to the series from its trial will end up with three different copies of issue 1.
