The Transformers (Milton Bradley comic)
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 That's either one tiny jet or one giant hand gun. | |||||||||||||
| "In the Transformers" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Milton Bradley | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 1985 | ||||||||||||
The million year war between the Autobots and Decepticons arrives on Earth.
Synopsis
The Transformers' civil war has knocked Cybertron from its orbit around Alpha Centauri and the planet is endangered by an asteroid belt. The Autobots' heroic leader Jetfire and his warriors launch in a spaceship named the "Ark" to try to create a path through the asteroids, but the Decepticons ambush them and board the ship. Jetfire steers the ark directly at Earth, intent on taking the Decepticons down with them. Megatron has other plans and orders Soundwave to jump out moments before the ark crashes into a mountain.
Though damaged by the crash, the Ark's systems detect Soundwave and repair four Autobots—Grimlock, Snarl, Slag, and Sludge—giving them new alternate modes based on the dominant life form of the time. The Dinobots take a shuttle out and soon locate Soundwave, who is shooting dinosaurs in the face. The Dinobots attack, but quickly realize that even the four of them are no match for Soundwave. Thinking quickly, Grimlock bashes the side of the mountain with his tail, bringing tons of rocks down on them all.
Four million years later, a volcanic eruption reactivates the Ark's brain, which scans the planet's current dominant life forms and begins repairing both Autobot and Decepticon alike. The Transformer war is about to recommence on Earth!
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons |
|---|---|
|
Notes
Original release
This comic originated in the front of the catalog distributed with Transformers distributed in mainland Europe by Milton Bradley. As Optimus Prime was not released in the initial wave, this led to the oddity of Jetfire standing in as Autobot leader. An advertisement following the final page of the comic invites readers to watch out for more Transformers comics with Jetfire as Autobot leader. The comic and catalog were produced in all four languages featured on the MB-branded figures' packaging: French, Dutch, German, and Spanish. Oddly, a variant at least of the French version also exists, which replaces the more common "MB" branding on the front cover with a "Hasbro" branding.
The plot owes a lot to the Marvel Comics The Transformers comic. Specifically the origin of the Dinobots is almost note-for-note their origin from "Repeat Performance!", though with Soundwave filling in for Shockwave. As a result, Soundwave (instead of Shockwave) missed out on getting rebuilt with an Earth mode by the Ark. Much like the storybook "Battle for Cybertron", dinosaurs were alive and well as little as four million years ago.
The German version uses a slightly odd, flowery tone, although it does match German translations of other comics at the time in that regard. For example, rather than "leader of the Autobots", Jetfire declares himself to be "lord over all Autobots", and the Dinobots' shocked reaction upon seeing Soundwave killing dinosaurs is rendered as "Such a villain! He's just turning these poor creatures into ground meat!!!" Also, true to form, the "war for Cybertron" is toned down to a mere "battle for Cybertron".
Reprints and English translations
In 2013, an English fan translation, based on the Spanish version of the comic, was posted on the internet. The translation was done by Micah "Spark" Guy, while the lettering was provided by David Willis.
In 2014, the German version of this comic, as well as the rest of the toy catalog, was reprinted in IDW Publishing's The Transformers Classics UK Volume 5.
In 2022, a high quality reprint was published in IDW Publishing's Transformers: Best of the Rarities. Rather than the original German (or French, or Dutch, or Spanish) version, this reprint featured an official English translation. While the introductory paragraph was given an entirely new translation, the translation of the comic itself was directly based on the 2013 fan translation (though seemingly double-checked with the Spanish version for accuracy), with David Willis and Spark even given a credit in the afterword. The lettering was completely redone from scratch, and some minor details were changed, with most of them fixing errors or deviations from the original version:
- On page 1, the caption in the first panel ends with an ellipsis instead of a period. In the second panel, Megatron says "Decepticon leaders like me also make plans" instead of "have plans".
- After the first page, the fan translation lacks most of the bold-faced emphasis for certain words or names. The Rarities version restores all the emphasis based on the original version(s).
- On page 2, Soundwave's speech balloon in the first panel ends with a period in the fan translation. The Rarities version has it end with an exclamation mark like in the original version. Meanwhile, the first caption in the third panel adds an error that was not present in the fan translation by misspelling "lifeform" as "lifefrom".
- On page 3, the second caption has an extra space between "adapt" and "to" removed.
- On page 4, the final speech bubble has "these poor creatures" changed to "those poor creatures".
- On page 5, Soundwave's "Aaarg!" has an extra "r" and an "h" added, making it "Aaarrgh!" Additionally, his second speech balloon has "They seem to be creatures from this planet, but fight like Autobots" changed to "They look like creatures from this planet, but they fight like Autobots", and his third speech balloon has "they don't have the power to do battle with Soundwave" shortened to "they don't have the power to battle Soundwave".
- On page 6, the "...Ahhg!" in Soundwave's speech balloon in the second panel is changed to "Aaargh!", also dropping the ellipsis in the process. Additionally, the caption in the third panel is changed from "Then they were all paralyzed, staying in silence for much, much time." to "Then they were all paralyzed and it was silent for a long, long time."
- On page 7, the caption in the first panel has "the volcano where the starship crashed erupted" changed to "the volcano where 'The Ark' had crashed erupted", thereby fixing a deviation from the original version(s).
- On page 8, the first caption has "commenced repairs upon both armies" shortened to "commenced repairs on both armies", and also drops an extra space between "commenced" and "repairs". Additionally, "vehicles or Earth weapons" is shortened to simply "vehicles or weapons".
It should also be noted that the Spanish version consistently spells the name "Road Buster" as two words, both on the introductory page (where it's all written on one line) and in a caption on page 8 (where it's broken up across two lines for space reasons), whereas both the French, Dutch and German versions spell "Roadbuster" as one word on the introductory page, and with a hypen on page 8. Since both the English fan translation and the Rarities version only referenced the Spanish version, they also call him "Road Buster".
-
The Transformers Classics UK Volume 5
(IDW Publishing, 2014) -
Transformers: Best of the Rarities
(IDW Publishing, 2022)
External links
- Scans of the original Dutch version at BWTF.com.
- English fan translation at TFW2005.
