Transformers: More than Meets the Eye

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The name or term "More than Meets the Eye" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see More than Meets the Eye (disambiguation).
This article is about the Dreamwave-produced bio series. For the Marvel-produced bio series, see Transformers Universe (Marvel comic).
True to form, Oiler looks like he's about to pass out.

More Than Meets The Eye is the first of a series of profile books published by Dreamwave Productions in 2003. The book introduced readers to every character within the Generation 1 continuity. A sequel series was published for Armada, and the same was planned for Energon.

The series has no known physical weaknesses.

Overview

Originally conceived to be a 4-issue series, Transformers Profile Book One was scheduled to be released in December, 2002. After a name change and a delay of over four months, the series was released as eight issue in 2003. The series was also released as a 2-volume trade paperback edition in December 2004, which included introductions by the authors, and bonus artwork, though not the intro and conclusion story.

The series profiled all characters that were released by Hasbro between 1984 and 1991, as well as a few characters that appeared only within Marvel Comics/Sunbow Productions animated projects between 1984 and 1987. The series also introduces new content in order to establish parameters for stories within the Dreamwave continuity, particularly in the "special topics" issue. A number of personalities were created from scratch for the Micromasters, many of whom were little more than toys and names prior.

The profiles follow the same format as the original 1980s Marvel profile book, Transformers Universe. A characteristic quote leads off each bio, followed by Bio, Weapons/Abilities, and Weaknesses. Many profiles are told from the perspective of another character ("from the datatrax of"); Grapple, for example, narrates the profile for his friend and associate Hoist. Despite initial reports that the profile book would be re-creating the entire Transformers universe from scratch, most established characters stay close to their original profiles, with some occasional massaging when a character's popular fictional portrayals clashed with their profile.

Artwork was done by numerous artists. As such, there are stylistic differences among the various profiles. Some of the original art submissions were rejected as not being consistent with the Dreamwave "house style", i.e. that of Pat Lee. Lee's hand and/or influence is particularly visible on some of the earlier and more popular characters, who often feature his characteristic rounded, swollen limbs, tiny heads, and enormously thickened metal panels. Don Figueroa drew a huge number of profile entries as well, including many of the best known characters. Lesser known characters were apparently left to other artists, who were allowed a freer hand; however, attempts at conveying a character's personality through their profile art were generally quashed.

Issue #1

Bumblebee has the odd feeling of being followed.

Issue #1 opens with a one-page intro story in which Beast Wars Megatron (or the Dreamwave universe's version of him) gains access to Vector Sigma, with the intent of reading all these files.
Originally published: April 30, 2003


Issue #2

Dudes, we're free - FREE!

Originally published: May 29, 2003

Issue #3

By Primus, they're everywhere! Don't let them touch you with their fat greasy hands!

Originally published: June 25, 2003

Issue #4

Attack of the Stay-puffed Transformers

Originally published: July 30, 2003

Issue #5

Shockwave makes any cover awesome!

Originally published: September 4, 2003

Issue #6

Originally published: September 24, 2003

Issue #7

Originally published: October 29, 2003

Issue #8

Originally published: December 3, 2003
Includes a one-page conclusion to the Megatron story begun in issue 1.

Omissions

"Don't worry pal, I know who you are."
  • While More Than Meets The Eye featured Action Masters, it did not include Action Master versions of pre-1990 characters and therefore also not their partners. Thus the guide omits the following US characters entirely: Fistfight, Scorpulator, (Turbo Board,) Tyrannitron, and Wingthing. This becomes goofier with the collected editions; due to their choice of artwork, Wingthing appears on the back cover but not in the actual books.
  • Gasket and Grommet are not shown as separate vehicles, only in their combined form as Cog.
  • Base mode is not shown for the ATV.
  • Only one-half of the Cannon Transport is shown (the same half, in mobile artillery mode, is shown with both partners.) Its base and combined transport modes are not shown at all.
  • Mobile artillery and combined transport modes are not shown for the Missile Launcher.
  • The Tanker Truck is not shown at all, either with its respective Micromasters or in the Micromasters reference section.

Errors and critiques

Surrrrrre he can turn into that truck.
The perfect disguise: a panther box.
Pat Lee's Starscream. Wait, why's everyone laughing?
  • Not an error per se, but the alphabetization is inconsistent. Earlier subgroups like the Dinobots, the Insecticons, and the combiner teams are alphabetized by their subgroup names, while the Micromaster teams are split up by individuals. One theory is that Dreamwave figured the profile issues with nothing but Micromasters would sell less than those with the more well known characters, so they scattered them instead.
  • Likewise, Micromaster bases are inconsistently shown. Some appear with their owners; of these, many are only shown in one configuration. Others only show up in the special topics issue.
  • For many characters, the vehicle-mode art was not drawn by the same artist as the robot mode, leading to some glaring incongruities when the two modes appear side-by-side. For example, the angled windshield on Oiler's robot-mode chest (pictured at top) is a nearly-flat windshield on his truck mode. Optimus Prime (pictured above) has a similar problem as well as differently styled windows. Though a reason for this is that the art is based on the truck cab section of Powermaster Optimus Prime, who had the front windshield and grill of a semi-cab on his chest, which when transformed had no relation at all to his truck cab mode.
  • Artwork for characters' alternate modes is, on occasion, a maddeningly literal drawing based on their toy, instead of any kind of accurate, in-universe representation of the actual object they transformed into. Ravage's tape mode, for instance, is more of a folded-up-robot mode than an actual cassette tape.
  • Most of the Pretender shell penciling and colouring is ridiculously basic, but yet the Pretender Monster shells feature highly detailed pencils and colours (though their robot art suffers from the "literally being based on the toy" problem).
  • Frustratingly, some of the best-known characters such as Bludgeon, Megatron, Fortress Maximus, Jetfire and Octane have some of the poorest artwork.

Notes

  • More Than Meets The Eye was originally to be outsourced by Dreamwave and meant to be written by Destination Entertainment, under the title of Transformers: Profiles. Destination's rather grandiose original plans involved weaving their own take on the Dreamwave timeline passively throughout all the character profiles, seizing this opportunity to shape some of the then-contemporary fiction since presumably they were being kept well away from contributing anything in the main books.

    Destination's timeline was to have been a remarkably convoluted creation, having each original year of Transformers characters originating with each millennium of the war (with even the very definition of millennium here being stretched to "every million Cybertronian years"). The 1984 characters would originate in the first millennium, the 1985 ones in the second, and so on, despite this idea already being contradicted by books Dreamwave had already published at the time.[1] (and not making even remotely one lick of sense either way, as it would mean that, for instance, Kup would have been younger than Bumblebee).

    Additionally, explanations as to how characters such Galvatron, Goldbug and Powermaster Optimus Prime could exist at the same time as their original counterparts were not forthcoming. Needless to say, three months later Destination was removed from the project and the entire endeavor was re-solicited as a far more modest and uncomplicated series of Transformers: Universe-style profiles.[2]
  • During the time that the Dreamwave were releasing the individual issues it became known that they only ever had the rights to release Transformers comics in North America. With immediate effect supply of Transformers comics to foreign countries was stopped. This left international Transfans with only a partially completed run of MTMTE, and having to resort to other methods to acquire the remainder.

Collections

Unsurprisingly, Megatron's bio is actually in Volume 1.

Dreamwave released two trade paperbacks (TPB) of the entire collection. Volume 1 contained issues 1-4, Volume 2 contained issues 5-8. No changes were made to the order of articles, and as such the same criticisms apply. Both volumes are quite rare, and as a result can be expensive to acquire. It is much easier to obtain the original individual issues.

  • DW Volume 1: October 27, 2004 (ISBN-10: 0973381760, ISBN-13: 978-0973381764)
  • DW Volume 2: December 8, 2004 (ISBN-10: 0973381779, ISBN-13: 978-0973381771)


IDW Publishing have reprinted the Generation 1 guides. Despite the considerably different IDW-specific plots (such as the Dead Universe, Galvatron's new origin, and the considerably different history, geography and political landscape of Cybertron) the collections have been released unchanged from the Dreamwave originals (and thus reference the DW plots of the Great Shutdown, Shockwave's inventions of the Triple Changers, Duocons etc).

  • IDW Volume 1: September 29, 2008 (ISBN-10: 1600102506 ISBN-13: 978-1600102509)
  • IDW Volume 2: December 25, 2008 (ISBN-10: 1600102956 ISBN-13: 978-1600102950)

References

  1. ↑ Destination's original interview previewing Profiles at Newsarama
  2. ↑ Newsarama reports that Profiles has "transformed" into More Than Meets The Eye
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