The Transformers (issue)

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This article is about the first comic issue of the first comic series about Transformers. For other uses of The Transformers, see Transformers (disambiguation).
The Transformers (US) #1 »
The Transformers (UK) #1–2 »

Largest Transforming Transformers Optimus Prime! One of six blind-packed $500,000,000 toys!
"The Transformers"
Publisher Marvel Comics
First published May 8, 1984
Cover date September 1984
Plot Bill Mantlo
Script Ralph Macchio
Pencils Frank Springer
Inks Kim DeMulder
Colors Nelson Yomtov
Lettering Michael Higgins, Rick Parker
Editor Bob Budiansky
Continuity Marvel Comics continuity
Packaged with Optimus Prime

A group of sentient warring robots crash-lands on Earth four million years ago. When they awake in the present day, their battle begins anew.

Synopsis

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...

Chronologically, the UK Annual stories "State Games" and "And There Shall Come...a Leader!" are set during the early events of this issue.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans

Notes

  • Advertised as part #1 in a four-issue limited series.
  • Printed on high-quality Mando paper.
  • 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.
  • On May 22, the first Usenet post about Transformers is posted by Ted Nolan to net.comics, regarding this issue. Capsule review? "Worst comic of the year."
  • 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 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.
  • The UK printing in both the original issues and the Collected Comics reprints omits the two-page spread of the Autobots introducing themselves. The original UK printing instead shifts the spread to the centre pages (out of order with the rest of the story) as a poster, with the Transformers logo pasted over the smaller top-left frame. It would eventually appear by itself in the first annual and with the rest of the story in "The Complete Works" reprint (though the smaller previously obscured panel would be redrawn by Geoff Senior - presumably Marvel UK damaged the original while creating the poster). This means the early UK continuity initially lacks an official complete list of the Autobots originally on Earth and appearances by Red Alert in "The Enemy Within!" and (seemingly) Inferno in "Decepticon Dam-Busters!" are thus easier to reconcile.
  • The letters printed in issue 1 of the UK comic were provided by pupils from Greycourt School (in Ham, near Richmond in South West London) who were visiting the Marvel UK offices. Their visit was written up in a magazine published at the school. The teacher who arranged the visit was Stephen Payne, former president of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society and soon to be publisher of Visual Imagination Magazines (Starburst & TV Zone).[1]

Errors

Hoo-boy.

  • 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 shown with two missile launchers instead of one, and is colored yellow and blue instead of his proper white and black. He's also extremely toy-based, right down to have the toy's conjoined uni-feet, and complete with Earthly 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).
...Nemesis Prime, is that you?
  • Page 7:
    • As the Decepticons first strike the Ark, Optimus Prime is colored almost entirely red.
    • 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 compose 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: Prowl calls Brawn "Bumblebee". 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.

Real-world references

  • A Hitchhiker compares the sound of a team of Autobots driving down the highway to the Indy 500.

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."

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.

Main article: Big Red
  • 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.
    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.
    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.
    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 Sales Club
  • 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)

UK

Reprints

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Extract from Greycourt school 1984 sci fi mag detailing visit to the Marvel UK comics offices that resulted in comments appearing in the letters page of Marvel UK Transformers #1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/48819633@N05/5297859701/
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