Really enjoyed the Annual - it's the best part of RiD so far to me. The flashbacks were brilliantly done, not just in terms of art, but also writing; like the nearly-breaking the fourth wall expositions, like "I, Nova Prime, "...and I, Jhiaxus," "For me, Cyclonus!" etc. -- very reminiscent of Marvel G1!! I also liked how Guidi drew frames that mimicked images of ancient Cybertron from Marvel G1 #1, including those generic bots coloured like known G1 characters (e.g. Optimus Prime, Hound etc.) -- so authentically cheesy! Then there's the deliberate "laziness" of colouring entire characters purple (especially if they're not in the foreground), which is very reminiscent of Nel Yomtov (again, more cheesy authenticity) - and of course, the Marvel US G1 style speech bubbles. The writing, visual narrative, art style etc. captured G1 so well that I could almost imagine that I'd picked up an old issue from my childhood. I almost wish that characters like Galvatron was drawn more exactly like his G1 model and coloured grey instead of purple to make it more old skool -- but I guess IDW's decided to maintain visual continuity with the character models now (not that they cared before ). Although seeing Dai Atlas in those low grade colours was ... a big contrast to the way he was so beautifully coloured in G1 (TF: Zone). The present-day story was cool -- and the last part with Starscream was an unexpected twist that throws more intrigue into the story. Is it just me, or does Cahill's art make the Transformers all look like they've been punched in the mouth? ('cept Wheeljack, he looks fine)

Overall I've enjoyed MTMTE more than RiD, but I must say that I enjoyed the RiD annual more than the MTMTE annual.

P.S.: Also interesting how the flashback explicitly mentioned Atechnogenesis too! It's contrary to the Special Creation recount that Cyclonus told, and yet the RiD Annual flashback also mentions the Hand... interesting.