Comic Review: Transformers Regeneration One

[Paulbot]

(Please post comments or even a fully comprehensive review - these are just brief details)

Comic review - Transformers Regeneration One
Creators - Simon Furman (writer), Andrew Wildman, Stephen Baskerville, Guido Guidi, Geoff Senior (artists)
Publisher - IDW
Retail Price - AU$5 (approx) per issue (US$3.99)
Page count per issue - 22 pages
Series length - Limited 20 issue series with two specials (#0 issue and #80.5)
Released - May 2012 to March 2014
Collected editions - Four volumes with approx 5-6 issues in each

[Paulbot]

Regeneration One 80.5 was released today as part of Free Comic Book Day.

My hopes weren't high. Far too something that is beloved is resurrected when it shouldn't be (bands, actors in famous roles, comic book runs) and it's never quite the same. I still have the sour taste of X-Men Forever (Chris Claremont 'picking up' his run on X-Men from where he left off) and the bitter taste of the same author's New Mutants Forever.

As much as I loved the Furman/Wildman run back when I was 12 years old, I've grown up, my tastes have changed. When Transformers was cancelled I wanted the characters to come back, but they did. First as guest stars in GIJoe and then in their own series.

I wanted Transformers Generation 2 #13 for a lot longer because as far as I was concerned those 12 issues of Generation 2 were Transformers 81-92. I spent years thinking about how the story would go after the Battle with the Swarm. Erasing that from continuity is annoying to be honest. (Perhaps that Zero Space mentioned on the first page means this is an alternate universe not the regular TF Marvel Universe - showing my comic continuity obsessions a bit I know )

But anyway. One of my concerns about this book would be whether it would be true to the 80s era or if modern fan desire to see certain characters and later TF canon developments would take over.

At first glance some of that seemed to be the case. The key Autobots in this preview issue include Ultra Magnus (never seen in the US comics) and Hot Rod (with a hybrid comic/cartoon colour scheme) and Kup - only the latter having played any sort of major part in the original run.

But then we see the Decepticon camp, and apart from Soundwave getting a cartoon inspired repaint, the cast seems right. When I saw the latter year Micromasters with him I was suitably impressed. Those are the toys characters that would have been in the comic at the time. The mentions of the Covenant of Primus though shows some later continuity seeping in though.

There's not a huge lot of story inbetween all the recaps, and I think it strange that the ongoing series will, presumably, follow on from the last page event which is an odd place to start. (This chapter would have to be included in the collections). Its also a bit of an odd choice for Free Comic Book Day since a history doesn't reflect the more casual fan's knowledge of G1.

I wasn't sure about Wildman's art but it looks better in print than the preview scans suggest. Overall, the feel of reading this story felt like reading an old Marvel comic, and I was pleased by that. I think this is a series I will buy in store not on the IDW app

My hopes for #81 have been raised and I look forward to picking that issue up.

[GoktimusPrime]

I'd been avoiding all spoilers about #80.5, so I was surprised to see that it's essentially a "G1 recap" issue. Not terribly interesting for those of G1 fans, but perfectly understandable to help casual readers who aren't familiar with G1 to catch up to speed so they can jump straight into #81. And it if you're gonna do a recap issue, might as well make it free! I'd be miffed if I'd paid for this issue TBH; but as a free comic, it's fine.

I agree that I would have liked to see the story continue from where G2 ended (and potentially plant seeds for Beast Wars) - but Furman said long ago that he didn't want to do this, and wanted to continue from G1... so like it or not, it was expected. Having said... we did see Jhiaxus there... so...

As for the future characters like Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod and Blurr showing up, it makes sense -- in the original Marvel G1 comics they came from the "future" time of then year 2006. This story is set in 2012, so 6 years after these characters would have appeared in Marvel G1 anyway; so it makes sense to me that they would be in this story. Certain events that led up to Transformers the Movie probably did not occur (since Unicron was destroyed in 1991) - this is most likely a different time stream from the one that the "future Autobots" originally came from - which is nothing new to this continuity (after all, we had two Galvatrons from two different parallel universes in Marvel G1 ). So I guess these Future Autobots will never travel back in time and partake in Target: 2006 and the Time Wars. Timey-wimey...

The art looks great. Someone at yesterday's meet described it as "modern-retro," and I think that's an apt description. It's still very much traditional Wildman, but a touch of contemporary design element in it. Baskerville's inking has improved since G1 -- he hasn't drawn spittle everywhere and made everything look saturated! (yay!) The colouring is fantastic -- I so do not miss Yomtov's colouring from G1. Anyone notice that in the flashback, Soundwave is purple, but in the present day he's blue? Heh.

Bring on #81!

[Sam]

I wanted more "new" stuff that wasn't talking about the past.

But I think the purpose of #80.5 is to act as a bridge of sorts, so I guess I understand...

[Cat]

It's funny. I took down my post about this weeks ago.

Now I can feel free to talk about it, I find I've already said what I wanted.

[i_amtrunks]

There really isn't much to say about this issue, other than it was a nice memory jog (I really have to go through and re-read the last dozen or so issues again!).

The last page is an interesting starting point, looking forward to the explanation.

Also Prime's flying kick in the flashback was awesome!

[liegeprime]

hmmmm and still Rumble is as big as Starscream20+ yrs on ... I guess that's how they remember him... after all it is a flashback recap of sorts... I used to enjoy the angstridden melty face art but hopefully this isn't the case as the story progresses.

[Verno]

Got my hands on a copy today.

It was an odd experience for me to read it. I'm not a comic buyer usually. I own the DW G1 Mini-series and all the BW stuff from IDW, but apart from that, my shelves are bare of comics.

My knowledge of this era in TF history comes from reading thr TF Wiki and asking silly questions (all in an attempt to imbed my own writing within a continuity stemming from G2).

So for Furman to turn around and negate his own work is a little odd to me.

But I enjoyed it well enough. Everything is set up for moving forward, and seems a good a starting point as any.

And I'm enjoying the artwork.

Will I pick up the rest of the run? Quite possibly, though I'll probably read some reviews before acting on my impulses.

[Hursticon]

1st off: An exceedingly huge thanks goes out to Sharky (& Ultra Marginal) for keeping me in mind and obtaining a copy of #80.5 for me, heading my complaints of a lack of a local source for it though at any rate; I was also engaged with 1AZRAEL1's wedding on the day so was never going to be able to acquire a copy myself.

I really dug this issue, knowing full-well that it was to act as a bridge between the old and the new and as such really enjoyed the trip down memory lane (Even though it was a short trip seeing as though I only finished reading the original US G1 Marvel run a little under a year ago ); I love the line-art(?) as it seems to be a refined version of the original's and the colouring is an immense improvement (Baring in mind that even Pat Lee could do a better job than Nel Yomtov).

I feel it did an excellent job at giving a very brief glimpse of the setup for the following 20 issues and I honestly can't wait to dive right in come June/July, especially as it has a certain favoured character of mine center stage and as a clear driving force for whatever is to come next; Of whom's colours I think seem to heavily reflect those of his Action Master incarnation - So could it be that the difference in colouring between then & now is that he has been upgraded to that of an Action Master?

[GoktimusPrime]

Just after Free Comic Book Day one of my students told me that he'd picked up #80.5 - so it was interesting to hear an opinion about this issue from the POV of someone who's completely unfamiliar with G1. I explained to him that the purpose of this issue was to get people like him, who have no knowledge of G1, up to speed with the general crux of what happened and allow them to jump into the series. I told him that how people who grew up with G1 like me, find this issue to be just a recap of everything we already know, so from that POV it's not that exciting.

But he told me that he found #80.5 utterly confusing, and he didn't understand what the heck was going on! He said that all he saw was a bunch of various "random" images, but he didn't understand what they meant, like an image of Megatron and Ratchet melted together. I tried to explain it to him, but he was like, "Huh??"

So while many G1 fans like myself are buzzing with excitement about the prospect of ReGeneration 1 -- after all, we signed the online petition to get this running... it'll be interesting to see how this series gels with readers who are too young to know G1. 21 years since #80... wow... there's now an entire generation of people who missed out on Generation 1! (man I feel old )