Transformers: Generation One [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Diamond Comic Distributors
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0973083727
• ISBN-13: 978-0973083729
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, but..., April 13, 2004

By 

SigmaEcho "sigmaecho" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformers: Generation One (Paperback)

When I picked up the first issue of this series, I read the best single comic issue I have ever been lucky enough to get my hands on. Even today, I still think that the first 2 issues of this collection are the best comics I've ever read. The art is simply astounding - Nothing comes close. Period. And the plot slips nicely into the 20 unseen years between season 2 and the movie. The most promising start anyone could ask for.

But then something happened. It started to suck. A lot. All of the sudden, the world is threatened by a "virus" that the transformers have to fight. This "virus" spreads like a glacier and is apparently metal that grows. Yep, I'm not making this up. So in classic Ghostbusters-2 fashion, the transformers get guns that shoot jelly and fight the "virus". It's as corny and stupid as it sounds. And all the continuity is quickly thrown away (then totally abandoned in the follow-up series.)

Oddly, while all this is happening in the arctic, everything else is great. Optimus and gang are duking it out with the decpticons back in San Francisco old-school style. It's awesome. The dialogue is great, the structure, pacing, and design makes it feel like a really good movie. So what's holding it back? Well, it seems like Sarrachini is incapable of throwing away all the tired old camp and kiddy-ness of the original. Megatron is still as one-dimensional as ever, spouting his usual maniacal tirade and playing the role of generic and cliched mad scientist/world domination obsessed bad guy (not that he shouldn't be that character, but we've seen that from day one from Megatron. How 'bout adding something new?).

The book was most heavily criticized for it's human characters, which many claim bogged down the book. I couldn't disagree more. The humans don't hog much of the story, and add some reality and grounding to the plot. In response, the second book, "War and Peace", has no humans at all, and it really hurts the story. Without any humans, the bots are forced into the role of politics and intrigue, and it's as awkward as a cykill figure at BotCon. And the author lays it on thick, war and peace has so much politics and dialogue, I've had to read it 3 times, and it's still confusing.

So overall, the two Generation 1 graphic novels that have been published so far are well worth the price for the beautiful art and wonderful nostalgia, despite their minor scripting flaws. I think even non-fans can enjoy these books. Perhaps best of all is the high re-reading factor - because of the level of detail, these books will never get old.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Looks cool, but gets a bit dumb, March 23, 2003

By 

Scott Winston "showka" (Austin, Tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformers: Generation One (Paperback)

Initially this comic seemed really exciting to me. After so many years, it seemed like someone had finally gone and done what so desperatley needed doing- make a more mature, violent Transformers story to appeal to all of the 20 somethings who grew up on the brand. As far as violence goes, I'd think this book would fail to dissapoint even the most insecure fanboy. The book offers a realistic imagining of just how much destruction and havoc would arise if Earth was ever visited by gigantic, fighting robots.
Unfortunetly, the story and much of the dialogue is pretty dumb. So dumb, in fact, that its hard to feel like what you're reading is mature or edgy. A lot of talk was made of how the comics were spending so much time on human character development before they brought out the old Autobots and Decepticons, who'd been mysteriously lost. For all the time we spent viewing normal human beings, you'd think they would've made them more interesting than this. Spike Witwicky is a fairly large cliche, but even worse is the standard "We control your life now, ha ha ha!" semi-threatening members of the military he comes in contact with at the start of the book.
Another problem with the book is it takes way too long to get things going, and the anticipation is fun, but after awhile the realization sets in that things ARE going now, and they're really kind of stupid. As far as characterization of the robots go, Megatron is far from his meglamaniac self and instead plays an almost Joker like role, trying to reason with Prime and show him the error of, ummm, being good. Prime, on the other hand, refers to his comrades possessively as "my soldiers" and rather than trying to argue or reason, is just as likely to go and punch Megatron or shoot at him mid-argument than speak another word. In fact, though it may have only happened once or twice, the fact Prime initiates the violence really irrated me. He's an autobot, for God sakes, he's suppossed to try to resolve things peacefully at all costs rather than throw a sucker punch.
There are also a few ridiculous plot threads, which really ramp up towards the end of the book. One of these involves a metallic virus, that is given little explanation and in final analysis seemed pointless. The end of the book involves a gigantic deus ex machina which is written embarassingly bad and again, doesn't really seem to have enough justification going for it (for those who've read the book, I'm talking about everything associated with the downfall of the one of the main badguys).
Furthermore, fans of the cartoon will be displeased to know that this book doesn't stay within that continuity, despite taking place so long after the Transformers first came to Earth. Certain characters die (though in ways which aren't really shocking and again, seem pointless) and one super popular character in particular defects to the other side! Again, they devote no real amount of dialogue to explaining this or why it happened. The overall lack or crumminess of explanations in this book combined with several things which just come out of left field make it seem like you're reading a first draft, or better yet, like the writers had no ultimate plan in mind when scripting this series.
Finally, let me address the art work. Its really good, but far from perfect. Every human character in the book looks nearly the same. The majority of them are white, have curly hair that hangs done a bit in front, strange eyes and a love for ski caps even when its not cold. There's also a lack of continuity in the way central characters are drawn. Furthermore, it seems like the're all the same, uhm, click of people- like people you'd see hanging out in front of star bucks of something. Its very anime like, and even at the end, which takes place in a crowded city, you never see people in business suits, or fat guys (save for one at the beginning), or really anyone that isn't the same generic streamlined semi-attractive person. At one point we see a mother clutching her baby- but she's drawn like a 20 something action heroine with dark painted lines going down her eyes (is she in costume or something?). Overall, the portrayal of "normal" people is very unrealistic and seems poorly done, and since they take up so much space its worth mentioning.
The artist is fairly good when it comes to the landscapes and robots themselves, though, but I have to say his rendition of prime is often hit or miss. He draws Prime in a reimagined way that he's never been seen before, and I really wouldn't mind if he was never seen this way again. Its very bubbly, unlike the more streamlined, slim, tall hero that the cartoons knew, and sometimes it seems like Prime's wearing a diaper and booties or something due to his oversized waist and legs. That said, sometimes Prime looks absolutely awesome, but still, even after just a glance its a bit dissappinting that the most central character doesn't look the same.
But the coloring is absolutley flawless. It looks like you're watching a professionally done anime movie or something.
Overall, the book is well drawn with panels that are very cinematic. This feels like it would if someone made a new Transformers Movie, but as expected messed with continuity and threw a few things in that just slightly [messed] up the whole experience. Overall, this is the best looking Transformers graphic novel out there but suffers but the writing can be bad and most of the dialogue is always average. After reading this, its easy to see why so much of the hype regarding the comic book died down after issue 3 or 4. Problem is, the story is really not good enough to make non Transformer fans happy and yet huge fans will probably be dissapointed by the fact it could've been a lot better. I'm a bit dissapointed, but it was still enjoyable enough to read. If you have the cash to spare and are still curious, be sure to get it, but just be aware that this isn't the second coming. Everyone else should just wait until the War Within arrives as a TPB.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cool, but could've been far better, December 23, 2003

By 

Mark Bruinekreeft (Zutphen, Gelderland Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformers: Generation One (Paperback)

Like most males from my generation, I get decidedly nostalgic when discussing anything related to the Transformers. That is the main reason why I liked this book a lot, and it probably will be its main selling point. It's just great so see all the old heroes and villains from the classic cartoon back in action again.
Nostalgia aside however, I severley doubt this comic will attract many, if any, new fans to the series.

For one: the story isn't much to look at. It is a quite obvious attempt at making a more grimm and "mature" Transformers story, dealing with issues such as the human view on the Autobot-Decepticon conflict an so on. In theory, that could've worked really well, but in practice, it falls somewhat short of expectations. I won't bore you with details, but the human characters are still as blant as they were in the cartoon, the dialogue tends to get tacky and the reasons for the Decepticons to run amok on our planet Earth are even more vague than they were on the old series. As said: it is an obvious attempt at ginving Transformers some maturity, but unfortunatly, its failure to deliver that promise is almost even more obvious.

The artwork is quite good, as long as you don't examine it too closely. The way people are depicted, for one, is just downright poor. They are basically all generic, caucasian or semi-caucasian screen filling without much of a facial expression or obvious emotion. Since this series in essence revolves around giant, transforming robots beating each other senseless, this wouldn've been such a problem if humans hadn't played such an important role int his book.
The Transformers themselves look, in general, a lot betterthan the human cast. They still have the same basic look and design from the old cartoon series (hello again, nostalgia) but somewhat updated in the sense that the robots look more detailed and "bulky" and are therefore more believable as being massive, living machines. An actual improvement over the classic series, if you ask me.
Unfortunatly, on the whole the artwork on the robots usually either works great or doesn't work at all. Especially 1980's #1 role-model Optimus Prime looks either great or downright silly with sometimes enormously oversized lower legs. Sometimes, the whole "detailed and more bulky" thing backfires dramatically and makes the robots look like walking assortments of discarded car-parts. Finally, as some other reviewers have mentioned as well, there is a distinct lack of continuity in the artwork with the same characters having completely different faces depending on the panel they're on and so on.

Finally: some of the classic Transformers seemed strangely out of character. Optimus Prime seemed far more agressive than I remember him, Megatron seemed REASONABLE rather than megalomanic and Starscream dind't make a single attempt at overtrhowing Megatron as leader of the Decepticons. This last thing could be a major concern for the nostalgic twenty-somethings like me that seem to be the main target audience for this book.

So in short: it's a neat book for all you who like Transformers and mecha in general, but it could have been far better than it ended up being. A shame, but it's till nice to see the old crew back in action.