Writer & Penciller: Daniel Warren Johnson / Colour Artist: Mike Spicer / Letterer: Rus Wooton / Design: Andreas Juarez / Editor: Sean Mackiwiecz / Collects: Transformers (2023) #1-#6 / TP / Image Comics
8th May 2024 (Released: 7th May 2024)
Review by Paul Dunne
The Pitch: The Transformers Join The Energon Universe!? Optimus Prime was supposed to have led the Autobots to victory. Instead, the fate of Cybertron is unknown, and his allies have crash-landed far from home, alongside their enemies-the Decepticons. As these titanic forces renew their war on Earth, one thing is immediately clear: the planet will never be the same. New alliances are struck. Battle lines are redrawn. And humanity's only hope of survival is Optimus Prime. Superstar creator Daniel Warren Johnson, alongside showrunner Robert Kirkman, reimagines Hasbro's robots in disguise for a brand-new generation.
Hey, look... I don't wanna be the guy that always has to dip into a story about his childhood just to write you a review, the way I did the last time I reviewed an Image book written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson, but I gotta be that guy. And hey, it's all contextual, promise. So...
When I was young, my dad left. More precisely, he was kicked out by my mum as his alcoholism was now out of control. He'd left before, but this was to be permanent. He'd gone back home to Ireland, and I didn't see him again for another decade. In between his leaving and my seeing him again, he'd very occasionally send a little pocket money. My interests were firmly in comics, cartoons, and toys back then. The comics I was reading? Transformers. The cartoons I was watching? Transformers. The toys I would get when I could afford them? Transformers. Looking back, there may have been a theme to my early life! Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers contains all the things I knew and loved back then about the giant robots that could change into cars, planes, and in the case of the toy I could never save enough pocket money for, a city. But it reinvents and remixes them in exciting new ways. Its central human character is a young, geeky kid whose father is an alcoholic, who himself is traumatised from his time at war. I never did find out what traumatised my dad and pushed him to be the way he was, but I feel the circle of time closing as I read this book, silly as that may sound.
You're in good hands here. DJW takes the familiar from previous Transformers media and puts them in a new and logical order for today's audience. One thing you may find altered is the levels of violence. This version is a little more bloody, and The Deceptions are a little more mean-spirited. But if the evil robots are that much more evil, then the Autobots have a little more soul this time out. Johnson even manages to sneak some nice moments of poetry, with Starscream crushing a hapless innocent in his hands in issue #1 and Prime cradling a deer he's accidentally crushed underfoot in his hands in issue #2. They both come to the same conclusion: that life on Earth is fragile. And whilst Starscream uses that epiphany as a flight path to violence and conquest, for Prime it's a road map to purpose. They must protect the humans.
Whilst the familiar elements are here, some characters are absent or in some cases, killed off early. But to those readers aggrieved by these changes, I would say two things: that’s the nature of remixing pop-cultural icons in a refreshing way, and don’t worry. It’s comics and in comics, only Uncle Ben stays dead. That’s not a spoiler, by the way. Just someone who has read a fair amount of comics expecting a triumphant return for old favourites. Despite being a fan, I tend to distance myself from a lot of fandoms. Therefore, I’ve not ventured into any forums to see how the changes have taken amongst the long-time Transformers obsessives. I think those who grew up on the cartoons would find it somewhat shocking to see Decepticons literally crushing humans, given the softer nature of the animation, but then that was a show designed for kids and they must have gotten older by now. For others, they may find that the book hits a kind of nexus of interests for them, with the robots using wrestling moves, cross-pollinating their hobbies in the best way. But I think one of the things that will really sell the book is the characterisation, particularly that of Optimus Prime, who might be better written here than he’s ever been.
DJW makes the book screech and crunch beautifully. His through line is a straight arrow, intelligently not overcrowding the reader with mythology and keeping the motivations and emotions pure. His action is HUGE, bringing all the scope and scale of giant freakin' robots right up into your eyeballs. He treats both robot and human characters with compassion and gives them heart, with Prime willing to sacrifice his to save others. The Decepticons embrace the Heel roles, making them hissingly bad and over the top. Anything less would be a cop-out. Spicer's colours are a wonderful mix of bruised metal, damaged paintwork, blood, and earth, bringing Johnson's massive, itchy pencils to their ultimate form. As with Void Rivals, Wooton carries the voices and SFX expertly, making you really feel the guttural beats of the action and soul in the speech from the machine, sometimes extending the sound beyond the panel borders. This is the Transformers reboot you've been waiting for. Or maybe it's the one I've been waiting for. Heavy Metal indeed.
Transformers Vol. 1 (TP) is available at your local comic book shop now.
