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As some of you who have read my various articles over the years may know, I like things from the late 1970's to about the early 1990's in terms of nerd/geek/fandom stuff. I like to call that span my "formative years." This roughly 15 year span was where I really cemented what I liked in terms of being a fan of stuff. That time period gave the world licenses like Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many other ones that people growing up in my generation have a fondness for.
Now that I am an adult and have some money at my disposal, I am able to go back and pick up some of the things that I would have liked to have back then. Only now you have to rely on the secondary market dealers and E-Bay to find some of that stuff. Thankfully some of the comic book companies have taken mercy on those of us that like licensed comic books from the 1980's and are reprinting them. IDW is one of those companies that have been many a collectors saving grace. Not only have they reprinted all 155 issues of the Marvel GI Joe series, but they have also started to reprint the Transformers series as well.
Transformers was one of those licenses that I really tried getting into by the comic books when I was younger, but just could not. I thought the toy line and cartoon were cool (as most eight year olds would think), but the comic just did not click for me. Now that I am some 30 years older, I picked up the first trade off of Amazon and have been reading it. I just wanted to go through and give you some of my thoughts of the first four issues.
The first four issues of the Transformers comic series from the 1980's were labeled on the cover as being a four issue limited series. At the end of the fourth issue the bottom of the page read Not the End.
The art on the book, although having been done by the same artist through all four seems really inconsistent. In the first issue when we are introduced to the Autobots in their earth forms, every 'bot looks pretty much like they did in the cartoon with the exception of Ironhide and Ratchet which looked like their toy form. Then in issue three all of a sudden, Ratchet looks like he does in the cartoon in robot form. No explanation or anything, just he's there in the book looking like the Ratchet we knew from the cartoon.
The first four issues have text bubbles, and description boxes that are just jam packed with information and dialog. I have a feeling that when Chris Claremont read this book, he must have cried because the sheer amount of dialog in the whole of these four issues.
It was funny seeing some of the situations that the Transformers got into along with Buster (not Spike like it was in the cartoon). Like when Ratchet was transporting Buster's father in issue three after he had a heart-attack and then Ratchet was taken by an Ambulance crew on another call not realizing that the Ambulance they were in was a robot, and then in issue four they found out that they were actually driving a living robot from another planet.
It was really fun to go back and read these books all over again because of the nostalgia it brought back in my head. It was also nice to read a book back before the Transformers were turned into Michael Bay's playthings to do with as he pleased.
The first four were a good solid read and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this trade and the three others I have sitting on my shelves.
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