Dreamwave G1 read-through

[Dominic]

I no longer have these comics. (Looked recently, and cannot find them.)

I recall the shot of Starscream carrying Bumblebee to safety as being one of Figueroa's better panels (which sets the bar pretty high).

Similary, if I remember correctly, Sunstorm's death was a side effect of his powers.

[andersonh1]

I no longer have these comics. (Looked recently, and cannot find them.)

I recall the shot of Starscream carrying Bumblebee to safety as being one of Figueroa's better panels (which sets the bar pretty high).

Similary, if I remember correctly, Sunstorm's death was a side effect of his powers.

The impression I got was that it was being submerged in the energy pool that damaged him, but if Starscream is to be believed, he had modified his null rays to corrupt Sunstorm's regenerative programming, so that his internal systems would tear him apart from the inside out. Sunstorm claims that it didn't work. Jetfire says that Sunstorm's power mixing with the elements in the pool are what led to his deterioration, which is what I always thought. Maybe it was ultimately a combination. The narrative doesn't really nail it down. The characters aren't sure, and in the end neither am I.

As for the art, it just makes me miss Don Figeroa drawing Transformers all the more. The guy is my favorite Transformers artist, bar none, and these ten issues are just great work. I wish we had more.

A couple of Starscream and Bumblebee pages from the end of issue 6:

[Dominic]

Maybe it was ultimately a combination. The narrative doesn't really nail it down. The characters aren't sure, and in the end neither am I.

I think the idea was that nobody really knew how Sunstorm worked, so nobody was really sure how he died.

It was actually a good way to bring something like the super-natural in to TF, without the goo-goo magic that the fan-club and beast era normalized. (It fits with the "poorly explained science is magic" idea without mystical foolishness.)

[andersonh1]

Transformers #7
Infestation
Writers - James "Brad Mick" McDonough and Adam Patyk Pencils - Don Figeroa Inks: Elaine To

I never paid any attention to how anime the humans in this issue are or how huge their eyes were back in the day, but it jumps out at me now. There is no missing it. Fun to see Nightbird from the G1 animated series, and both the GI Joe and Go Bot mentions got a chuckle out of me. Of course it's not long before the two soldiers in the movie theater that open the issue meet grisly fates as we shift tones towards a horror movie riff with this issue.

Jazz and some of his crew are up and running again, including Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, and I really enjoy seeing these early G1 characters together with familiar designs. It always seemed like IDW went to great lengths to keep characters that had always been associated with each other apart and to redesign every character multiple times. It worked in context, but I prefer this approach. And it's good to see a human-led group that isn't trying to disassemble Autobots for the technology. The name calling between the Autobots calls the old show to mind without directly mimicking it. McDonough has done a nice job making these characters familiar since "War and Peace". There's another movie reference with a deactivated Windcharger and Wheeljack together, tough thankfully not dead here. This whole sequence is filled with layers of references that I imagine any new reader would miss, but which long-time fans can easily pick up on. It creates a sense of familiarity.

Back to Starscream, and it's always interesting to get inside his head. Rumble and Frenzy shooting fish in a barrel is hilarious, just the kind of mischief those two punks would get up to. We don't get to see who Soundwave was communicating with, but it's not hard to guess.

So now Jazz and crew are going with Marissa to check out the empty town that the two soldiers were in. We know it's the Insecticons, both from the cover and from the cerebro shell, so trying to play things up as a mystery is an odd writing choice that doesn't really work. We've already had the big reveal. Sunstreaker is a huge jerk, Sideswipe notices that the EDC have Scourge, and Jazz develops some mutual respect with Marissa. There's more nice character work as the Autobots and EDC soldiers search the town. Then of course the craziness breaks loose as tons of Insecticon clones burst onto the scene, though in an interesting twist, they don't have mech fluid, as Sunstreaker noted earlier. Jazz and Marissa are surrounded for our cliffhanger ending.

So some of that was all over the place, I know. The plot is fairly straightforward, but it's all the little references and character interactions that really make this issue enjoyable for me. We keep getting small groups of Transformers chosen out of the main cast to base a story around, and as a method of juggling the huge roster of G1 characters, it works well. The downside of this issue is that most of the story is played as if the Insecticon reveal at the end is a surprise, when the cover gave it away. But for the most part the issue works well thanks to the characters, so I'll go with a 7 out of 10.

Transformers #8
Extermination
Writers - James "Brad Mick" McDonough and Adam Patyk Pencils - Don Figeroa Inks: Elaine To

I've always liked the cover of this issue with someone's hand crushing Kickback's head, though I can't tell who is doing it. It's always looked like a Dinobot to me, and given Jazz's story about the Dinobots following the Insecticons to Earth, that would make sense.

Jazz and Marissa get out of the tight spot they were left in last issue, but the two soldiers with them (who get names, in a nice touch we don't always see) do not. No surprise that the Insecticons are working for Shockwave, or that Bombshell is messing with Bumper's brain, no doubt putting his usual brand of mind control on him. The issue plays it like Bumper is fine as he escapes once the Insecticons leave, but I'm not buying it.

Bumblebee reaches out to Spike after his crisis at the end of last issue, but Spike is not happy to see him. At least we finally get to see Carly, who never made an appearance once in the original mini-series other than a as figure in the shadows still sleeping early in the first issue.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are captured by Shrapnel's electrical blast, while Jazz and Marissa compare notes, before ending up on the run again. I'm not sure why a number of speech bubbles are transparent from time to time in this issue. Someone make them transparent to color behind them and then forget to turn the translucency back to zero? Nice to see Jazz's flamethrower, looking fairly toy-accurate if I remember right. We don't see him break it out often in any continuity. The same is true of Sunstreaker's shoulder missile later in the issue. McDonough does by far the best job of any Transformers writer of incorporating elements of the toys and the tech specs into the narrative. And after Sunstreaker was taunting Bumper earlier, it's a nice turnabout for Bumper to free him and Sideswipe. But Bumper is acting far too confident compared to how he acted earlier, and there are several other things that just scream "he's mind-controlled!", though it's a plotline that we'll sadly never see played out.

But then Bumper does stop Bombshell by using one of his own cerebro shells, but that might be a ploy to get a sleeper agent into the Autobot ranks. It doesn't really fit with the Insecticons' actions in the rest of the issue, but it's possible. That "TR8R1" traitor license plate on the last panel would seem to be yet another hint about Bumper's current status.

So I'm not sure the Insecticon's plans were ever really explained here. They created a bunch of organic or partially organic clones of themselves and zombified most of the town, but why? Presumably there would have been a reason down the road. I could always speculate, but I suppose there's no point. There's more action and fewer character moments this issue, which seems appropriate for part two of a two-parter where all the shoes need to drop, but it makes me appreciate what characterization we get all the more. It's hard to judge the story other than a in straightforward way without knowing how it fit into the larger picture. As a "small town where strange and monstrous things are happening" horror plot adapted into the Transformers series, it works well enough. I think I'll go with another 7 out of 10.

[andersonh1]

Transformers #9
Lost and Found
Writers - James McDonough and Adam Patyk Pencils - Don Figeroa Inks: Elaine To

First off, the nighttime colors on the splash page are near perfect. Nicely done Espen Grundetjern. Shockwave is a little sarcastic with Blitzwing, which is fun. The conversation between Blitzwing and Astrotrain is interesting, indicating that Sixshot will soon make an appearance and is the latest of Shockwave's experiments on Transformers with multiple alternate modes. I've always seem this sequence as an attempt by Megatron to figure out where Shockwave is hiding by luring someone out so he can learn the location of the base rather than searching endlessly through the wastelands, and he wastes no time in bringing Shockwave to heel.

Nice page transition from the injured shockwave to Hot Rod's target practice on a Sunbow-era Shockwave target. Seems like Kup and Hot Rod could each learn from the other, and I suspect McDonough paired them up for the same reason the animated movie writers did. The experienced old fighter and the young, capable but impulsive hothead make a good pair of contrasting personalities to bounce off of each other. Springer and Arcee get paired up as they did on the animated series, only with a more explicit romantic undertone to their interaction. I like the attempt to give Arcee some characterization here as someone looking for a purpose, and I really enjoy the way everyone looks at the first year G1 characters as Cybertron's greatest heroes.

My favorite scene in the book is Prowl consoling and encouraging Huffer as they leave Cybertron. I'll take this version of Prowl over IDW's amoral monster any day.

I'm glad to see the Quintessons in the book, and plotting in the background as always. Hot Rod is singled out as someone special, and Arcee's comments about not feeling like she belonged on Cybertron are something I had not really picked up on when I last read these issues. Given that the female Autobots apparently work for the Quintessons in this continuity, I'm guessing that the implication here is that Arcee does as well, even though she apparently doesn't realize it.

Jazz's crew are all up and functioning again, and rejoining the other Autobots, with Jazz and Marissa having definitely made a connection. There's a human-Autobot friendship that needed more exploration. In another nice transition, the scene shifts immediately to Spike and Bumblebee discussing their lives, and despite Spike's insistence that he's out of the game of risking life and limb, while driving through the bad part of town he can't let some thugs beat up on a woman without stopping to intervene, though he'd have been shot for his trouble if Bumblebee hadn't stepped in. Bumblebee may not be a physical threat to most other Transformers, but he can handle a human with a gun pretty easily.

Back on Cybertron, we finally get back to Megatron asserting his authority over Shockwave and containing rather than killing him. Megatron is enjoying his moment here, not only bringing Shockwave to heel, but showing off how he has convinced the Predacons to follow him, something that apparently would never have happened in the past. Great line by Megatron: "Once again I prove to be your better. Even at something you have dedicated your entire existence toward, I excel and surpass you." Megatron collects the troops and sets his sights on Earth.... to be continued!

I think this issue was a step up from the previous two, even though it's a collection of plotline advancing scenes more than a self-contained story. Every one of them has something interesting to offer, and promises more of the same in future issues... though sadly, we're down to the last one after this, so a lot of this setup will never go anywhere. But what we get is very enjoyable. 8 out of 10.

[andersonh1]

Transformers #10
The Route of all Evil
Writers - James McDonough and Adam Patyk Pencils - Don Figeroa Inks: Elaine To

Showing the Combaticons on an island as "Starscream's Brigade" is another bit of fan references that I'm not sure really works, though I guess it makes sense to keep a huge Transformer like Sky Lynx imprisoned somewhere way out of the way, and an island is as good a place as any. They don't fare too well against Sky Lynx, or Predaking either once he turns up. I'm not sure how Starscream knew an attack was coming though. Soundwave does not send help, he's busy affirming his loyalty to the newly arrived Megatron, who doesn't see any need to cripple him like he did Shockwave.

The scene with Buster Witwicky and Marissa Fairborne hints at attempts by the military to reverse engineer weapons from Transformers, and I appreciate the reference to Dreamwave's original G1 mini-series here ("... you remember the fiasco that happened when someone violated that edict recently." Marissa reminds Buster.) Despite that, the project is going to be reactivated, though doubtless McDonough and Patyk would have done something different than we saw in Prime Directive. If nothing else, I like to think that Buster and Marissa would be better characterized than General Hallo was.

I love that we see the beginnings of Autobot City here as the Autobots who were left on Earth and the ones newly arrived from Cybertron reunite. Even Omega Supreme is visible in the background. Hoist and Grapple are clearly putting their building skills to use as Hound displays a hologram of what the city will look like. It's a great scene.

Meanwhile the Combaticons demonstrate some skill as individuals, but when combined into Bruticus, they're really no match for Predaking, despite some considerable firepower. Predaking has the brains and the brawn to win the fight. Starscream runs for it, returning to the Nemesis, only to get a hole shot through his chassis by Soundwave, using Megatron's weapon mode. I love Megatron's description of Starscream as a "treacherous whelp", and the fact that this whole time Starscream has been trying to stay one step ahead of whatever enemy he faced, but as had to happen, his time finally ran out. I do appreciate that he doesn't grovel to Megatron, but verbally at least gives as good as he gets. There's some interesting exposition here as more of the backstory is revealed, and Megatron knows a lot more than he's telling, including about Sunstorm.

Sixshot shows up to recover Blitzwing's remains. I've said it before, I'd like to have seen where the Sixshot plotline was going. ­The same with Hot Rod and the Quintessons' "extraction team". It is a real shame that this book ended here. McDonough and Patyk had a real handle on the characters, and Don Figeroa's art was excellent, as always. The storylines felt like they were going somewhere interesting. We seemed on the verge of getting some answers about Sunstorm, Optimus Prime would finally have reentered the series, and who knows what else. I was really disappointed when Dreamwave collapsed, and hoped for some time that IDW would pick up where they left off, but it never happened. Dreamwave clearly had some major problems behind the scenes, but they gave us some good Transformers fiction before they went under. We didn't cover it here, but their version of Armada is really strong, and some of their Energon series is pretty good, though of course it ended mid-story as well.

[Dominic]

Your reviews have been painful to read.

I have said it before, and will say it again.

In 2002~03, I was almost done with comics. I actually *wanted* to be done with mainline comics. But, I kept checking on Dreamwave's G1, and I kept buying it, "until it goes bad". And, it was....amazing.

The creative team loved the intellectual property they had a chance to use, and gave their best effort. They respected the audience. (No stupid fights with crybaby fans. DW focused on making a good product.)

I want comics like this again. I want Transformers comics like this.


"Energon" was fast becoming a "Furman" book. His cliches were becoming more dominant when the series was cut off.

[andersonh1]

Looking back at Dreamwave's total output, it always feels like there were more G1 issues than we actually got. I guess I always have the Armada and Energon issues in the back of my mind, which add another 33 between the ongoing series and the Armada biography series.

Prime Directive - 6 issues
War Within - 6 issues
War and Peace - 6 issues
The Dark Ages - 6 issues
the ongoing - 10 issues
Micromasters - 4 issues
The Age of Wrath - 3 issues
Summer Special - 1 issue
MTMTE - 8 issues

Did I forget anything? I know they did a couple of Transformers/GI Joe crossovers, but those are their own continuity. That's 50 G1 issues. For comparison, I think we were partway through All Hail Megatron when IDW hit 50 issues. It is a lot, but it feels so short looking back at it. But they managed to publish a number of distinctive stories that still stand up pretty well. And we got some ideas and characters out of them that are still around.

- first major redesigns of all the G1 characters - War Within
- the Fallen
- feels like Dreamwave's version of Shockwave carried over into IDW with his experiments and long term planning
- can't forget some great art from Don Figeroa, Guido Guidi and Alex Milne, and Simon Furman coming back to Transformers. All would get work from IDW

So they had an impact on Transformers fiction in the few short years that they were publishing, one that lasted beyond the company's collapse.

[andersonh1]

Transformers/G.I. Joe #1
"The Line"
Writer John Ney Riber, Art Jae Lee, Colors June Chung

I'm not a G.I. Joe fan, so I bought this Dreamwave mini and the other early one that came out around this time (by Devil's Due comics, maybe?) mainly for the Transformers. I did like the art quite a bit in this one, though it's more for the style than for the layout, since there are times when it's hard to tell what's going on and the storytelling flow isn't always all that clear. The WW2 setting intrigued me. It's an alternate history of course, where Cobra allied with Decepticons to do far more damage to Europe than the Germans ever did.

Cobra wakes up the Decepticons while raiding an old castle, and the two groups apparently form an alliance off panel. G.I. Joe is formed to go investigate what has happened in Europe and to "defang" Cobra. Laserbeak spies on the meeting and reports back to Cobra Commander. GI Joe infiltrates a base and finds "a giant metal monster head". To be continued...

So no Autobots at all this issue, it sets up the Cobra/Decepticon alliance, establishes GI Joe as an elite group sent to try and stop them, and gives us some of the goals of both Cobra and the Decepticons as well as hinting about why they're working together. I enjoy the art, as I noted before. It's a bunch of light and dark shapes with colors rather than typical pencil and ink linework, and I enjoy the look. It fits the scenario. The only downside is that it makes it hard to see details in some of the redesigned Transformers. I'm not a big fan of the dialogue, though I guess "terse and macho" or "megalomaniacal" is only to be expected given the characters and circumstances. There's very little downtime or scenes that offer a break from the grim situation and heavy action.

It's a good first issue, it sets up the scenario and jumps right into the action. It doesn't feel decompressed or dragged out, and if anything a little more exposition and character moments might have been nice. I enjoyed revisiting this after not having read it in years.

Transformers/G.I. Joe #2
"Transformed"
John Ney Rieber, Jae Lee

I'm going to depend heavily on the narration to identify the G.I. Joe characters, since I'm only familiar with a few of them. Roadblock, Duke, Leatherneck and Scarlett have found dormant Autobots on the Fera Islands, who they see as giant war machines. They also activate the repair drone, as seen in the first episode of the animated series, and the Autobots begin to reactivate as the drone (seen by Starscream, who is happy at this turn of events) begins to scan vehicles and repair. Ironhide is the first to revive, and I like the shot of him from the human point of view: giant, largely in sihouette, seen from below. I'm going to say this more than once I'm sure: I enjoy Jae Lee's art style, but I'm not a fan of his storytelling. Here it's fine, it's not hard to follow what's going on, and I love all the shadows and shapes instead of the typical comic book linework. Ironhide saves Scarlett's life from bullet ricochet then admonishes the Joe's for shooting at him.

The next page shifts back to Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and one of my complaints with this series is just how much time is given to these two. The book has a massive cast, and we can't expect a good balance with everyone given equal page time, but this fight goes on at least into the next issue. I seem to remember Snake Eyes being one of the more popular Joe characters, which probably explains it, but this isn't an ongoing series with plenty of time to devote to subplots. Snake Eyes, of course, ends up with his face horribly injured, but it gets worse as he cauterizes the wounds to stop the bleeding.

We're halfway through the second issue now, and finally get to see more Autobots. They're all redesigned with WW2 era vehicle modes, and the first thing I noticed (which I did not the last time I read this, years ago) was that they're all the Pat Lee designs. Look at the faces in particular, drawn as Pat Lee drew them. Optimus Prime fills the Joes in on Transformer history, and we see Jazz, Prowl, Bumblebee, Hound and Grimlock. Don't expect most of these familiar Autobots to do much of anything over the course of the story but get a few lines.

The enemy commanders confer, with Megatron and Starscream and Cobra Commander and Destro discussing this change in the situation. They send in an attack, and it's WW2 airplanes for Cobra and the Seekers attacking Autobots and Joes on the ground. But the attack is barely started before we're back to the feud between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. The book ends with Storm Shadow revealing Ravage.

Overall: This issue really could be called Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow: co-starring a handfull of other characters. The two characters probably get half the pages, though I didn't count to be sure. It seems like a book like this is a good opportunity to get fans of one franchise interested in the other, but as a Transformers fan I wanted to see more of my favorites, while very little reason was given to me to want more of these G.I. Joe characters, most of whom do nothing of note. I enjoy the art, and the panel to panel storytelling isn't bad in this issue, with the action relatively easy to follow. There are times where this series was visually confusing, but this issue worked. The book is a mix of interesting ideas and visuals mixed with frustration at the author not attempting to better balance the cast and give more of them more to do. That complaint will not go away as the series progresses.

[andersonh1]

Transformers/G.I. Joe #3
"Trial by Fire"
John Ney Rieber, Jae Lee

GI Joe Strike Team #2: Flint, Lady Jaye, Beach Head, Breaker, Grunt, Lifeline. They're passed by a squadron of seekers, apparently unseen as they shelter in some wreckage. Meanwhile Stalker, survivor of the first strike team, survives an ambush by a Cobra trooper and kills him with a grenade, only to run across one of the Aerialbots as he reconnects with his team and the main group of Autobots. Meanwhile Megatron is about done with Cobra, and ready to break the alliance, only for Cobra Commander to use the Matrix (which looks like a baseball sized glowing sphere of light here) to bring Megatron to heel. "Destiny is cruel," he proclaims, "but I am crueller." I like the two scenes that offer a quick contrast between the two human/Transformer alliances. The Joes and Autobots are reasonably friendly and trying to work out how best to cooperate, while Cobra and the Decepticons use each other and use the threat of force to control the alliance.

Back to Snake Eyes, now fighting Ravage, who he kills in under two pages. He then kills all the Cobra troops, and returns to his one on one combat with Storm Shadow, which goes on for two double paged spreads. Yeah, I get it, these two are the best combatants by far, but they're hogging a lot of page time, and it annoys me more than anything. And would Snake Eyes really be able to dispose of Ravage that easily? Only in a six page mini that will never get a sequel. At least when Snake Eyes detonates a grenade it gets the attention of Joe strike team 2, only for Zartan to replace one of them so he can infiltrate the team.

This issue ends with Grimlock and Roadblock attacking Cobra troopers. One of them mocks the rest for dying so easily, and reveals himself to be Rumble, as he starts an earthquake with his pistons..

That issue flew by. It's a typical middle chapter, without a lot of forward progress for the story. As I said, it does offer a look at both alliances and how they're shaping up, which I enjoyed. But it also gives a lot of page time to just a few characters and leaves the rest to be part of crowd shots, often without even any dialogue. Optimus Prime barely appears in this issue. There are hints of some friendships forming, such as Grimlock and Roadblock, and there's potential there I'd like to see explored. I still don't really know any of the Joes as characters, and I suppose any Joe fans coming to this series looking to get to know some of the Transformers don't have much to chew on either. The art is still beautiful, if not stellar when it comes to panel to panel storytelling. I enjoy it for the most part, but it has all the major flaws that I listed above, and in that respect the book is the same in issue 3 as it was in issue 2.