After the bitter disappointment that was the Death's Head mini-series, I was in dire need of a nostalgic tonic. Fitting then that Death's Head's original creator, the venerable Simon Furman, should deliver the stand-out comic of the year.
Transformers '84 is a dream for those of us who grew up on the Marvel comics, as it takes the opportunity to flesh-out the lore of that series. Though the original comics varied greatly in quality (from highs like Wrath of Guardian to the lows of Car Wash of Doom) there were a number of absolutely fabulous ideas and thought provoking asides. It's well-documented that the original Marvel UK team had many challenges with the property, not least of which was creating extra material to weave in and out of the master US narrative. This creative knitting always seemed to come from the hip, and honestly almost all of the best stories were the UK originated tales by Furman and his team. Transformers '84 requires the same deft touch as the focus is revisiting key events and shedding new light on the motivations and machinations of the major players.
Issue #0, linked itself to both the original 1984 issue #1 of the Marvel comic run, with Prime preparing to leave Cybertron, and Man of Iron, a UK story that had a very unusual look and feel at the time. It was a tremendous success, narrated by Autobot spy Punch/Counterpunch, it allowed us to see firsthand accounts of movements within both the Autobot and Decepticon ranks.
With issue #1 of '84 proper, Furman again takes us back 4 million years, to the events leading up to the fateful journey taken by Optimus Prime into the asteroid belt threatening the Transformers home-world of Cybertron. Preview pages set message boards abuzz with their inclusion of characters previously thought to have originated on Earth, such as Jetfire and the Constructicons. I don't want to spoil the plot further, but the issue features a plethora of references to earlier (later?) books, including Marvel's Issue #1, the original UK Transformers annual and the UK strip, City of Fear. The last one is a bit of an oddity as the comprehensive reference notes at the back of the book claim that the idea of Megatron's attempts to turn the planet into a space-station with which to traverse the stars was "never fully fleshed out", and yet it was the central premise of that unforgettable, zombie infested tale. Perhaps we're only including US stories for reference, but if that's the case then why mention the UK annual? Odd.
Nitpicking aside, what works here? For one, the art is striking. Guido Guidi is one of the true heroes of the modern comics age, and his ability to mimic the Marvel style whilst simultaneously modernising it is absolutely showstopping. It's not just the character styles, everything from the panel angles to the way in which characters often line up or group together is classic Marvel. Furthermore, those who have memorised the original comic run will also notice some classic panels recreated here, from Grimlock's upwards-looking hero shot (which is a great homage to a similar panel during the story Nucleon Quest) to Megatron addressing his minions over his shoulder (as Straxus does in Bridge to Nowhere), it's a love letter and Guido nails it. He's backed up by John-Paul Bove's spot-on colouring. Using a screentone style of dots for shading, not only does he capture the spirit of the originals, his colour choices for for block-colouring far away or grouped characters is perfect. It really goes to show how important colouring is in comics, and Bove is one of the best in the business. Last and not least, Jake M. Wood brings home the hand-written style of the lettering with aplomb. Bring it all together and this book is a harmony of care, attention and detail. It's a very high quality product indeed.
All of this would be for nought (as it was in Death's Head, nope still bitter, sorry) were the writing not up to snuff. I'll admit, I wasn't a massive fan of the Regeneration One books. It was a mix of inspired ideas (revisiting the Headmasters, the after-effects of Nucleon, Galvatron vs Magnus) coupled with some odd narrative choices (The Last Autobot, Prime's complete abandonment of Earth, the insane death toll and that bittersweet ending). Even though Issue #0 had a high body count, and in a way this book does too, I'm hopeful that the limited series will expand on characters we love, not just torture and kill them. So far, so good Mr Furman, but I have my eye on you...
Even for a single issue, there's a lot going on here - every panel feels pivotal, well directed and most importantly, the characters have unique voices. Megatron is terse, the coneheads are suitably hench ("Gotcha boss!"), Grimlock's an overconfident bruiser and Perceptor is verbose. These are just a few examples, but I can't begin to tell you how important this is to the feel of a book and the breadth of its world. If comics were still written like this today, the industry wouldn't be on it's knees, propped up by sales of Japanese manga.
Whatever happens going forward, this is the first time since IDW rebooted their continuity that I've felt any genuine excitement for a Transformers book. I'm fine with limited series if they're going to be handled with this level of respect and care - if you were ever a reader of those comics growing up, this is the closest we'll get to a time capsule of unreleased strips. I felt genuine pleasure reading this book. I re-read it several times, even scanning through it just to admire the artwork and pick out favourite characters, just as I did as a pre-teen who eagerly awaited every Saturday morning trip to the local paper shop. Lots of delicious dangling plot threads await, and I'm counting the days until the next issue.
Bravo.
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