Transformers:Retribution Review

[Yaya]

There's something out there that reads better than a Roberts comic book folks. And it's called Transformers:Retribution, by David Williams and Mark Williams.

Yeah, that's a pretty bold claim. And not exactly apples to oranges, as Retribution is a Transformers G1 novel released only recently this year.

But if ever I have enjoyed reading something as much as James' work, if not more, it's this work. Out of boredom, I picked up a review copy my brother was given and read it. At first, I was dissuaded by the cover, which features Bay's Optimus Prime face, but figured what the hell. As it turns out, this is a G1 iteration that pulls from many different sources, including the comic, cartoon, and movies, and somehow it works great. Clearly it's taken more from the comics of the past thirty years than anything else. It starts with a very War and Peace kind of vibe, but fear not W&P haters, it is far from that despite some initial similarities at the beginning.

The strength is the dialogue and characterization. I can honestly say I haven't been more pulled into the G1 Transformers world since my childhood days. I read this purely as a skeptic, and am floored at how strong this thing is. At first, I read the back cover and yawned. Quintessons? Yaaaawn. But by the books end, I'm in more awe of them as villians than anything I've seen the Transformers face in any iteration of their story since 1984. Including Unicron.

There have been many just plain bad TF novelizations out there, so I figured by chapter three I would have shelved it forever. Instead, I read the thing in a day. It becomes quite clear that Williams is no hack as a writer. I've never heard of him. He's British (aren't all good TF writers?). He gets full marks from me. It's balanced and I never felt bored. If only they had based the live action movie on this.

Give it a read, folks. It will make you love being a Transformers fan that much more and provides a strong argument for why the prose format can achieve things that comics and movies never will.

[bumblemusprime]

Sounds like James pseudonymously revising Eugenesis into canon.

[Yaya]

I never read Eugenesis. . (I know. Kill me now). What's the premise?

[snarl]

Basically that the Quintessons massacre the bots on cons in a two front invasion of Earth and Cybertron.

[Yaya]

This story takes place before the Transformers come to Earth. It's a prequel to all the Earth stuff. But bots die so I don't think it follows any official canon to the letter but seems to take aspects from varied sources. It also features characters I thought were just made up for the book (some are) but came to find later tha they are actually toys I never heard of.