Rate 'The Transformers'!

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:21 am

Remember the first ever Marvel TF story 'The Transformers' back in '84? How would you rate it?

Ozz · Post by **Ozz** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:59 am

3/5.

It's done its job, which was to introduce the Transformers, present their genesis, history and how they came to Earth. And managed to achieve it on 15 pages, so there was also some space left to start actual plot. Roll calls might have looked silly, but at least we got to know our robots and the personalities of some (most?) of them. Sparkplug and Buster got introduced in a satisfactory way, too, methinks.

Art could have been better though.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:48 am

2/5 - no real thought was given to origins or teh why's and wherefopres of who got on each ship. It explains vereything it needs to, but not well and in a way that poses problems one teh series becomes a success. The role call is terribly clunky adn whilst it may be a nesccessary evil it isn't done well - having each character announce themselves and some random fact made it look a bit like the scripting had been done by Mark Lawrenson:

"We Middleborough, a talented but underachieving side, stand ready to take on the Decepticons"

art is pretty bad too.

rewriting it in the same number of pages an with the overall same outcome would be an interesting challenge.

Optimus Prime Rib · Post by **Optimus Prime Rib** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:20 pm

I, Optimus Prime Rib, with my super postng power, feel that this story gets a 2/5. Ugh I hate the way they introduce everyone in that story...

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:06 pm

The thing is, that became Bob B's standard way of introducing almost every new character throughout his run.

I get the feeling that he wasn't expecting anyone to care 20-odd years down the line. Maybe IDW could get him to re-write it for the Evolution series and show us that he is more skilled than that.......

I'm sure he must have felt that he'd been fobbed off with some crappy toy line and it wasn't worth his effort cos no-one would read it. Or if they did they wouldn't care in a year. Then again, he can't of still been thinking that by issue 50-odd, when he did the same kind of thing with the micromasters......

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:14 pm

Scraplet wrote: Then again, he can't of still been thinking that by issue 50-odd, when he did the same kind of thing with the micromasters......

No by that point he'd probably lost the will to live...

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:12 pm

3/5, it's most definately not as good as later stories. however, they put a lot more effort in explaining the background of the war than MTMTE did.

Although the artwork is pretty damm crap

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 4:18 pm

Stormwolf wrote:3/5, it's most definately not as good as later stories. however, they put a lot more effort in explaining the background of the war than MTMTE did.

Well, at least there was a background - MTMTE didn't even bother did it?

Stormwolf wrote:Although the artwork is pretty damm crap

yes, but there's a certain charm to it, maybe it's just nostalgia!

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:27 pm

Scraplet wrote:The thing is, that became Bob B's standard way of introducing almost every new character throughout his run.

I get the feeling that he wasn't expecting anyone to care 20-odd years down the line. Maybe IDW could get him to re-write it for the Evolution series and show us that he is more skilled than that.......

I'm sure he must have felt that he'd been fobbed off with some crappy toy line and it wasn't worth his effort cos no-one would read it. Or if they did they wouldn't care in a year. Then again, he can't of still been thinking that by issue 50-odd, when he did the same kind of thing with the micromasters......

Hmm, wonder what's Bob doing now. Did he wrote anything memorable other then TF?

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 7:06 am

BB Shockwave wrote:Hmm, wonder what's Bob doing now. Did he wrote anything memorable other then TF?

The other main thing that springs to mind is his editorial role in the Spider-Man Clone Saga...

Oh, and Sleepwalker or summat? Never read it.

PS, 2/5.

Post by **Best First** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 8:42 am

Scraplet wrote:

I get the feeling that he wasn't expecting anyone to care 20-odd years down the line.

But thats why i think Simon has always coem off so well, ok he has left a few gaping continuity conflicts lying round over the years, but you always got the impression he really saw this as a chnace to do the best stuff he could full stop.

Bob alwys seems constrained and at best trying to 'write for kids' hence we get a lot of stuf that is pretty much cartoon plot. But then we get the return to Cyberrtron arc which is freaking genius. Bascically i just don't think he evere really managed to get to grips with the constraints that were laid on him - something Furman never had to really deal with.

or something.

Laserwave · Post by **Laserwave** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:23 pm

A solid 3/5. It does it`s job, and the artwork? Remember this is the first time anyone had drawn Transformers in the comic world, so no one had a chance to really work out the style.

Look back to Kirby`s early work on the Fantastic Four, or Ditko`s on Spider-Man - you`ll see that artwork wasn`t the greatest either.