Transformers Comic issue 1

Titan Transformers Comic #1 »
This is what comic books look like in the UK now. It makes us sad too.
Publisher	Titan Magazines
Cover date	July 2007
Editor	Steve White
Deputy editor	Andrew James & Ned Hartley
Assistant editor	Den Patrick
Designer	Robert Farmer & Martin Stiff
Publishing manager	Darryl Curtis

Optimus Prime learns that sending the All Spark into space was not a good idea...

Contents

Prelude: Optimus Prime

The Decepticons are winning. With Megatron fanatically willing to reduce the entire planet to scrap to get the Allspark, Optimus Prime makes the reluctant decision to send it into space so the tyrant can never find it. This is a decision that weighs heavy, as its absence could condemn Cybertron, and its inhabitants, to a slow death.

A Decepticon drone assassin—one in a long line of them—attacks the Autobot base in search of Optimus, who goes out to meet the threat head on, ordering his assistant Arctus to launch if he doesn't make it back. The drone, having killed everyone in its path, turns out to be designed with a forcefield against laserfire, so Optimus does an indirect strike and shoots the fuel canisters behind it. Unfortunately, the explosion blasts it into the very room where the Allspark is located! To stop it reporting to Megatron, Optimus destroys the drone by transforming into protoform mode and ramming it at high speed, something he's never tried before in an enclosed room and that leaves himself badly damaged.

In his unconscious state, Optimus sees a vision of the Transformer war spread to other worlds. This causes him to question launching the All Spark. But it's too late, as it's already been launched...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Articles & features

• Character Profile: Optimus Prime — Much-shortened version of the profile from Transformers: The Movie Guide.
• Cybertron Smackdown: Ratchet v. Barricade — Fantasy Football matchup, written by Simon Furman.
• Transformers: The Animated Movie Special - Short article on the original movie and a competition to win Metrodome's new "Ultimate Edition" DVD.
• Competition to win Beast Machines Season 1 DVD.
• Top Gear — Win Transformers clothes and roleplay toys.
• Optimus Prime Poster — Dreamworks CGI

Free Gift

• Cardboard dog tags, with Autobot or Decepticon logos on them.

Reprints

Reprinted stories are only a portion of their respective issues.

• Transformers: Movie Prequel, part 1a (7 pages)
• Beast Wars: The Gathering, part 1a (6 pages)

Errors

• The Mech Mail letters page contains letters from young children who've already seen the film... which hadn't come out by this point. Oh, Titan.
• Bumblebee is coloured gun-metal grey in the lead strip.

Quotes

"No matter how many times Megatron tries to kill me, no matter how many drones he sends at me... I stubbornly refuse to die. I'd give my own life in an instant if it meant an end to this carnage, but right now — for better or for worse — I am the only thing standing between Megatron and the All Spark!"

—Optimus exposits while personally slaughtering an entire platoon of Dreadwings

"It's come for me."
" "What? How can you know that?"
"I just do. I know how Megatron thinks. Take me out of the equation, the Autobot resistance crumbles."

—Optimus and Arctus

"Our war... on another world!

—Optimus quotes the film poster

Continuity notes

• The Prelude strip ties into the Movie Prequel reprint, where Autobots are fighting a diversionary defence of 'the Allspark' so Optimus can launch the real thing into space. One panel even shows Bumblebee and his team!
• The attack drone, in look and colour, seems a deliberate nod to the original Liege Maximo design.
• Optimus' vision of the future is a flashforward to the film (though Geoff Senior draws a far more wrecked city than even Bay could afford).
• Optimus responds to this vision with very similar lines to "War Without End!".

Production notes

• The opening "Transformers 101" feature gives a basic summary of the movie setup but also refers to "six heroic Autobots" being all that's standing between Megatron and the Allspark. That refers to the events of the reprinted prequel rather than the original strip, and doesn't quite fit when we see Optimus protecting the Allspark instead.
• The colouring leaves almost every robot and the bulk the scenery grey. Very, very grey. (A cameo by Bumblebee is undermined by him being grey too!) Geoff Senior coloured the first two pages of #1 for an interview at TransFans.co.uk, which — due to having colour — look quite different to the printed version. He stated in the same interview that he didn't have time to colour it himself for the issue, but is now colouring it for his own enjoyment. (Those pages have been used on the wiki in place of the original print as they look way cool)
• The opening strip is incredibly violent, more so than the bulk of Titan's strips will be in the future: Optimus punches a Dreadwing's head off, the drone wipes out an entire squad of Autobot rebels, Megatron stands on a mountain of corpses!
• Every issue of the comic contains a "Fantastic Free" gift. Steve White has stated they are trying to come up with free gift ideas that aren't "some piece of cheap plastic", a challenge considering the small budget they are given. The comic wouldn't keep this going for much of its life but the effort was appreciated.
• The story was reprinted as part of Saga of the Allspark #1.