Transformers #3

Transformers (2023) (Single Issues)

by Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer (cover_art)

THE BIGGEST LAUNCH OF THE YEAR CONTINUES HERE! Outnumbered and overpowered, it’s time for the Autobots to stand their ground, as Optimus Prime goes toe to toe with Skywarp!

Genres: Comics, Comics Manga, Science Fiction, Comic Book

30 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 6, 2023

About the author

Daniel Warren Johnson is a Chicago-based comic book writer, artist, and illustrator. He's worked on titles for most major publishers, including Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image. His current series with Skybound/Image Comics is EXTREMITY, a sci-fi/fantasy title he is writing and drawing, and continues to update his webcomic Space-Mullet in his spare time.

Reviews

[Nicolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Optimus Prime unleashed. No hesitation, like a seasoned veteran that fought a war that has gone on too long, century after century.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teil 3 der Transformers Reihe von 2023. Der Krieg Autobots vs. Decepticons geht weiter und die Menschen versuchen sich zu wehren, sind allerdings nur Spielball und es gibt reichlich Action, Kämpfe und Blut. Absolut hooked!

Issue 3 of the 2023 Image Run of the Transformers and it's still a blast! The War of the Transformers rages on on earth and the humans aren't more than casualties. Blood, fight, death pretty stunning and intriguing. got me hooked already.

[Leslie Carnahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm going to save your boy"
This comic can be so gut wrenching.
I'm telling you... I didn't give a damn about Transformers until Daniel Warren Johnson hopped on board. It's been a wild and fun ride.

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time to go home, everyone. Transformers comics have officially peaked with Optimus Prime beating a Decepticon with his severed arm.

[Edward Covington · Rating 5 out of 5]

More stunning work from DWJ and his team. This guy is a generational talent.

[Dingleberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did Optimus just hit Skywarp with a BURNNING HAMMER!? This series is so much fun.

[Cybernex007 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another heart pounding and heart breaking amazing issue, never doubt DWJ. This issue starts on a heart breaking point as we open with Carly falling to the ground after hearing her father died. He doesn’t know how to tell her and not sound crazy, so he tells her straight up that a giant robot crushed him. Carly of course knows what he means and is even able to describe it, making Sparky immediately worried about his son and where he is, but they don’t have any time to talk as suddenly laserbeak breaks into the house, as it was following Carly. Sparky lets loose on it with his guns to no avail as he is thrown across the room as it continues to corner Carly. Luckily cliffjumper followed her to make sure she was okay and he immediately starts to pull out some cool moves to take the vulture down. Unfortunately perspective is the damnedest thing as Sparky doesn’t have any perception of the robots being good, he’s only seen them kill and now cliffjumper is just another one in his way. Fortunately it can’t have too much effect, but Sparky does blast cliffjumper in the head with a shotgun, sending him flying out the side of the house as Sparky grabs and drags Carly to the car. I know that was stressful but omg I wish Carly would have stuck up for cliffjumper more to show right then and there that there are good robots fighting for the side of life.

Back at the Ark ship starscream is, of course, pissed if that it’s not fixed but shockwave doesn’t have the raw materials necessary to bring their tech back and they haven’t sought any alternatives that could lie on the planet. Of course soundwave can’t help but note that if megatron was here they would have already, which prompts starscream to slap shockwave down as he told him kit to say that name. Suddenly a priority alert from laserbeak comes in alerting them of the autobot they found, and starscream interrupts skywarp while he was sipping on energy to go and deal with it.

Carly and Sparky have now made it back to town and to the bar he frequents. He tried radioing out but there is some kind of signal jammer in place, so they need on the ground support immediately. And it turns out this bar is full of vets who heard the explosions and are on edge and ready to start blasting. Carly is choosing now to try and find the words to explain that not all the robots are bad, which Sparky doesn’t seem to really hear as he has experienced war and seems to have the faulty perspective that it doesn’t matter what side you are on when the shooting starts as everyone dies. That mindset will certainly be tested this issue, but only moments later cliffjumper, who only just recently warmed up to humans thanks to Carly, poked his head through the door to try and promise them he is a good guy…only for sparky to respond with a hail of gunfire. This once again, didn’t do much but slightly hurt cliffjumper, but this time Carly tried to jump in between to stop Sparky…but it came all too late as suddenly skywarp touched down in front of them. I thought the kills were brutal last issue, but seeing DWJ’s signature style of motion as skywarp get pleasure out of kicking humans around, barely the size of his foot, is insane. All of the military guys are in full swing now as they realize they need much heavier weaponry and the owner of the bar happens to have a loaded RPG just sitting there. Skywarp walks over to execute cliffjumper, only for Carly to jump in the way to try and protect him, which causes skywarp to roar with laughter as he prepares to blast both of the away…only for Optimus prime to come roaring in full truck mode to smash right into skywarp and send him flying back!! Optimus quickly changes and lets spike safely out to find cover. They immediately lock into combat as we realize why skywarp has the word “warp” in his name, as he can apparently create small dimensional portals around his hand so he can attack from anywhere. Such as putting his hand behind Optimus and slamming him into the ground. Impressive but once you know to look out for it, it doesn’t stop Optimus from running up to you and performing some amazing wresting moves before pulling his own special move and lighting his hand full of energy until it became a full energy axe!! Unfortunately the humans still can’t tell good from bad and instead of targeting the robot that actively killed them they targeted and hit Optimus hard in the axe arm with the RPG. This immediately gave skywarp the upper hand, which he used to blast Optimus down to the ground. Unfortunately Spike saw this as the opportunity to try and run in and help, all while his dad and all the others are targeting their guns at both robots. To quote Spike’s own dad from earlier: “It doesn’t matter whose team they’re on. Or what glorious cause they fight for. When the shooting starts people die.” And spike just took a bullet through his torso. Optimus is the first to notice and call out to him, and as Sparky hears his sons name and sees him bleeding out in the street, he gets everyone to stop shooting as he runs out to him. At this point skywarp is standing up ready to kill all of them, only for Optimus to slam him back down and rip off his own, barely held together, arm to use as a weapon against Skywarp. An absolutely insane and last ditch effort move that finally takes skywarp down. But as the battle subsides, and prime is able to look back over to Spike, a look of sorrow crosses his face as he sees the dead deer from earlier as he looks at spike. Prime begins to pic the boy up, ever so carefully, as his sad runs over with tears in his eyes and his gun trained on Optimus, demanding his out his son down. Instead Optimus transformers in front of him and places Spike carefully in the cab as he opens the door for Sparky to come with him, as he plans to save Spike. I’m glad Optimus is saving spike, but what will be the cost of such an action? He’s already lost so much of himself. But this is still Optimus prime we are talking about, he will give everything to uphold the sanctity of life.

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Warren Johnson SABE lo que está cocinando con esta run comiquera de los robotitos transformables. Está claro que cuando pasas de la infancia, el hecho de que unos seres alienígenas gigantes lleven su conflicto armado a nuestro ya conflictivo planeta no se mostraría de forma TAN ingenua como en unos usuales dibujos de desayuno de sábado. Tampoco es que todo tenga que ser una revisión totalmente oscura y depresiva, y aquí es donde se agradece que un autor como Warren Johnson que siempre abandera ese estilo crudo y salvaje con la emoción más pura a flor de piel en todas sus historias, esté a cargo de esta licencia en una revisión canónica de la llegada de Optimus y su aliados a la Tierra... y los Decepticons.

Este número lleva la acción a ese increíble dinamismo que puede darnos unos combos wrestling entre Transformers e inventiva como esa nueva arma para Optimus "Chad". Pero también termina de encarar a todo el plantel adulto del pueblo anexo al "Despertar de Cybertron" en esta presencia hostil. Dejando una desoladora radiografía de un país que sabe que su belicismo histórico ha calado en la gran mayoría que además ven el tener fácil acceso a armamento para no dudar en apretar los gatillos al más mínimo atisbo de peligro... Pero las balas no diferencian enemigos de aliados...


Por otra parte siguen llegando "teasers" de la parcela G.I. JOE de este relanzamiento comiquero de las licencias jugueteras de Hasbro en forma de Universo Compartido. Siendo el pérfido Comandante Cobra el protagonista de un nuevo cómic del que aquí vemos que sus amenazas no solo serán en forma de su siseo verbal.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeez Optimus, you didn’t need to go as HARD as you did in here. I swear the way Daniel draws and writes him makes me feel like a kid again.

This series continues to surprise me so early on. Every battle has weight and feels like it has stakes, the deceptions feel like an actual threat to be afraid of, our heroes get hurt no matter how skilled they may be, and the human element works quite well in tandem with the transformer’s plights. The marriage of art and writing has made this one of the most enjoyable series I’ve read in some time.

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Action keeps coming

Fast and kinetic. The story moves at a good clip and continues to draw you in. Loving it. I'm definitely picking up issue 4.

[M Sholihin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though the art work of this run is lacking, the story and the panel-to-panel experience are excellent. Love it as a Transformers fan since the 80s.

[Winne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic. Daniel Warren Johnson is an excellent writer and artist.

[Icarus Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The war continues to heat up in this astonishing issue, showing just how gritty you can push Transformers G1-based media without entering the realm of insane gore

[David Beer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the art style, love the story, edgy transformers but with that wonderful 80’s feel still 🥰

[David Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robot action all the way! Loved it.

[Ross]

Its good

Its all starting to tie together and its really enjoyable. Duke, Cobra Commander, and now Optimus Prime all on a collision course. Its worth a gander.

[Adelaide Metzger · Rating 5 out of 5]

7/17/24 - I gasped. I actually gasped out loud. These are excellent!

[Dennis Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic Issue 4.5/5

[Utornik]

SOUNDWAVEEE

[ComicBookCult Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Optimus Prime is one hell of a fighter. Action, galore and an occasional powerbomb

[Chris Loan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing issue!! There’s so much emotion, and action, and humor in this book already!

[Oakdoorframe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best one yet. I'm excited for the rest of the story. Only reason that it's not 5 stars is because I'm annoyed at the humans for having a reasonable reaction to gigantic robots (my least favorite Transformers trope). I liked the running gag with Cliffjumper getting shot. And I literally had to put the book down when I got to the scene with Spike. I was not ready for that.

[Susan :3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPIKE?!?!?!