What do you think?
Rate this book
Transformers US Titan Collections #1
Transformers, Vol. 1: Beginnings
This is where it all begins... the very first shots fired in the civil war between the heroic Autobots, led by the noble Optimus Prime, and the evil Decepticons, ruled by the crazed Megatron — and featuring an all-new cover by classic Transformers artist Andrew Wildman! A spaceship launched from the planet Cybertron crashlands on Earth, four million years in the past. In 1984, its inhabitants are awakened — and Earth is plunged into the middle of the greatest conflict it has ever known, with teenager Buster Witwicky and his mechanic father caught in the middle, as Autobots and Decepticons alike battle for fuel and technology! Now it is up to Optimus Prime and his few remaining allies to protect both themselves and their human friends from the threat of Megatron... but surprises galore lie in store for both robotic leaders!
152 pages, Paperback
First published March 26, 2003
1 person is currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Ralph Macchio
480 books19 followers
For the Karate Kid actor, click here:
Ralph Macchio
Ralph Macchio is an American comic book editor and writer, who has held many positions at Marvel Comics, including executive editor. Macchio is commonly associated with Daredevil, the Spider-Man line of comics and the popular Ultimate Marvel line. In Macchio's words, he "made probably the longest run on Daredevil of anyone."
Macchio is not related to the actor Ralph Macchio, but is nicknamed "Karate Kid" after that actor's famous role.
Ralph Macchio is an American comic book editor and writer, who has held many positions at Marvel Comics, including executive editor. Macchio is commonly associated with Daredevil, the Spider-Man line of comics and the popular Ultimate Marvel line. In Macchio's words, he "made probably the longest run on Daredevil of anyone."
Macchio is not related to the actor Ralph Macchio, but is nicknamed "Karate Kid" after that actor's famous role.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 2, 2017
As always this review can also be found on my blog The Tattooed Book Geek: https://thetattooedbookgeek.wordpress...
Story.
The story brings together the first ever four issues of the Transformers g1 comic's, also including issues 5 and 6. In the beginning the story arc revolves around the civil war that takes place on the Transformers home planet of Cybertron, beginnings is essentially an origin story for how the Transformers arrived on Earth, and the beginning of their awakened time here, hence, why the graphic novel is called Transformers: Beginnings, simples!
For those unaware, the Transformers are 'robots in disguise.' Robots capable of transforming, the Autobots, who are the good guys and can transform into vehicles, led by the heroic Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, who are the bad guys and can transform into weapons and aircraft, led by the tyrannical Megatron.
The chaos and power of the civil war on Cybertron, alters the planets orbit, moving it into the path of an oncoming asteroid belt that would inevitably destroy Cybertron, the Autobots build a space craft (The Ark) and set out to destroy the asteroids, thus saving Cybertron, the ensuing civil war is still taking place but saving Cybertron is the priority, otherwise there wouldn't be a planet to fight over.
Devious Megatron and the Decepticons also build a ship, waiting until the Autobots have destroyed the asteroids and subsequently exhausted most of their energy supply, rendering them easy targets.
With the Decepticons on board The Ark and overwhelming the Autobots, Prime charts a collision course with an empty planet devoid of any life (Earth) and The Ark crash lands.
After laying dormant for millenia, a volcanic eruption on the now populated Earth of 1984 finally awakens a drone on board The Ark, unable to distinguish between the Autobots and the Decepticons the drone then repairs both.
With a dwindling energy supply Megatron sets out to find more, the goal to harvest the abundant resources of Earth. Prime and the Autobots will attempt to stop him.
After failing a couple of times, an old and forgotten Decepticon is unearthed, reappearing, Shockwave returns and then attempts to take command, building to the climax and a battle between Shockwave and Megatron for the leadership of the Decepticons.
The story itself is straightforward, good vs bad, we are even treated to a Spiderman cameo, some may love it, others may hate it, I fall into the former as I really enjoyed the webslingers cameo, it was a nice addition to the story, adding just that little bit extra. There's some other human elements that I haven't mentioned (ya know, spoilers), and Beginnings ends with a big.....to be continued cliffhanger ending.
Writing.
The writing is rather ropey, simple and at times cheesy, a well-written masterpiece this is not. There's a few popular culture references thrown in, the pacing flows well, and overall the writing is serviceable, even if the dialogue between characters is somewhat dodgy. But it does improve in the later part of the omnibus.
My biggest and only gripe with the writing though, is the constant use of introductions for the characters, this isn't the writers fault, in the foreword at the start it's alluded to that hasbro had a mandate for each of its toy lines, where by the characters had to be constantly introduced to the reader. What could the writers do? Their hands were tied on the matter, while rules are only guidelines meant to be broken, if you want to keep your job then you have to obey them.......unfortunately!
Art.
The Transformers themselves look to human in their facial features, that is the only niggle for me in the art, apart from that while nothing groundbreaking, the artwork is decent and vibrant in colour, and does its job more than adequately.
Final Thoughts.
This is an omnibus edition of the original comic's and as such we get most of the iconic g1 style of Transformers, amongst others, Bumblebee is an old VW Beetle, not the sporty Camaro of the Michael Bay films, and Megatron is a gun, this is the original and quintessential version of Megatron, his personality has always stayed the same, but his appearance has drastically altered.
While most of the Transformers still change into something resembling their original designs from back in the 1980's, Megatron is the most noticeable change and is now a tank, toy guns were fine back in the 1980's, it was a different era but even by the mid-late 80's there was issues with children running around with toy guns, and subsequently them being mistook for real guns, it's a sad situation but understandable why they needed to change the design, so it was bye bye to Megatron's classic Walther P-38, and hello to the various tank designs from then on.
For me, as a massive fan of the g1 Transformers and especially the 1986 cartoon movie (such a classic and the best Transformers movie there is), my favourite iteration of Megatron will always be as a gun, same for Optimus Prime and the others, in the case of the Transformers, original is better.
But I have digressed enough, can you tell I like Transformers? The geek radar is in full swing on The Tattooed Book Geek today!
It might sound from the review that at times I'm ripping Beginnings, I'm not and I'm merely pointing out the issues I found. Saying that however, it's an enjoyable read, and a fun way to wile away a couple of hours, a great addition for any Transformers fan.
For me, it was a fantastic trip down memory lane, full of nostalgia and childhood memories. And now, like the mature adult I am, I'm off to find my copy of the movie and relive my youth!
Story.
The story brings together the first ever four issues of the Transformers g1 comic's, also including issues 5 and 6. In the beginning the story arc revolves around the civil war that takes place on the Transformers home planet of Cybertron, beginnings is essentially an origin story for how the Transformers arrived on Earth, and the beginning of their awakened time here, hence, why the graphic novel is called Transformers: Beginnings, simples!
For those unaware, the Transformers are 'robots in disguise.' Robots capable of transforming, the Autobots, who are the good guys and can transform into vehicles, led by the heroic Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, who are the bad guys and can transform into weapons and aircraft, led by the tyrannical Megatron.
The chaos and power of the civil war on Cybertron, alters the planets orbit, moving it into the path of an oncoming asteroid belt that would inevitably destroy Cybertron, the Autobots build a space craft (The Ark) and set out to destroy the asteroids, thus saving Cybertron, the ensuing civil war is still taking place but saving Cybertron is the priority, otherwise there wouldn't be a planet to fight over.
Devious Megatron and the Decepticons also build a ship, waiting until the Autobots have destroyed the asteroids and subsequently exhausted most of their energy supply, rendering them easy targets.
With the Decepticons on board The Ark and overwhelming the Autobots, Prime charts a collision course with an empty planet devoid of any life (Earth) and The Ark crash lands.
After laying dormant for millenia, a volcanic eruption on the now populated Earth of 1984 finally awakens a drone on board The Ark, unable to distinguish between the Autobots and the Decepticons the drone then repairs both.
With a dwindling energy supply Megatron sets out to find more, the goal to harvest the abundant resources of Earth. Prime and the Autobots will attempt to stop him.
After failing a couple of times, an old and forgotten Decepticon is unearthed, reappearing, Shockwave returns and then attempts to take command, building to the climax and a battle between Shockwave and Megatron for the leadership of the Decepticons.
The story itself is straightforward, good vs bad, we are even treated to a Spiderman cameo, some may love it, others may hate it, I fall into the former as I really enjoyed the webslingers cameo, it was a nice addition to the story, adding just that little bit extra. There's some other human elements that I haven't mentioned (ya know, spoilers), and Beginnings ends with a big.....to be continued cliffhanger ending.
Writing.
The writing is rather ropey, simple and at times cheesy, a well-written masterpiece this is not. There's a few popular culture references thrown in, the pacing flows well, and overall the writing is serviceable, even if the dialogue between characters is somewhat dodgy. But it does improve in the later part of the omnibus.
My biggest and only gripe with the writing though, is the constant use of introductions for the characters, this isn't the writers fault, in the foreword at the start it's alluded to that hasbro had a mandate for each of its toy lines, where by the characters had to be constantly introduced to the reader. What could the writers do? Their hands were tied on the matter, while rules are only guidelines meant to be broken, if you want to keep your job then you have to obey them.......unfortunately!
Art.
The Transformers themselves look to human in their facial features, that is the only niggle for me in the art, apart from that while nothing groundbreaking, the artwork is decent and vibrant in colour, and does its job more than adequately.
Final Thoughts.
This is an omnibus edition of the original comic's and as such we get most of the iconic g1 style of Transformers, amongst others, Bumblebee is an old VW Beetle, not the sporty Camaro of the Michael Bay films, and Megatron is a gun, this is the original and quintessential version of Megatron, his personality has always stayed the same, but his appearance has drastically altered.
While most of the Transformers still change into something resembling their original designs from back in the 1980's, Megatron is the most noticeable change and is now a tank, toy guns were fine back in the 1980's, it was a different era but even by the mid-late 80's there was issues with children running around with toy guns, and subsequently them being mistook for real guns, it's a sad situation but understandable why they needed to change the design, so it was bye bye to Megatron's classic Walther P-38, and hello to the various tank designs from then on.
For me, as a massive fan of the g1 Transformers and especially the 1986 cartoon movie (such a classic and the best Transformers movie there is), my favourite iteration of Megatron will always be as a gun, same for Optimus Prime and the others, in the case of the Transformers, original is better.
But I have digressed enough, can you tell I like Transformers? The geek radar is in full swing on The Tattooed Book Geek today!
It might sound from the review that at times I'm ripping Beginnings, I'm not and I'm merely pointing out the issues I found. Saying that however, it's an enjoyable read, and a fun way to wile away a couple of hours, a great addition for any Transformers fan.
For me, it was a fantastic trip down memory lane, full of nostalgia and childhood memories. And now, like the mature adult I am, I'm off to find my copy of the movie and relive my youth!
July 17, 2012
With IDW having the Furman/Wildman/Baskerville team add issues 81-100 to the old Marvel continuity 21 years after they produced issue 80 I found myself wanting to re-read the series. I remember buying these at the corner store when I could, and hunting for back issues later to fill the holes in my collection. As such I'm not sure how much of the series I've read in order straight through before, but I'm certain I read these six issues a number of times. Reading them now is an interesting experience. I enjoyed revisiting them, but 1-4 were so familiar I can't really form an opinion as to them being good or not.
I am looking forward to reading the rest, though...
I am looking forward to reading the rest, though...
August 12, 2018
I wish I didn't buy this. It is appalling.
August 5, 2014
This book collects the 4 issue mini series and issues 5 & 6 of the ongoing series. It starts with an interesting foreword regarding Hasbro's relationship with Marvel (basically they would design a toy the pass the details to Marvel who would come up with a name and back-story and, as a result got the publish rights). The writing is very clunky to start especially from the Transformers talking in third person in order to get a lot of exposition out there (the double page spread that serves to introduce the full cast of Autobots is especially cringe-worthy!). However, the story picks up pace and improves in quality quite quickly with a few Marvel cameos along the way: Spider-Man, Nick Fury and an appearance of the Savage Land (hidden valley of dinosaurs in the Antarctic) serving as a rationale for the generation of the Dinobots. The mini-series ends on one heck of a cliffhanger, hooking readers into the series proper which switches to ongoing from issue 5 (like there was ever any doubt with the popularity of the toys!). There is a noticeable upturn in the art too from this point as Alan Kupperberg takes over from Frank Springer giving the pages a cleaner, less clutered look as Bob Budiansky take over writing and is obviously plotting out a bigger story than the initial mini-series allowed for, enough to make me read on, which is good as I bought the first 3 volumes together!
January 9, 2016
Man, this is exactly why so many people don't like licensed comics. These aren't generally very good, although to be fair, these came out long before any of the other Transformers tie-ins, including the TV show. Heck, the first two issues were done so early in the process that many of the characters don't even have their iconic looks. The first four issues are also written by committee, with various people plotting and scripting each issue. The dialogue is never better than workmanlike and the characterizations are very broad. However, the first four issues have moments, and once issue 5 comes along, at least the book has a consistent writer. Bob Budiansky gets a lot of grief from fans, and some is obviously earned, but his early issues are well plotted and even the dialogue is a step up from what came before. There's also some good artwork in these issues, with some scenes that are still memorable today (and the cover to issue #5 is one of my favorite comics covers ever).
August 20, 2011
I haven't read many "retro" comics before and I found this one started off kinda campy and the writing was rather cringey. And I hated how the Transformers often reverted to speaking in the third-person. UGH! But maybe this is how it was done in the mid-80s. I don't have an appreciation for the retro style artwork either. To me it just looks poor and lazy and bland. However, after the first few issues, I kinda adapted to all this and was able to just enjoy the story which sorta average to good. It was interesting to see the different direction they took to the TV series which was being released at the same time. I probably will read some more of these sometime... but I far prefer Dreamwave & IDW's recent Transformers work.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews