Transformers: The Best of Optimus Prime

Best of Transformers

by Bob Budiansky, Simon Furman, José Delbo (Illustrator)

Optimus Prime is leader of the Autobots. During his time as PRIME he has been challenged both mentally and physically with the responsibilities of leadership... at times, he's succeeded... others, he's failed. These stories, culled from his datatracks across many timelines, are his finest moments.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2010

About the author

American comic book writer, editor, and penciller, best known for his work on Marvel's Transformers comic. He also created the Marvel character Sleepwalker and wrote all 33 issues of that comic.

Reviews

[Erik]

It was good. But didn’t have any milestone issues on it Marvels run with issue 75 to 80. Non of the Dreamwave stuff also :(

[J. Agombar]

I was impressed with this collection. 6 comics from various publishers throughout the ages. It creates an interesting retrospective on the protagonist of the transformers franchise. And it's a winner because not all heroes have easy decisions as depicted in some of the later evolved comics.

It's in chronological order but beware has little to no context as time jumps and continuity hell are about between stories.
The first two are actually the weakest so don't be put off. They are 80s G1 comics which still hold value but they've been covered in double cheese and moral patriotism.

The Dreamwave and idw comics later on are where they heat up by mixing old and new characters and even combiners. The one with omega supreme is a treat with Optimus finding out history he didn't want to acknowledge. Good choices for the pitfalls of being a good leader.

The artwork varies throughout too as you can imagine but even if you aren't keen on some styles the historical journey is really the point of this collection.

I enjoyed it on the whole and would recommend to other fans as well as newcomers as a way to pick their favourite era.

[Bradley]

6 comics from a number of Optimus Prime incarnations since the Transformers line came into being. The first couple of stories from the 80s are a bit weak compared to the later ones. One of the stories is the first part of Transformers: The Movie (1986) and while its definitely his best moment and well drawn, if you're a fan of Optimus Prime you would have already seen this movie so don't see why they couldn't have gone with something fresher to fill the pages. The best stories are the last two more modern takes on the character, one involving Optimus finding out the origin's of one Autobot leader and the other a reboot of how he became leader after working as an archivist(!). The weakest is definitely the 'Return of Megatron' where every character who's looking at the historical footage is acting like an idiot thinking Optimus was going to die in one part or another when clearly that wasn't going to be the case.