This series launched not long after a new comic shop opened about an hours drive away in Ballarat, conveniently a town I frequent weekly, so it was a pure case of perfect timing that this came out when it did.
I'm not new to modern era Transformers as I have picked up a few odd issues of different DW and IDW series over the last 10 years and none have grabbed my attention enough to continue reading on. Even the war within that so many loved felt like a lackluster experience (sorry

).
This on the other hand is the series I grew up with.
And although I only had 10 issues as a kid, I still liked Transformers better than G.I.Joe of which i had an almost complete run. And if you knew how much I really loved G.I.Joe you would know the weight that this statement holds. Marvel's G1 truely meant a great deal to me so it was inveitable that i would find a way to get a hold of the first issue. But that meant two things. I'd either have my childhood memories shattered and be left broken hearted.. or
I WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!
I guess 80% of my excitement can be creditted to my sentimental nature (why i also opted for the retro cover) but overall I felt the execution was done pretty well.
(from here on in I may allude to !!!SPOILERS!!!)At first I was weirded by the 20 year gap... but when you consider the first Marvel issue jumps millions of years from the get go it seems fitting with the new series. I'm guessing it will leave plenty of oppurtunities for flash backs and the like and of course there will be plenty as the issues ending leaves a lot to be explained.
I absolutely loved the inclusion of the late G1, ok... G2 since they are using their American names

, Skyscorchers. I'm hoping this means that we may see other late G1 early G2 transitional stage characters such as the Obliterators, Turbomasters, Predators and the like.
Since the toyline ended not long after the comic, it left relatively few new characters (albeit tonnes of neglected ones) to explore so I'm hopeful my wishes come true.
I like depressed Prime, and you have to remember it's not just Prime anymore. It's Hi Q as well. So maybe he is experiencing some new found (depending on who's perspective your looking at, primes or Hi Q's) Nebulon emotion. And it will be interesting to see if they ignore this fact on delve into it a bit later on. There is presumeably flesh and blood still under that robot.
Kups role in this is perfect. It is clear that the boys really did their homework on this one and re-read a lot of back issues. You can see his lack of faith in prime's leadership developping from as far back as issue 69 where he is deep down siding with Grimlock but still obeying his orders and again when he openly confronts Prime over his decision not to kill the Ratchet/Megatron monster. So it's great to see that they have continued building on his character. It will be great to see who Kup points the blame at for what happened on Earth

.