Greetings Seibertronians. Seibertron.com was fortunate enough to receive a couple of advance copies of the official comic book adaptations for the first two books in a four book series covering the upcoming film, Transformers Dark of the Moon, produced by IDW Publishing. Written by John Barber, with Art by Jorge Jimenez Moreno and edited by Carlos Guzman and Andy Schmidt, Transformers Dark of the Moon the comic gives us a look at what the movie will bring to the table when it hits theatres June 29, 2011, along with a bonus prose story by John Barber that seems to "tie the loose ends" of the three films. As with any comic review, MAJOR MOVIE SPOILERS are ahead and would urge you not to read this, at this time, if you wanna stay "in the Dark" about the film.
Do Not Read beyond this point if you do not want to read spoilers.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The official comic adaptation #1
The first book starts us off in 1969, within NASA headquarters as the first moon landing occurs. According to the book, only a select few within the moon mission itself knew of its true intent, as the team on the moon "goes black" (sans radio transmissions) for a time, on purpose. The reason, to locate the object that caused a flare up on the Dark side of the Moon seven years prior. They find the original Ark ship, with a host of dead Cybertronians, and Sentinel Prime.
Flashing forward into the book, we see that the Autobots and Team N.E.S.T. have dug in even deeper with each other with, now, Colonel Lennox leading the way. Wheeljack makes his debut as a long haired "Professor Brown" ala Back to the Future, type bot who's alt mode is a classic Mercedes-Benz. The book must have been written before the script changes as Mirage is still referred to by name instead of the rumored "Dino" replacement. We get confirmation that a host of Autobots fell in the last movie as Optimus Prime vows vengeance for his fallen comrades. We also get a nod to the relationship held between Optimus Prime and Elita-1 once held in prior incarnations, as we get a pan shot of Elita-1's coffin and Optimus Prime motions to it affectionately.
The NEST team learns of new activity coming out of Prypriat, Ukraine. Colonel Lennox and the crew are in BioHazard suits while the Ukrainian Agent Voshkod is dressed regularly. He's about to tell them something when he spots Laserbeak in the sky and quickly quiets. They go to investigate the area famously known as Cherynobl. Upon arrival they find Cybertonian technology with Russian wrting all over it and this angers Optimus Prime. His anger is quickly directed to a huge threat as a Cybertronian Driller, said to be ruled only by Shockwave, attacks the Autobots and Optimus Prime battles it. Shockwave then appears with the Driller and escapes. Prime is hurt but he got what he was trying to keep from Shockwave, a piece of a Cybertronian engine. After all this, Laserbeak returns and kills Voshkod. Apparently the humans were working with the Decepticons in some fashion.
Optimus and the Bots then meet Director Mearing, who took over for Inspector Galloway, and Prime is not a happy camper that they've been witholding informattion. Mearing then goes on the inform them of the whole purpose of the Moon missions and Prime realizes there's a big problem.
Enter Megatron in some far off desert. After toasting an elephant that was in his way, he returns to a crude hideout to see Starscream and some form of animal Decepticons that may, or may not be, dogs. Starscream is there in true form as is Soundwave. Apparently, Megatron knew of the Ark crashing on the moon long ago and that is the reason Soundwave was there in the first place. Megatron opts to let the Autobots do "all the work" in getting Sentinel Prime and the artifacts back to Earth.
Optimus goes to the moon and retrieves Sentinel Primes body, the Cybertronian artifacts, and upon leaving, you see three Cybertronians, presumably Decepticons, watch his departure.
In the middle of all this, we see Sam Witwicky is moved in with his new girlfriend Carly. Mikaela dumped him for some reason, but he got to keep Wheelie and his pal Brains as a consolation prize. He's struggling to find a job when Carly arranges and interview and, essentially, gets him the job.
As far as the comic goes, as a comic itself, I give it two and a half out of four cubes. Given the degree of difficulty there must be to replicate the Transformers on paper, the artwork was good, but the human drawing was lacking and rushed at best. Some panels seemed just kind of thrown in there as filler space and there were some real opportunites that seemed to get missed, especially when Prime rips apart the Driller. The colors of the comic were decent, but it seems like the colorist went "outer glow" crazy on some panels. I can see it working on the Bots, but not on military cammies. None of the humans remotely resemble their real counterparts and the military uniforms worn by Lennox and his crew don't even look US issued. Storywise, I assume Barber did the best he could with what he was given. The story flowed well, but if this script holds true, then Dark of the Moon will make Revenge of the Fallen as pointless as ROTF made the first film.
The book did feature a special prose story by Barber at the end, in which we find Soundwave commanding a group of Decepticons on a space cruiser in search of the Allspark. The events of this story clearly occur prior to Revenge of the Fallen, as Soundwave follows a mysterious "voice" after an Autobot ship that goes through some type of dimensional gate and puts itself and the Decepticon space cruiser thousands of years in the future. This Autobot craft lands on a moon of a green a blue planet not far by. The rest goes on to try an attach the first two films to DOTM.
Overall the prose as a stand alone story is solid, but trying to connect the dots, in a movie franchise that clearly didn't do so in the films themselves, is going to be a heavy task to take on.
If you love Transformers comics, and dig the movieverse, the $3.99 pricetag is worth the investment to get in the know about what to expect from the upcoming film. This book is available at local comic shops now.
Stayed tuned for our review of Transformers Dark of the Moon The official comic adaptation #2, coming soon.
