The Energon Pub

According to TFWiki, Dreamwave's Transformers #1 is ten years old today. I openly celebrated Devil's Due's GI Joe #1 back in September because that really kickstarted the 80's revival in 2001.

In hindsight, I didn't realize how close GI Joe #1 and Transformers #1's releases were in comparison to comic book production as they were probably being developed at the same time.

I'm not sure if we openly celebrate Dreamwave's first issue. It was definitely a comic blockbuster hit but they burned so many people at the end of their run.

Business wise, DW was a piece of crap, but product wise, it was awesome. Great stories and beautiful art. I still have the individual issues of both volumes (never got the TPBs) as well as the War Within story, the Sunstorm arc and the Armada comics. I just wish Age of Wrath could have been finished. IDW definitely dropped the ball on the creative side, causing me to quit buying TF comics in 2005. I still take out my DW sets once a year and read through them. Good times.

I recently re-read the first two mini-series. I wasn't crazy about them now.

I really loved The War Within when it was released. I'm looking forward to revisiting that soon.

I... liked the plot and story, but the background shenanigans sour it a bit for me.

it definitely felt like they were setting up for a Transformers: The Movie remake, with all their plotlines, and that was something I was really looking forward to, what with it nearing the year that it "actually happened". War Within was a lot of fun also. I loved some of the re-designs.

I think the G1 comics from DW really helped with the Transformers revival. I remember getting the first miniseries and taking it on holiday with me, wishing that there were new toys of these characters, and lo and behold, here we are, a decade later and most of them are new toys. It was also pretty cool seeing the art styles change. I love me some of the old G1 comic art, but those first few promo pics (I think even before DW got the license there was some fan art up online that got featured in some comics mags) got me really excited to see Transformers that way, and I'd seen Don Figueroa's Macromasters projects online before he got an official gig, so it was nice to see fans becoming pros.

The way the DW-era ended was sad, to say the least, and I hate how Pat Lee still got work in the comics industry following it (he did a few Batman/Superman books for DC, and a Fantastic Four/X-Men crossover for Marvel). Especially since he wasn't all that good at drawing humans.

IDW started off good, and went a bit wild, first with the shoe-horning in of the Revelations storyline into the last set of Spotlights and then with the continuity-£"(% that was All Hail Megatron and the Ongoing series but it seems like they're on track again now, and I'm really liking both current TF books, as well as being quite eager to see how the new G1-stories work out.

I'll give credit to Dreamwave for helping to kickstart the resurgence of Transformers that we are still in the midst of today. I'll also give them credit for the War Within books which were all excellent. That's about all they deserve credit for though.

While the stories and art seemed good at the time in retrospect both were mostly poor, outside of the War Within. The stories were all over the map with odd things like Grimlock teaming with the Cons only for him to rejoin the Bots shortly thereafter. Scourge pops up briefly only to get gunned down, his story never really making sense. Alpha Trion makes a brief appearance only to be immediately forgotten. Sunstorm shows up as a terribly annoying and powerful character. People talk about how they hate Drift, but Sunstorm was truly the first of these writer created uber-characters shoved on us. Then we have the inevitable hints of Unicron approaching for what must be the umpteenth time in TF fiction. The whole G1 run at DW, outside of the War Within, was mostly bits borrowed from past storylines with random bits of fan service and nostalgia thrown in.

This isn't to say IDW is perfect, but on the whole I vastly prefer their take on the franchise compared to DW's.

Dreamwave is what got me back into Transformers. Can't believe it's been ten years. I still prefer them to IDW, though Roche and Roberts are pulling me in.

I loved everything DW did. For one thing, they did the impossible and made Armada/Energon palatable. World's Collide was a fantastic crossover.

The MTMTE books have been unequalled. The writers had an amazing grasp of the G1 characters. I loved their take on Prowl, Repugnus, Sparkstalker, Scourge and Sunstreaker to mention but a few and they gave the Micromasters some great characterisations as well. Pity the CHUG factfiles don't just reprint them on the boxes. Much better than the 2 dimensional line or two we get in Europe.

Personally I loved Sunstorm. He was a unique villain for Transformers being a powerful religious zealot. In addition, even Bumblebee mused whether he really was a villain. Plus he knocked that know it all Jetfire about which puts him up in my estimation.

The G1 ongoing was great, again mainly due to the characterisations. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were great. Sunstreaker's "Had to wipe Bumper's Tailpipe!" was one of the funniest Tf lines ever.

They also gave toys such as Sunstorm and Bumper characterisations and it was nice to see in the cloning facility, that had the series continued, we'd have eventually gotten Soundblaster, Stepper, Armourede Convoy and Twincast with the tape players being seperate entities to Soundwave and Blaster rather than boring upgrades.

Even War For Cybertron was influenced by the art in War Within. Some amazing character designs in that series and we got The Fallen.

The Dreamwave art was always great, with the exception of Wildman who IDW are using again. It's such a pity Dreamwave ended the way it did. Still, at least IDW's ongoings are looking promising.

Devastron wrote:I'll give credit to Dreamwave for helping to kickstart the resurgence of Transformers that we are still in the midst of today. I'll also give them credit for the War Within books which were all excellent. That's about all they deserve credit for though.

While the stories and art seemed good at the time in retrospect both were mostly poor, outside of the War Within. The stories were all over the map with odd things like Grimlock teaming with the Cons only for him to rejoin the Bots shortly thereafter. Scourge pops up briefly only to get gunned down, his story never really making sense. Alpha Trion makes a brief appearance only to be immediately forgotten. Sunstorm shows up as a terribly annoying and powerful character. People talk about how they hate Drift, but Sunstorm was truly the first of these writer created uber-characters shoved on us. Then we have the inevitable hints of Unicron approaching for what must be the umpteenth time in TF fiction. The whole G1 run at DW, outside of the War Within, was mostly bits borrowed from past storylines with random bits of fan service and nostalgia thrown in.

This isn't to say IDW is perfect, but on the whole I vastly prefer their take on the franchise compared to DW's.

Wouldn't Optimus Prime be the first writer-created uber character in TF?

Oh wait, no, he clearly is a real person.