I have been burning through my IDW new releases lately. It seems like I can barely get home from the comic shop before I am flipping the pages to see what is happening this week. This is great, however I seem to be constantly out of reading material, and then the idea hit me. I need to dive back into my back issues. My wife has been trying to figure out why I have so many long boxes, and it was time to put them to use, however the long boxes are still staying untouched.
I was looking at my graphic novels, and there it sat... lonely with a slew of Titan G1 Reprints. Dreamwave's first Transformers graphic novel release, and curiosity got the best of me. I grabbed it. My mind was ready to see if it stood the test of time, but first i wanted to document what I really remembered about it.
When I got into the fandom, Beast Machines was just ending. The show did not draw me in as much as the Canadian copy of Transformers: The Movie and hearing Spike curse. This led me to want as much info as possible on these robots in disguise. My cousin kindly burned me a copy of 8 CDR's that held the original series so I could see the rest of the story, and that was followed by him allowing em to borrow a half box filled with all of his Marvel Transformers comics. The run was far from complete, but it was more fiction that devoured. I wanted more. I began to spreadsheet all of these figures that I never figured I would own, and my father noticed a somewhat adult take on a hobby. The spreadsheets were meticulously kept (why I stopped I can only kick myself), and print outs were printed and held in a binder that made its way with me each weekend to the flea market. I slowly found the necessary transformers websites and resources.
That's when the news broke. Hasbro licensed the rights to a Transformers comic book! I read the press release and coveted the fist art work available. The binder that followed me everywhere was soon adorned with a print out of what would become Transformers: Generation One #1's incentive cover (The Superion-Devastator battle cover). I drove to my comic shop and opened a folder, making sure that I wouldn't miss an issue.
Then I waited. I can vividly remember when the teaser comic was released online. There I sat in my bedroom and was glued to my 17" CRT monitor, wanting my 56k modem to download all the pictures as fast as possible. I saw Lazarus, and then in the last panel was Soundwave's arm rising from the ice.
When the date finally arrived, I went to my cousin who already picked up his copies. My Uncle Jim provided me with an extra $10 to make sure that i had enough for all of my copies (God rest his soul). I drove to the shop, and grabbed my folder. There was three covers, and the fourth was the incentive cover that I had been staring at for weeks, and at $10, a gift from my Uncle Jim.
I am not sure about the story anymore. All I can remember is wanting to know who Lazarus was. I can remember trying to read every inch of the first issue, more so than any other comic in my past. I remember trying to read the news article about how Sparkplug died, only to see a full print at the end of the issue. I can remember being on cloud nine seeing Transformers rule the sales charts.
The story is hazy. I cannot remember much, I know Devy caused some havoc but not much more. I know that I ended up buying issue 1 five or six times, and eating it up. I can remember my first Botcon, and waiting in line to get Pat Lee, and the rest of the Dreamwave crew (including Simon Furman) to sign that all important incentive cover. I can remember the first Dreamwave panel at said Botcon, and an hour of "will (insert robot name) appear in the comics." I am looking forward the revising these books. Since i know these will eventually feed a cliff-hanger bankruptcy ending, I think I have moved past it. I hope that I can still enjoy this story line for what it is.
