THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CURRENT TRANSFORMERS COMICS FROM IDW PUBLISHING

Fall oc Cybertron #1
Reviewed by Blackjack

”How much does he think we – and our world – can stand?”
Pretty bad. IDW seems to have a tendency to shoehorn the story of the High Moon games into all its digital series, although this one actually is supposed to serve as a prequel to the game in question. Of course, while a prequel should really give us more insight to, say, the origin of the pre-Dinobots, what happened between WFC and FOC, stuff like that, this tells absolutely nothing of value that I can’t find out two minutes into playing the game itself. It’s very generic – Grimlock is a Wolverine wannabe, Optimus plays it safe… stuff that Simon Furman has done many times over, except even Furman’s worst Grimlock prose is far more interesting than this. The art looks very unfinished, and the Transformers look very sketchy and deformed at times. Not a very good way to start a series.


The events of this miniseries take place prior to the events of the Fall of Cybertron game, specifically detailing the Dinobots’ failed attempt to storm Shockwave’s lair and Shockwave’s subsequent experiments on them.

Fall of Cybertron was released in a digital format.

In the first battle, we see Seekers, Wall Crawlers and Guardians as part of both forces, all enemies who are featured in the game itself.

The ‘Lightning Strike Coalition’ is the pre-dinosaur name of the Dinobot team, first established in Dreamwave’s War Within. The same term is also used in the game itself, and mocked by Cliffjumper. Grimlock’s password is LCS-85, a reference to 1985, the year the Dinobot toys were first released.


The Dinobots have bodies that are very similar to their Dinobot bodies, basically just replacing the dinosaur head and leg kibble with vague geometric shapes. It does make identification easier, but it still doesn’t excuse the distinctly dinosaur spikes and fins on Slug and Snarl. Sludge, in particular, looks nothing like how we see his pre-Dinobot body in the Fall of Cybertron game.