THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

TRANSFORMERS TITLES FROM TITAN BOOKS / MAGAZINES

Titan Transformers #7
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

Dear God, banal on every level -- this is by far the worst Titan strip to date. Considering Furman's claim to want to write something that would work seamlessly within the Movie it completely fails, characters vanish without explanation and Starscream fighting a vending machine hardly fits tonally with the epic battle that just happened.

We also have the misfortune of the worst art seen since Panini's Armada died a unloved death, characters -- both human and robot -- seem to have been drawn in about five seconds with the former especially looking like Boo may not ever actually have seen a human before.

With so few redeeming features it's best to save your pennies.


This is the first piece of Movie tie-in fiction to be set in the present day, occurring between Megatron's death and the Decepticons being dumped into the ocean. Furman picked this setting so as to try and minimise any contradictions between this story and both the Sequel and any IDW tie-in stories.

Though Barricade's death was not seen in the film he is amongst the Zombies here. Perhaps an odd choice for a story trying not to contradict any future Movieverse stories considering that, whilst there's nothing to say he didn't die, his final scene was cut from the film to allow him to appear in sequels.

The vending machine robot is inspired by the Mountain Dew Transformer created in the Movie -- though as this chap looks completely different and sells the amazingly named "Pop" we'll assume he's a different character out of kindness.

This story is loosely inspired by the original cartoon episode Starscream's Brigade, in which the Seeker went about creating his own army from stolen Decepticon personalities and wrecks. Starscream's Brigade may well have been the strip's working title as a press release on Simon Furman's blog still calls it by that name.

This is the first issue to be drawn by a artist who not only hasn't worked on Transformers before, but would seem not to have had any prior professional work. If anyone knows more about Boo, such as his real name or where to send the death threats get in touch.
[Play nice. -Ed]

Based on the "Next Issue" page this is to be the last issue with a photocover for the moment.


In what may be the single biggest goof in the entire history of Transformer comics, this story claims the final battle in the film occurs in Los Angeles rather than Mission City. If nothing else the journey time from Hover Damn no longer works (which is no doubt why they went for a fictional city rather than the one they filmed in.) And consider this: Furman is trying to write a story that fits seamlessly between scenes of the Movie, but hasn't watched it closely enough to know where those scenes take place... [Or is working from early drafts, perhaps? -Ed]

Starscream starts off with more red on him than he had in the film (i.e. None at all; it looks like Smith was aiming for a hybrid of his film and G1 colour schemes), and has gone back to being completely grey when scaring the badly drawn cop before having a slight bit of red in a different place as he flies off at the end.

Also, unless he runs really fast, the Popbot can't be too far from where the Autobots are standing around Megatron's body. So why do none of them notice Starscream noisily land there?

If Starscream wants troops why not simply recruit the Sam-created Transformers rather than killing them? They all have weapons of some sort and the car ones are likely more impressive than Popbot. Why not go get Frenzy as well?

Ratchet's amazing plan to deal with the zombies is to shoot at their sparks? Considering that seems to be the only really vulnerable bit of a Transformer wouldn't that be normal practise?

In his first panel Ironhide looks more like he should be called Nemesis Prime.

Where are Bumblebee? And Sam? And Mikaela? and Captain Lennox? And all the soldiers? Are they still in Mission City?


A pad and pencil, but with a "holographic" cover. More entertaining than anything in the issue.


- Character profile on Frenzy,
- A poster by Geoff Senior showing the zombie Decepticons in a style similar to Marvel Zombies. Not only the first poster not based on the cover, but so good it makes you weep for what the issue could have been like,
- A "How to Draw Megatron" feature written by Steve Marchant and drawn by John McCrea and Lee Bradley.
- The Top Gear section covers a few Star Wars: Transformers and the remote control Real Gear toy.
- The letters page is renamed Starscreams and is "hosted" by the Decepticon after being the most requested character by readers.

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