G1 Volume One — "The Prime Directive"

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ISSUE SYNOPSES

[preview] Somewhere in the Arctic, a mysterious man named Lazarus is leading a businessman named Ratzenberg to a rendezvous, in order to persuade him to invest in a new project. After both philosophise, Lazarus tells Ratzenberg about a race of transforming warriors who arrived on Earth millions of years ago. Lazarus' excavation team reach their goal, and Lazarus explains to Ratzenberg the possibilities of controlling such warriors. As the pair reach the site, the workers uncover the dormant Soundwave. Ratzenberg is impressed enough to invest on the spot.

[#1] A South American rebel camp is wiped out by a mysterious robot. Back in Ohio, Spike Witwicky is picked up for an interview by an army general named Hallo, from the Development of War Technology Department, who tells Spike he must accompany him to his base. Out in Canada's Northwest Territories, Lazarus takes a terrorist named Bishop to see his weaponry. After the humans depart, their jeep transforms into a robot to guard their backs. Lazarus shows Bishop the controlled robot, and tells him it is the future of warfare. Spike now visits the DWT at the Pentagon, where he discusses the Ark II tragedy with Hallo. He then shows Spike satellite footage of the rebel camp's destruction, which shows Megatron to be responsible. Lazarus explains to Bishop that he controls the Transformers but, as the humans walk away, a flash of life comes to Megatron's optics. Back in Washington, Hallo shows Spike that they have been able to recover one Transformer - Optimus Prime. [The back of this issues includes 'newspaper clippings' on the Ark II tragedy. It recounts the mysterious explosion of a shuttlecraft carrying Autobots, subdued Decepticons and human scientists to Cybertron.]

[#2] Hallo explains to Spike that his men have been unable to revive Optimus Prime. Spike places a piece of the Matrix given to him by Prime in the Autobot's chest, and he awakens. Meanwhile, an Arctic oil refinery is attacked by a squad of controlled Transformers, both Autobot and Decepticon. Laserbeak relays the footage to Lazarus, who uses it as a pitch to various terrorist leaders at an auction. However, Megatron reveals himself to be in control, and prepares to take control of the operation. Optimus Prime, Spike and Hallo are in the Arctic, where Prime uses the Matrix to revive a handful of his warriors left unfound by Lazarus. Meanwhile, the team who raided the oil refinery return to base, only to find it in chaos - the Decepticons have taken over.

[#3] The military take Optimus Prime to the Arctic oil refinery. The Autobot is shocked by the devastation, but Spike is adamant that he contributed to Earth being in such a position because of his part in the war. The military locate Lazarus' base, and Prime leads the Autobots to confront Megatron. The Decepticons are settling into the base, and Megatron has revived four warriors to back him up. He has rigged up a device which will turn the planet into a replica of Cybertron, and sets it working. Lazarus is swept over by the metallic liquid. Megatron then prepares to meet Prime's force. He confronts the Autobots, and gives them the choice to join him in ruling the new-look planet. Optimus refuses, but is shaken when he finds that the reactivated Grimlock sides with Megatron. Both sides scuffle, but Hallo takes the chance to deploy a massive bomb on the Transformers, and Megatron's advancing device.

[#4] After the seemingly successful Operation Cleanup, General Hallo seems troubled. It turns out the bomb only succeeded in knocking the Transformers out, the metal virus absorbing the blast, and all recover without damage. Optimus Prime is unnerved to find the Decepticons are nowhere to be found. The Autobots discover their comrades who had been used by the Decepticons, and begin to tend to them. Ironhide briefly reactivates, and warns Prime of a plan by Megatron. Meanwhile, the revived Devastator spearheads a Decepticon attack on San Francisco. Superion flies a squad of Autobots to help the city, and he is able to stop Devastator briefly. Trailbreaker is able to subdue Grimlock, while Optimus tackles Megatron. However, the battle takes a turn for the worse when the Decepticon jets force Superion to separate into his Aerialbot components. Back at the late Lazarus' base, Wheeljack works on trying to tackle the virus, while Jazz and Mirage attempt to repair the Autobots damaged by the Decepticons. In San Francisco, Devastator is triumphant, complicating the Autobots' plan still more. Back at the Pentagon's C Block, the imprisoned Spike receives a note seeming to offer help.

[#5] In the Canadian Northwest territories, Jazz' team, boosted by the revived Red Alert, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Brawn and Huffer, begin to combat the metal virus, but it will take all of their energy to stop it spreading. In San Francisco, with Superion down, the Optimus Prime's team are in trouble. With Jazz unable to provide back-up, Trailbreaker is knocked out by Devastator. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker soon follow, leaving Prime to stop the Decepticons alone. He summons up all his strength, charges the giant and is able to knock him out by shooting him in the face. However, Optimus is left drained, and at the mercy of Megatron. Meanwhile, Spike meets his mysterious benefactor. Back in Canada, the Autobots are beginning to run out of energy, and things worsen when the Canadian army arrive to stop them, anxious after previous Transformer attacks. Back at the Pentagon, it turns out that Spike has been rescued by Larry, a local cleaner. He shows Spike a file named the "Lazarus Project". He explains that five years ago, a scientist named Adam Rook worked with General Hallo, and the pair tried to build their own super-robots, but failed. Larry's brother had been an engineer on the project. With this failing, Hallo and Rook then used the defeat of the Decepticons in 1998 to achieve their goal. They took over the deactivated Decepticons, and knowing the Autobots would object, sabotaged the Ark II. Rook disappeared after the explosion, taking the Decepticons with him. Spike is disgusted at Larry's lack of action, and leaves him in the complex. Back in San Francisco, Megatron is still trying to talk Prime over, using the population's greedy actions to illustrate his point. At the DWT HQ, Hallo plans to nuke the city to end the problem once and for all.

[#6] The President has flown from the Pentagon to a Pacific military base, to find out what's being done about the battle in San Francisco. However, Hallo has already acted, launching a nuclear missile against the city. In the Northwest Territories, Wheeljack's depleted team are no match for the Canadian military, who are unaware of the spreading virus. Back in San Francisco Megatron continues to try and talk Prime round, but the Autobot leader is spared when the local fire-fighters create a diversion. Prime frees his fellow Autobots. At the Pentagon Spike confronts Hallo, who pulls a gun on him. Cliffjumper and Bumblebee meanwhile try to reason with the Canadians, but find them unwilling to listen. Jazz advocates a withdrawal, but Wheeljack had one last idea and runs off. Hallo rants long enough for the President and his aides to arrive, one of whom kills the general. In San Francisco the Autobots easily defeat the Decepticons, but Soundwave detects the incoming missile. The Aerialbots form Superion, and take off... Up in Canada Wheeljack drains the last of his energy to power up a radar dish, to act as a giant antivirus blaster... Superion collides with the missile over the Pacific, sacrificing himself. Later Spike informs him of the Autobots' good work. The Decepticons have fled, and abandoned Grimlock, but the Dinobot turns down an offer to rejoin the Autobots.

SUMMARY REVIEW

Where to begin? This opening salvo of Dreamwave's take on Transformers sold remarkably well, whatever reservations I or other fans have about it. Its release as a mini-series was dogged by late installments and issues with licensing for distribution outside the US, with the latter only served to create hype for the product — many European fans ordered the series sight-unseen rather than being able to preview it before buying in a comic shop. Some fans put themselves out tremendously to get copies to others, importing and selling them on via their websites. Each issue had a minimum of two covers, issue #1 clocking in at something like seven variants, which stimulated collector interest even if it didn't significantly increase readership. Appearing near the onset of cultural nostalgia for 80's licenses, Dreamwave had the comics market eating out of its hand.

So it's something of a shame what turned out to be between those many covers. Firstly, something you'll hear a lot about Dreamwave comics in general: the series is very art-driven. By this, I mean simply that there isn't a great deal of exposition — scenes in which characters fight or adopt poster poses, on the other hand, are plentiful. If you appreciate Pat Lee's personal art style, this may not bother you, but others (including myself) found it hard to stomach. Scale went completely out of the window — for example, Devastator changes in size over the course of scene changes and in most shots is wildly exaggerated considering the size of the individual Constructicons. At times, Grimlock is seen to tower over buildings. Lee is also very fond of showing Transformers from human-height perspective, meaning a lot of emphasis is given to huge column-like legs and heads are often drawn very small — plus, detail on characters appears and vanishes from frame to frame. He's also prone both to inflating and rounding characters in ways metal simply doesn't move, and to using toy designs as models — again, the heads of robots tend to suffer. Come to think of it, the heads of everyone suffer, because Lee only has two or three designs for humans, none of which look a great deal like people.

Some of this is a question of style; you either like it or you don't. The internet-wide confusion after the release of issue 4, though, suggested that Lee wasn't even managing to convey the story; people didn't know why Devastator was looking at the sky — perhaps at Autobot or human reinforcements? — and it emerged that he was actually roaring in triumph. Use of space is on-the-whole very poor, the most glaring example being an entire page dedicated to letterbox panels of the Autobots driving forwards. There's also a lot of panel re-use, and those which include text (such as a panel of a sign on a building) have the text sloppily photoshopped on at incorrect angles.

Plot-wise, the inconsistencies and problems begin to stack up very quickly. The Autobots formed an alliance with world governments and won victory over the Decepticons, but Lazarus' investor in the preview acts as if he's never heard of them. Very simplistic approaches are taken to the retrieval of the other Autobots, Grimlock's defection, Megatron cooking up an versatile technorganic virus in what seems to be minutes, Hallo having clearance to launch tactical nukes, etc. A great many things are glaringly contrived: Wheeljack lets the Autobots waste their fuel before whipping up an unfeasibly quick solution to the virus and 'sacrificing' himself; Prime is the one Autobot recovered by the US military; a janitor not only is able to free Spike inside the Pentagon, but give him the entire backstory on everything DW wants the reader to know at that point. Perhaps most major of all, a nuclear missile exploding close to San Francisco does nothing but cause a tidal wave, which in turn does nothing but make Prime fall over and give the Decepticons time to retreat.

Dialogue runs the spectrum from pleasantly polished to dire. Some good:

Spike: "So the tin man needs a new heart, huh?"
Megatron: "Pathetic rodents. The Autobots are fools to fight for them."
Trailbreaker: (to Grimlock) "You made the wrong choice... and now you're going to pay."

The bad:

Grimlock: "Me fight with all me strength to save humans... put me life on the line."
Megatron: "What the hell does your kind know about evolution?"
Prime: "Welcome back boys."
Soundwave: "..."

A few things make you wonder if the creative team did any research into the characters... for example, Superion is only ever seen as a gestalt, going on to hurl himself bodily at a nuke rather than separate into five planes and blast the thing. Rather than try to convince Prime that the war is futile, Megatron appeals to the hitherto unsuspected desires in his Autobot counterpart for killing and looting. Only the two faction leaders get any kind of sustained characterisation, and there's very little dialogue in the whole thing for which lines couldn't have been attributed to whoever else was in shot. There's very little dialogue... period. As for Grimlock... the way scenes are handled seems so very, very wrong: the character responds to his body being used to kill not by stomping off and refusing to have anything to do with other Transformers but by taking the step of siding with the Decepticon attack on Frisco — something Prime later shrugs off completely. Both actions are strongly at odds with previous Transformers fiction; Dreamwave are forming their own continuity separate from the original comics and cartoons, but the draw for readers is to see established characters paid homage to rather than heavily rewritten.

On top of this, the slow pace and emphasis on art makes what little plotting and structure there is feel extraordinarily blatant. The first few pages of issue one seem a thinly-transparent attempt to make a statement about a shift to 'mature' stories, where 'mature' equals a bit of swearing and reducing some humans to pulpy red innards. The sacrifices in the concluding issue are bludgeoningly unsubtle, and Prime taking on Devastator in battle a little earlier reads like a forced attempt to counter criticisms that previous issues had been low on characterisation.

There are highlights... Spike's resentment at Prime's role in his father's death and internal monologue concluding that the world needs an Optimus Prime is deftly executed. Things ebb on for a few issues, losing credibility with each plot convenience copied from previous canon material (such as the technorganic virus, plucked straight from "The Key To Vector-Sigma") and then pile on the cheese factor, as Prime doubts and has restored his faith in humans. However, it wasn't until the final issue that things really skidded downhill, hit a tree, slid some more, dropped into a festering pit of awfulness and caught stupid-disease. On the up-side, since the writing on Volume 2 involved an author who went out of his way to retroactively erase many aspects of Volume 1 from Dreamwave continuity you can certainly get by without reading everything... however, I'm going to recommend you borrow this trade paperback (or fish a copy of issue six out of a clearance bin) just to verify to yourself what you weren't missing.

Review by Denyer, synopsis text with thanks to Cliffjumper of the excellent TFDatabase.