THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

TRANSFORMERS TITLES FROM TITAN BOOKS / MAGAZINES

Titan Transformers #18
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

The joy of this issue is seeing Ironhide being portrayed as the psychotic up for a fight nutter he was in the film. Other than that though there’s a sense of treading water up until the big reveal, though it’s nice to see the Evil President plot getting some follow up.

As for the reveal itself… It’s hard to know what to think at this stage. Even if Unicron is planned to be referenced in Revenge of the Fallen in some way, it’s still fairly audacious to introduce him into the comic first. As audacious as giving the Transformers a origin story in the UK comic without consulting Hasbro or Marvel US was all those years ago. It still however feels like Furman relying on an old crutch to support him to this seasoned reader. However, parents reading the comic with their kids who otherwise have no interest in Transformers comics will find the appearance of something they remember from their childhoods pleasing. And thankfully Furman doesn’t just rely on the Unicron name to instill fear, the Chaos Bringer has a few other lines to emphasise his evil nature to make a cliff-hanger of it for kids who have no idea who he is, but will find the idea of the Autobots home planet possessed by “Anti Life” a fairly big moment.

After a disappointing showing on Spotlight: Doubledealer, Dan Khanna shines here. His ultra detailed art shows that the film designs can be drawn in a more varied assortment of styles than perhaps we give them credit for. This is ultimately a transitional issue, but at least carries enough incident to keep the reader interested.


And now Unicron. This is an unexpected development (though those more observant than I will have noticed the shape of the entity was roughly the same as his planet mode) that is interesting for one specific reason. By this stage Furman has seen at least one script for Revenge of the Fallen, so his confidence in introducing the character (as something with a specific relationship to the All Spark, and realised in a way not unlike his close cousin Galactus was in Fantasic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) suggests the Fallen of the title is indeed the Herald of Unicron from the Dreamwave comics.

Or… Furman has no other ideas. You pays your money you makes your choice.

Stockade transforms, confirming Nucleon doesn’t have the same effect here as the Generation 1 version.

It is more firmly established that Nucleon is a naturally occurring energy source on Cybertron (which it wasn’t in the Marvel comics) and its instability is fairly common knowledge. We’ll assume Stockade thinking it’s some super secret last issue is down to him being mad.

After three issues we finally get some follow through on the President Allen plot. He seems to have used the control chips on his Secret Service guards as well as Mikaela.

Storm Surge wasn’t seen last issue but is shown here to be part of the New Decepticons as well.

Despite Ironhide being in charge of the mission, Bumblebee appears able to pull rank on him in a crisis.

According to the contents page, the sales figures for January-July 2008 average out at 38733. Whilst that’s a dip on the last announced figures it’s not a bad one considering we’re now exactly halfway between the films that will give sales a boost and, for a bit of context, means more people have read an issue of the Titan comic this year than any two issues of All Hail Megatron.

The cover art is different from that of the “Next Issue” box in #17. The originally promoted cover (based on the “Uncle Sam Needs You” image which has also been turned into a poster with G1 Prime by IDW) forms the poster, suggesting this was a late change.


Bumblebee gets some nonsensical dialogue. Firstly his cry of “Stockade don’t!” when Ironhide hits the New Decepticon makes him seem far too concerned for the fiend. Then he seems to seriously think Megatron is behind all this despite him being dead.

Prime’s computer screen has Cybertronian writing on it (hooray!), but also English for no good reason (boo!).

Why does Allen go to the effort of luring Mikaela to his office rather than sending an Insecticon to inject her? He also seems to have the EU flag hanging in the Oval Office. And whilst I’ve given up mentioning every time an artist draws a character slightly differently to a previous issue, Allen here really looks nothing like he has before. Most noticeably he’s now a blond.

And one final thought on the Presidential scene, would any self-respecting Secret Service Agent really wear a purple suit to work?

The Megatron Origin reprint ends halfway through a line of dialogue that continues into the next page. Considering the erratic length of the reprints of late that could have been avoided surely?

They’re reprinting Megatron Origin.


A Disc Accelerator.


Team Titan! returns after a few months absence;
A poster based on the original cover. With the launch of the Animated comic it reverts to being one sided;
Competitions for a X-Box and a Sonic game, the new Terry Pratchett kids book (very good), the Astrosaurus books and The Curious Village DS game;
Top Gear, only a page this time round and just plugs a few Animated toys with competitions for all;
Way Past Cool covers the Animated game amongst others;
Artobots;
Starscreams has a Universe Galvatron as a Star Letter prize and a pic of Optimus Prime (drinking beer!) at a fancy dress party with Jesus.

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