Cover detail from Transformers: Prime #4, art by Ken Christianssen. Hasbro/IDW Publishing.
Julian Titus is a writer for PixlBit.com and the host of the Nerds Without Pants podcast. He's also the biggest Transformers fan I've ever met and will be covering IDW's Transformers comics right here on a regular basis. This week, he's got an advance look at the latest issue of Transformers Prime...
I didn’t know what to expect from Transformers: Prime. I haven’t seen any of the animated series beyond the original miniseries, and I expected issue 4 to be so far into an arc that it might be hard to follow. Thankfully, I’ve followed the Transformers across multiple iterations since the beginning, and it’s cool to find out that the comic adaptation of Prime actually has a lot of its roots in the recent video games from High Moon Studios - War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron.
Variant cover for Transformers: Prime #4, art by High Moon Studios. Hasbro/IDW Publishing.
Transformers: Prime #4 is focused on the Dinobots. Actually, make that the DINOBOTS, considering the somewhat annoying lettering in this issue anytime they’re mentioned. Grimlock and company have rescued Ultra Magnus, but now they find themselves face to face with Shockwave. Fans of those aforementioned games will remember that it was Shockwave that transformed the former Autobot elite squad into massively powerful creatures based on lifeforms found on a remote planet which we call Earth. If you didn’t know, don’t worry - Shockwave explains it in great detail, as he’s known to do.
This is what I would call a “bridge” issue. There really isn’t a lot of action here, and most of the book fleshes out the origins of the Dinobots in this version of the Transformers universe, and sets up Shockwave as a perfect foil for the somewhat slow-witted Autobot team. Really, this issue (and I assume the previous three issues) is nothing more than a launching point for Transformers: Prime: Beast Hunters, yet another ongoing series that focuses on the Dinobots.
As my intro to the Prime comic universe, issue 4 wasn’t a bad jumping-on point, especially since it was a refresher course on the video game backstory. I’m not too sure about Beast Hunters, as I’ve only ever loved Grimlock when he’s written by Simon Furman. I also have concerns about IDW overextending themselves, as this will mark the 5th ongoing Transformers book in their stable. It will take me a few more issues to see how much I dig Prime, but you can be sure to check back each week for more Transformers goodness.