THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

OTHER TRANSFORMERS BOOKS AND SERIES

Transformers Wreckers #2
Reviewed by Blackjack

/> ”Did you not find that display a bit… hyperbolic?”
Several nice scenes are here, especially with Ramulus, Rodimus, Tap-Out, Rotorbolt and Glyph. Cyclonus isn’t bad value either. However, the rest of the story falls short. Primal Prime’s ominous monologues sound trite and the character himself feels very shallow. Packrat is annoying (and I’m thankful for his death), while Devcon is acting like Wolverine. Personally I don’t get why they had to invert Devcon’s personality into an asshole just by the fact that he is a bounty hunter; he was actually a nice fellow in 'the Gambler'. CatSCAN, while entertaining in that ‘brainless computer searching for a soul’ way, still feels shoehorned. The Divine Light plot device also fails to hold interest. I don’t see why both Primal Prime and Tigatron need to be prophets. I mean, isn’t one enough?

Another fact that I have to mention that they have apparently bogged themselves down with the large cast. The Mutants, half of the Dinobots, Spittor, Sonar and the Deployers are all killed within quick succession in the first few pages to make room for the year’s exclusives (Tap-Out, Glyph and CatSCAN). It feels unprofessional, after all the effort they did to introduce the Deployers last issue. Fractyl disappears completely after CatSCAN repairs him. Packrat’s death, at least, had some build-up to it. Meanwhile, the Quintessons feature again as the main villains. It’s a nice break from Unicron, and with Cryotek they now actually seem to be proper threats instead of just silly villains. Their initial dialogue is abysmal, though.

You really need to read the Director’s Cut if you even consider reading this issue, though. The ‘normal’ one has rubbish art and rubbish colouring that smudges all over the background, and they leave out several scenes. I have no idea why they would want to produce a comic when they aren’t ready.




This issue exists in two variations. One is the distributed copy, which has half-assed colouring, colouring errors, no backgrounds for the Dinobot scene, scenes cut out and some smudged letters. The other one is the ‘Director’s Cut’, with proper colours and layout, as well as having Primeval Dawn 2 and MTMTE profiles on CatSCAN, Cryotek, Cyclonus, Devcon, Glyph and Tap-Out.

Presumably Windmill and Crosscut are killed in the crash.

The monster that attacks the Dinobots is the Dweller, seen in the G1 episode ‘the Dweller in the Depths’. The zombies are a reference to the Dweller’s abilities to turn living transformers into zombies.

T-Wrecks uses the mutant head in his toy as a battlemask.

Sharkticons modeled after the Beast Machines Maximal Hammerstrike are seen. A newer model, perhaps?

For some weird reason, Cryotek’s speech bubbles randomly have word coloured in blue.

Derodomontatus gives the reason for the Mutant’s execution as ‘unmarketable product’. According to the writers it’s the cause of deaths for many of the characters here. Guys like Spittor and Sonar have their toys off the shelves several years ago, so it’s bye-bye for them.

The Quintessons calling Cryotek as a ‘free trader’ is a reference to the similar way they refer to Dirk Manus in the G1 episode ‘Money is Everything’.

Presumably Packrat would appear as one of the protoforms in Primeval Dawn, since Devcon claims that they shipped Packrat out into space.

Primal Prime references Prime Nova at one point.

The term laser core is used in the same sentence by the diagnostic computer, last seen in G1 cartoons.

Ramulus’ green-and-blue paintjob seen in the Primeval Dawn series and the first issue turn out to be an unproduced toy, so they had to quickly come up with an excuse to turn him into his proper red-and-gray toy colours. They did this with the awkward excuse of the damaged Fractyl changing Ramulus’ paintjob with sparks.

When Apelinq was about to create CatSCAN, his screen also shows schematics for G1 Grapple and Saber (Dan Khanna’s fan character).

Ramulus calls CatSCAN a ‘redeco’ of Apelinq’s old pals, a term used in toys.

Before Packrat kills the other Wreckers, he refers to Sonar as ‘Batgirl’.

Alpha Trion’s ghost is based on an unproduced redeco of Beast Machines Snarl proposed to Hasbro. It was seen last issue as well.

Ramulus says that CatSCAN’s pattern of speech as resembling a ‘Mini-Con’, possibly a reference to the little guys from Armada, which is playing at that time.

Devcon said that he left his former partner (Sleezardo) in space after pumping him of information. This might be the reason why Sleezardo was working for the Decepticons in 'Grimlock's New Brain'.

Devcon’s Beast Machines redeco toy ended up unproduced in favour of Cyclonus, so he reverts back to his original G1 body.


Devcon is not a jerk in ‘the Gambler’.

In the original printing, the Dinobots’ scene is dimly lit, with the background completely coloured red. The forest of Archa Nine was similarly coloured, with barely any colours in the background as stylistic choices. The Director’s Cut omits this, instead colouring the background details (the ruins and the forest) otherwise unseen in the original version. In doing so, it makes it clearer what the characters are actually doing. The original version doesn’t have much colours apart from the characters themselves.

In the original edition, the Sharkticons modeled after Hammerstrike were given the Hammerstrike’s proper colours. In the Director’s Cut the Hammerstrikes gives them a black-and-purple colour scheme to avoid confusion with the Maximal.

In the original cut, at the last two panels of page 23, both Cyclonus and Devcon are miscoloured as Skywarp.

Rad, Quickmix and the others are block-coloured in the original edition.

In the original printing, Cryotek’s final line is obscured by the coloured font which smudges over the letters, so it seemed as if he’s gone mad. This is fixed in the Director’s Cut.

Transformers Primeval Dawn #2

/> ”Do you sense it, feel the turmoil?”

Furman does his usual character monologues. However, Furman himself admits that he doesn’t know much about Beast Wars, and thus it doesn’t flow as smoothly as last episode. The annoying narration boxes are gone, though. Tigatron’s whole ‘new life’ thing is a little painful to look at, as is Airazor and Ravage shouting at each other about their abilities. However, Furman characterizes Primal Prime better than the guys writing Wreckers do.

As always, Ramulus is good value; so is Tarantulas. By this point Tarantulas is batshit insane, and it’s rather entertaining to see Primal Prime getting beaten up by Tarantulas. There are only three new Predacons, so the smaller cast would keep characterization constant.


No doubt the whole vision to the impending Unicron apocalypse thing is foreshadowing to the imminent showdown in the Universe title.

In that same vein, Tarantulas is revealed to be descended form Unicron. In the show, several hints in the dialogue (Megatron calling him ‘Unicron’s Spawn’, Tarantulas declaring that he is not of Autobot or Decepticon lineage et al) had contributed towards this. However, here Tarantulas seems to be a little obsessed with his Vok powers.

Ramulus uses his green-and-blue paintjob seen in the first Wreckers issue.

Tarantulas appears to be copying Beast Wars Megatron’s trademark ‘Yess!’


How could Ramulus know about Optimus Primal? In the show, all of the new Protoforms birthed on Earth are all blank states, receiving personalities only after exiting their stasis pods. Of course, Ramulus might be the fifth crew that was put into stasis for whatever reason, but that can’t excuse the fact that Optimus Primal forgot about him if he pre-existed.