THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

TRANSFORMERS TITLES FROM TITAN BOOKS / MAGAZINES

Titan Transformers Prime #15
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

Oh blimey. This isn’t the first ever Transformers poster comic -- the most obvious antecedent being the one Marvel UK put out for the 1986 film -- but previous versions were one off specials rather than a part of the regular comic. It’s worth noting that whilst the poster is pimped out on the cover there’s nothing to say to the casual buyer that there isn’t a regular issue inside the bag.

The poster itself is an A1 sized CGI portrait of the season one Autobots and Decepticons facing off against each other.

The date’s from Raf’s Notes are taken from the original American airdates of the episodes in question.

The "Man Bites Dog!" headline on Front Line is likely a reference to the similar one on the newspaper of the same name featured in Marvel UK issue #288.

This is the last quarterly issue, from 16 it goes back to being bi-monthly.


Well, it’s basically impossible for a poster to have any mistakes on it. Unless you want to count the entire concept as one.


A battle blaster and space Frisbee thing.


The other side of the poster includes:
Raf’s Notes, extracts from his diary covering the events of the first two seasons;
The Transfiles, covering a profile for Megatron;
Transformers: Primer!, basic facts about the Transformers;
Front Line!, faux government newspaper covering the destruction of the Autobot base at the end of season 2 and the (real life) tour of the country the film Optimus Prime prop took during summer 2013.


Well, that’s an odd-un isn’t it? It’s fairly clear at this stage Titan is just making time with Prime (which, like Animated hasn’t really set the UK alight) until the next film comes along with its guarantee of better sales. Considering that issue 16 will use a comic that was originally made for issue 11 the best part of a year before means they don’t even have the excuse of not having the budget to produce any new material (and at this stage, wouldn’t cheap IDW reprints be better?).

At £3.99 for a poster and a few quickly knocked out facts, any kids picking this up would have been perfectly entitled to feel more than a bit ripped off. A nasty, cynical issue that frankly makes me hope Titan don’t manage to hold onto the licence for the next Michael Bay produced licence to print money.

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