From November 2015 to May 2016, I read the Transformers comics included by IDW in some Humble Bundles; this included The Transformers Classics vols. 1-4, which collected issues #1-50 of the US Marvel monthly Transformers comic.
Later, from December 2020 to April 2021, as part of my readthrough of the Doctor Who Magazine comic, I read IDW's The Transformers Classics UK, vols. 1-5. (The two are connected via the character of Death's Head, who travelled from the Transformers universe to the Marvel one via the Doctor Who one.) These collected the UK-exclusive comic strips up to issue #173 of that comic. (I subsequently tracked down some Titan collections to fill in the rest of the UK run, which took me from January 2022 to March 2023.)
The thing is, though, that about half of the UK comic was actually reprints of US material, and the UK material was designed to fit around it; basically, as the UK comic was 11 pages weekly, they didn't have enough content if they only reprinted the monthly 22-page US book. So UK stories expanded the US saga, as seamlessly as possible.
Yet, the UK strips have only ever been reprinted on their own, not with the surrounding context of the US strips they are meant to fit into even though they are kind of weird and jumpy if you don't have US strips to hand! So as I read a UK strip, I had to strain to vaguely recall what had happened in a US strip I had read five years previous. And eventually I got beyond the point where I had even read the US strips.
So I decided that someday I would read them all in something approximating chronological order. When IDW dropped the Transformers license, I purchased all the remaining collected editions I would need on comiXology.
But by the time I actually got around to reading these books, I didn't need to! In 2025, new Transformers comic publisher Skybound crowdfunded a massive collection of the complete runs of both the US and UK strips... in internal chronological order! The Til All Are One Compendium takes up four absolutely massive hardcovers, but obviously I couldn't pass them up.
So now that I've finished Black Panther, that will be my next "filler" comics project, reading either a US issue or the equivalent of one every day. (Early on, the UK strip was usually eleven pages; later, things got more complicated.) I won't be using the order given in the TAAO compendiums, though, because of course I've worked out my own. (I don't have a problem with theirs; indeed, I think some of their choices probably read more smoothly than mine!) Like all of my reading orders, it aims to balance chronology with narrative experience, incorporating flashback and flashforward stories where they make sense, not where they happen.
I'll be writing them up in batches of seven, so that I do one writeup a week. Thus here we start off with the first three issues of US comic (reprinted in the first six issues of the UK comic), and the first two UK-original stories, (supposedly) set during those US issues...
"The Transformers" / "Power Play!" / "Prisoner of War!" (part 1) / Man of Iron / "Prisoner of War!" (part 2) / The Enemy Within!, from The Transformers US #1-3 & 33-34 (Sept. 1984–Jan. 1985 & Oct.-Nov. 1987) / The Transformers UK #1-6 & 9-17 (20 Sept.–1 Dec. 1984 & 12 Jan.–4 May 1985); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)
plot by Bill Mantlo; scripts by Ralph Macchio, Jim Salicrup, Steve Parkhouse, and Simon Furman; pencils by Frank Springer, John Ridgway, and Mike Collins; inks by Kim DeMulder (with Mike Esposito), John Ridgway, and Mike Collins; lettering by Higgins & Parker, Janice Chiang (with others), and Richard Starkings; coloring by Nelson Yomtov, Josie Firmin, and Gina Hart
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| from The Transformers US #1 |
The US
Transformers series began with what was intended to be a four-issue miniseries, though it's obvious that by the time issue #4 was written, that plan had already changed, as issue #4 sets up a number of ongoing plots. The first two issues have a
lot to do, setting up the basic premise of
The Transformers for an audience totally unfamiliar with it; plotter Bill Mantlo and scripter Ralph Macchio really pack in the exposition. The opening, about Cybertron, is fine... I find the big panels containing ten characters all telling each other their names and gimmicks much more contrived! This speaks to what will eternally be my issue with the
Transformers comics: there are often just too many characters. And because new toys are always coming out, new characters always have to be worked in, so no one ever remains in the spotlight for long. (It's probably no coincidence that my two favorite
Transformers series,
Beast Wars/
Machines and
More than Meets the Eye/
Lost Light, have limited casts.)
The moments that shined for me, then, were the ones that kept things focused on a smaller cast: I liked the emphasis on Ravage here, Megatron's loyal servant (something that continues into the following UK stories), and I appreciated the emphasis on the human characters to keep things focused and grounded, though it's surprising (both given the big emphasis on him here, and given what future versions of this story have done) that there's not much of an ongoing connecting between Buster Witwicky and Bumblebee after this.
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| from The Transformers UK #9 |
Things get a bit complicated if you're trying to reach chronologically. The first UK story,
Man of Iron (released in UK issues #9-12), represents a status quo that really only existed for the opening US story (released in UK issues #1-8), so it must somehow take place
during its events, even though there's no noticeable gap. I followed the placement advice of the
Transformers wiki and read it during issue #3 of the US comic, after p. 10. This almost kind of works, but does mean you have to assume Buster's dad Sparkplug is slaving away as prisoner of the Decepticons while everyone goes to England!
Man of Iron is great, a story about the Autobot/Decepticon war affecting the life of a kid, almost entirely told from the point-of-view of that kid, and thus the Transformers are alien and inscrutable and brutal. (Surely it is one of the peaks of what
the fan writer "Broadside" calls Budianskian storytelling.) I have read it twice before, since IDW collected it in both
Transformers Classics and
Transformers Classics UK, as it was the only UK story to also appear in the US strip. In its original US appearance, it came after issue #32, where it was quite a jarring change of tone, but reading it here, I found it flowed a lot more smoothly. We just don't know the Autobots that well yet, and the tendency of the Decepticons to engage in wacky plots involving car-washes and graffiti hasn't taken off yet; they are still ruthless attackers from an alien world.
After this, we segue back into the second half of US issue #3, where Spider-Man teams up with Gears to rescue Buster's dad. This is fine but weird. Later, the idea these comics took place in the Marvel universe would be quietly and wisely forgotten.
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| from The Transformers UK #14 |
Chronologically, things are still difficult, because the UK story
The Enemy Within! (#13-17) supposedly also takes place during the original miniseries, but Megatron mentions Spider-Man, so evidently
after US #3, where there is even less of the gap. Put that aside, though, and I found this one of the stronger stories of this first run. We have two parallel stories: in one, the Autobot Brawn malfunctions and begins attacking humans; once he's been recaptured and repaired, he needs to prove himself to his comrades. In the other, Starscream tries to plot against Megatron but is found out by Ravage; he needs a way to bring himself back into the Decepticon fold. Once again, I really like the emphasis on the loyal but sinister Ravage. In general, I'm happy to see Mike Collins artwork... but the wimpy arms of Brawn (which I assume are toy accurate?) belie his given name!
Overall, I think what is interesting is that I found myself much more sympathetic to the US material than I remember being first time around. Maybe I haven't read enough for the antipathy to set in, but I also think I have a stronger sense of what it's going for and thus appreciate its successes more. We'll see if I still think that way when we get to the car wash!
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