Written by John Barber
Illustrated by Andrew GriffithThe war for Cybertron is over–now the hard part begins!
This first of two new ongoing Transformers series offers an excellent jumping-on point and all-new direction as BUMBLEBEE and his fellow AUTOBOTS struggle to maintain control of a world without OPTIMUS PRIME!
I watched the first Transformers movie when I was four or so, and haven’t seen it since. I saw a couple episodes of one of the Transformers series that were on Toonami back in the day, but that was it, and I wasn’t even paying attention. I saw the first Michael Bay movie in theaters, and I regret it to this day. That’s the extent of my Transformers experience.
So what do I think of IDW’s supposedly new-reader friendly series? Follow the cut and find out.
Transformers are a bit of a silly concept. They’re a bunch of robots from a different planet who have two “modes” – a human-like one and a (usually) vehicular one – and who (used to) battle out their differences on Earth. Silly, right?
You know what else is silly? A man who fights a war on crime while dressed up like a bat.
That’s the thing about fiction, and about genre fiction in particular. There’s often something inherently ridiculous at the core of the story, a facet that is sometimes more obvious in some stories than it is in others. That’s where suspension of disbelief comes in. Even if we come to a comic, a movie, or any other kind of story with some kind of preconceived notion about how ridiculous the idea is, a good writer and/or artist can make us forget about them, even when we find ourselves immersed in something we had hitherto scorned. Again, just look at the dominance of the superhero genre, which plenty of devoted fans take completely seriously – some perhaps too seriously, but I digress.
Before I get into that, though, I need to address this issue’s role as a #1. If you haven’t noticed, there have been a slew of #1 issues on the stands in the past few month, with a massive spike occurring in September. Newsflash, I know. While most of the DC Reboot actually, you know, rebooted history, some of the titles picked up where things were prior to Flashpoint with little to no change. That’s fine. Many #1s aren’t actually brand new starts with brand new characters in a brand new setting. This happens in a serialized medium. The problem, however, is when these #1s don’t allow new readers to jump on, rendering the number meaningless. This happened with a few DC books. It’s a difficulty that comes with long-lasting settings; either things get confusing, or you start over every five years.
The Autobots and Decepticons haven’t been around near as long as the World’s Finest, or even the 616, but with over 25 years of history behind them and their adventures, things are bound to get confusing (granted, there was a reboot, but as we’ve seen that doesn’t always make things any easier). If that’s the case, though, the first issue of Robots in Disguise doesn’t show it. Sure, you might need a basic cultural knowledge of the Transformers to not be confused by some matters, but so long as you have had the likely misfortune to see the Bay-formers movies and thus know what an Autobot and a Decepticon are, you pretty much know all you need to know. Everything else is pretty well spelled out, which is impressive considering the completely new setting and situation that new readers – such as myself – would be completely unaware of.
That’s not to say that some of the exposition isn’t a bit mishandled. Bumblebee in particular keeps talking about the loss of hundreds of friends, when a more effective method for “informing” the new reader on this matter would be to show the event in a flashback. Maybe it was printed in a previous issue, but it isn’t like those who have been picking up the Transformers comics will do much more than grumble about having to see a page, tops, of story they’ve already seen. I think a few grumbles are worth strengthening the odds of nabbing the new reader in a setting that I would venture has a worse case of diminishing returns than the superhero market.
Continued belowSo let’s talk suspension of disbelief. For the most part, John Barber does a pretty solid job of making the comic seem a bit more serious than you might expect, without going for the cheap, faux “grim ‘n gritty” approach that many writers use as a crutch to make things more “realistic.” Sure, he’s using some heavy themes – such as the unwitting abuse of power, and the flaws behind a “good guys and bad guys” dichotomy – but he doesn’t rely on shock or Gran Theft Auto maturity to communicate those themes. The only problem, though, is that there’s too much of that ridiculous core. The Saturday-morning-cartoon villainy of Needlenose and Horri-Bull – a silly thing to pick at, I suppose, considering the names – the ridiculous appearance of the characters, pretty much anything Bumblebee says… these just reinforce my preconceived notions of what Transfomers is “supposed” to be, making the honestly interesting ideas behind what Barber is doing seem instead like he’s trying too hard, when he really isn’t.
The art is honestly pretty good, especially compared to a lot of licensed comics I’ve seen. Andrew Griffith’s figures are consistent to their bizarre anatomy, and both his characters and backgrounds are well-detailed. The only thing about the line work that is particularly bothersome isn’t even a fault of his, but the nature of Transformers: Those faces. I can’t imagine it’s easy to make faces that are about as expressive as human faces while still looking adequately “robotic,” and while Griffith does a decent job, there are a few panels where a certain facial expression just strikes me as odd – just like the five or six times I caught the show. Perhaps the most annoying quality of the art is the very bright, highly saturated coloring, which also contributes to the childish feel of the book that Barber tried so hard to eliminate.
In the end, the first issue of Robots in Disguise is like a lot of decent superhero comic #1s. If you’re already into Transformers, you’ll probably like it. If you’re curious about jumping aboard the franchise, it might convince you. If you aren’t interested in any way, though, it isn’t going to change your mind. It has strengths, and it has faults, and while the strengths outweigh the faults, it isn’t by too much. Check it out if you want to, but don’t feel like you’re missing the next big thing if you don’t.
Final Verdict: 6.0 – Browse
