INFO PAGE | REVIEW

Written by Chris McFeely

With the threat of Unicron defeated, life goes on for the Autobots and Decepticons – but while the Autobots, and their new leader, Rodimus Prime (Gautier) have retaken their home plant of Cybertron and begun a new age of peace, the destitute, starving Decepticons, without their leader, Galvatron (Welker) are in dire straits… until the arrival of the mysterious Quintessons, who have an agenda all of their own. In the third season of Transformers, the future is now, and the saga of the robots in disguise continues!

The third season of the Transformers marked the biggest shake-up to the status quo imaginable. Taking its cue from the events of “Transformers: The Movie,” the third season leaped forward to the year 2006, with a new cast and surprisingly changed premise. It’s surely no coincidence that the addition of Flint Dille – grandson of the creator of defining sci-fi show, Buck Rogers – saw the series itself transform, from genial robot action to grim sci-fi adventure, with many outer space and alien world settings, giving a much broader scope to the season, and following it up with some of the show’s grittiest, most mature stories. Continuity between episodes became stronger than it had ever been as plot concepts and locations were revisited and threads from episodes would carry over into others, creating a more coherent universe, in a season that finally fully fleshed out the history of Cybertron and the Transformer race.

In addition to this, a smaller core cast was formed that the show would revolve around, with peripheral characters being alternated in and out, as opposed to the previous season’s method of largely just selecting a random group of characters to go with Optimus Prime or Megatron, or giving one or two characters an episode to themselves. This allowed for more development of the characters’ personalities and relationships, in a way that didn’t feel as forced or short-sighted as the character-focal episodes that peppered the second season. Of course, this wasn’t a perfect idea – it resulted in the abandonment of a metric ton of Autobots from the previous two seasons (in addition to the ones who died during the movie), which creates a rather jarring disconnect between the second and third seasons (even moreso than a twenty-year jump). But where we lost old characters, we gained new ones – and also a third party that shook up the basic nature of the show’s war. The introduction of the Quintessons as a third force, playing both sides off against each other, attacking both at once, and working towards their own agenda added a factor to the show that this reviewer thinks was much-needed. The season even worked in some crossovers with fellow Hasbro property, “G.I. Joe,” without actually explaining them in dialogue – an elderly Flint appears as the father of Marissa Faireborn in “The Killing Jar,” and the ever-popular Cobra Commander plays a major role in the unique “Only Human,” which revolves around Synthoid technology from the “G.I. Joe” series.

The third season catches a lot of flak for having weak animation – courtesy of Korean animation studio, AKOM – but when one actually watches it in a set like this, you realise that this reputation is not actually that true. While about half the season IS animated in this sub-par manner (on a ratio, yes, that’s more than any other season), the other episodes break this up well, and give the season a pretty dichotomous look, as they contain some of the BEST animation the series has – “Call of the Primitives” is undisputedly the best animated Transformers episode there is, while episodes like “The Dweller in the Depths,” “Chaos” and “The Killing Jar” have some particularly excellent visuals. Most episodes that are not AKOM work are actually above the average set by past seasons. And when animation was weak, story would often pick up the pace – the opening “Five Faces of Darkness” mini-series features some incredibly shoddy animation which only worsens as it goes on, but features the most ambitious, complex story of the entire G1 cartoon, which weaves multiple plotlines in and out of each other with skill, slowly revealing the mystery the story is built around, with some of the best dialogue of the series.

Of course, the writing wasn’t going to be great all the time, and there are a few clunkers in the mix – take “Surprise Party,” with the unpleasant, ill-conceived characters of Daniel Witwicky and Wheelie taking centre stage in a completely pointless story, or in a more general sense, applying to episodes of various qualities, the infuriating regression of Grimlock, a serious, gruff self-serving character in the previous seasons, into a goofy, kid-friendly sidekick character. And I would be remiss if I did not mention “Carnage in C-Minor,” the worst-animated episode of the series, with a horrible execution of a concept that was dodgy in the first place.

The season ends with the “Return of Optimus Prime” two-parter, which, despite it’s good animation, is executed somewhat clumsily, and laboured with a plot device which could have been played for some pretty grim subject matter, but instead resulted in a return to the more colourful, straightforward superheroics of past seasons, lacking the ‘edge’ that much of the season before it benefited from.

The third season of Transformers is, by and large, the least popular with both serious and casual fans. I’d have to say – beyond the dislike many have for the Quintesson origin of the Transformers, preferring instead the origin story crafted in the Marvel comics – this probably largely comes from childhood experience of the season, from the massive change in premise it underwent, coupled with the discarding of many familiar characters, particularly Optimus Prime, leading to a wide dislike of Rodimus Prime, seen as a transitional leader and labelled a “whiner” by most. Of course, what some will call “whining,” others will call “actually having a personality and problems,” which was more than Optimus Prime ever did. Optimus may have been a great leader, but Rodimus was a better character (and when everyone’s singing the praises of Simon Furman’s comic-book portrayal of a self-doubting Optimus Prime, they seem to forget Rodimus did it first). Anyway, to get back down off the soap-box… I think the best way to describe season three is: it was Transformers, Jim, but not as we knew it. And that, in that day and age, was where it went wrong, producing something that, in both principle and exercise, was the superior of it’s predecessors, but changed too much to be accessible to the established fan base, who couldn’t accept a lot of the radical differences. Rodimus and Galvatron may not be as iconic as Optimus Prime and Megatron, but try looking back on it now. I think – I hope – you’ll be surprised.

After season three comes the three-part mini-series, “The Rebirth,” which is the entirety of the show’s fourth season. It was conceived and written to be the end of the series, though it was cut down from five episodes to three, which results in it being a little rushed, at least in it’s introduction of the new toy characters, bringing in around two dozen of them, with all but two of them showing up in the first episode alone (and that’s not even counting the Nebulons). It’s a fairly straightforward tale that suffers from having to give excessive time over to introducing the toyline’s latest gimmick, with more of AKOM’s sub-par animation, but an open, yet fairly satisfying – if slightly syrupy – ending.

DISC SPECS
33 episodes on four discs, each with six chapter points. Split up over the discs in groups of 9, 9, 9 and 6.

Two audio options – a remixed 5.1 audio track containing extra sound effects not in the original show, and a 2.0 stereo track, without ‘em. This DVD also restores the original ending to “Dark Awakening,” not on Rhino’s American release.

When season three originally aired, several episodes were broadcast out of order, disrupting the chronological story order of the series. This DVD set puts the errant episodes in their proper place so viewers can enjoy the stories in order, but otherwise preserves the original airing order, unlike its American counterpart.

PACKAGE AND PACK-INS
Collected in four standard DVD cases in a silver card slip case bearing Galvatron’s head, drawn in the style of the Autobot and Decepticon symbols. The cover to each case bears the image of Galvatron and Rodimus as a background, with some odd choices for central characters – Bruticus, Defensor, Superion and Blaster. All art is by Andy Wildman, which probably goes some way to explaining the characters, as the art had probably been already drawn. Note that the Bruticus image isn’t used anywhere else, while the others grace postcards (below).

This set contains a booklet with episodes synopses and an intro by TheTF.Net webmaster Darren Jamieson, a set of six postcards, and the second instalment of the fan comic, “The Beast Within.”

The synopses booklet is standard (I wrote the summaries for “The Rebirth”), but where Jamieson’s intros have been energetic and excited before, he seems unable to muster much enthusiasm for season three, simply pointing out the lack of knowledge about it in the UK, and it’s poor animation. And I can’t agree even for a second with his belief that the shift to space-bound stories was just because space was easier for the animators to draw.

Six postcards come with this set, instead of the four that have been with previous sets, four decorated pieces of art by Andy Wildman (Galvatron, Rodimus, Menasor and Defensor) – why does no-one have a faction symbol? Galvatron and Rodimus’s chests look positively barren without them! – and the remaining two featuring the winning images from the fan art contest Metrodome held.

This ‘issue’ of “The Beast Within,” subtitled “Consequences,” once again proves to be a very uneven affair. Artist Dylan Gibson turns in vastly superior work this time around, as he has ditched the Pat Lee mimicry that hurt the previous instalment, and produced a grimmer looking story that would have befitted the first part more. The lettering appears to be done by hand, which has at least resulted in the proper use of full stops this time (still lots of dropped commas, though). The story itself, however, is terribly unsatisfying – limited greatly by its six-page length, it progresses nicely up until a hideously rushed final page which crams in more panels that is comfortable, ending suddenly and anticlimactically. Additionally, this part’s sudden shift in focus from the torment of Grimlock in the first part to the bland heroics and clichéd dialogue of Optimus Prime does it no favours, leaving the Beast feeling like little more than a generic monster.

SPECIAL FEATURES
The fourth disc of the set contains the special features.

Starting it off are the staple character profiles, this time for Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge, with art by fan-turned-pro, Simon Williams, who illustrated some of the UK Armada comic.

Next is a 20-question quiz, with some genuinely hard ones in the mix that even serious Transfans will be given pause over. Making it more challenging is the new set-up, where you don’t discover your score until the end, meaning you’ll have to go back to the start to try again, abandoning the previous method of letting you try over and over again until you got each question right.

In the vein of the other sets, a fan art gallery is included, with some particularly nice pieces, but it’s notably smaller than other sets’ offerings.

Thoroughly trouncing Season 2, Part 1’s Auto Assembly footage is the film from the 2004 convention. Presented – just a smidge nervously, methinks – by Omar Shefta, a.k.a. Overload from TheTF.Net forums, it’s full of clips from events at the ‘con (including the panels, with Wally Wingert’s camp Grimlock impression), little chats with fans, and interviews with TF luminaries Simon Furman, Lee Sullivan and Andrew Wildman, as well as the above-mentioned Simon Williams. It’s followed up by the full-length interviews with Furman, Sullivan and Wildman, of which only clips appear in the main film. It totals about 40mins.

The DVD-Rom content of the set is where it shines, presenting all 33 original episode scripts, allowing fans to see things that were cut and changed (although two parts of “The Rebirth” have clearly been recreated from the finished episodes). Also included is a Cast List and Synopses for the entire series, containing more interesting titbits, a selection of desktops, and some simple kids’ masks (made from the images that adorn the covers of all four season box sets).

On the main menu of disk four, highlighting “Episode Selection” and pressing up twice reveals the link – hit enter for the egg, which is the second version of the episode, “Dark Awakening,” containing the re-dubbed ending narration advertising “The Return of Optimus Prime” (this version of the episode was on Rhino’s set). It’s a bit excessive to include the entire episode when the only change is basically the replacement of three words at the very end, but a nice attention to detail.

Once again, as with Season 2, Part 2, it’s not the quantity of extras, but the care with which they are handled and presented that makes them quality. They top off a great DVD set of a great and underrated part of TF history.

PREVIEW DISK ODDITIES
This review is based on as set of preview disks that I received, which had a few flubs on them. Primarily, the original ending to “Dark Awakening” was only on the 5.1 audio track of the episode, while the re-dubbed ending was on the 2.0 track. It was supposed to be on both. This is the main flaw that Metrodome plan to fix, which has resulted in the set being held back two weeks. Also, “The Face of the Nijika” was missing its ‘trailer’ and end credits, and, as was the case with the Rhino disks, the unique “Five Faces of Darkness” opening sequence is only on parts 3 and 5, with the regular season three sequence on parts 1, 2 and 4. Whether or not this and the “Nijika” error will also be fixed during the extended time remains to be seen.

INFO PAGE | REVIEW

Written by: Chris McFeely

This book’s got balls. Its back cover heralds it as “the first fully authoritative history” of the Transformers, and the introductory page describes the G1 section as “the one true history” of the era. Immediately, that should set off some alarm bells, because it’s phrased… well, rather insultingly, to be honest. It just sounds *so* much like the comics and cartoon are going to be dismissed, and that this guide is going to lay it down as it is, was, and should be. Thankfully, it’s not like that. What must simply be explained out of the gate is that the G1 section treats the Dreamwave Comics G1 universe as “the” G1. Which, while perhaps rather disrespectful to the cartoons and comics that actually CREATED the universe in the first place, is fairly understandable – it’s what Hasbro wants. So, what we have, then, for the bulk of the G1 section, is history, profiles, maps, technical specs and storylines that all drawn on the DW series where necessary, and in some places, shape that universe, expand on events we’ve already seen in it, or hint at future developments. But make no mistake – the original cartoons and comics are NOT disregarded, with sections of their own.

So let’s hit it.

After an intro by Furman and the intro for the G1 section, our first chunk of G1 lore is the geography and history of Cybertron in CYBERTRON, THE CITY OF IACON, CIVIL WAR and THE ARK. A map of the planet is given, featuring lots of known locations, including stuff like the Rust Sea, and the Sonic Canyons from Siren’s tech spec. A DW-verse timeline is given for historical events, and the Ark’s got a brilliant cutaway design based on its Marvel comics’ appearance, with its golden cartoon colour. The DW reason for the Ark launch is an adapted version of the “asteroid” origin from the Marvel comics, with clever use of the Space Bridge. Irritant – in this entry, and throughout the book, the name of the Ark’s computer, Teletraan I, is mis-spelled as Teletran-1. In fairness to Furman, the incorrect spelling IS the more commonly used one…

Next, we get some character-specific focus, with entries for OPTIMUS PRIME, MEGATRON, AUTOBOT OFFICERS, AUTOBOT TROOPERS, DECEPTICONS and SOUNDWAVE AND CO. In addition to the obviously named ones, we get looks at Bumblebee, Ratchet, Prowl, Jazz, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack, Ironhide, Arcee, Shockwave, Skywarp, the Insecticons, Starscream, Octane, Soundwave, Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak, Ravage and Squawkbox. The entries are largely generally-written, not being specific to any one universe, except in the instance of Octane and Shockwave. As you can see, there are a few odd inclusions – Arcee, Octane and Squawkbox? They seem very out of place amongst these season 1 characters, and while Arcee’s clearly been included for her unusual nature as a female Autobot, Octane was surely the last choice to include as a representative of the Triple Changers, especially since Blitzwing and Astrotrain don’t get profiles. And Buzzsaw is bizarrely bumped for a pair of no-name combiner cassettes.

The DINOBOTS entry is a nicely-done one, giving individual profiles to the five ‘bots (Grimlock taking centre stage, of course), with a study of their faction-shifting in the DW-verse history, and an inset box comparing their contrasting cartoon and Marvel comic origins. Another subgroup gets studied in the next entry, on COMBINERS, the Constructicons, with individual profiles and coverage of combiner tech.

As I said above, the cartoon hasn’t been discarded – there isn’t room to cover EVERY episode of the TV series, so the TV SEASON 1 and TV SEASON 2 pages contained selected key episodes from both seasons to look at. They’ve chosen well, too, hitting most, if not all, of the important stories and points from the first two seasons. Inset boxes talk about the human characters (another silly mispelling with “Carlee”), Omega Supreme (episode title mispelled as “Blaster’s Blues”) and Alpha Trion. This is followed up with THE MOVIE, which goes over the film’s story, gives entries to Galvatron and Ultra Magnus, but has a surprisingly small inset box for Rodimus Prime (with a picture of Hot Rod beside it. Hot Rod/Rodimus gets shockingly little coverage in the book!). The comics get a similar treatment in US COMICS 1 and 2, and UK COMICS 1 and 2, featuring nice little timelines with simple overviews of the events of groups of issues, and more specific looks at certain events. Then, it’s back to the cartoons for TV SEASONS 3 & 4, again featuring a selection of key episodes from the end of the cartoon series. More good choices.

UNICRON is a striking entry, with great cutaway art of the chaos bringer, with the latest interpretation of his origin for the DW universe, drawing on assorted fragments of the origin as given in other comics and the Armada trading cards. I’m mildly irked at the way Furman is clearly doing this, at least in part, to make Unicron be the way he himself wants him to be, but I’m softening on the issue. The Fallen gets an inset box which makes “The Dark Ages” series make sense.

The QUINTESSONS entry is irksome, with arbitrarily-assigned new names for the faces, rather than searching for the existing information on what they represent, and veiled hints at the events of the upcoming “Age of Wrath” WW series.

PRIMUS! Yeah, he got an entry! His art is a newly coloured version of the unused WW transformed-Cybertron design. Toys with his origin as it did Unicron’s, to a slightly greater extent.

Gimmicks rule over this final chunk of the G1 section, with looks at SPECIAL TEAMS, HEADMASTERS AND TARGETMASTERS, POWERMASTER PRIME and PRETENDERS. The Aerialbots fill up the Special Team entry with individual profiles, and an inset looking at the other pre-movie Scramble City teams, while the Headmasters entry looks at Scorponok and Fortress Maximus, along with Sureshot. The details of this and the Powermaster Prime entry come from the Marvel comic, but only Prime’s makes it clear that the events took place in an universe different from the DW-verse, so whether or not this reflects what DW’s take on the Headmasters remains to be seen. The Pretenders entry looks at Cloudburst, Bomb-Burst and Bludgeon, and has insets on Action Masters and Micromasters.

Rounding out the G1 section is a look at the toys, with JAPANESE G1 TOYS, GENERATION 1 TOYS and OTHER G1 TOYS. First, there’s a brief look at Diaclone and Microman, pre-TF versions of some toys, as well as the Japanese versions of the Transformers-brand toys. A red Bumblebee is mislabelled as Cliffjumper. The US toys looked at are, of course, Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Grimlock, Galvatron, Prowl, Soundwave, repetitive Dinobot use with Slag, and to represent combiners and Headmasters, Defensor and Scorponok, and finally, Metroplex. Some choices feel a little odd… Devastator feels like he should be here.

Next is the GENERATION 2 section, opening with a double-spread of Derek Yaniger art, and leading in with VERSUS G.I. JOE. Using the G2/Joe intro crossover as its starting point, this entry looks at the other US 4-issue crossover, the UK’s “Ancient Relics,” and Dreamwave and Devil’s Due’s offerings, as well. Frankly, it’s completely needless here, and these two pages would have been better saved for use elsewhere.

G2 COMICS and BEYOND GENERATION 2 summaries the events of the G2 comic, then take a look at the future of G2 that never was, talking about Alignment and fanfiction. Once again, these two pages are a waste – I don’t think fanfiction really has a place in a guide like this.

Finally, we’ve got GENERATION 2 TOYS, checking out Megatron, Pyro, Clench, Flash, Scorch, Boss and Hurricane. Laser Rods? No? Okay.

After that slightly disappointing section we get BEAST WARS, beginning with James Raiz’s BW art from the massive lithograph, dominated by Megatron. Having nothing to do with DW, this section is all about the cartoon series and recounts it faithfully with some additions and new interpretations. THE ARRIVAL covers the coming of the Beast Warriors to the planet, with info on the Golden Disk, Energon, Stasis Pods, Transwarp and Mainfraime Animation. Single-page profiles for OPTIMUS PRIMAL and MEGATRON follow, then double-page entries for MAXIMALS and PREDACONS, dominated by large pics of Rhinox and Blackarachnia, but also profiling Cheetor, Rattrape, Airazor, Dinobot, Terrorsaur, Tarantulas, Scorponok and Waspinator.

As with G1, we get TV SEASON 1, looking at key episodes from season 1, and the same again for TV SEASONS 2 & 3 after an entry for FUZORS AND TRANSMETALS. Then, BEAST WARS TOYS is an unfortunately low-content look at the toyline, with Optimus Primal and Blackarachnia covering standard toys, Silverbolt and Quickstrike representing Fuzors, the Japanese Jaguar (Ravage) toy for Transmetals, and Optimus friggin’ Minor to represent TM2s. Seriously, no Megatron? Whatever.

This, of course, logically leads into BEAST MACHINES, beginning with Mainframe art for the intro page, then THE REFORMATTING to summarise the setup of the show, giving info on Vehicons, the Oracle and the Diagnostic Drone. MAXIMALS profiles Primal, Cheetor, Blackarachnia, Nightscream and Rattrap, and VEHICONS looks at Megatron (including a brief look at the ship mode of his Big Head form), Thrust, Jetstorm, Tankor and Obsidian, though oddly, no Strika (odd, since she’s the only other one).

Ending the BM section is TV SEASON 1 & 2, with more key episode entries, and pics, if not info, on Noble and Botanica, then BEAST MACHINES TOYS, selecting some of the best toys of the line with Tank Drone, Battle Unicorn, Blast Punch Optimus Primal, Motorcycle Drone and Night Slash Cheetor.

TRANSFORMERS ROBOTS IN DISGUISE leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth, as it is simply a four-page section that looks at the toys, and briefly explains the international nature of the TV show and toyline, thought without actually doing any story or character coverage. A NEW WAVE and AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS give Prime, the Spychangers, the Autobot Brothers, Team Bullet Train, Spychanger Ultra Magnus, the Build Team, Mega-Octane, Storm Jet, Megatron and Sky-Byte’s toys entries, and while that’s a fair cross-section, some pictures are mis-transformed or missing accessories – nothing too excessive, thankfully, but I’ll bet good money that the only reason Spychanger Magnus is the one they’ve chosen to show is because they couldn’t get a better picture than that hideously mis-transformed mess we’ve all got etched into our brains. Why do I bet this? Because the Prime, Spychanger and Autobot Brothers pics are all from the same ad as it was.

It has been speculated that there was on TV info in this section because Disney, who now own the RiD show, wouldn’t let Dorling Kindersly, who they consider an competitor, have access to the show in time. However, Furman’s comments at Auto Assembly make it seem that they just decided to bump the RiD section for Energon. Which would annoy me quite a bit, after the waste of space that was most of the G2 section.

But enough sour grapes. Next, getting us up to date, is TRANSFORMERS ARMADA & ENERGON, with James Raiz’s wraparound cover art for Armada #1 gracing the intro page. CYBERTRON REVISTED sets up the Armada status quo, as per the US Armada comic, then AUTOBOTS, DECEPTICONS AND MINI-CONS profiles Optimus Prime, Red Alert, Scavenger, Smokescreen, Hot Shot, Megatron, Cyclonus, Demolishor, Starscream, Thrust, the Air Defence Team, The Street Action Team, Sparkplug, Longarm, Swindle, Leader-1, and rather oddly, Iceberg and Ransack, but not the third member of the Adventure Team, Dunerunner. THE TV SERIES once again, chooses key episodes to look at, with an inset box for the Star Saber and sidebar illustrations of Galvatron and Laserbeak. ARMADA TOYS showcases Optimus Prime, Demolishor, Thrust, Red Alert, Galvatron and Laserbeak. The absence of even one Mini-Con team and pivotal characters like Starscream and Hot Shot is… well, a bit silly.

This leads directly into ENERGON, little more than a general overview of the concept, given when this was written. Don Figeuroa’s Unicron drawing dominates the entry, with some unrecognisable art for Prime, Megatron and Scorponok gracing their small entries. A single page each for AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS looks at Hot Shot, Inferno, the Omnicons (Strongarm pictured), Starscream, Battle Ravage and Divebomb. ENERGON TOYS looks at Prime, Scorponok, Unicron, Tidal Wave and Hot Shot.

The final section, DREAMWAVE COMICS, opens with Guido Guidi’s striking Predaking litho for it’s intro art, and then GENERATION 1, THE WAR WITHIN and ARMADA & ENERGON take quick looks at the stories of the individual series. The G1 entry contains quite a few mistakes, which reflects poorly on Furman, as it’s the only one he DIDN’T write, that he hasn’t bothered to look up on.

The book ends with an index and thanks page.

*yawns and stretches* My god! That ran on for a while, eh? So, how to summarise it all…

While this is a great book that I definitely recommend, it has had one or two odd and/or annoying editorial choices made in its content. And while it’s a brilliant overview, it’s still far from being “Ultimate.” It baffles me that the Marvel and DC guides can be so brilliantly comprehensive with 40 and 60 years of continuity, and yet with only 20 for Transformers, loads gets squeezed into this book, and yet there’s still a feeling that more could have gone in – most specifically in my mind would be some kind of reference to the further Japanese series, like Headmasters up to Beast Wars Neo. As I said at the start, it is also vaguely irritating that a universe so young and presently not-too-developed as the DW-verse gets regarded as THE G1, but it’s understandable, and ultimately, probably does make for more interesting reading, as we don’t know everything about that universe yet, while there’s little new stuff we can be told about the others.

So, to conclude – buy it!

Right – now I’m off to actually sit and start reading this thing cover-to-cover instead of repetitive flipping! There’s loads more to uncover!