Transformers: Evolutions #1

Story by Chuck Dixon
Art by Guido Guidi
Cover by Guido Guidi

I love the Transformers as much as any man who was eight-years-old in 1985—in fact, only G.I. Joe and maybe Star Wars could possibly hope to compete for the nostalgic affection I have for the Robots In Disguise.

So I was thrilled when they made their millennial comeback; I watched the new Transformers: Robots In Disguise cartoon, I picked up a few
Transformers: Energon Hasbro toys, and I read Dreamwave's Transformers comics with great enthusiasm…for about a year, and the nostalgia began to wear off.

It's been a while since I've dabbled in Transformers comics, but the new IDW series, Evolutions, has a pretty winning concept—out of continuity stories sending the Transformers into different eras, not unlike the excellent Jae Lee-drawn G.I. Joe/ Transformers crossover set during World War II

After seeing artist Guido Guidi's designs for 19th Century, Steam Age Transformers—Megatron's a giant cannon! Optimus Prime is a train! Starscream is a biplane!—I was sold on the first story arc, "Hearts of Steel."

After reading the first issue, written by the usually reliable Chuck Dixon, I think I would have preferred to have just bought a book of Guidi's designs.

Things start out rather strong. The warring Decepticons and Autobots do battle on prehistoric earth, disguised as insects and dinosaurs (everyone was an Insecticon or Dinobot back then!). But once the Ice Age arrives, they're forced to call a time out, and power down for a millennia of hibernation underground.

At least until Bumblebee is awoken by the sounds of railroad track being laid, and he takes a look around Earth, which is entering its first machine age.

And here's where things get puzzling, as the first human we meet is steel-driving tall tale hero John Henry.

Considering that his story was about a man striving to defeat a machine, he's not a bad choice to star in a Transformers period piece, if only Dixon would have stopped there.

Next we're introduced to a mustachioed man called "Mr. Twain" (not Samuel Clemens, mind you, but Twain), who is hanging out on a steamboat with Jules Verne and watching young inventor Tobias Muldoon sink an experimental wooden submarine he's trying to invent (and awakening a Decepticon at the bottom of the river in the process).

Given that this is just a four-part story, that's a lot of weird characters to fit together and make some sort of sense of, and Dixon's treading on some already pretty well-covered ground here by mixing so many historical personages (and he doesn't even write very good Twain dialogue, compared to Matt Fraction, who used the writer in The Five Fists of Science).

Though I was less than enamored with this first issue, I still think the basic idea is sound, and am eager to see Guidi's designs in action (this issue, the only Steam Age Transformers we see are Bumblebee changing into a steam engine, and Shockwave in robot form).

It's a fresh new idea for a franchise that needs such fresh new ideas, and it should be interesting to see how long IDW can keep the story going. After all, there's only about 150 years worth of eras the Transformers can be re-imagined into, unless they'll be disguising themselves as wooden ships and horse-drawn carriages at some point.

Rating - 4